The City Is Blinking

  Along with Chet Baker, Bill Evans was among the earliest Jazz musicians that I properly engaged with. I remember going into Tower Records off Grafton St and buying the Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, and quickly falling love with both men's music. Since then, I have listened to many Jazz artists, but Bill Evans remains my favourite. Evans brought the Classical music of his training to Jazz, being influenced by such artists as Claude Debussy. Bill Evans' contributions to the genre of Jazz are formidable to consider, both as a leader of his famous trio and as a player on famous recordings led by Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Chet Baker.  It bugs me when people try to analyze Jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not, it's feeling. - Bill Evans Bill Evans believed that everyone, no matter their education in music theory and practice, was in possession of what he called a Universal Musical Mind. One doesn't need to understand the technical details of why a playe

No game that I have played, and I have played a fair few, has impacted me on such a visceral, emotional level as Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II. My expectations were high, considering the quality of the original, and of course Naughty Dog's reputation as delivering quality pretty much 100% of the time, but this sequel managed to smash any expectations by giving the player not only what they knew they wanted, but also what they were not in the least bit expecting. It seems to be a given these days that there is some phony controversy or obnoxiously entitled children demanding this or that is changed in a favourite franchise or series, whenever a new bit of art is released onto the public. Thankfully I avoided all such things in the run up to this game. I assume there is considerable hand wringing over the intensity and frequency of the violence from the guardians assuring we don't accidentally consume "problematic" media, and of course probably some fatuous o

  James Morrow woke at three in the afternoon. A late night, booze and unwise food decisions had left him feeling more than a little off. He walked to the bathroom, filled up the sink with water, and placed his face in. He couldn't quite remember if he had said or done anything which he would come to regret. Not a complete blackout, but a general hazy fog lingered in his mind, and details were hard to pin down. He dressed, slowly and cautiously, afraid that any sudden movement would cause him to lose balance or violently expel his late night/early morning meal of kebabs and whiskey. He sat on the bed, wondering how to occupy himself until he was required to play his first set at the club. James decided on a little music. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, the latter of which James had pegged as perhaps the greatest underappreciated Jazz vocalist of the last hundred years. He sat and enjoyed the sounds, reverberating around the room, and closed his eyes. It was a standard set, nothin

  Stevie Wonder is one of the most influential, important and powerful artists of the last hundred years. This should not be in doubt. He was the first major African American artist to write, produce and perform his music, laying the groundwork for Prince, Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Drake, The Weeknd and countless other artists who exercised control over their art. Stevie Wonder's career has spanned six decades, and while he hasn't released anything new since 2005's A Time To Love , he has been active in performing live and cementing his legacy further as perhaps the greatest musical force of the 20th/21st Century.  Stevie Wonder's first album came in 1962, when Wonder was just 12 years old, titled The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie . The album is little more than a curiosity when one considers the music that Wonder would go on to record, but it unarguably displayed his early talent. It took a while for Motown/Tamla, to define a sound for the young prodigy, throwing out tri

"This is the girl." Mulholland Drive , written and directed by David Lynch, was my introduction to that great artist. I didn't get it, at first. In fact, I found it quite frustrating and irritating. "What the hell is this?" I asked with all the smarts of a ham sandwich. When I come across those who struggle with the surreal and abstract world of David Lynch, I think back to this time, when I too was a dullard who couldn't grasp the dream logic that runs through much of his work. It was not until watching Twin Peaks  for the first time, in 2004/2005 that I revisited Mulholland Drive . After being eased into the strange, dreamlike world of Lynch, and having let go of the need to have everything make literal/linear sense, Mulholland Drive was a revelation; a hidden world now open to me, having been within me all the time.  Mulholland Drive has been voted the greatest movie of the 21st Century, and for damn good reason. It is an astonishing, layered, supremely m

Hello and welcome to Why I Love Robert De Niro, part three! Parts one and two can be found here and here . Please find the final 10 best performances, in chronological order, below. Jackie Brown : It is only right that Quentin Tarantino would work with Robert De Niro, given Tarantino's electric and overwhelming style and talent.  Jackie Brown , released in 1997, is the only Tarantino feature length picture based on the work of another, in this case, Rum Punch by the late, great Elmore Leonard. De Niro is in a supporting role as a man who has an appreciation for smoke and blonde surfer girls. I love the quiet mumbling that De Niro does for most of this picture, finally culminating in an explosion of anger, that is at once hilarious and terrifying. A little odd to see De Niro in a film like this and not be the lead, but he is an integral part in the greatness of the movie, which is among Tarantino's very best.  Flawless : Directed by Joel Schumacher, Flawless  is a film t

Hello and welcome to part two of WHY I LOVE ROBERT DE NIRO! Part one can be found here . Please find the next ten best performances of his career, in chronological order, below. The final ten will arrive tomorrow! Angel Heart : It is easy to forget now, but for a time Mickey Rourke was an incredibly exciting acting talent. With movies like The Pope of Greenwich Village  and Barfly , he was a superb talent who had an energy about him that was quite unusual. In 1987, Director Alan Parker - an incredible talent himself - brought Rourke together with Robert De Niro in a very dark and twisted Noir Horror film. Angel Heart  is riveting, gloriously stylish and with two top tier performances from Rourke and De Niro. It is a great shame that through many strange ways, Rourke would find his career stalled and thrown away, until his great comeback in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler , which would unfortunately only have a brief impact on the quality of his projects. Anyway, it's a t

Robert De Niro was born on the 17th of August, 1943, in Manhattan, New York. He was an only child. He was born into an artistic family. His parents, Robert De Niro Sr and Virginia Admiral were painters. His first appearance in a feature length film came in 1965 in the film Three Rooms in Manhattan , where he had an uncredited role as a client in a diner. Since 1965, he has made 103 films. While his career hasn't maintained a 100% hit rate from 1965 to today -largely down to the last fifteen years or so - it is fairly safe to say that Robert De Niro is one of the greatest talents to ever act in a film. He is peerless in his ability to occupy any role with astonishing credibility, whether that is as a psychopathic loner, a dedicated and decent father, a romantic lead or as someone with impeccable comic timing. Please find the first 10 best performances, in chronological order, below with 10 more to come tomorrow and 10 more the day after. Part two and part three .  Mean Street