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Reviews
Deep Purple in Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra (2000)
Destroyed my faith in music
This is awful. Truly awful. The picture quality is good, but the sound is pretty poor, and the performance...well, what can I say? Everyone can play their instruments, it just appears as if they've forgotten why. This, remember, is the band who gave us 'In Rock' and 'Fireball'. This performance is to those albums as Eric Clapton's modern stuff is to his playing with Cream, or as Sting's solo efforts are to his work with The Police. This is middle-aged, dull, and pointless. The 'classical' arrangements are hackneyed and cliched and don't blend in with the band at all. The reworkings of old favourites ('Wring that Neck' as a big-band jazz number, I ask you!) are not only uninteresting but badly done. There's no Ritchie Blackmore, and I'm sorry, but Steve Morse is one of those 'why use one note where 200 will do?' guitarists. His solos have no structure, no development, and no point. Just like this video. If you like 'real' Deep Purple, steer as far away from this dross as you can get. I can no longer listen to Fireball without seeing Ian Gillan dancing like your Dad at a party. Hugely embarrassing, and has ruined Deep Purple for me forever.
Memento (2000)
Fantastic. Keeps you thinking for days
I'll not repeat what's already been said in praise of this film, but I will say, to the people who thought it a little 'gimmicky' that the way the story is told (in reverse) is,in my opinion, absolutely not a gimmick. It is a very clever device for putting the viewer inside the head of the main character. Combined with the superb acting and direction, you end up experiencing the action from exactly the same viewpoint as the lead character. Your sense of confusion mirrors his, and as you begin to identify more with him your lack of trust for any of the characters makes you edgy and distrustful. I've never before seen a movie that's put me in the head of one of the characters in the way this one does.
*Possible Spoiler* It's a far superior film to Sixth Sense or Usual Suspects because once you've seen the ending of those films you know what happened and the next time you see it the impact is completely lost. Memento has no traditional ending in that sense; you are left to make up your own mind as to how all the scenes fit together, as to what interpretation to put on all the character's actions, as to what their motives were. On top of that, it left me full of questions about reality and how we perceive the world, and how it makes us vulnerable. I thought this was a profoundly unsettling, disturbing, and funny film. 10 out of 10.