Blogging – The Spac Hole

Bill & Ted Face The Music

January 30, 2023January 30, 2023carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Bill & Ted Face the Music': Third Time's a Most Excellent Charm, Dude – Rolling Stone

Growing up, there were a handful of movies that I repeatedly came back to not only on my own, but with friends; Predator, T2, Wayne’s World, and the Bill And Ted series. Even in this age of any and all commodities, however barely remembered, being remade or franchised to further dilution, I never imagined I’d see a Bill & Ted sequel. Sure, we’d had the short lived animated series, and every few years we’d hear a rumour of a new script being proposed, but it seemed like the ship had sailed. No-one was interested in rock music any more, never mind movies about rock music, so why would anyone take a chance on releasing a movie which was barely marketable?

Yet here we are, decades later, with an older and somewhat wiser Bill and Ted tasked with saving the world, again. What’s more, the prophecies outlined in the previous movies didn’t really come to pass. Bill & Ted’s band had some success, but like most guitar bands of the era, they split up and are now seen has has-beens barely able to play in a bar to 20 people. They’re still married to their respective babes and they even have daughters, daughters who also aspire to being kick-ass musicians, but all is not rosy; there’s a chance their wives may leave and there’s a chance the world may end. Enter the daughter of Bill and Ted’s old pal Rufus, who takes the lads to the future where they learn that, if they don’t write the perfect song by that evening, all time and reality will collapse. Bad news. There is also a time-travelling ~~Terminator~~ robot sent to destroy them. Luckily, they have their own time machine to try to travel to potential futures to hear the song they haven’t written yet, while their daughters use another time machine to go back and recruit some of the greatest musicians of all time. It’s incredibly convoluted and seems ready to fall apart at any moment.

And yet, it works. It knows it’s silly and it leans into the ridiculousness of it all. It’s funny, it’s nostalgic, and most of the cast members from the originals return. It’s a bit of a shame that the music isn’t great and that they didn’t lean into how metal has changed in the years since the early 90s, but my overriding thought is that I was happy it even existed at all and that it isn’t crap. We still have plenty of modern bands and artists making an appearance, but the script is less interested in the name-dropping and culture surrounding the music. Reeves and Winter initially seem a little awkward in their roles, but this seems to shed over the course of the film and they eventually revel in it. The returning performers equally enjoy themselves, and most of the newcomers are fun too.

The film will likely be completely bewildering for any number of factors to anyone who has not seen the previous movies, but it was made for the fans and those fans should get plenty of enjoyment out of this belated sequel. Let us know what you think in the comments!

The Nightman Scoring System (c) Music Review Master List!

January 13, 2023January 3, 2023carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Greetings, Glancers! I mentioned in my last post that I was going to go back and give my favourite albums, and anything else I’ve heard, the Get Rekt treatment. I completely forgot that when I’d been doing this for The Beatles that I was posting them under the Nightman Scoring System series instead. That works out nicely as it provides a neat differentiation between movies (Get Rekt) and music (Nightman Scoring System). Even though it’s basically the same approach – score using an unbiased system breaking a product into twenty equally weighted categories.

While it was easy to do this with movies, because I had already posted lists of my favourite movies of each year and had a ready-made master-list, I did not have anything similar for music. This post changes that. This post will similarly be updated with albums, scores, and links to reviews, the differences being that I’ll continue to update the music I review, and instead of going year by year, I’ll post alphabetically by artist. In the early days, there won’t be many artists, but as time goes on and my reviews batch up, you’ll see the array of artists expand.

If you’re interested in any of the artists and albums below, or my thoughts on them, please have a look around and share your own thoughts. Enjoy!

Bad Bunny – YHLQMDLG – 58

Biffy Clyro – A Celebration Of Endings – 63

Bob Dylan – Rough And Rowdy Ways – 64

Chloe X Halle – Ungodly Hour – 68

Code Orange – Underneath – 61

Deftones – Ohms – 60

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia – 74

Enter Shikari – Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible – 57

Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters – 67

Ghostmane – Anti-Icon – 54

Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure – 58

Lady Gaga – Chromatica – 74

Lil Baby – My Turn – 51

The Beatles – Please Please Me – 81

The Beatles – With The Beatles – 71

The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night – 92

The Beatles – For Sale – 80

The Beatles – Help! – 93

The Beatles – Rubber Soul – 90

Get Rekt – Future Music Review State!

January 6, 2023January 3, 2023carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Greetings, Glancers! It seems like I’m persisting with this whole Get Rekt/Nightman Scoring malarkey. You’ve likely seen my Get Rekt movie update – if you haven’t, click here. While I’ve already spent, some may say wasted, considerable time working my way through my favourite movies of all time and scoring those with my fair and unbiased system, I haven’t really done the same on the music side of things.

I’ve been examining this recently, and I’ve been considering writing my Favourite Albums Of Every Year Lists too, but I’ve been seriously struggling with those. I tend to absorb movies more easily than I do albums, even though I’ve loved music longer and with more passion. Whenever I try to make these lists for my favourite albums, they’re inevitably populated with the same small handful of artists, which makes it look like I have narrow tastes. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just that… I find it easier to call a film a favourite when it is flawed than I do with an album. If music is flawed, or not to my tastes, I probably won’t enjoy it. Certainly not enough to be so brazen as to put it in a so-called Favourites list. If a movie is flawed, I can still quite easily admire it for its technical ability and cultural significance, often enough to say it could, just maybe, squeeze, into one of my favourites lists. I’ll still vote for what I love over what I respect though.

So, if I can’t do a solid list of favourite albums by year like I did for films, I can’t really follow the same plan with Get Rekt. What can I do? Alphabetical? Still go year by year knowing that I may only have five albums instead of ten? Ignore favourites and just go Get Rekt on everything I’ve ever heard? That’s an option, and that’s what I’ve been doing with my 2020 series. I think that’s the way to go, that or I simply go artist by artist through my favourite artists. But that may be dull and repetitive, more so than usual around here.

That’s it, really. I didn’t come into this post with a conclusion in mind or a decision formed. And I still don’t. I just came into the post wanting to let you know that I want to, somehow, translate the Get Rekt format over to music, so that people can moan and grump and rage over the arbitrary scores I give albums. I’m not going to stick a list of albums here, like I did with the movie post. Not yet anyway. Instead, at some point in the future I’ll write a new post which I will plan to continually update as and when I write Get Rekt music reviews. So far, I’ve reviewed some of the (apparently) best albums of 2020 (which reminds me that I should probably do something similar for 2022 – fuck 2021, I guess), and I’ve updated some of my Beatles reviews with Get Rekt notes. I could go back and do retro Get Rekt updates for all of the Madonna, Bon Jovi, Roxette, Bryan Adams, David Bowie, and other artists I’ve regularly covered here too. I think I’ll do a mixture of that, and a mixture of my favourite albums. Won’t that me fun? Keeps me off the streets, I guess.

Get Rekt – A recap and future state

December 2, 2022November 29, 2022carlosnightman2 Comments

Greetings, Glancers! I’ve been publishing quite a lot of Get Rekt movie posts recently, and some of you have been reading and (hopefully) enjoying them. This post is to provide a recap on what Get Rekt is all about, and to present the films I have yet to cover. It’s not a roadmap or publishing schedule by any means, but rather a single place for anyone enjoying this series to check out the full list of films I’m covering, what I’ve done, and what’s to come.

First off, here’s a link to the original post explaining why I’m doing all this, and what the different categories are. The short version is that I don’t usually score whatever I review, but I decided I wanted to explore how good or bad I feel my favourite movies are by removing as much bias as I can, and by giving a score out of five for twenty categories I feel are important in film. I can’t just give 5s across the board, because I have to use real, honest data along with valuable opinion. I can’t give a score of five in a category of Sales to a movie which was a complete flop, as much as you can’t give a score of 1 for Performances to a film where the cast won Oscars for their performances.

The list of films I’m using this system for are my favourite films of each year, going back to 1950. In most cases it’s 10 films per year, but in a few others the total could reach 20. To keep things interesting, I’m starting from the bottom of each year, and moving from the first year in each decade to the next in each post, then back around. That means my 10th favourite film of 1950 would be first, then my 10th favourite of 1960, tenth of 1970, 80, 90, and 2000s, then back around to my 10th favourite of 1951, 61, 71 etc.

