FiLM: Rambo, First Blood

I have to admit I love Rambo, First Blood.

Okay, it’s a bit gonzo. But it’s great entertainment. Stallone is perfect as the taciturn Nam vet, John Rambo, who freaks out and goes native, when uptight local Sherriff, Will Teasle tries to boot him out of town.

Hope!? Ha!
Dennehey’s Teasle is a real Jerkwater jerk.

Based on the 1972 novel, First Blood, by Canadian author David Morrell, you could actually make a case, as nutso Hollywood as the movie is, that the story is a little bit prophetic, in terms of the idea of America’s exported wars coming home to roost.

As Morrell himself puts it (read more here):

I decided to write a novel about a returning Vietnam veteran who brings the war to the United States…

On screen…

Setting aside the basic idea of the story, based on the idea of spurned ‘war hero’ veterans, unable to assimilate, it’s just a damn well put together piece of movie making.

Terrific actors giving really solid performances, in great locations. Well shot and directed. Nicely paced, and with loads of terrific scenarios: from chases, to hunting in the woods, or ravines; mining tunnel exploration; even a siege of the local police station!

Behind the camera.

Once again, author and Rambo creator Morrell puts it well:

… I love the movie. Ted Kotcheff’s direction, Jerry Goldsmith’s music, Andrew Laszlo’s photography, Sylvester Stallone’s acting, Richard Crenna, on and on. It’s a terrific movie that seems more realistic with each year because its action scenes don’t use computer effects. The realism of the stunts is amazing.

In Morell’s book, Col. Trautman kills Rambo. In the movie, he doesn’t. Allowing the sequels/franchise. Watching this makes me want to re-watch the sequels. And plenty of other Sly stuff, like Rocky, and that early movie with the Tom Waits tunes… what’s it called?

Ah… Paradise Alley! Must check that out. ASAP.

DAYS OUT: St Leonard, Southoe

Been a while since I visited a church.

I saw several churches I’d liked to have stopped and looked at today (must check out the church at Diddington!). However, I was only able to stop and view this one, St Leonard’s, Southoe.

Looks quite interesting.

From the outside it looked quite promising. With numerous parts looking of very different vintages. The arch and pillars around the front door are terrific. They look really old. So it starts well.

But, truth be told, there wasn’t much of interest, to my eyes, inside. Still, I took a load of photos. One thing the photos don’t capture, sadly, is the very yellow light inside, thanks to the glass in the windows.

Once back outside, I spotted some nice demonic faces. And the building has a quite handsome exterior. These old churches, they’re nearly always worth a look.

Weathered gravestone.

There are also some nice houses in Southoe, such as Corner House, opposite the church.

The Corner House, opposite.
Nice!

ART: Palazzo Te, Giulio Romano’s Masterwork in Mantua

The image that got this train started.

I was perusing Teresa’s fab little book (poss 10,000 Years of Art?) and came across the image above. I liked it so much I snapped it, with my iPhone (see above pic).

I then decided to find out more about it. I’d thought it was just a painting. Flat. On canvas, most likely. But I discovered it was in fact a mural, or wall painting. And that it covers all but the floors of a room in a palace!

And a bit of searching lead to the discovery of the above pictured book. Which I promptly ordered. RRP is an eye watering £60! I managed to get a brand new copy for a little over half that amount.

My copy, arrived today.

My copy arrived today. It’s still shrink-wrapped, in the photo above. And… my God! It’s absolutely stunning. It’s a whole pleasure palace, adorned with the most opulent of interior decorations. Truly mindblowing.

MUSiC: Miles David Discography

Love this photo!

At the very top of the Wikipedia Miles Davis Discography page, it says this:

This is an incomplete list which will never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness as it excludes bootlegs, mix tapes and other minor records by independent labels and unofficial sources.

Very true! This blog entry, on the other hand, is simply my own way of seeing how much of Miles’ vast output I have.

For simplicities sake I’m trying to arrange my Miles Discography chronologically, using the year of first official commercial release. With an artist as prolific as Miles, this can often mean musuc was recorded much earlier, or on different occasions, only to be released quite a bit later.

