DVD of the Week: Straight Outta Compton

Finally! Despite a strong temptation to rewatch Hail Caesar! we got our act together and after much procrastination, finally got around to Straight Outta Compton. I would be the first to admit that the rise of NWA and West-Coast Rap totally passed me by, being a white, middle-class kid from the North East of England, and not the sort of one who ever felt to need to pretend they were "street" either. I was aware of it, of course, and even listened to some of it, but deep down I'd have been hard pushed to tell my Ice Cube from my Vanilla Ice (as a totally different song goes!), never mind have any real grasp on the byzantine web of rivalries and relationships that seemed to be behind it all. So, does the movie shed any light on this and convert me over to the scene? 

Cambridge Folk Festival

Sometimes I feel like starting some sort of  blog about the "Younger Me" being appalled at the sort of thing "Older Me" gets up to. I mean, for a start I've got two kids and a mid-range family car! This would probably most apply to things I've started doing in the last few years that I definately remember being "beyond the pale" when I younger and one of those is definately the Cambridge Folk Festival; several days of live music (what?), outside (what??) to cap it all off, it's Folk (WHAT???). Younger me was, I'm starting to suspect, a bit of a prat. So despite these inner protestations, we were at the  Cambridge Folk Festival last weekend, and jolly good it was too. Pictures and more commentary below the cut!

DVD of the Week: Pitch Perfect 2

If it seems a little like our frantic consumption of pop-culture has slowed a little, then I guess that's because it has. Some of this continued busy times in the household in the run-up to Christmas (yes, its that time of year!) which seems to peak in early December before slowing down for the actual holiday. But it's also because a lot of the "new season" shows are now up and running, and filling our hours without actually finishing; a quick count reveals at least 7 ongoing shows we are working though at varying rates. But, we are trying to stick to "Movie Night" on saturdays, and most recently it was the follow up to the unexpectedly good Pitch Perfect, expectedly called Pitch Perfect 2. 

DVD of the Week: Whiplash

It feels like it's been a while since I wrote up a movie night, for a couple of reasons. The first is that we've managed to wangle a couple of saturday nights out, most notably for the Cambridge Folk Festival, which is all to the good. On the negative side, we only got to watch Gone Girl for about an hour until the damn disc stopped working, so a review of that will have to wait, and we've also seen Lucy, which is rubbish. I don't want to spend too much time on Lucy, but in short it's a pale pastichse of the Asian Action Genre with no idea of what makes that work, and even within it's own risible storyline the plot logic makes no sense whatsoever. It has a few moments when it's daft fun, but even they are far too breif. So, from the ridiculous to the sublime with this weeks film, Whiplash. 

DVD of the Week: Frank

So after last weeks very arty, very weird trip Under the Skin, I was ready for something with perhaps a little more narrative clarity. Something less strange, perhaps, something easier to digest. Our choices, however, where 12 Years a Slave, which I now have to admit I'm putting off, and the story of a man wearing a giant, fibreglass head, Frank. We went for the latter, which was very arty, very weird, definitely lacking in narrative clarity. As a result, I'm definitely starting to feel the urge for a little cinematic junk food!