Here is the full list, by year, with links to the published posts:

1950

10: Les Enfants Terribles (France)

9: Outrage (USA)

8: Panic In The Streets (USA)

7: Gun Crazy (USA)

6: Winchester 73 (USA)

5: Rio Grande (USA)

4: Stage Fright (GB)

3: Cinderella (USA)

2: All About Eve (USA)

1: Rashomon (Japan)

1951

10: Scrooge (UK)

9: Fourteen Hours (USA)

8: The Prowler (USA)

7: Quo Vadis (USA)

6: The Lavender Hill Mob (UK)

5: The Idiot (Japan)

4: The African Queen (UK/USA)

3: A Streetcar Named Desire (USA)

2: The Thing From Another World (USA)

1: Strangers On A Train (USA)

1952

10: Flesh And Fury (USA)

9: Bend Of The River (USA)

8: Monkey Business (USA)

7: The Steel Trap (USA)

6: Viva Zapata (USA)

5: Forbidden Games (France)

4: The Greatest Show On Earth (USA)

3: The Prisoner Of Zenda (USA)

2: High Noon (USA)

1: Ikiru (Japan)

1953

10: Peter Pan (US)

9: Fear And Desire (US)

8: Stalag 17 (US)

7: Tokyo Story (Japan)

6: I Confess (US/Canada)

5: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (US)

4: From Here To Eternity (US)

3: The Hitch-hiker (US)

2: The Big Heat (US)

1: The Wild One (US)

1954

10: Sabrina (USA)

9: The Caine Mutiny (USA)

8: La Strada (Italy)

7: Hell And High Water (USA)

6: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (USA)

5: On The Waterfront (USA)

4: Godzilla (Japan)

3: Dial M For Murder (USA)

2: Rear Window (USA)

1: Seven Samurai (Japan)

1955

10: The Ladykillers (UK)

9: I Live In Fear (Japan)

8: Lady And The Tramp (USA)

7: Les Diaboliques (France)

6: The Colditz Story (UK)

5: East Of Eden (USA)

4: Bad Day At Black Rock (USA)

3: The Night Of The Hunter (USA)

2: Marty (USA)

1: Rebel Without A Cause (USA)

1956

10: Crime in The Streets (USA)

9: The Ten Commandments (USA)

8: The Killing (USA)

7: I Vampiri (Italy)

6: The Wrong Man (USA)

5: The Searchers (USA)

4: Giant (USA)

3: The Bad Seed (USA)

2: The Man Who Knew Too Much (USA)

1: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (USA)

1957

10: Sayonara (USA)

9: 20 Million Miles To Earth (USA)

8: Funny Face (USA)

7: The Lower Depths (Japan)

6: The Bridge On The River Kwai (UK/USA)

5: The Seventh Seal (Sweden)

4: Paths Of Glory (USA)

3: Night Of The Demon (UK)

2: 12 Angry Men (USA)

1: Throne Of Blood (Japan)

1958

10: Thunder Road (USA)

9: The Blob (USA)

8: The Vikings (USA)

7: The Defiant Ones (USA)

6: The Magician (Sweden)

5: The Hidden Fortress (Japan)

4: The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (USA)

3: Touch Of Evil (USA)

2: Dracula (UK)

1: Vertigo (USA)

1959

10: The Diary Of Anne Frank (USA)

9: The Hound Of The Baskervilles (UK)

8: Anatomy of A Murder (USA)

7: The House On Haunted Hill (USA)

6: On The Beach (USA)

5: The 400 Blows (France)

4: Rio Bravo (USA)

3: Ben Hur (USA)

2: Sleeping Beauty (USA)

1: North By Northwest (USA)

1960

10: Village Of The Damned (UK)

9: Eyes Without A Face (France)

8: The Apartment (USA)

7: Jigoku (Japan)

6: La Dolce Vita (Italy)

5: Breathless (France)

4: Spartacus (USA)

3: Peeping Tom (UK)

2: Psycho (USA)

1: The Magnificent Seven (USA)

1961

10: The Young Ones (UK)

9: Judgement At Nuremberg (USA)

8: One Eyed Jacks (USA)

7: The Day The Earth Caught Fire (UK)

6: Breakfast At Tiffany’s (USA)

5: The Innocents (UK)

4: One Hundred And One Dalmations (US)

3: The Hustler (US)

2: The Guns Of Navarone (UK/US)

1: Yojimbo (Japan)

1962

10: Carnival Of Souls (USA)

9: Lawrence Of Arabia (USA/UK)

8: To Kill A Mockingird (USA)

7: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (USA)

6: The Longest Day (USA)

5: What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (USA)

4: Sanjuro (Japan)

3: Lolita (UK/USA)

2: Cape Fear (USA)

1: Dr No (UK)

1963

10: Dementia 13 (USA)

9: The Pink Panther (USA)

8: 8 1/2 (Italy/France)

7: The Sword In The Stone (USA)

6: Cleopatra (USA)

5: The Haunting (UK)

4: From Russia With Love (UK)

3: Jason And The Argonauts (UK/USA)

2: The Birds (USA)

1: The Great Escape (USA)

1964

10: Marriage, Italian Style (Italy)

9: Woman In The Dunes (Japan)

8: Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (USA)

7: A Hard Day’s Night (UK)

6: Seance On A Wet Afternoon (UK)

5: Dr. Strangelove (UK/USA)

4: Kwaidan (Japan)

3: Zulu (UK)

2: A Fistful Of Dollars (Italy/Germany/Spain)

1: Goldfinger (UK)

1965

10: A Patch Of Blue (USA)

9: Faster Pussycat Kill Kill (USA)

8: The Flight Of The Phoenix (USA)

7: Alphaville (France)

6: Von Ryan’s Express (USA)

5: The Cincinnati Kid (USA)

4: The Ipcress File (UK)

3: Thunderball (UK)

2: Repulsion (UK)

1: For A Few Dollars More (Italy/Germany/Spain)

1966

10: Carry On Screaming (UK)

9: Born Free (UK)

8: Alfie (UK)

7: The Professionals (US)

6: Blowup (UK/US/Italy)

5: One Million BC (UK)

4: Dracula, Prince Of Darkness (UK)

3: The Battle of Algiers (Italy/Algeria)

2: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (USA)

1: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (Italy/Germany/Spain/US)

1967

10: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (USA)

9: The Fearless Vampire Killers (USA)

8: In The Heat of The Night (USA)

7: Bonnie And Clyde (USA)

6: The Graduate (USA)

5: Cool Hand Luke (USA)

4: Wait Until Dark (USA)

3: The Dirty Dozen (USA)

2: The Jungle Book (USA)

1: You Only Live Twice (UK)

1968

10: Barbarella (France/Italy)

9: Hell In The Pacific (USA)

8: If (UK)

7: The Producers (USA)

6: Planet Of The Apes (USA)

5: 2001 A Space Odyssey (UK/USA)

4: Bullitt (USA)

3: Rosemary’s Baby (USA)

2: Once Upon A Time In The West (Italy/USA/Spain)

1: Night Of The Living Dead (USA)

1969

10: Carry On Camping (UK)

9: The Damned (Italy/Germany)

8: They Shoot Horses Don’t They (USA)

7: Marlowe (USA)

6: Easy Rider (USA)

5: Midnight Cowboy (USA)

4: The Italian Job (UK)

3: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (UK)

2: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (USA)

1: The Wild Bunch (USA)

1970

10: Woodstock (USA)

9: Zabriskie Point (USA)

8: MASH (USA)

7: Brewster McCloud (USA)

6: The Conformist (Italy/France/Germany)

5: Joe (USA)

4: The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (Italy/Germany)

3: Patton (USA)

2: Five Easy Pieces (USA)

1: Kelly’s Heroes (USA)

1971

10: Vanishing Point (USA)

9: McCabe And Mrs Miller (USA)

8: Walkabout (UK/OZ)

7: Straw Dogs (US/UK)

6: The French Connection (USA)

5: Get Carter (UK)

4: Dirty Harry (USA)

3: Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (USA)

2: The Big Boss (HK/Thailand)

1: A Clockwork Orange (USA/UK)

1972

10: Silent Running (US)

9: Last Tango In Paris (France/Italy)

8: The Getaway (US)

7: Asylum (UK)

6: Deliverance (US)

5: Game Of Death (HK)

4: The Last House On The Left (US)

3: Fist Of Fury (HK)

2: Way Of The Dragon (HK)

1: The Godfather (US)

1973

10: Badlands (US)

9: Robin Hood (US)

8: High Plains Drifter (US)

7: Mean Streets (US)

6: Serpico (US)

5: Don’t Look Now (UK/Italy)

4: The Wicker Man (UK)

3: The Exorcist (US)

2: Enter The Dragon (HK/US)

1: Live And Let Die (UK)

1974

10: Black Christmas (CAN)

9: Stone (OZ)

8: Blazing Saddles (US)

7: Death Wish (US)

6: Chinatown (US)

5: Young Frankenstein (US)

4: The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad (UK)

3: The Man With The Golden Gun (UK)

2: The Godfather Part 2 (US)

1: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (US)

1975

10: Nashville (US)

9: Barry Lyndon (UK/US)

8: Picnic At Hanging Rock (OZ)

7: Hard Times (US)

6: Deep Red (Italy)

5: The Land That Time Forgot (UK/US)

4: Monty Python And The Holy Grail (UK)

3: Dog Day Afternoon (US)

2: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (US)

1: Jaws (US)

1976

10: All The President’s Men (USA)

9: Network (USA)

8: Silver Streak (USA)

7: The Outlaw Josey Wales (USA)

6: Logan’s Run (USA)

5: Carrie (USA)

4: Taxi Driver (USA)

3: The Omen (USA)

2: Rocky (USA)

1: Assault On Precinct 13 (USA)

1977

10: Hausu (Japan)

9: Rabid (Canada/USA)

8: Sorcerer (USA)

7: Soldier Of Orange (Netherlands)

6: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (USA)

5: Martin (USA)

4: Eraserhead (USA)

3: Suspiria (Italy)

2: The Spy Who Loved Me (UK)

1: Star Wars Episode IV (USA)

1978

10: Eyes of Laura Mars (USA)

9: Midnight Express (USA)

8: Big Wednesday (USA)

7: Jaws 2 (USA)

6: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (USA)

5: The Deer Hunter (USA)

4: Superman (USA/UK/Switz/Panama)

3: The Driver (USA)

2: Halloween (USA)

1: Dawn Of The Dead (USA)

1979

10: Escape From Alcatraz (US)

9: Escape To Athena (UK)

8: Life Of Brian (UK)

7: Zombie Flesh Eaters (Italy)

6: Quadrophenia (UK)

5: Rocky II (US)

4: Apocalypse Now (US)

3: The Warriors (US)

2: Mad Max (AUS)

1: Alien (UK/US)

1980

10: The Big Red One (US) Sam Fuller

9: Cannibal Holocaust (Italy)

8: Kagemusha (Japan)

7: The Watcher In The Woods (US/UK)

6: The Elephant Man (US)

5: Raging Bull (US)

4: The Blues Brothers (US)