Nice little montage.

So… here goes:

PRESTIGE (mostly!)
The New Sounds, 1951 (Prestige)
Young Man With a Horn, 1953 (Blue Note)
Blue Period, 1953 (Pr)
The Comps of Al Cohn, 1953 (Pr)
Miles Davis vol 2, ‘53 (BN)
Miles Davis vol 3, ‘54 (BN)
Miles Davis Quartet, ‘53 (Pr)
Miles Davis All Star Sextet, ‘54 (Pr)
Miles Davis Quintet, ‘54 (Pr)
MD w Sonny Rollins, ‘54 (Pr)
MD All Stars, Vol 1, ‘54 (Pr)
MD All Stars, Vol 2, ‘54 (Pr)
Musings of Miles, ‘55 ()
Blue Moods, ‘55 (Debut)
Dig, ‘56 (Pr)
The new MD Quintet, ‘55 (Pr) ✓ 
MD & Horns, ‘56 (Pr) ✓
Quintet/Sextet, ‘56 (Pr) ✓
Blue Haze, ‘56 (Pr) ✓ 
Collectors Items, ‘56 (Pr) ✓ 
Walkin’, ‘57 (Pr) ✓
Cookin’, ‘57 (Pr) ✓
Bags’ Groove, ‘57 (Pr) ✓
Birth Of The Cool, ‘57 (Capitol) ✓
Ascenseur l’Échafaud, ‘57 (Fontana) ✓
Relaxin’, ‘58 (Pr)
MD & Modern Jazz Giants’, ‘58 (Pr) ✓
Workin’, ‘60 (Pr) ✓
Steamin’ ‘61 (Pr) ✓
COLUMBIA (mostly)
Round About Midnight, ‘57 (Co)
Miles Ahead, ‘57
Milestones, ‘58 ✓
Jazz Track, ‘59
Porgy & Bess, ‘59
Kind of Blue, ‘59 ✓
Sketches o’ Spain
Someday My Prince
Seven Steps
Quiet Nights
E.S.P.  ‘65 ✓
Miles Smiles ✓
Sorcerer ✓
Nefertiti ✓
In The Sky ✓
Filles de K ✓
In a Silent Way, ‘69 ✓
Bitches Brew, ‘70 ✓
Jack Johnson
Live-Evil, ✓
On The Corner, ✓
Big Fun
Get Up With It
Water Babies
Agharta, ‘75 ✓
Pangaea, ‘76 ✓
Circle In The Round, ‘79 ✓
COLUMBIA/WARNER (mostly!)
The Man With… ‘81 ✓ 
Doo Bop, 1992 ✓
What I Say 1, ‘94 ✓
What I Say 2, ‘94 ✓
Panthalassa, ‘98 ✓

MEDiA: 24 Hours In Police Custody.

The trail starts…

This programme starts with Toby Bunting getting busted, parked up in The Fens, not far from where we live, the night after – according to his rather dubious accounts – a chem-sex party.

Channel 4 describe this programme thus:

The inside track on a major covert operation against a Mexican drugs cartel who the police suspect are importing large quantities of methyl-amphetamine into Norfolk.

Daniel Fordham is charged.

Wow! So sad. So very, very sad. I’m thinking of the fate of Daniel Fordham, in particular. But I even feel similarly for Toby Bunting.

Daniel is a family man desperate for money. And in these times of ‘cost of living’ cost of Brexit/Toryism crises, one might sympathise with his ‘if you show a dog some meat’ line.

Fordham is quick to come clean. Hoping – in vain, it turns out – for clemency. Whereas Mexican importer Axel Cruz, and Fenland drug dealer Toby Bunting, try much harder to deny their guilt.

Toby Bunting.

It is interesting watching. If horribly sad. But, like a lot of ‘true crime’ stuff I’ve seen, it’s also very annoying and disappointing.

Annoying, because they ‘tease’ you with a lot of investigative footage. Suggesting they’re going to reveal something amazing. And there’s next to no information or exploration of the Mexican cartel Link (other than the tiny bit concerning Axel Cruz).

