Tag: reviews

2016 – A Media Review

If there’s one thing that this year’s paltry list of things I’ve watched, read, and to which I’ve listened tells us, it’s that having a baby destroys any semblance of free time one may have previously had. The numbers of books read and movies watched have dipped to levels so low as to be previously unheard of. (However, I suspect if you checked the graph for numbers of nappies changed or numbers of hours of sleep lost to calming a grizzly baby, the graph would be exactly equal in magnitude yet precisely opposite in trend.) Here, then, is the piss-poor list of media stuff I’ve consumed this year.

Movies

This year, I watched 52 movies, at a rate of one movie every 7.0 days, or 0.14 movies a day. This is down from 2015 numbers of 69-5.2-0.18, and a new low, taking over from 2012’s 62-5.9-0.17. The high remains 2003 at 186-2.0-0.51. Here, check out the latest graph:

movies-watched-2016

(Don’t worry about 2000 and 2001 – the data for those years is incomplete.)

So the list for 2016 is as follows:

  • The Good Dinosaur
  • Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
  • Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
  • Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
  • The Martian
  • Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
  • Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
  • Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
  • The Last Patrol
  • Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
  • Zootropolis
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service
  • Captain America: Civil War
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
  • Garden State
  • Gravity
  • Deadpool
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  • Night at the Museum
  • Night at the Museum 2
  • Ghostbusters
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
  • Zootropolis
  • Straight Outta Compton
  • The Big Lebowski
  • Sherpa
  • Everest
  • The Walk
  • The Resurrection of Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts
  • Spooks: The Greater Good
  • Green Room
  • Kubo and the Two Strings
  • The Intern
  • The Nice Guys
  • Bridge of Spies
  • Steve Jobs
  • Frankenweenie
  • Citizenfour
  • The Big Short
  • 10 Cloverfield Lane
  • My Scientology Movie
  • Coraline
  • The Revenant
  • The Secret Life of Pets
  • Weiner
  • Concussion
  • X-Men: Apocalypse
  • Star Trek Beyond
  • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
  • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  • Elf

Yes, Rogue One is on the list twice, because I saw it twice. Yes, I’m counting it twice, because this is my list and I can do what I want (and also because I paid cold, hard cash for it twice). Highlights were: most definitely Rogue One (loved loved loved it); I love a good espionage thriller, and Bridge of Spies, with the always-watchable Tom Hanks was a pleasure to watch; The Revenant was brutal and brilliant; Kubo and the Two Strings had me weeping in the cinema; and The Last Patrol, the final part of Sebastian Junger’s war documentaries (following the brilliant Restrepo and Korengal).

If it had actually been released this year, my film of the year would have been The Martian. I loved it. It was smart, it was funny (Damon gots comedy chops, yo), and free of the jingoistic bullshit that similar “Let’s get our man back” films have. The science was refreshingly plausible, and the whole ride didn’t disappear up its own existential a-hole like, say, the interminable Interstellar. I liked it so much I even bought the t-shirt. However, given this year’s viewing of the flick was a rewatch, it can’t claim the title of my fave film of the year, so I guess we should raise a glass and toast Rogue One, which has that honour – for it is an honour – bestowed upon it.

Also of note is the boy and I working through the Star Wars and Harry Potter series. Whilst he loved all seven Star Wars movies (he’s not seen Rogue One yet – I don’t think he’s ready for it), he tended towards the prequels – there’s something about Anakin that drew him in, and he was more interested in his rise and fall than in Luke’s rise and non-fall in the original trilogy. I can only guess that that means my son is going to turn out to be a serial killer. And I totally forgot that Revenge of the Sith has some brutal crispy-fried Anakin scenes towards the end that are totally unsuitable for a five-year-old, and that I should have edited out. My bad.

The Harry Potter movies went down a treat with him too, most likely due to a younger, more relatable set of characters (if you actually can relate to young wizards, which I think most 5/6-year-old kids think they can). It’s only watching these films through a kid’s eyes that it becomes apparent that there are some scary things in there. Not the obvious stuff, like the basilisk in Chamber of Secrets (which is obviously fantastical), but the werewolf/dog animagus stuff in the already-dark, Cuaron-directed Prisoner of Azkaban, or the resurrection of the nose-less Voldemort in Goblet of Fire (it was the nose more than anything that got him). I know the films are 12/12A, and I know showing them to a 6-year-old is probably borderline, but I made sure we watched them during the day, with the curtains open and the lights on, the audio set to night mode to reduce the dynamic range, and frequent stops to reassure that it was all made up and in no way real. I’ll take the same approach when I show him Cannibal Holocaust this year.