3: The Shining (US)

2: The Fog (US)

1: The Empire Strikes Back (US)

1981

10: Escape To Victory (UK/US)

9: The Entity (US)

8: Scanners (Canada)

7: Clash Of The Titans (UK/US)

6: The Evil Dead (US)

5: Escape From New York (US)

4: An American Werewolf In London (UK/US)

3: For Your Eyes Only (UK)

2: Raiders Of The Lost Ark (US)

1: The Road Warrior (AUS)

1982

10: Q (US)

9: The Wall (UK)

8: Poltergeist (US)

7: Creepshow (US)

6: 48 Hours (US)

5: Blade Runner (US)

4: Rocky 3 (US)

3: First Blood (US)

2: The Thing (US)

1: Conan The Barbarian (US)

1983

10: Project A (HK)

9: The Hunger (UK/US)

8: The Dead Zone (US)

7: Le Dernier Combat (France)

6: Blue Thunder (US)

5: Rumble Fish (US)

4: The Outsiders (US)

3: Videodrome (Canada)

2: Scarface (US)

1: Return Of The Jedi (US)

1984

10: Ghostbusters (US)

9: This Is Spinal Tap (US)

8: Starman (US)

7: Beverly Hills Cop (US)

6: The Karate Kid (US)

5: Gremlins (US)

4: Temple Of Doom (US)

3: Police Academy (US)

2: A Nightmare On Elm Street (US)

1: The Terminator (US)

1985

10: A View To A Kill (UK)

9: Return To Oz (US/UK)

8: Brewster’s Millions (US)

7: Rocky IV (US)

6: Police Academy 2 (US)

5: First Blood Part 2 (US)

4: Day Of The Dead (US)

3: The Goonies (US)

2: Back To The Future (US)

1: Commando (US)

1986

10: Highlander (UK/US)

9: Stand By Me (US)

8: A Better Tomorrow (HK)

7: Blue Velvet (US)

6: Platoon (US)

5: Police Academy 3 (US)

4: The Fly (US)

3: The Hitcher (US)

2: Big Trouble In Little China (US)

1: Aliens (US)

1987

20: A Chinese Ghost Story (HK)

19: Withnail And I (UK)

18: City On Fire (HK)

17: Planes, Trains, And Automobiles (US)

16: Good Morning, Vietnam (US)

15: The Princess Bride (US)

14: The Living Daylights (UK)

13: Lethal Weapon (US)

12: Full Metal Jacket (US/UK)

11: Evil Dead 2 (US)

10: The Untouchables (US)

9: Hellraiser (UK)

8: The Running Man (US)

7: Dream Warriors (US)

6: Citizens On Patrol (US)

5: Prince Of Darkness (US)

4: Near Dark (US)

3: The Lost Boys (US)

2: Predator (US)

1: Robocop (US)

1988

10: They Live (US)

9: Hellraiser 2 (US/UK)

8: Bloodsport (US)

7: Akira (Japan)

6: Twins (US)

5: Young Guns (US)

4: Heathers (US)

3: Willow (US)

2: Die Hard (US)

1: Beetlejuice. (US)

1989

10: The Killer (HK)

9: Uncle Buck (US)

8: Born On The Fourth Of July (US)

7: Kiki’s Delivery Service (Japan)

6: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (US)

5: Licence To Kill (US/UK)

4: Pet Sematary (US)

3: Back To The Future Part II (US)

2: Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (US)

1: Batman (US)

1990

20: Boiling Point (Japan) Takeshi Kitano

19: La Femme Nikita (France) Luc Besson

18: The Witches (UK/US) Nicholas Roeg

17: Dances With Wolves (US) Kevin Costner

16: Awakenings (US) Penny Marshall

15: The Godfather Part 3 (US) Francis Ford Coppolla

14: Ghost (US) Jerry Zucker

13: Another 48 Hours (US) Walter Hill

12: Misery (US) Rob Reiner

11: Arachnophobia (US) Frank Marshall

10: Kindergarten Cop (US) Ivan Reitman

9: Young Guns II (US) Geoff Murphy

8: Mermaids (US) Richard Benjamin

7: Tremors (US) Ron Underwood

6: Wild At Heart (US) David Lynch

5: Total Recall (US) Paul Verhoeven

4: Home Alone (US) Chris Columbus

3: Goodfellas (US) Martin Scorsese

2: Problem Child (US) Dennis Dugan

1: Edward Scissorhands (US) Tim Burton

1991

10: Drop Dead Fred (US/UK) Ate De Jong

9: Double Impact (US) Sheldon Lettich

8: The Doors (US) Oliver Stone

7: Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (US) Pete Hewitt

6: Thelma And Louise (US) Ridley Scott

5: Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves (US) Kevin Reynolds

4: Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead (US) Stephen Herek

3: The Last Boy Scout (US) Tony Scott

2: Beauty And The Beast (US) Disney

1: Terminator 2 (Top Ten Of All Time) (US) James Cameron

1992

10: Aladdin (US) Disney

9: Universal Soldier (US) Roland Emmerich

8: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (US) Francis Ford Coppola

7: Candyman (US) Bernard Rose

6: My Cousin Vinny (US) Jonathan Lynn

5: Wayne’s World (US) Penelope Spheeris

4: Braindead (NZ) Peter Jackson

3: Reservoir Dogs (US) Quentin Tarantino

2: Fire Walk With Me (US) David Lynch

1: Hard Boiled (HK) John Woo

1993

17: Falling Down (US/France/UK) Joel Schumacher

16: Mrs Doubtfire (US) Chris Columbus

15: Schindler’s List (US) Steven Spielberg

14: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (US) Lasse Hallstrom

13: Cliffhanger (US/France/Italy) Renny Harlin

12: Benny And Joon (US) Jeremiah S Chechik

11: Dazed And Confused (US) Richard Linklater

10: The Vanishing (US) George Sluizer

9: Carlito’s Way (US) Brian De Palma

8: The Nightmare Before Christmas (US) Henry Selick

7: A Perfect World (US) Clint Eastwood

6: Demolition Man (US) Marco Brambilla

5: Last Action Hero (US) John McTiernan

4: Body Snatchers (US) Abel Ferrara

3: True Romance (US) Tony Scott

2: Tombstone (US) George P Cosmatos

1: Jurassic Park (US) Steven Spielberg

1994

20: Little Women (US) Gilliam Armstrong

19: Ace Ventura (US) Tom Shadyac

18: The Mask (US) Charles Russell

17: Stargate (US/France) Roland Emmerich

16: Forrest Gump (US) Robert Zemeckis

15: The Lion King (US Disney)

14: Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (US/Japan) Kenneth Branagh

13: Timecop (US) Peter Hyams

12: The Shawshank Redemption (US) Frank Darabont

11: Ed Wood (US) Tim Burton

10: Natural Born Killers (US) Oliver Stone

9: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (US) Wes Craven

8: Clerks (US) Kevin Smith

7: True Lies (US) James Cameron

6: Speed (US) Jan de Bont

5: Pulp Fiction (US) Quentin Tarantino

4: Interview With The Vampire (US) Neil Jordan

3: Leon (France) Luc Besson

2: The Crow (US) Alex Proyas

1: Dumb And Dumber (US)

1995

20: Braveheart (US) Mel Gibson

19: Casino (US) Martin Scorsese

18: Casper (US) Brad Silberling

17: Jumanji (US) Joe Johnston

16: Dangerous Minds (US) John N Smith

15: Strange Days (US) Kathryn Bigelow

14: In The Mouth Of Madness (US) John Carpenter

13: The Last Supper (US) Stacy Title

12: Kids (US) Larry Clark

11: Pocahontas (US) Disney

10: Mortal Kombat (US) Paul W S Anderson

9: Now And Then (US) Lesli Linka Glatter

8: The Doom Generation (US/France) Gregg Araki

7: La Haine (France) Mathieu Kassovitz

6: Die Hard With A Vengeance (US) John McTiernan

5: Heat (US) Michael Mann

4: Mallrats (US) Kevin Smith

3: Desperado (US) Robert Rodriguez

2: Goldeneye (UK) Martin Campbell

1: Things To In Denver When You’re Dead (US)

