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PODCAST

The Brown Note Movie Review

Movie and Music reviews from The Brown Note radio show presented by Julian Brown, recorded unscripted, unedited and live. Also on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCggKb5ezgKFT5M27z75jVcQ

tv & film film reviews

All Episodes

07:29

Conclave (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/02/22

This immaculately made drama about anointing a new Pope, is far from dry or austere, but exciting and entertaining. More like House of Cards in its evocation of the behind the scenes political machinations and deal making involved in the process. Sadly a couple of very distracting and misguided story elements arrive right at the end, in an almost ruinous manner. SPOILER ALERT as I discuss that ending.

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08:23

Mogwai - The Bad Fire (2025) Album Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/02/16

Scottish Post-rock titans, Mogwai, have been on a fine run of pretty decent new albums in recent years. However, though they sound very much alive, one of their only genuine peers, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, have been making relevant and vital music that rivals the best they've ever done. Here is a godlike band, dipping their toes into very inconsequential and unambitious music that in no way is worthy of them.

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12:36

Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (2025) Album Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/02/16

The current heavyweight champion of Latin Pop, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, completes a victory lap with his seventh - and most political - album. And it's a fine effort with welcome Salsa and Puerto Rican musical influences. It also repeats my complaint about his previous release, like a Drake album, it appears stuffed with too many mediocre tracks to try and game the streaming charts.

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10:58

Nosferatu (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/02/15

Director Robert Eggers is right at the top of arguments for the MVP of film making right now. His four films have near been impeccable. This remake of the original 1920's classic is very different from what I'd been led to believe - it's by far the most fun and actually funny (at times) of his often challenging filmography. If it doesn't have the substance of previous works, the cinematography, production design and soundtrack are outstanding.

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54:45

A Tribute to David Lynch

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/01/25

David Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 15, 2025) never made a blockbuster movie in his life, yet is as famous a director as Steven Spielberg. This a show celebrating his unique artistic vision, one that puts in on a par with Kubrick or Hitchcock. He is also a director with a stronger connection to the music in his projects than almost anyone in history. A trawl through every major project of Lynch's and the music used in each.*Dune doesn't appear in the video version due to a corrupt file. The

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29:55

Are Oasis Shite?

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/01/22

Following last years UNIVERSALLY LOVED piece, Oasis Are Shite, an imaginative followup - were they ever any good to start with? So I have done what no sane adult should do, and what I haven't done in 25 years, actually listened to Oasis. Obviously Be Here Now and on are complete garbage, but were those first three great albums, Definitely Maybe, What's the Story.. and The Masterplan ever great? and how do they hold up now?

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24:38

Gone But Forgotten: John Martyn

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/01/20

My irregular series on artists, albums or movies that were either denied classic status at the time or who have been forgotten from the conversation since. Here a look a 60s UK folk music genius who branched out into astonishing music in the 1970s (see also Nick Drake, John Fay, Vashti Bunyan...). A walk through his life and career through the lens of four totemic albums from that period, including the absolutely essential for anyone releases, Solid Air (10/10) and One Word (10/10).

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07:50

Gladiator II (2024) Movie Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2025/01/18

Perhaps the embodiment of Hollywood's incessant, remake-reboot era, given it's one of the wildest takes on needing a sequel ever. But given director Ridley Scott is himself one of the wildest properties in film this century - you have zero idea what you are going to get with this man lately, maybe it could work? No, no, it does not. Following the original screenplay so slavishly it continually invites always belittling comparisons, not to mention extra appreciation for the (missing) original star,

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01:01:27

Best and Worst Films of 2024

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/12/14

Nothing is more redundant most best films lists, as any critics top ten will include five films the public wont even see until next year. So my most and least favorite films actually widely released in 2024.Note - I really did mean to say Abigail at number 15, but looking at the thumbnail, decided to describe the film Megan instead. The perils of live radio.

