Tag: saxophone

Take It or Leave It
starring Madness

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date September 28 2026
No Comments on Take It or Leave It
starring Madness

Take It or Leave It, starring Madness

Director – Dave Robinson – 1981 – UK – Cert. 12a – 86m

*****

Struggling with their day jobs, some friends get together and form a band, which becomes the ascendant ska / dance band Madness – previews on Wednesday, September 30th, out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, October 2nd, and on Blu-ray from Monday, October 19th

The band Madness occupy a unique place in British pop music history. They first appeared In the brief space following the punk and new wave movements of the late 1970s which embodied the idea that anyone could learn to play a musical instrument from scratch and any group of people could put together a band. It was very much a DIY aesthetic.

What Madness had is different, however. Like the title of their debut album One Step Beyond and its iconic cover photograph capturing the seven band members one pressed behind the other walking forward in a synchronised movement, they embodied, as their promotional catchphrase would have it, “that nutty sound”.

Very much a dance band, albeit one unlike any previous combo that had coined that term, they built their songs on ska rhythms and incorporated saxophones into the overall sound.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

The Conversation

R.I.P. Gene Hackman (1930-2025)

Director – Francis Ford Coppola – 1974 – US – Cert. 12a – 113m

*****

A surveillance expert records a conversation between two people, then worries about turning the recording over to his corporate client as contracted – 50th anniversary 4K Restoration is out on UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on Monday, July 15th, 2024

There’s nothing else quite like The Conversation in cinema.

Union Square, San Francisco. People milling around. Among them, a couple (Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams) having a conversation. Also in the square, a man in a plastic mac (Gene Hackman). And another man (Michael Higgins) following them around, holding a bag. And, at two separate windows above the square, two long range microphones.

The first man, Harry, enters a nearby van, inside which is his recording assistant Stan (John Cazale). He’s shortly followed by the other man, Paul, who believes the couple spotted him trailing them.

Harry pays a nighttime visit to his girlfriend Amy (Teri Garr). She wants him to spill his secrets. He claims he has none. He leaves, with her telling him not to bother to come back.

He goes to work in his office, situated at one end of the floor in an otherwise deserted warehouse.… Read the rest

Tags alienate, alienation, Allen Garfield, analogue sound recording, apartment, assistant, audio, audio quality, audio tape, BFI Southbank, bug, celebrity, Chang’e, change of meaning, Cindy Williams, client, convention, conversation, crowded lift, David Shire, dehumanise, digital sound recording, dream sequence, editor, extra key, failed relationship, following, Francis Ford Coppola, Frederic Forrest, Gene Hackman, girlfriend, guest attendees, Harrison Ford, hearing, hotel; room, industry convention, invasion of personal privacy, jazz, jazz records, John Cazale, landlady, long range microphone, meaning, meeting, mic, Michael Higgins, microphone, mike, obsession, obsessive, office, party, payphone, perception, phone number, piano-only, picture editor, plastic mac, protective, recording, recording tape, relationship, rip off, ripped his flat apart, room number, San Francisco, saxophone, secrets, self-isolated, solitary, sound, sound designer, sound mix, sound source, sound tech, sound technology, spools, spotted, Studio pictures, surveillance, surveillance society, sync, tech, technology, Teri Garr, trailing, Union Square, unlisted, van, volume, Walter Murch, warehouse, workaholic, wreckage

Animation Documentary Movies Music Shorts

Stationary
Peaceful Protest

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date June 10 2021
No Comments on Stationary
Peaceful Protest

Directors – Xhosa Cole, Shiyi Li – 2021 – UK – cert. 15 tbc – 11m

*****

Sax player Xhosa Cole recounts a #blacklivesmatter rally in Birmingham while Shiyi Li provides incredible animated images – from Sheffield DocFest 2021

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of animation at Sheffield DocFest – maybe there is and I’ve yet to find it – but there IS this terrific little short. The soundtrack is sax player Xhosa Cole’s monologue about driving to Birmingham for a Black Lives Matter rally which people of black, white and numerous other skin hues are attending. Beforehand, he debates whether to take his horn, and does so. At the rally, he runs into his old sax teacher and the pair improvise a duet, defusing a confrontation between a black woman and a black policewoman the details of which he never knows, showing great respect for both parties.

Set against the earnest voice-over are representational images of the narrative veering towards the abstract: Shiyi Li’s kinetic coloured shapes swirl around in a manner worthy of pioneering experimental animator Len Lye, who likewise often set his visuals against jazz music. Li’s imagery flirts with infographic iconography – for example, a walk on foot into the venue traverses a carpet which is also an arrow conveying a purpose, a sense of direction.… Read the rest