1996

10: Crash (UK/Canada) David Cronenberg

9: Fly Away Home (Canada/US/NZ) Carroll Ballard

8: Trainspotting (UK) Danny Boyle

7: Breaking The Waves (Denmark) Lars Von Trier

6: The Long Kiss Goodnight (US) Renny Harlin

5: The Craft (US) Andrew Fleming

4: Beavis And Butthead Do America (US) Mike Judge

3: Broken Arrow (US) John Woo

2: From Dusk Till Dawn (US) Robert Rodriguez

1: Scream (US) Wes Craven

1997

20: The Ice Storm (US) Ang Lee

19: Boogie Nights (US) Paul Thomas Anderson

18: LA Confidential (US) Curtis Hanson

17: Cube (Canada) Vincenzo Natali

16: Princess Mononoke (Japan) Hiyao Miyazaki

15: Grosse Point Blank (US) George Armitage

14: The Postman (US) Kevin Costner

13: Con Air (US) Simon West

12: The Game (US) David Fincher

11: I Know What You Did Last Summer (US) Jim Gillespie

10: Face/Off (US) John Woo

9: Liar Liar (US) Tom Shadyac

8: Life Is Beautiful (Italy) Robert Benigni

7: The Devil’s Advocate (US) Taylor Hackford

6: Donnie Brasco (US) Mike Newell

5: Chasing Amy (US) Kevin Smith

4: Lost Highway (US/France) David Lynch

3: Cop Land (US) James Mangold

2: Starship Troopers (US) Paul Verhoeven

1: The Fifth Element (France) Luc Besson

1998

10: Wild Things (US) John McNaughton

9: The Truman Show (US) Peter Weir

8: Dark City (US/OZ) Alex Proyas

7: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (US) Terry Gilliam

6: Saving Private Ryan (US) Steven Spielberg

5: What Dreams May Come (US) Vincent Ward

4: Fallen (US) Gregory Hoblit

3: Blade (US) Stephen Norrington

2: Ronin (US) John Frankenheimer

1: Ringu (Japan) Hideo Nakata

1999

20: The Sixth Sense (US) M Night Shyamalan

19: Girl, Interrupted (US) James Mangold

18: The Green Mile (US) Frank Darabont

17: Shiri (SK) Kang je Gyu

16: The Iron Giant (US) Brad Bird

15: American Pie (US) Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz

14: Existenz (Canada/UK/France) David Cronenberg

13: Ghost Dog (US/France/Germany/Japan) Jim Jarmusch

12: Music Of The Heart (US) Wes Craven

11: Office Space (US) Mike Judge

10: The Mummy (US) Stephen Sommers

9: Fight Club (US/Germany) David Fincher

8: Man On The Moon (US) Milos Forman

7: Dogma (US) Kevin Smith

6: End Of Days (US) Peter Hyams

5: Audition (Japan) Takashi Miike

4: South Park (US) Trey Parker

3: The Matrix (US/OZ) The Wachowski Brothers

2: The Blair Witch Project (US) Daniel Myrick Eduardo Sanchez

1: Bangkok Dangerous (Thailand) The Pang Brothers

2000

10: Almost Famous. (USA) Cameron Crowe.

9: Gladiator (USA/UK). Ridley Scott.

8: Best In Show (USA). Christopher Guest.

7: Dancer in The Dark (Denmark). Lars Von Trier.

6: Unbreakable (USA). M Night Shyamalan

5: Pitch Black (USA). David Twohy

4: X-Men (USA). Bryan Singer

3: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (China/HK/Taiwan/USA). Ang Lee.

2: Final Destination (USA). James Wong

1: Battle Royale (Japan). Kinji Fukasaku

2001

10: The Majestic (US) Frank Darabont

9: Ichi The Killer (Japan) Takashi Miike

8: Session 9 (US) Brad Anderson

7: The Mummy Returns (US) Stephen Sommers

6: Frailty (US/Germany/Italy) Bill Paxton

5: Bully (US) Larry Clark

4: Visitor Q (Japan) Takashi Miike

3: Mulholland Drive (US/France) David Lynch

2: The Fellowship Of The Ring (NZ/US): Peter Jackson

1: Amelie (France/Germany) Jean Pierre Jeunet

2002

10: City Of God (Brazil) Fernando Meirelles

9: Equilibrium (US) Kurt Wimmer

8: Hero (China) Zhang Yimou

7: Infernal Affairs (HK) Andrew Lau/Alan Mak

6: The Pianist (France/Germany/Poland/UK) Roman Polanski

5: Dark Water (Japan) Hideo Nakata

4: The Eye (HK/Singapore) The Pang Brothers

3: The Twilight Samurai (Japan) Yoji Yamada

2: 28 Days Later (UK) Danny Boyle

1: Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (SK) Chan Wook Park

2003

10: The Dreamers (UK/US/France/Italy) Bernardo Bertolucci

9: Underworld (US/UK/Hungary/Germany) Len Wiseman

8: Kill Bill Vol 1 (US) Quentin Tarantino

7: A Mighty Wind (US) Christopher Guest

6: The Curse of The Black Pearl (US) Gore Verbinski

5: Zatoichi (Japan) Takeshi Kitano

5. Oldboy (SK) Chan Wook Park

4: A Tale Of Two Sisters (SK) Kim Jee Woon

3: Ju On (Japan) Takashi Shimizu

2: The Return Of The King (NZ/US) Peter Jackson

1: X2 (US) Bryan Singer

2004

10: District 13 (France) Pierre Morel

9: A Very Long Engagement (France) Jean Pierre Jeunet

8: R-Point (SK) Kong Su Chang

7: Shaun Of The Dead (UK/US/France) Edgar Wright

6: Spider-Man 2 (US) Sam Raimi

5: House Of Flying Daggers (China/HK) Zhang Yimou

4: Saw (US) James Wan

3: The Grudge (US) Takashi Shimizu

2: Kill Bill Volume 2 (US) Quentin Tarantino

1: Dawn Of The Dead (US) Zach Snyder

2005

10: Land Of The Dead (US) George A Romero

9: Hostel (US) Eli Roth

8: A Bittersweet Life (SK) Kim Jee Woon

7: Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (SK) Chan Wook Park

6: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (US) Shane Black

5: The Descent (UK) Neil Marshall

4: The 40 Year Old Virgin (US) Judd Apatow

3: Revenge Of The Sith (US) George Lucas

2: Sin City (US) Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino

1: Batman Begins (US/UK) Christopher Nolan

2006

10: Paprika (Japan) Satoshi Kon

9: The Host (SK) Joon-ho Bong

8: Death Note (Japan) Shusuke Kaneko

7: Idiocracy (US) Mike Judge

6: Children Of Men (US/UK) Alfonso Cuaron/Pan’s Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro.

5: The Hills Have Eyes (US) Alexandre Aja

4: The Departed (US) Martin Scorsese

3: Apocalypto (US/Mexico) Mel Gibson

2: Borat (US/UK) Larry Charles

1: Casino Royale (US/UK/Czech/Germany) Martin Campbell

2007

10: Black Snake Moan (US) Craig Brewer

9: Sweeny Todd (US/UK) Tim Burton

8: Grindhouse (US) Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino

7: Angel-A (France) Luc Besson

6: 30 Days Of Night (US) David Slade

5: Paranormal Activity (US) Oren Peli

4: 28 Weeks Later (UK/Spain) Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

3: The Mist (US) Frank Darabont

2: Enchanted (US) Kevin Lima

1: Rec (Spain) Jaume Balaguero/Paco Plaza

2008

10: Johnny Mad Dog (France/Liberia) Jean-Stephane Sauvaire

9: Pontypool (Canada) Bruce McDonald

8: Cloverfield (US) Matt Reeves

7: Rambo (US/Thailand) Sylvester Stallone

6: Ip Man (HK) Wilson Yip

5: Let The Right One In (Sweden) Tomas Alfredson

4: Departures (Japan) Yojiro Takita

3: Martyrs (France) Pascal Laugier

2: The Dark Knight (US/UK) Christopher Nolan

1: Love Exposure (Japan) Sion Sono

2009

10: Dead Snow (Norway) Tommy Wirkola

9: The Princess And The Frog (US) Disney

8: Micmacs (France) Jean Pierre Jeunet

7: Jennifer’s Body (US) Karyn Kusama

6: Antichrist (Denmark/France/Germany/Italy/Poland/Sweden) Lars Von Trier

5: Trick R Treat (US/Canada) Michael Dougherty

4: Triangle (UK/OZ) Christopher Smith

3: Inglourious Basterds (US/Germany) Quentin Tarantino

2: Drag Me To Hell (US) Sam Raimi

1: Orphan (US/Canada/Germany/France) Jaume Collet Serra

2010

11. Inception

10. Kick-ass

9. The Expendables

8. Kaboom!

7. Tangled

6. Ip Man 2

5. The Last Exorcism

4. Bedevilled

3. Stake Land

2. Paranormal Activity 2

I Saw The Devil

Enjoy!

Nightman Listens To – Madonna – Rebel Heart!

September 24, 2021September 23, 2021carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Rebel Heart - Wikipedia

Greetings, Glancers! Wellity well, we’ve almost caught up with Madonna’s output. I know I’m slow at getting these things out (for anyone who even still reads them) but there’s only a couple of albums to go. And give me a break, I’m also doing Jovi, Adams, Roxette, The Stones, The Beach Boys, and of course my Top 1000, Non-Beatles, and 1966 series. A more diligent blogger would of course just pick one artist and pump out posts about their work over a few week period before moving on to the next thing. But I can’t focus on one thing for too long. And as I say, no-one even reads these things anyway and they’re not exactly the most exciting reading given that they’re unimaginative reactions as I listen for the first time. A smart blogger would of course switch to YouTube and make gargantuan gasps and wide-eyed stares at the camera in faux shock as if I’ve just stumbled upon a kitten in a waistcoat shaving a cow with a cigar. My hope is that people simply Google Madonna (or whoever) one day and stumble upon my posts, and read through them all in a single sitting, tutting at how I’ve misunderstood their favourite song. In any case, you’re stuck with me.

So, Rebel Heart. I know two of these songs – one I’ve only heard once and don’t really remember, while the other was an instant hit for me and has become one of my favourite Madonna songs. Beyond those, I don’t know much about the album. It’s another which seems packed to the gills with collaborations, something I generally don’t approve of and something which tends to show an artist is creatively flailing around, hoping someone else will save them from mediocrity or pull them back up from their mire. I’m hoping that’s not the case here, but given the (lack of) talent Madonna has aligned herself with on this record, I’m not holding out for greatness.

Living For Love: A blippy bloppy warbling beat emerges. Then deep Madonna vocals. Melody – fair enough. Then a beat. Then piano and a different melody. Am I getting some sort of Gospel feel from the melody? Then the beat returns. Then the song does that horrible chorus fake out thing that every was doing a couple of years ago. Maybe they’re still doing now, I don’t know. It’s well produced and it doesn’t follow a simple set pattern. At least the chorus drop isn’t as bad as most. There are a few other voices in the chorus, it does seem to be going for a Gospel approach. There’s too much space between the different vocals, space which could have been packed with additional voices for ore impact. Then it ends abruptly. It’s a decent opener, not horrible, not overly memorable.

