MERRY CHRISTMAS

TO ALL MY LEGIONS OF FOLLOWERS 😃

 

I'm going to be having a break from hard out blogging 😎 - Best wishes for the new year!

 

ARE THERE ANY GREAT NZ MOVIES?

When I'm asked if there are any great New Zealand movies I don't know where to start. Not because there are so many I don't know which ones to choose first, but because the short answer is "No, not really" There are certainly not many I would call "great".

 

If I pick my favourites from the past 50 years, I can think of three that I really liked.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000380472/

 

 Goodbye Pork Pie (1980)

Dumped by his girlfriend, a man joins a reckless youth in a stolen yellow mini and they drive the length of New Zealand, attracting cops and media attention, determined to get to Invercargill.

    Director - Geoff Murphy

    Stars - Tony Barry, Kelly Johnson, Claire Oberman

Bad Taste (1987)

The population of a small town disappears and is replaced by aliens that chase human flesh for their intergalactic fast-food chain.

Director - Peter Jackson 

Stars- Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Craig Smith

 

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

 

A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.

    Director - Taika Waititi
   
Stars - Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata

WHY I LIKE ODYSEE

This was really good to see, and another reason why I'm a fan of the Odysee platform:

 

Dear friends of Odysee,

Starting today, we're removing all ads.

We don't need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive.

Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn't worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.

As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as 'free-speech') typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It's been that way for centuries and is never going to change.

As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and 'Free Speech' platforms try to build their own ad businesses it's apparent to us that we're building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.

Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that's fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don't like ads.

Best,

Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer.

Julian Chandra

https://odysee.com/@Odysee:8/nomoreads:f

https://odysee.com/@MrE:c/Allman-Olympics-2024-Logic:7

RANDOM IMAGES #50

 OK, this is my last RANDOM IMAGES post for the year. It's been fun knocking out a post with 10 random images along with a GIF & and one of my own pictures every Sunday, but I'm going to be taking a different approach with this blog next year, so I'm calling it quits with this last one.

Yes I know there are 52 weeks in a year, but the first one wasn't numbered and with all the December distractions like Xmas & New Year, I can't be arsed doing a #51 post. Fifty posts each with 10 images will do the job. They are now all compiled into one big gallery for easy viewing pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN LYDON INVENTED SOME COOL MUSIC

There was a time when music seemed like the real deal but that all ended decades ago.

Most old farts know that John Lydon started the punk scene rolling in 1977 with his band The Sex Pistols.

Never Mind The Bollocks immediately changed the face of music.

 

Just one year later in 1978, He did it again. With his new band Public Image Ltd (PIL) he invented new wave. But this time it took more than two years for most people to grasp what he had invented. New wave music then changed the entire decade – John Lydon invented the 80’s!

This video is from 1979. 45 years later it’s still mind blowing. Imagine what it must have been like for punters seeing all this for the first time back in 1979.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIAZ8unRm2c

“PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It’s a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future. Sure, there were touchstones that got their imaginations running — the bizarreness of Captain Beefheart, the open and rhythmic spaces of Can, and the dense pulses of Lee Perry‘s productions fueled their creative fires — but what they achieved with their second record is a completely unique hour of avant-garde noise. Originally packaged in a film canister as a trio of 12″ records played at 45 rpm, the bass and treble are pegged at 11 throughout, with nary a tinge of midrange to be found. It’s all scrapes and throbs (dubscrapes?), supplanted by John Lydon‘s caterwauling about such subjects as his dying mother, resentment, and murder. Guitarist Keith Levene splatters silvery, violent, percussive shards of metallic scrapes onto the canvas, much like a one-armed Jackson Pollock. Jah Wobble and Richard Dudanski lay down a molasses-thick rhythmic foundation throughout that’s just as funky as Can‘s Czukay/Leibezeit and Chic‘s Edwards/Rodgers. It’s alien dance music. Metal Box might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as Never Mind the Bollocks, and you certainly can’t trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn’t have existed without it like the Sex Pistols record. But like an (imaginary)virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through a much broader scope of artists and genres.”

https://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-box-mw0000714559

What initially got me thinking about this was that at some point music ceased to be an art form and became mind programming in every sense. This video explaining the whole thing – from why modern music is unlistenable shit through to why it is obsessed with anuses…

https://www.bitchute.com/video/njJ7GyFddM8q/

In just 40 years music went from Public Image Ltd to “Little Dickie”. Here is where I take a deep breath and be thankful I have lived in better times.