Books

I read a hilariously poor number of books this year. That number was five. Five books in twelve months. Yikes. My excuse is that I usually read during my lunch breaks at work, but with Mrs S. being on maternity leave for most of the year, I’ve been heading home for lunch with her and child 2. Anyway, here’s the list:

  • When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow – Dan Rhodes
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne
  • Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger

My BfaM and all-round good egg Matt bought me the Dan Rhodes book, and I loved it – despite being a massive fan of Dawkins, it was obvious that his obediently scientific and objective world view and borderline acerbic manner was ripe for exaggeration and skewering, and Rhodes nails it. I don’t get why The Dark Knight Returns is hailed as the masterpiece that it is – maybe it was ground-breakingly original and unique in the 80’s, but to me it was just confusing and dull. Hey-ho. The Neil Gaiman book was a 99p-er on sale on Amazon that I took a punt on and, not really enjoying the much-vaunted American Gods (yeah, sue me…), I didn’t expect much. I think that worked in its favour, as I ended up liking it quite a lot. The Harry Potter script was interesting – the story was a reasonably enjoyable romp, but perhaps I’m not sufficiently down with reading scripts to fully ‘get’ it in its entirety. Maybe a novelisation would help.

I’ve wanted to read Arabian Sands since finishing A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby, a book for which I’ve previously expressed my love. The last few paragraphs of Hindu Kush catalogue the protagonists’ encounter with Thesiger in the Hindu Kush whilst they’re inflating their air-beds for the night. Thesiger calls them a pair of pansies for partaking of such comforts. Reading up about him, it appears Thesiger has every right to hold that opinion: Arabian Sands is his account of his time crossing the Rub’ al Khali, the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, a number of times. It chronicles in great detail his trips to map out previously uncharted territory, his relationships with a number of Bedu tribes, and the unbelievable hardships he suffered on his travels. Whilst there’s a lot of names – tribes, tribes folk, Wadis etc. – that have a tendency to go in one ear (um, eye?) and out the other, his terse writing is a wonderful catalogue of a way of life and of a people that, even at that time, was in real danger of disappearing, with the advent of technology and the interminable hunt for more and more oil. Not the easiest read, but worth it.

Hopefully, 2017 will give me more of a chance to read, so I’m hoping this list next year will be greater than a measly five books in length.

Music

Yowzer, this’ll be a short section. I bought precious little music this year, but of the few I did buy, here’s my irrelevent verdict:

The new Metallica album, Hardwired… To Self Destruct, is far better than I expected it to be, after the St. Anger and Death Magnetic. In fact, I totally dig it. Deal with that. The new Helmet album, Dead to the World, is as disappointing as the last few have been – momentary glimpses of genius (riffs, solos, lyrics etc.) are subsequently sullied by Page’s shitty vocals. I can’t even say I’ve listened to the new Weezer (The White Album) and Deftones (Gore) records enough to pass comment on them. Same with the new Dinosaur Jr. (Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not) and Neurosis (Fires Within Fires). There’s a new Planes Mistaken for Stars album out, Prey, that no-one told me about and so I haven’t listened to that yet. I hope it’s great. The Baroness album, Purple, was last year, right? Shame, that’s a great album.

Yeah, I don’t have much to say about music this year, as with most years of late. Read into that as you will.

 

So there you have it. In brief summary, I liked Rogue One, and the new Metallica album, but didn’t read many books. To be honest, that was just about all I needed to write, rather than 1500 words of self-indulgent waffle. Perhaps I’ll do that for next year’s review, then. You’ll just have to tune in then to find out. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Review: Pact Coffee – Santa Ines Natural

This fortnight’s Pact Coffee delivery is Santa Ines Natural, from Brazil.

They say:

Flavour: Cocoa Powder, Baked Apple, Toffee
Sweetness: Baked Fruit
Acidity: Malic (Apple)
Mouthfeel: Creamy

We say:

Smells like burnt wood in the bag, tastes a bit bitter when brewed (with an Aeropress).

Let’s look at their list: I got none of those flavours, not the cocoa, not the apple, and certainly not the toffee. The sweetness was only accurate if the baked fruit was lemon. I have no idea what a malic acidity feels like, but for me it was keener than the apple they claim. And there was no way the ‘mouthfeel’ was creamy. It was thin, maybe watery. If that’s a valid mouthfeel. Which it probably is, given that everyone just seems to be making shit up left, right, and centre.