Devil Pray: An acoustic guitar opener, with an almost Latin tone. Then weak ass hand clap beats screw up a perfectly good vocal. I will never understand why artists choose that sound for their beat. The lyrics aren’t great from what I’m picking up on the surface. Decent pre-chorus, but again the chorus drops instead of peaks. It’s frustrating as the song is fine – it’s not extraordinary – it’s a B grade song which falls to C because of those stylistic choices which are clearly made for modern sensibilities and not me. Her vocals are patchy in places too. It stretches out for another minute, presumably for dancefloor purposes, adding lots of beeps and sounds which don’t do anything.

Ghosttown: Is the one I mentioned at the top that I loved. It’s A Tier Madonna. It’s a great song all round, even if I’m not in favour of all the musical and production choices. However, you could record this a hundred different ways as long as you keep the central melody, and you’d have a great song each time. It’s a perfect pop song, something Madonna knows a little something about, plus it has plenty of emotion ensuring it makes it up to the next level up the ladder.

Unapologetic Bitch: Although the sound isn’t my go to, this starts well but then drops into a slower Reggae style thwomp. I would have preferred keeping the pace and intent of the intro. It reminds me too somewhat of The Delays. The lyrics are quite sweary which is unusual for her – it’s your standard woman scorned stuff and that sort of lyric only works for me if it goes deeply personal, like Alanis. Credit for the little rap portions (getting Chas and Dave vibes from those – rabbit rabbit rabbit) and for how the rhythm of ‘unapologetic bitch’ works. The chorus gets nuzzled into your brain.

Illuminati: It’s not the first time Madonna has done some rapid fire name-checking. Not names I give a shit about, but she’s gonna do what she’s gonna do. This is quite experimental for her – the verse doesn’t have anything obvious to grab hold of, then the chorus becomes quite sweet. At least it’s interesting, which is more than can be said for most pop stars of her, or any generation at the moment. There’s a John Carpenter synth vibe here and there. Once again, credit for trying something different, but I can’t say it all works for me. I don’t dislike it by any means.

Bitch I’m Madonna: This is the other one I’d heard. Some of the melodies are fine but the lyrics are abhorrent and the production is all over the place hitting all the black boxes of modern pop I can’t abide – silly sounds? Check. Dropping the momentum at the chorus? Check. Random newb warbling in the background? Check. Wafer beats? Check. Self interest? Check. Emotionless? Check. Catchy? Kind of, I guess. Bland and repetitive? For the most part, yeah.

Hold Tight: This seems much better. A more classic sound and vocal while still adhering to modern norms. It’s a simple approach this time, and a simple melody to go with it. The beats and production isn’t what I would choose again, pandering too much to today’s sound and quirks which will likely date the thing in a few more years. I would have gone all in on the backing vocals on this one to give a booming transcendent feel. It’s almost one of her better songs, but still good.

Joan Of Arc: A pondering guitar intro gives way to a lovely vocal and melody. It’s instantly more touching and honest. I feel like this is already going on the playlist. The drum beats could have been toughened up and rounded out, but that’s a minor issue. I think this will grow on me over time and it’s another example of a Madonna song which would work in any generation, with any production as long as the melody and purity is kept intact.

Iconic: With a name like that, this could go well or very badly. We’ll see. Oh balls, this is another .feat thing. This time it .feats a rapist, so that’s something. Verse is right up the middle, the little hey-yays are bordering on annoying. Decent pre-chorus. Of course the chorus loses the momentum and does that thing I won’t shut up about. At least there’s some sort of Halloween tone to that chorus. Some day in the future, someone’s going to re-do all the songs from the 2010s, but fix the chorus so that it doesn’t do the beat drop thing, and on that day every single one of those songs will take 10 large steps upwards in quality. Some bloke I’ve never heard of raps in the middle of everything else going on. It’s not very bad, but it’s a long way from good.

Heartbreakcity: Thankfully this one feels more streamlined – a lone piano line without tweaking. A neat military parade beat drops and the chorus builds and feels similar to Ghosttown. It’s another spiffing melody at times, but it doesn’t quite sustain that quality over the whole running time.

Body Shop: This is, what? Eastern folk inspired, with a child-like nursery rhyme quality? There’s some sort of tribal trance rhythm. In other words, she’s playing with conventions again. I can’t quite pick up many of the lyrics or what it’s all about during first listen. I don’t like the little ‘yeah’ shouts in the background, but then I never do. Without those I’d be willing to listen to this more. It’s a curio which is almost ruined by those repeated ‘yeah’s as they increase in frequency towards the end to the point that I had to stop the song early.

Holy Water: A more dance influenced, near rap from Madonna. It has some sex noises in the chorus. I could do with some more bass in the verse – something really dirty would have made it grind in a more sweaty, sexy way. At least the chorus doesn’t collapse like so many of the others. It’s nice that she’s still singing about her vagina. And that she’s referencing and sampling herself. An interesting one for sure, but I’m not sure there’s enough melodic quality for me to listen to it again.

Inside Out: There’s a dirtier fuzzier bass which should have been in the previous song. This is a stronger second half than the first. The verse is solid enough, then the chorus goes all Sia. That’s always a good thing. It’s not top tier Sia, or top tier Madonna, but definitely good enough that I’ll happily hear it again.

Wash All Over Me: Sole piano keys open and traverse the verse and a fair melody spreads itself out. The chorus is better, but it’s lacking something – a key change, another push? I don’t know, I just feel a tiny sense of frustration that it doesn’t go the way I wanted it to. It’s a good song to end the album with – a B song which doesn’t unleash the sadness or hope or whatever extra emotional push it is I was hoping for to shunt it into A.

So… it’s another good album. Solid. There aren’t as many true stand out tracks which I see making my long term playlist, but there is a long list of songs which just miss out and a short list consisting of average or crap. It once again confirms that when Madonna keeps things simple and builds a song around a melody rather than an idea or trend, that’s when she’s at her best; that’s when she still makes great pop songs. The worst moments are when she goes too experimental to the point that the song stops being a song, or when she copies what others are doing (chorus drop). There are some annoying quirks – backing shouts and vocals being the main offender, but when the song is good I can mostly overlook those. We’re almost caught up with Madonna now and I must admit that I didn’t expect to enjoy her post Ray Of Light stuff as much as I have. Sure there has been some crap, but there have been plenty of songs added to my playlist – and a few of those are from this album.

Nightman’s Playlist Picks: Ghosttown. Hold Tight. Joan Of Arc. Inside Out.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Rebel Heart!

Nightman Listens To The Best Albums Of 2020 (and blog meanderings)!

January 19, 2021January 19, 2021carlosnightman2 Comments

No photo description available. — Remember going and seeing live music with actual real life people?

Greetings, Glancers! It’s what nobody asked for – more moaning about music by me. Puhlease, pretty puhlease try to understand that I’m really only doing this for myself. I want to keep track of modern music – not just the artists I listen to myself, but what the majority of people and critics are listening to and loving. I could do that without writing about it, but I find that if I have a task to complete – such as writing a post – then I’ll give more dedication to it, something more than a cursory throwaway listen (I’m also going to try to give all of the other albums I’m listening to for my other series more than a single listen).

This post is just to alert all of you that it’s coming. I don’t know what sort of format this is going to take – do I look at some consensus site and listen to the top 50 albums there? Do I go around various publications and lists and listen to the top five on each, from NME to Metal Hammer to Q to Rolling Stone to the biggest sellers? I don’t know. What I do know is that I want to hear music I wasn’t previously aware of. I want a mix of genres. I’m not holding out much hope for finding a new favourite band or singer, that would be nice, but if I can find a couple of songs on each album to enjoy then I suppose I’ll be happy. Mostly, I don’t want to be the curmudgeonly old man out of touch with new music.

At the time of writing, I haven’t checked out any of the sites or publications or lists to have any idea of what was popular in 2020. I think there was a new Taylor Swift album which dropped out of the blue? I haven’t listened to anything by her, but I am at least aware she exists. I assume there will be a bunch of crappy next big thing Indie bands, plenty of in your face Rap peeps, and a lot of overrated solo crooners. On the Metal side, I don’t really know. I bought hardly any new albums last year that I have listened to a significant number of times… JDB’s new album, the new Lovebites album… that’s about it.

Elsewhere, I still have this niggling urge to start my own podcast. The thing holding me back, as with anything, is the effort involved. I wouldn’t want it just to be a random chat, though that would make up a significant part of each episode. There would be a focus, leaning towards something similar to what I do on the blog, such as a listenathon of a particular artist or chart but with the bonus of having the opinion of another 1-3 people. But I’d like to start each episode with general chit chat and catch up on what movies and shows we’ve been watching. The other problem is of course finding 1-3 other people. I’m old – I don’t have friends anymore!

I realise that I already have a load of other series on the go – some are close to the end, some are only beginning, and some will probably never be done. In other words, this new thing will always be a work in progress and by the time I get around to listening and posting it may very well be the end of 2021. But as it’s a work in progress I’ll just keep carrying it on from year to year, and hey, maybe rather than going track by track I’ll actually write the thing like a real reviewer! Between following Marillion, finishing up my Bowie, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Beatles Solo bits, Beach Boys, and Best Evers, and now throwing newbs into the mix, I’m hoping to enrich my musical oeuvre and maybe learn a thing or three along the way.

Let us know if you have any favourites of 2020 you think I should check out!

My Blog- October 2020

October 5, 2020carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Greetings, Glancers! Another month begins, and the Corona Saga continues. Northern Ireland is getting its highest figures yet and the fear is that further lockdowns will come, even as Schools and Businesses remain open. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here given serious thought to starting my own podcast. I have most of the right equipment to start a shitty one to go along with all the other shitty ones, and I have an idea of what I would like to do. It’s just getting the will and courage to actually do it, and to rope in some people to help. That, and the logistics are quite difficult given my lack of spare time. It’s these excuses and procrastinations which stop me from ever doing anything.