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38:18

The 20 Best Albums of 2024

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/12/07

Exactly what it says on the tin. Tis the season of lists, and in a banner year for albums, particularly alt-rock and rap, my top twenty favorite albums of 2024.https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26A8L15kpvZtRl3gRhddG5?si=jZKf4draTgqcWC8cjiXiKw

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08:03

Strange Darling (2024) Movie Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/28

Perhaps rounding off a banner year for Horror movies, writer-director, J.T. Mollner's twisted take on Horror movie tropes and serial killer films. Spit ingeniously into six non-chronological chapters, each upending the previous, this challenging and provocative film is beautifully made, and anchored by awards-worthy leads, Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner.

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07:17

Smile 2 (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/28

The original Smile was a top tier "ordinary" horror, as opposed the more art-house/A24 world. It's sequel bridges that gap, whilst outpacing its predecessor in nearly every way. Once again the female lead (Naomi Scott) is outstanding, but now the focus on interior mental breakdown - this time for a pop star put under too much stress - is so good, it almost outweighs the need for a horror film at all.

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16:05

Megalopolis (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/24

Francis Ford Coppola's decades long passion project is deeply, unforgivably flawed, in so many ways. It's also amazing and brilliant in so many others. In a world where billionaires send themselves into space and all they come back with if tales of flaccid penises, that someone could spend so much on such a piece of art, designed, unconsciously, to defend the very notion of its own existence, is a marvel.

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11:27

The Cure - Songs of a Lost World (2024) Album Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/11

It takes an awful lot to get me back into new material from a classic band I've loved to remember at their peak and pretty much since the career capping classic, Disintegration, in 1989, that had been the case with The Cure. However, the first new material in 16 years had garnered such raves, I couldn't resist and I'm glad I didn't. Despite some of the worst production and mixing I've ever heard from a band of their stature, and a questionable opening salvo, Songs.. is undoubtedly their finest, most

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04:31

The Smile - Cutouts (2024) Album Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/11

The second album in 2024 from the Radiohead offshoot, The Smile, is nowhere near as great or coherent as Wall of Eyes. It's perfectly fine, just very undeveloped songwriting wise - as befitting its title - and even Thom Yorke seems to be half involved in many tracks.

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06:27

Alien: Romulus (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/01

Ridley Scott gave his baby new life with the premise of Prometheus, massively expanding the context of the whole Alien universe, then promptly killed it dead with Covenant abandoning that story entirely. This new film has been hailed as an excitingly fresh rebirth, but I don't see it. The production design is superb, but other than the lead, the acting is pretty dire. The biggest problem though, is with how unambitious the story is, at this late stage, going all the way back to the being hunted on a

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05:31

Being Dead - Eels (2024) Album Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/01

I've nothing but respect for the band's talent but I've rarely heard an album more self-sabotaged than this (despite rave reviews). Almost every song - many of which are very decent - have a math-rock violent interlude half way through, that is often annoyingly goofy and usually stops everything they've built up to that point dead. This makes it all a hard listen, I'd struggle to go back to.

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07:34

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/01

Sometimes in the relentless recycle and repackage world that is modern Hollywood, timing can be everything. No one asked for a sequel to director Tim Burton's breakout 1988 film but it was a hugely welcome return anyway. There's a lot of love for re-pairing the originals leads, Winona Ryder and surely the least disliked legacy actor out there, Michael Keaton. Burton too is back delivering his trademark wildly enjoyable gothic comedy horror.

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07:27

Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) Movie Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/01

No one has ruined more films than Guillermo del Toro, by not directing them. But this time I fell the second attempt at rebooting the Hellboy franchise doesn't deserve the appalling reviews. It's refreshing to see the relentless barage of $200 million failed franchise movies give way to something far more low budget and weird, and the Appalachian horror setting is kinda great.

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06:19

Wolfs (2024) Film Review

The Brown Note Movie Review ·

2024/11/01

I feel this Brad and George star vehicle was slightly maligned on release. It remains a high quality outing for the platinum-plated pair and very well made. Plus not reliant on relentless high octane action, at least at first.

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