Mr. Jones. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10

Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Celyn Jones, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Beata Pozniak, Fenella Woolgar, Martin Bishop, John Edmondson, Michalina Olszanska, Martin Hugh Henley, Olena Leonenko, Edward Wolstenholme, Marcin Czarnik, Barry Mulkerns, Matthew Marsh.Mr. Jones. Film Review.Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Celyn Jones, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Beata Pozniak, Fenella Woolgar, Martin Bishop, John Edmondson, Michalina Olszanska, Martin Hugh Henley, Olena Leonenko, Edward Wolstenholme, Marcin Czarnik, Barry Mulkerns, Matthew Marsh.

Mr. Jones. Film Review. full post

(575 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Gemini Man. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong, Douglas Hodge, Ralph Paterson, Linda Emond, Ilia Volok, E.J. Bonilla.

There is nobody better equipped to destroy you than yourself. The ones who hate you, fuelled often by an unfathomable amount of logic, jealousy and rage will often leave you bleeding and broken on the doorstep of history. However, it is our own minds, our psyche and fear that will see us finish the job. Broken and foiled is one thing, but our own self-doubt, our willingness to acknowledge our insecurity and self-loathing, is enough to defeat us completely.

Gemini Man. Film Review. full post

(566 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

Johnny Steinberg, Shadowland. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The journey is judged by the beauty and response of its reflection, not by the speed in which it is undertaken. The blur of time is such that we as individuals find that we spend so much of our life trying to understand the appeal of the light, that we forget our presence is often demanded in the Shadowland, the place between darkness and the illuminated, where we can act as guides, as voices of reason to those who have wandered too far into the realm of obscure endings and rattling conclusions.

Johnny Steinberg, Shadowland. Album Review. full post

(390 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Mike Zito, Quarantine Blues. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

How you spend time when you forced to be apart from all that you love, all that deeply care for, can be enlightening, illuminating… cathartic, and whilst it is enough to survive, that is important to endure the single punishment of isolation, the fear of collective worry that comes in the shape of humanity’s damnation, to strive beyond those Quarantine Blues and produce art, to seek guidance and passion from a place outside of the normal parameters is to arguably deal a personal hand of favour to others, to give them a piece of your soul so that they have their own blues lessened.

Mike Zito, Quarantine Blues. Album Review. full post

(445 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Darlin’ Brando; Also, Too. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Timely is the country that listens, blessed is the country that learns, whether it is from its mistakes, or from its humility in victory, a country that finds ways to be conciliatory and proactively willing to offer the hand of friendship to its enemy, can look itself in the mirror and say, we also too can add to civilisation and honour. 

It is honour and a special breed of insightfulness in observation that brings Darlin’ Brando’s latest recording, Also, Too, to the public’s attention, an album of musical glory and appetite, but one that also speaks volumes of how a low point in life can bring the change needed to gain a more enlightened perspective.

Darlin’ Brando; Also, Too. Album Review. full post

(405 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Maceo Parker, Soul Food – Cooking With Maceo. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

When the joint is jumping, the heart follows suit, but it is the soul that is in command of the timing and the beat. The feast of music is enjoyed, the sound is respected, and it is down to soul, that inner being craving both peace and flavour, that cooks and brings fire to the very core of all who allow themselves to be captured by the sense of the exotic, and the rhythm of the mysterious and the mass musical effect.

Maceo Parker, Soul Food – Cooking With Maceo. Album Review. full post

(383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

The Salisbury Poisonings. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall, MyAnna Buring, Mark Addy, Annabel Scholey, Nigel Lindsay, Stella Gonet, Kiera Thompson, Duncan Pow, Darren Boyd, Stephanie Gil, William Houston, Emma Stansfield, Jonathon Slinger, Andrew Brooke, Johnny Harris, Wayne Swann, Faye McKeever, Melanie Gutteridge, Jill Winternitz, Michael Schaeffer, Ron Cook, Paul Popplewell, Clare Burt, Naomi Yang, Amber Aga.

In television drama days gone by serials such as The Salisbury Poisonings would have been given the same treatment as that which saw the nuclear torn British mainland of Threads, or the plague-pandemic ravaged world of Survivors make headlines for their vision of a society torn apart by humanity’s absolute belief in its destiny, and the shock of hubris when it all comes crumbling down.

The Salisbury Poisonings. Television Review. full post

(506 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Staged. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Georgia Moffett, Lucy Eaton, Anna Lundberg, Simon Evans, Nina Sosanya, Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Adrian Lester.

To be inspired in difficult and trying times is to accept that the human condition requires stimulating, craves arousal of spirit, and whilst art has undoubtedly suffered without mercy during 2020, there is something of the eternal machine of hope that grinds on, that beats in the heart of every artist of every persuasion, that the show, in whatever format, must go on.

Staged. Television Review. full post

(436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

San Andreas Quake. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * 

Cast: Jhey Castles, Jason Woods, Grace Van Dien, Elaine Partnow, Lane Townsend, Allison Adams, Kyle Wood, Robert Evans, Blaire Chandler, Chris Clanton, Chris Cleveland, Antonio Cullari, Alex Diehl, Bill Voorhees, Shaun Gerado, David Alan Graf, Alexandra Marian Hensley, Justin Hoffmeister, Ron Jantz, Nicola Lambo, Tinasha LaRaye, J Kristopher, Kenny Santiago Marrero, Tessa Mossey, Vladimir Noel, Robert Paterno, Alet Taylor, Ali Zahiri, Sandra J. Payne.

San Andreas Quake. Film Review. full post

(559 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Robert Cray, That’s What I Heard. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

That’s What I Heard, the song that catches the fire in our in our imagination, or the scurrilous whisper which transforms in time to the unremitting, unforgiving rumour; there is a way to decern between the two states of conscious feedback, just look to the one with the sincerest voice and which praises with nothing to gain from having done so.

Robert Cray, That’s What I Heard. Album Review. full post

(436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)