If you’re seeing more music posts than normal, it’s likely because I’m playing along with Paul Rose/Mr Biffo’s new podcast, in which the Marillion super-fan charts the band’s history release by release with his wife, his wife who only knows a handful of songs. It’s very similar to the Do You Love Us podcast I’m also listening to, where a Manics fan shares his love with two friends who don’t know much about the band. That’s an idea I’ve had for a while – for years really, long before podcasts ever existed. I say ‘idea’, but isn’t it more like a compulsion we all have – to share the things we love with the people we love? To impart and pass down our wisdom to the next generation, or to our peers we feel may be missing out? In the old days, this was bringing in your favourite CD or cassette and forcing the person sitting beside you on the School Bus Trip to listen, or to take control of the stereo at your house party. Nowadays, we have genuinely entertaining and insightful folks spreading this love and wisdom over the internet via the Podcast form, and us existing fans or newbs can revel in the agreements and arguments and new knowledge which follows.

By the time this post will be published, I will have published two Marillion posts for everyone to gawp at and I should have finished writing two more. I’ve listened up until the first half of the band’s first album, and have mostly enjoyed the journey. I’m not used to this sort of process – listening repeatedly with the express purpose of giving my thoughts – in my other Nightman Listens series, I type my thoughts at the same time as the song is playing, and I only listen once while in my regular music reviews, I tend to review music I’m already a life-long fan of.

To close today, and because I know some of you enjoy this sort of thing, I’m linking to a post about Northern Ireland and giving a few of my own thoughts below.

30 Reasons Why Northern Ireland is Weird But Wonderful

To be fair, I don’t think I could have picked 30 reasons, but lets go through them.

Our newspaper headlines are insane: Given that I rarely, if ever read any news – especially local news, this doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t think our headlines are any more or less silly and exaggerated and click-baity than any other nation.
We eat sandwiches filled with crisps: This is, or was pre-lockdown, my daily lunch diet. Why go to the bother of making something else, or heading out to buy overpriced junk, when a loaf and a 12 pack of Tayto has you covered?
We have our own unique version of the English language: Aye rite mate, wind yer neck in and smell yer ma when I get home.
We have one sacred rule – sun’s out, taps aff: Or for anyone outside of Northern Ireland – Sun’s out, tops off. You do get a lot of steeks strutting around Belfast as soon as it hits 16 degrees with their ribs on display with only crayon textured spotty skin to protect from UV rays.
For some reason we’re really good at bread: Yes, we are. Lots of different brands too, not one main boyo.
Our graffiti is while creative: Or for anyone outside of Northern Ireland – ‘wild creative’ – or ‘very creative’. They’re talking not only about our murals, but the random quotations you’ll see spray painted on the side of buildings.
We made Eamonn Holmes: And a bunch of other people you don’t know.
Our politicians work hard and play hard: Or, more accurately, they refuse to work at all, but still get paid more than anyone else
We have an annual bog snorkelling competition: I wasn’t aware of this, but also read ‘bog’ as ‘dog’.
People come from all over the world to see The Giant’s Causeway: Yes, they do.
When someone asks you where you’re from, you have genuinely no idea how to answer without putting your life in danger: Because, you see, we have only two types of people, and both want to kill each other.
One of our most delicious foods is called ‘fadge’: I have no idea what this means, or what they’re talking about. Unless they mean fudge, yet the associated picture is of some soda looking thing.
The PSNI like a bit of craic: Strangely, it turns out that police officers are human too. You wou;dn’t think so given some of the truly pointless wastes of humanity you hear about on the news these days, but most cops, and people, try not to be dicks.
We have a dark sense of humour about our past: Yes, we name our drinks after terrorist events. Like walking into a cocktail bar in NYC and seeing a Twin Tower Crumble on the menu.
Our Christmas lights look like penises: Fair enough. So do our politicians. Flaccid, diseased ones.
This picture isn’t as shocking as it should be: It’s a picture of two vans of riot police standing on guard outside an Ann Summers (sexy lingerie) store. This store is bang in the middle of Belfast City Centre, though I’m sure why it would be shocking.
You can ask little children if they’re having the craic and not be arrested: Assuming this is a twee play on words. Given I don’t say ‘craic’, it doesn’t work for me.
You can ask a woman if she would like a poke and not be arrested: See above. Poke means Ice Cream.
We may have Snow Patrol, but our most recognizable musician is this guy: It’s a migrant who plays an instrument which is half violin, half trumpet. As of 2020, he’s still out there doing his thing to my knowledge.
Your Granny will either have a picture of the Pope or the Queen above her fireplace – never both: Again, I have never once seen or experienced this in my life, so I assume it’s entirely concentrated to the most scummy parts of Belfast.
You can buy home furnishings that look like this: It’s a giant picture of a cat. I don’t see how this is different from anywhere.
Our sculptures have poignant names: It’s a picture of two large orbs near one of Belfast’s hospitals which people apparently call ‘the balls on the falls’. It’s near the Falls Road in Belfast. I’ve no idea what it’s actually called nor have I heard people call it this.
This monstrosity is a hospital: It’s a picture of City Hospital (not the one with the balls on the falls). It looks like a giant death cube, in industrial taxi colours, inconceivably balanced atop a smaller cube, with crematorium chimney alongside. I always tell people you can’t get lost in Belfast, because you can see the lights of City Hospital from anywhere.
No matter where you live, you can have lemonade delivered to your door: Yes, Saturday mornings were great because of cartoons and the Maine Man coming round to drop off some Rasberryade and Coke. Feckers don’t make Ciderette anymore.
No one else in the world knows the joy of introducing Coronation Street in their best Julian Simmons’ voice: And now on the UTv…
Game Of Thrones employs more locals than the Civil Service: Not anymore.
Your granny loves a good gravy ring: Not anymore.
No-one knows what’s in a pastie bap, but we eat them anyway: No we don’t.
Burning wood is part of ‘our culture’: And tyres.
The way you pronounce the letter ‘H’ determines whether or not you’ll get a dig in the bake: For whatever reason, Protestants say ‘aitch’ and Catholics say ‘haitch’. So THEY ALWAYS KNOW. Dig in the bake? Punch in the mouth.
We’re obsessed with Jamie Dornan: Who?

Reminder on blog links:

A-Z Reviews: This category is a sile post with links to all my movie, music, and book reviews. It’s the best place to start and you can check it via THIS LINK. I try to update it regularly.

Amazon Vine: I’m a member of Amazon Vine, a program where Amazon’s best reviewers are provided with free products for reviewing purposes in order to drum up publicity before the product is released to the general public. You can find links to the Products I have received here.

Book Reviews: Something I don’t really do anymore, even though I still read plenty. I need to get back into this, but movies are so much easier to review. Maybe I’ll come up with a different format.

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

Changing The Past: This category is where I go back through every Oscars since 1960 and pick my winners from almost every category. I pick my winners from the official choices, and then I add my own personal list of who I feel should have been nominated. It’s based on personal preference, but it’s also not based on any of the usual Academy political nonsense and I bypass most of their archaic rules. It’s not quite me just picking my favourite films, but it’s close.

DVD Reviews: I should probably just change this to Movie Reviews. It’s what you would expect – reviews of the movies I’ve watched. I’m not a big fan of reviewing every new film which comes out – there are a billion other blogs out there all doing the same thing. I don’t often watch new movies as they release, unless they’re streaming, so instead you’ll be getting reviews of those films a few years later, once I get around to them. Here you will find horror, actions, classics, foreign, indie, sci-fi, comedy, drama – everything. A word of warning – I frequently post reviews that I wrote almost twenty years ago when I didn’t have a clue – they’re crap, but I add them here in all of their badly written glory.

Essential Movies: I’ve only published an intro post for this category, but I have written some other posts for the future. I’m basically questioning what actually makes a film Essential, because it cannot be a definitive statement. What’s essential for you, may not be for me, so I’ve broken down the definition into a few generic user types, then gone through some lists of the best movies of each year to see which ones are essential for each viewer. It’s pretty boring, and I already regret starting it, but that’s me.

Foreign Cinema Introduction: ~~This category hasn’t been published yet,~~ but once again it exists and I’ve written a bunch of posts for the future. The idea came from my many years of hearing people I know IRL or on the internet dismissing anything not mass-produced by Hollywood. If you only watch movies made in the USA – you’re not a movie fan, it’s as simple as that. I follow a few Facebook fan pages and blogs on WordPress which completely dismiss foreign movies – it’s ridiculous as you are missing out on many of the best films ever made. More than that, you are missing out on films which I know for a fact you will adore. So, this is me breaking down all that bullshit about subtitles, about foreign stuff being boring and every other excuse you’ve ever heard, while giving some very basic thoughts and introductions of the various countries of the world from a film perspective.

Lists: Here I post lists – some with comments, some without. All sorts of lists – from monthly previews of the year’s upcoming movies, to my favourite movies by actor or director, to best horror anthologies, best Christmas songs and TV shows, best movies for Halloween, my favourite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, my ranking of Bond movies, songs, and girls, my favourite albums by decade, my favourite songs by artist, bands I’ve seen live etc. I love lists.