One point of note is that this batch was noticeably more difficult to Aeropress – the resistance of the plunger whilst plunging was much greater than previous Pact coffees, despite me consistently specifying ‘Aeropress’ as the required grind setting. Maybe they accidentally turned the grinder dial round a notch too far and ground the beans too fine, and I’m now paying for that with a slightly bitter, difficult-to-plunge coffee. Who knows.

Review: Pact Coffee – Finca La Estrella

This fortnight’s Pact Coffee delivery is Finca La Estrella, from Colombia.

They say:

Flavour: Milk Chocolate, Orange, Black Tea
Sweetness: Refined Sugar
Acidity: Citric (Orange)
Mouthfeel: Tea-like

We say:

Honestly, it tastes like goddamned coffee. Good goddamned coffee.

Maybe my tastebuds, after years of Twiglet abuse, have been rendered useless to all but the strongest, most over-powering flavours. Maybe I got a duff bag of coffee this fortnight. Or maybe, just maybe, the people who write these descriptions are just making shit up.

In my many years, I’ve gorged on plenty of milk chocolate. I’ve eaten an excellent sufficiency of oranges. I’ve drunk oceans of tea. And I can quite categorically say that this fortnight’s coffee tastes not one goddamn jot like any of those. Neither is its mouthfeel1 tea-like. It’s coffee-like. Because it’s coffee.

All of this hand-wavy bullshit is really annoying. Pact ship some really really good coffee. Finca La Estrella is one of those coffees. It’s delicious, without the need to project some spurious, nonsensical flavours upon it that are just plain rubbish.

So sign up to Pact. Drink their delicious coffee. And just plain ignore their marketing blurb.

  1. Still wrong. ↩

Review: Pact Coffee – Sidamo

This fortnight’s Pact Coffee delivery is Sidamo, from Ethiopia.

They say:

Earl Grey tea and Garibaldi biscuits.

Flavour: Butter, Floral – Bergamot, Black Tea Finish
Sweetness: Beurre Noisette
Acidity: Mild Orange
Mouthfeel: Black Tea

We say:

Tastes like slightly weak, slightly bitter, coffee. Not a goddamn Garibaldi in sight. And what in the Sam Hell is Mouthfeel? Overall, not bad.

This review was sponsored by No Bullshit Coffee Reviews™.

Review: The Places In Between – Rory Stewart

My fascination with Afghanistan continues. The Places in Between, by the now-Member of Parliament Rory Stewart, is a record of Stewart’s walk from Herat to Kabul in Afghanistan in early 2002, mere months after the commencement of the War in Afghanistan. It’s a fascinating journal of an 800 km walk between a series of town and villages, in the dead of winter, across territory often still marginally controlled by the Taliban. Stewart’s letters of recommendation from earlier villages’ headmen are often the only things between a bed for the night and being left outside in the snow to fend for himself. Relying on the Islamic tradition of hospitality, he nearly always has a floor to sleep on, some bread to eat, and a roof over his head every night.

He meets a bewildering array of characters, and it’s clear he’s done his homework: a Persian speaker, he successfully manoeuvres himself into and out of situations as need be, knowing how many effusive greetings to offer to a stranger at any given time, or how to confuse parochial and threatening locals with wider-world talk.

But the villagers and headmen and soldiers and officials aren’t the only stars of this captivating travel journal. He takes in the cream of the architectural and geological wonders of the area: from the domes of Chist-e Sharif, to the empty niches of the recently-bombed Buddhas of Bamiyan, to my personal favourite, the minaret of Jam. Conservation worries aside, reading his account of climbing to the near-top of the minaret, with nary a soul around, gave me chills, and made me desperate to swap places with him, 12 years in the past, if only for a second.

There are also stark reminders of the ongoing war/invasion/occupation. Burnt husks of villages, destroyed by the Taliban. Families missing vast swathes of members, killed by the Taliban. The vast, empty caverns in Bamiyan where the Buddhas once stood. The accurate and anguished recounting of these traumas by the people whom Stewart encounters only reinforces the conditions and the time in which he’s walking, only months after the invasion started.

The Places in Between is a fantastic read. Riveting, illuminating, harrowing. And if you don’t have a tear in your eye when Stewart recalls the final fate of Babur the dog, an unwanted gift that soon becomes his valued travel companion, then you’re a brute. Read this book as soon as you can.

The Places in Between – Rory Stewart

The Great 2013 Round-up

Another year, another self-aggrandizing, look-at-my-opinion-on-things, round-up post. And nearly a month late, too. Winner.

