Advantages: The best of British rock Disadvantages: Maybe a little cliched
Back in the 1980?s, a wonderful band called Terraplane decided to call it a day, after producing a couple of brilliant albums which no-one bought. Fortunately for rock lovers, three of the band, vocalist Danny Bowes, guitarist and main songwriter Luke Morley and drummer ?Arry ?H? James enjoyed making music and each other?s company far too much to let it end there. So they stayed together, started another band, and called themselves Thunder.
In August 1989, the newly formed band signed to EMI. Not long afterwards, a bassist (Mark Luckhurst) and a guitarist/keyboard player (Ben Matthews) were added, and the recording of one of British rock music?s greatest ever albums started. In February 1990, Thunder burst onto the scene with their first single ?Dirty Love?, which was followed in late April 1990 by their debut album, ?Backstreet ...
Advantages: Great performance from Robert Downey Jr. Disadvantages: GreatActing from Stiller and Black
TROPIC THUNDER
A FILM ONLY REVIEW
This film had completely passed me by as both film and DVD; I actually watched it off Sky Movies.
I decided to watch it as I noticed that Ben Stiller and Jack Black were in it and I generally enjoy their films.
THE PLOT
The spoof war film is about waning action star Tugg Speedman; multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus - a method actor who endures pigmentation surgery in order to play a black man; drug addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy; rapper Alpha Chino, a real black man who takes offence to Lazarus' clichéd portrayal of a black man and lesser known Kevin Sandusky were filming a Vietnam war film.
The film, based on a book by Four Leaf Tayback ( a Vietnam Veteran ), was already way behind schedule even though filming had just started because of the behaviour ...
Advantages: Solid addition to Thunder's catalogue Disadvantages: Nothing startingly original
The Thunder machine just rolls on and on with this, their latest impressive release (their eighth studio album by my reckoning). The title - and first track - is based on the legend/myth of the bluesman who sold his soul to the devil, and the acoustic intro on the opener soon bursts into electric glory. An old trick but it works well. This is the kind of instantly singalongable bluesy rocky number they do so well and is one of the best things they have done in ages.
Dirty Dream is a more workmanlike lust song, A Million Faces is slower but builds up a good head of steam, Don't Wanna Talk About Love ("Here in my head I should be moving on but in my heart it's a different story") treads familiar ground and The Devil Made Me Do It concerns a 13-year-old boy with older woman fantasies including the killer line "I was tissues and tension ...