Manic Street Preachers Song By Song: One of the first reasons I started this blog was to try to spread the Gospel of my favourite band, especially as they are not well known outside of Britain. Defo not in the US. Then I found out there were other blogs doing it too. Ah well. These are my thoughts on each song. Don’t know them? They are a Welsh rock band who have been around since the late 80s, early 90s. They are highly political and intelligent, on the left wing, and they are probably the finest lyricists in the world. Their main lyricist suffered from various addictions and mental health issues and disappeared in 1995 – although there have been sightings, nobody has ever confirmed they have seen him and no body has ever been found, though the band, fans, and family are still looking. After three albums with him, they suddenly became commercially successful after his disappearance. If you like rock music… if you like music in general, please give them a try.

Music Reviews: This is the same as movies, except for music. Reviews of albums I’ve always loved, as reviews of albums as I’m listening as a virgin. I take a look at the Top Ten UK Charts from a random month in each year and review each song, while giving my own alternative ten songs from the same year, I am reviewing albums that I’ve never heard by artists I am familiar with – filling the gaps in those discographies. I’m listening to spin-offs of my favourite bands, I’m reviewing the Disney soundtracks. I was a metal and grunge kid, but also had a love for the best in 80 pop when I was young, so I like to listen to anything though since around the mid-noughties chart music has gone from extremely bad to entirely worthless.

The Nightman Scoring System ©: This is something I truly love, but something which nobody really pays attention to. You’ll notice in my reviews I don’t give a score. I just talk about the thing I’m reviewing. Scores are arbitrary and when given, people jump to the score and form a conclusion and a bias. If they read the content of the review, there will be a better discussion. That made me think, in a very unprofessional, semi-scientific, ill-examined way, to come up with a fair, universal scoring system which tries to avoid personal and systematic bias as much as possible. If you look at sites like Rotten Tomatoes which are stupidly becoming reference points for quality or to convince you to watch something, or used by advertisers, it’s a completely flawed system. Anyone can post whatever they like, and drag down or push up an average. The same used to happen on IMDb. There are a lot of posts online recently about the disparity between Critical and Audience consensus on RT and it leads to more worthless arguments, because if there’s something the world needs more of these days, it’s people fighting online about pointless stuff.

I devised two scoring systems – one for movies and one for music. To use it, you have to follow the guidelines and be honest. If you’re not honest, it will be obvious, and your review won’t be valid. For both music and and movies, I break down the scoring into twenty different categories of equal weighting – out of five, for a total out of 100. Categories include acting, directing, sales; or for music – charts, influence, musical ability etc. Say you hate the Marvel movies or The Beatles. You can’t score them a 1 out of five in the Sales category because both of those were factually monster hits – they can really only be 5 out of five. In other words, some of what is opinion and bias is removed from the equation. In the same vein, the disparity between critics and audiences is reduced – typically you may think that a movie or music critic care more about how arty or original or influential something is, while the audience might care how many boobs are seen or how catchy the melody is. I’m making sweeping assumptions – but you get the idea – each category is equally weighted so that influence is only worth five points, chart performance is only worth five points, directing, advertising, whatever – each is five points. I’d love to see people use this, and I’d love to run an experiment where a group of people each use the system to score the same thing, and see how similar or different the results are. I’m positive the average would be a more true reflection than anything on RT or IMDB or anywhere else. The only issue with it is, it’s more suited to scoring once something has been out there for a while rather than a pre-release or first week review.

Nightman’s Favourite Films By Year: Self-explanatory. I list my favourite ten films from every year since 1950, with no comment. Then I give a list of my top films from each decade once I’ve done each year, but this time share some comments. There’s also some stats in there, such as how many films I picked which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, which were top ten grossing movies etc.

Top 1000 Albums Of All Time: A journalist called Colin Larkin made several of those popular ‘Top 1000 Albums Ever’ books. I grabbed one of them, I removed the ones I had already heard, and in this series I go through the ones that I haven’t heard, give my virgin thoughts, and whether I think it deserves to be called one of the best ever. I want to sync up my Nightman Scoring System © with these. Just one word of warning – I don’t plan or put any thought into these ‘reviews’. I literally listen and type at the same time. Not the best way to give thoughts I know, but that’s the format.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Hole: Each Monday I post a random lyric from a random song. Every so often I write something which doesn’t fit in any other category. Usually it’s weird. That stuff all goes here. There are more semi-regular pieces like those posts where I use Google translate to change the lyrics of (s)hit songs or dreadful imaginings like what I would do if I owned my own Cinema.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

Walk Of Fame: Hollywood has a Walk Of Fame. I have one too. Mine’s better, except I don’t update it anymore. Not only do my inductees get a star, but they get a statue too! And, in each post one lucky soul gets a special building concerning their work or life dedicated to them!

My Blog – September 2020 (With Added Fun)!

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Greetings, Glancers! At the start of these My Blog posts, I usually go on about my feelings about the month I’m posting in, or what nonsense is going on in the world, but I’m not going to do that this time. Instead, I’m going to jump straight into a new fun challenge which probably thousands of people have done before, but which I’m going to do now. It’s a simple Playlist creator challenge. Make a playlist which broadly encompasses your musical tastes, but you can only choose one song per artist. Simple! Me being me, I’m doing a double album. What’s the average, or best, number of songs on an album? Twelve, right? So a double album equals twenty four songs. Me, still being me, added the caveat that it should flow like an actual album, not like a random collection of songs or greatest hits. So I grabbed my iPod, had a quick gander for 24 of my favourite artists of all time, and picked 24 songs before painstakingly putting them into a logical order – should the album fly out of the traps with a banger, or ease you in gently?

Now, these are not my favourite 24 songs of all time, or necessarily my favourite songs by the particular artist, because the idea is that you share these playlists with your friends on Spotify or whatever things people use these days. With all things, I’m doing this at a rush, and will likely miss out some people and later think ‘wtf, Nightman’ but there you go.

Feel free to add your playlists in the comments, share with your friends, have a go if you think you’re ‘ard enough. You don’t have to do a double, just give it a go. Please. Please?

Basil Poledouris: Battle Of The Mounds

2. G’n’R – Nightrain

3. The Music – Getaway

4. Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven

5. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

6. Tori Amos – Winter

7. Gemma Hayes – Something In The Way

8. The Gathering – Eleanor

9. Metallica – One

10. Nirvana – Territorial Pissings

11. JJ72 – Bumblebee

12: Muse – Knights Of Cydonia

13: Michael Jackson – Wanna Be Startin Somethin

14: Sia – Bring Night

15. Eminem – Kim

16. Radiohead – Paranoid Android

17. Alice Cooper – Halo Of Flies

18. Opeth – Marrow Of The Earth

19. Alice In Chains – Nutshell

20. Natalie Imbruglia – What’s The Good In Goodbye

21. The Bangles – I’ll Set You Free

22. Nightwish – Ghost Love Score

23. Iron Maiden – Fear Of The Dark

24. Manics – A Design For Life

There you have it. Turns out I went over my count by a few, and had to drop the likes of The Beatles, Koji Kondo, John Williams, and many others. But I think that looks like a decent set – there’s your banging intro section, a little acoustic interlude, a collection of more dance oriented ones, and a crowd-pleasing finale. Share your lists too – what does the 12 or 24 track Greatest Hits of your life look like?

Reminder on blog links:

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

My Blog – August 2020

August 3, 2020August 3, 2020carlosnightman2 Comments

Dunluce Castle Medieval Irish Castle on the Antrim Coast ...

Lets start out with an apology. I realise the last couple of weeks I’ve been slacking somewhat on my blog posts. I’ve still been writing, but just not publishing as much as I normally do. Partly this is because we have our new son gobbling up all of my time, as he should, and partly because I’ve been on holiday for a week and typically I don’t do a lot of this stuff when I could be drinking and playing with the kids and watching stuff. On top of those wonderful excuses, when I have been writing it has been on silly stuff I have no intention of ever publishing. Procrastination of a sort, but I don’t spend a lot of time writing random stuff as it pops into my head, just to get it out of my head. So sorry.

As such, I don’t have any plans for today’s post so I’m typing on the fly. As I almost always do. To make up for the lack of published posts, I’ll plan to post some stuff every day over the next month – as I reminder, I do still have hundreds of movie and music reviews that I’ve written over the years for other sites, but just haven’t posted here yet. Many of them are rubbish though, so I debate whether to update them or just bin them completely. In terms of what else I’ve been working on in the background – I’m still writing my Oscar posts, though I have stepped back somewhat on those too, I’m still working on my Essential Movies and Introduction to Foreign Movies posts, I have a load of Manics Song By Song posts ready to publish at any moment, still working on my various Music series and lists, and I’m still plugging away at assorted movie and miscellaneous lists. There are a handful of other new series which I haven’t announced yet, but those are well underway. Unfortunately for you guys, this is my writing style; I get sucked into one idea like a leech for a few weeks, then I exhaust my interest in it and move onto something else. The positive is that my interests are cyclical, so invariably whatever was exhausted comes around again and I pick it up once more. That just means my publishing and completion of such things is all over the place and has zero consistency.

As it’s been a while, why don’t I do another irreverent (irrelevant?) Northern Ireland questionnaire type thing. Those are always a hit. I Googled ‘Things To Do In Northern Ireland’ and found the following Trip Advisor post: Click here to read.

First on the list is Crumlin Road Gaol – you can tell it’s important, because ‘Jail’ is spelled stupidly. I’ve been on this trip, as part of a work outing a number of years ago, because why the hell else would I ever choose to go? In truth, it was a decent way to spend a couple of hours outside of work, and given that I’m not someone who is particularly interested or invested in my Country’s history, there was plenty of interesting things to learn – outsiders or those more interested will get more out of it than I did. The Gaol no longer operates, but for many decades (centuries?) it was the premier spot to house all of Belfast’s most dangerous bad guys – from Terrorists, to thieves, murders, and most of our current sitting politicians (read-Terrorists). You’re given a full tour of the gaol, outside and in, while a knowledgeable Belfast Boyo will regale you with stories of the history of the facility, the intake process, the various escape attempts, the famous inmates, and some of the more grisly details. Notably, the prison was also used for executions up until deep into the 20th Century, and you get to visit the Gallows and see how those on death row met their end. This makes for a more interesting Halloween themed trip – the Gaol runs these special nights in October each year as they focus more on the dark side, taking visitors through the undergound tunnels which link the Gaol to the Courts on the other side of the road, where, naturally, ghosts are frequently spotted.