In 2013, I managed to make triple digits in the number of movies I watched for the first time since 2009. After a poor year of only 62 movies last year (0.17 movies/day, or 5.89 days between movies), I managed to hit exactly 100 flicks this year (0.27 movies/day, or 3.65 days between movies) with a last minute, New Years Eve viewing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Whilst it’s pleasing to hit the big Three Figures for the year, I’m nowhere near the glory days of the early- to mid-2000s, where digits of 150 were the norm. I even have a graph to prove it:

Movies watched

Highlights of the year:

  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Naysayers be damned: I loved this. Sure, I haven’t read the book, so I have no idea how much Peter Jackson ruined the source material, or stretched it beyond its means, but I don’t care. I was more than happy to spend another three hours of my life back in that world, even if it was a tad over-lit and TV show-ey in 3D HFR. Still, it was quite the spectacle.
  • Gravity – Amazing. A pulse-racing, eyeball-popping feast from start to finish. I smell Oscars.

In fact, I probably don’t need to go any further than that. Sure, there were some other great flicks out this year, but I’m a sucker for a spectacle movie, and The Hobbit and Gravity delivered in spades. However, other new (or, at least, new to me) flicks in which I partook and enjoyed include: Zero Dark Thirty (rough in places, but compelling nonetheless), Django Unchained (new to me, utterly enthralling), Captain Phillips (who doesn’t love a good Tom Hanks flick? Losers, that’s who), Saving Mr. Banks (can’t get enough of that Hanks, and Emma Thompson is a dream), Prisoners (the bleakest, most compulsive two hours I spent this year), Argo (Affleck is the new Hanks) and Silver Linings Playbook (I’m also a sucker for a fucked-up love story).

Being laid up for a few weeks in the middle of the year, I managed to find the time to visit a couple of blasts from the past, classics that everyone rolls their eyes at when they hear I haven’t seen them. It quickly became apparent that I’d missed out on some doozies. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was excellent. The Godfather is every inch a classic, from first to final frame. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a rambling, self-indulgent, preposterous waste of two hours. Bullitt is slow, but redeemed by that car chase.

So not a bad year for movies. As for books, I only managed to get through twelve of them. I don’t need a calculator to work out that that’s only one a month. Disgraceful. My progress was held up with the 2½ months it took me to read Andrew Ross Sorkin‘s Too Big To Fail which was, fortunately, excellent. I made the mistake of reading the first three of the trilogy of five Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, which I fear I’m not the target audience for. I’m sure my 15 year old self would have lapped them up, but the 35 year old me got a touch bored by it all. But the best book by far that I read this year (and which I’ve mentioned before) was A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, which played straight into my continuing obsession with all things Afghanistan. It’s as much a story of companionship and a record of mid-20th century British attitudes and humour as it is a travel book, and it’s so much more interesting as a consequence. Lovely.

As for music, my intake of new stuff in 2013 continued its slippery slope down. Highlights were the new Jetplane Landing album, Don’t Try, which was stunning; the new Modern Life is War disc, Fever Hunting, which was very much a welcome return; While A Nation Sleeps, by Boysetsfire, which went some way to atoning for the sins of The Misery Index; Blood Drive by ASG, which is a new one to me, but is, as my friend Matt remarked, right up my street; and finally the new Alice in Chains album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, was a continuation of the post-Staley AIC, and if you don’t mind post-Staley AIC, then this was quite lovely.

So that’s about it. I’m certainly no devourer of new stuff, as I used to be, so my choices tend to be limited and conservative, but no less enjoyed and appreciated as in days of yore.

Review: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

‘God, you must be a couple of pansies,’ said Thesiger.

A Short Walk… is the story of a couple of ill-equipped, frightfully British chaps who decided they wanted to climb a remote, as-yet-unconquered peak in the north-east of Afghanistan. The quote above is the final line of the book, uttered by famed explorer Wilfred Thesiger, whom they encounter on their return from their adventure, who catches them in the act of inflating their air-beds.

Whilst their inexperience and naivety leads, as expected, to all manner of difficult and dangerous situations, the story is told with quintessentially British humour and wit. Infinitely readable and most enjoyable, it played right into my current, and bewildering, fascination with Afghanistan. Tragically, whilst reading I attempted to track Newby and Carless’ journey around the Panjshir Valley and through Nuristan on Google Maps, with the help of the crude maps included at the end of the book which, whilst not always successful, made the stories a touch more real and tangible.

If either travel writing or Afghanistan is your thing, read this book.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush – Eric Newby