Disappointing, because the ‘reveal’ isn’t in the same vein – e.g. further interviews with suspects, but instead just a bit of captioning, in an abrupt and unenlightening ending.

Cocaine and/or crystal meth, arrive in Norfolk.

Several things, aside from the ‘narco cartels invade UK’ theme (and local to us, at that), really hit me. And – having has a very unpleasant experience involving the police myself not too long ago (not drug related) – they concern what I regard as unnecessarily heavy-handed ‘law enforcement’.

Much (but not all) of which coalesce around the hapless ‘bottom of the hierarchy’ figure of Daniel Fordham. Why, for example, are the police smashing down doors, late at night, when there are children at the suspect’s address?

Surely law enforcement shouldn’t be such a brutally blunt instrument? Potentially doing nearly as much damage as any criminal activity. What about the trauma that the raid and having his family effectively destroyed will cause to Fordham, his wife and kid(s)?

We don’t yet have the kind of crystal meth epidemic that blights the US (and other places), here in the UK. But it looks, worryingly, like that might be changing.

Bunting, Cruz and Fordham.

Another thing that really struck me… how come none of the suspects/criminals object to being filmed? Are they even aware they’re being filmed? One would’ve thought that such folk might be camera shy? At least as far as those times when the police are around!

Considering the infamously horrific brutality of the narco cartels in the countries where these drugs originate, surely such people don’t want their mugs all over national (and potentially worldwide) media? There could be awful repercussions…

MUSiC: Going Home

I bought a copy of Santana’s Welcome album in my mid to late teens. and I’ve always adored it. It’s Santana and co at their peak – along with Caravanserai, Lotus, and Borboletta – with the perfect blending of latin, rock, blues, funk, soul, pop, and lashings of cosmic jazz.

And I love that Santana collaborated with Alice Coltrane, both here and elsewhere (Illuminations). The version of Going Home on Welcome is credited to Alice. But surely it also owes something to Dvořák’s piece of the same name, from his New World Symphony?

Here are two other readings of the Dvořák piece:

The above is by US Army musicians! And is a more conventional and minimal interpretation. Very beautiful.

And then there’s this expanded male voice choir arrangement. Which is pretty wonderful and powerful.

MUSiC: Something’s Coming, Something Good…

An email this evening alerted me to the imminent arrival of more musical goodness from Japan. A bunch of ‘Groove’ Holmes stuff:

Sadly they didn’t have the McGriff/Holmes Giants disc. So they’ve refunded me for that. But this consignment still totals five juicy new albums of Grooves’ groovy goodness.

Should be arriving tomorrow morning. Can’t wait!

WORK: End of Year Self Assessment…

Well, obviously I’m not going to be sharing my personal financial info. But it’s that time of year again. My annual last minute panic to do my self-assessment.

I’m pretty sure that in the last year or two I must’ve got some stuff very wrong. I reckon I’ve overpaid a good deal of money. Will I be able to rectum-fry that, I wonder?

And will I do any better this year? We shall see, I guess…

MUSiC: Silver Apples

Silver Apples’ self-titled debut, on a silver foil cover!

This is a good informative piece on this odd duo.

Looks like it was either a gatefold record, or had a leaflet; the galleries above and below, are from those inner sleeve ‘pages’.

There was quite a lot of hype around the group, esp’ in the hip experimental NY scene. They did quite a lot of gigs.

The duo perform for the press.

Just five months after their debut came out, they released the follow up, Contact. Rather tragically, the cover art work would prove to be their undoing.

It was this image, above, that was their undoing. It seems rather odd, in retrospect. It doesn’t look that much like anything specific. At least to my eyes. Apparently it’s the wreckage of a plane crash. And that freaked out Pan Am, who went to war with the group and their label, Kapp.

If I’m honest, I find a lot of Silver Apples’ music very borderline, between fascinating and grating. It’s certainly not easy listening!

But I also find them captivatingly interesting. A duo of just drums and synths!? And way back in ‘68!?