New York group Phantogram played on the first of Triple-J’s Like A Version segments for 2017 this week, and they sounded sweet so I had to share them here. If you are not already watching them every week, in Like A Version a great Alt Rock band comes into the broadcast studio at Triple-J and plays two tracks, first one of their original songs, and then a cover by someone else. This time around, Phantogram played their song Cruel World, and followed it up with a cover of Radio Head’s Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. And then a studio track from them with amazing video construction, Fall in Love. Triple-J has been my favorite alternative rock radio station out of Australia since I first heard them in 2006, if you like that musical format they would be worth adding to your streaming collection.
Another good Jackie Chan film coming out later this year is Kung Fu Yoga, and the trailer looks quite amusing. This Bollywood/Chinese hybrid film should be the second in a series, since Jackie previously played an archeologist running all over the place while hunting a treasure down. That was in The Myth in 2005, with Stanly Tong directing both films. He was also supposed to be an Archeologist in the Jackie Chan Adventures animated series. Bollywood has a serious hand in this release, and it looks like he gets at least one choreographed song-and-dance sequence with his beautiful archeologist costar, Amyra Dastur. Being a big fan of Bollywood films, I am keeping my fingers crossed they get multiple songs in. This will be hitting US theaters on Friday, January 27th, only two weeks from now, and I will be there to see it!
Jackie Chan is at it again, telling a serious story by way of comedy, this time a tale of a retired railroad worker who uses his deep knowledge of the train network to steal supplies to feed his starving neighbors during World War II. This film is in the theaters now, if you are lucky enough to live by one of the ones that shows Bollywood and Chinese films, which most AMCs with more than a dozen screens do these days.
I completely missed the release of MONKEY KING 2 on Blue Ray on January 3rd, and only found out about it when a friend called to tell me they found it in a store. Good thing this isn’t my day job. So, a bit late, but here is the trailer for this fun little movie.
The Fantasy A Monster Calls has won two awards and been nominated for 51 more before it even went into wide release, and may be the movie of choice this week. Underworld: Blood Wars puts Kate Beckinsale squarely between the Lycans and Vampires as she moves in to end the ages old war. Hidden Figures is the true story of the women who calculated the launches, orbits, and landings for the Mercury and Apollo space programs, and what they had to overcome to do it. It was a double whammy against them in the 19050s and 1960s because besides being female they were African Americans, but they were also some of the finest engineers this country has produced. Finally, Railroad Tigers is the story of a railroad worker in 1941 China who leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese to get food to the poor. Since it starts Jackie Chan, there is a chance it may have some comedic moments.
A few of the same places, from a totally different perspective.