2nd on the list, with a whopping single review on Trip Advisor, is ‘Let The Dance Begin’. I’ve no idea what this is, but it seems to be a collection of spindly looking 20 ft statues standing in a circle playing musical instruments. It’s in Strabane – which is another way of saying ‘Don’t Come Here’.

3rd up is The City Walls in Londonderry (if you’re a dick) or ‘Derry’ (if you’re a dick) or ‘Stroke City’ (if you’re a complete knob). It’s the Walls which surround and divide the town of Londonderry (seriously, it’s not a city – Belfast is the only place worthy of that name in Northern Ireland), and you can walk on top of them, around them, through them etc. Every so often there’s a more interesting piece of brick – a church, or a cannon, or a monument – something more than ‘Paddy Woz Here, 1916 yeeoo’. Though why anyone would choose to visit Derry is beyond me.

4th is the Titanic Building in Belfast. Oh, you didn’t know? The Titanic was built in Belfast and… well, we know how that story ends. Rejoice in one of humanity’s most embarrassing tragedies by visiting the Titanic Museum. You can see it from pretty much any tall point in Belfast, though I haven’t actually been to it yet. I’m sure it’s great.

5th – Giant’s Causeway, the first true landmark on the list. I have only been here once in my life, even though I only live about 15 miles away from it currently. I didn’t go until I was almost thirty, and some friends from London wanted to see it. It’s best kept for a sunny day, or at least a day with a clear or atmospheric sky, because you can get some kick ass photographs. It’s basically a pile of rocks which stretch like steps out to the sea, but this being Ireland we have a bunch of quirky mythology surrounding it.

6th – Florence Court. I’ve never heard of this. Seems to be, some sort of garden?

7th – Dunluce Castle. You’ll have seen it in Game Of Thrones. I’ve driven past it a hundred times, never actually been in it though. It’s in a very picturesque spot, dangling off the side of a cliff.

8th – Tollymore Forest Park. Somewhere I’m much more familiar with, I’ve spent countless days and hours here in my childhood. It’s the gateway to the Mourne Mountains, our largest and tallest Mountain range. There’s miles of forest and rivers to arse about in and pretend you’re being chased by a Predator or Hitler.

9th – Bangor Castle Walled Garden. Bangor is the town beside the town I grew up in. Though I did also live there for a while. Did I know it had a Castle? I don’t think it has a Castle. This place probably doesn’t exist.

10th – Museum Of Free Derry. See, even the name is being all edgy and political. I’ve no idea if I’ve been here or not. But again, you have to go to Derry to see it, so why would you bother?

11th – Crawfordsburn Country Park. I have been here. I didn’t do much at it, or see the sights which are supposed to be here. I played football and probably got drunk.

12th – Whitehead Railway Museum. Another place I’m sure I’ll never visit.

13th – Ulster Aviation Society. Isn’t this a nerdy club, not a thing you can actually visit? Sure, if you’re into airplanes, knock yourself out.

14th – Blackhead Path. Never heard of it.

15th – Peace Wall. Belfast’s turn for a Walled Tour. This is the wall which was historically used to separate the predominantly Protestant and Catholic sides of Belfast. It’s still there, but it’s all a bit silly given that there are a bunch of other ‘sides’, cultures, races, and religions in Belfast now, and given that you can just take a stroll around any edge of the wall or part of the city without there being a physical divide. Maybe some parts are still used and cordoned off, but I’ve no interest in finding out. Knock it down, move on.

That’s genuinely a sorry list. There are much of interesting places to visit, both of historical and cultural value, and in terms of sheer fun and entertainment. Belfast Zoo, the number one spot on any list, isn’t even here, and our much more interesting musems such as The Folk And Transport Museum, Ulster Museum, American Folk Park aren’t in the Top 15. Seriously, if you’re coming here just grab a car and go wherever you want. I recommend a weekend break in Belfast, and driving yourself around the two best coasts – up Antrim Coastline towards Portrush, and down past Newcastle through the Mournes towards Newry. That’s all you need.

Oh yeah, during my week off I was making cheese and crackers for my lunch and decided to try this mindblowing concoction:

It’s a Toffee Pop (a chocolate and toffee/caramel biscuit) topped with Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and three types of hard cheese. Yum.

Reminder on blog links:

Blogging: A new category! This is where I’m going to put this exact post, and the others like it to follow.

The Shrine: People die. Famous people die. But they live on, in our hearts and minds and in the work they left behind. Here I offer the chance to remember and offer thanks.

The Spac Reviews: Carlos Nightman is my alter ego. Derek Carpet is his alter ego. He is an idiot. He likes movies. These are his reviews. They are…. different.

TV Reviews: I sometimes review TV too. I talk about my current shows and my all time favourites.

Unpublished Screenplays: Derek Carpet sometimes likes to pretend he’s a writer too. Here are some of his original works, based on other movies and TV shows.

Videogame Reviews: I do these sometimes too. Usually retro. Usually with a humourous bent.

Nightman Gets Excited About Liverpool Goals – Part One!

July 10, 2020carlosnightmanLeave a comment

Greetings, Glancers! I don’t typically write about Sport much here – I’ve tried in the past but have given up because I gave up caring and because nobody else did. Also, given the amount of genuine Sports blogs and Journalism out there, why would I bother throwing my balls onto the pitch too? To be fair, the same can be said for any topic, and as this is something I currently feel like writing about, hopefully the people who come here to laugh at my crap will get something out of this too. Probably not, I know.

Given Liverpool’s recent title win and groundbreaking season, I thought I would go back and revisit the best goals we’ve scored. I usually do this at the end of the Season when some kind soul on Youtube creates a compilation video, but this time I thought I’d do a bit of a write-along. First I was going to do a list of my favourite goals, then I thought I’d just do them all. These aren’t going to be match reviews necessarily, just my thoughts on the silky skills. I’m only including Premiership goals here, no other competitions. So let us begin!

Liverpool 4 – Norwich 1

Our first game of the Season saw us in terrifying form. Our Pre-Season wasn’t the most exciting but we got off to a flying start here, putting four past lowly Norwich. It’s perhaps amusing that the first goal scored this Season was an OG by Norwich’s hapless Hanley. Good work down the wing by Origi and a simple ball played into the six yard box saw Hanley stick a leg out in hope, inadvertently sticking into his own net – if it was any consolation, Firmino and Salah were lurking behind him and may have slotted home. Salah got the second goal, his first of another superb season, and there was a touch of luck involved with the ball bobbing around the box and dropping favourably twice to Liverpool boots – though the hunger to reach these balls first was clearly greater than the frightened Norwich defence. Salah picks it up after a Firmino pass, and side foots it into the net – simple. Salah turned provider for the third goal of the first half, swinging in a simple corner for the beast Van Dijk to rise above everyone else to power home a trademark header through the keeper’s legs. Making it 4 in the first half was my favourite of the bunch – the first of many floating crosses by TAA this Season, cutting the defence in two and allowing Origi to head in his first goal. Firmino should have made it five in the second half – a goal which would have been the best of the game after Henderson saw a shot touched on to the crossbar, followed by some silky Salah and TAA interplay leading to Firmino getting the balls caught under his feet.

Southampton 1 – Liverpool 2

A tighter affair didn’t see many chances for The Reds in the first half, and we could have been behind but for Adrian. In injury time in the first half, Sadio Mane channelled his inner Coutinho, coming in from the left after some swift triangle work, and unleashes an absolute belter into the top corner. Poor Bobby fluffed his lines again after a blistering counter attack, putting his chance narrowly past the wrong side of the post but made up for his miss by skipping a couple of challenges and hitting home from just outside the box. Former Red Danny Ings got a consolation goal, but it was Mane’s rocket which gets my vote for Goal Of The Game.

Liverpool 3 – Arsenal 1

Arsenal have been on a downward spiral since Arsene Venger departed, similar to The Scum once Red Nose retired. If there was any single reason why those two teams had such success in the 90s and 2000s, it was because of their two managers – taking sometimes average teams and making them consistent winners. Without that consistency, that same lack of consistency which Liverpool had in the 90s, those two teams have fallen on hilarious hard times. This game had some comedy defending from both teams before TAA’s corner and Joel Matip’s head broke the deadlock. Weekly mistake-maker David Luiz gifted Liverpool a second goal, tugging back Salah who looked clear to score and giving away a Penalty. Salah battered it into the top corner. As if that wasn’t enough, Salah destroyed Luiz on the halfway line and proceeded to sprint towards the quivering Arsenal goal before slotting home in my choice of Goal Of The Game.

Burnley 0 – Liverpool 3

Our final game of August was of course another win, with Salah almost scoring another screamer after Mane passed out wide allowing Mo to crash one into the post. Trent… he’ll say it was a goal but of course it was supposed to be a cross – in any case his 30 plus yard lob found Pope off his line and the ball swinging over his head and in. If there’s any lesson teams have learned this year – it’s if you make a mistake, Liverpool will make you pay. A ball given away near the centre circle saw Firmino race away, play it Mane, and Mane bang it in for the second. Bobby wrapped up the third after some persistence from Salah, the ball sneaking away from him but into the path of Firmino. Goal Of The Game to TAA.

Are you a Liverpool fan? A bitter Manc? Someone who has no clue what I’m talking about? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

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