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Reviews
Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells III (1999)
simply breathtaking
I can hardly add to Keith Hatcher's well composed review, and he certainly seems to know a lot about Oldfield's work. Still I'll just "chime in" with a glowing approval of this magnificent recording, I didn't know a lot about Mike Oldfield but of course remembered the single of Tubular Bells as accompanied the Exorcist movie from 1973. Seems I've been missing a lot, I stumbled upon this and it blew me away. Oldfield glides across so many different genres in this performance, a complex number of guitar tones, yet pieces it all together coherently until the final, dramatic jam which begins with a child reciting
"And the man in the rain picked up his bag of secrets, and journeyed up the mountainside, far above the clouds, and nothing was ever heard from him again, except for the sound of Tu-bu-lar Bells"
which might escape you the first time you hear it but there is something profound within and you'll find yourself repeating it. Mike Oldfield has a lifelong musical vision in his head with the Tubular Bells concept, and I think here, this night in London in 1998, he fully realized it. When he bows for the crowd there is an unmistakable look of satisfaction on his face. (note that though the professional musicians accompanying him put on a marvelous performance, Mike himself is accomplished at each and every instrument we see played and recorded them on the original album.)
Un fiume di dollari (1966)
surprisingly enjoyable despite clichés
I started watching this and thought oh, lord, another howler with every hokey cliché inherent to bad spaghetti westerns. Midway when we see the stunt men grabbing their bellies from feigned gut shots and doing the railing flip to land on their backs on balsa wood saloon tables, one has to wonder if there could be any other way to do it. However the story does develop to reveal some depth to both characters and plot. The clichés endure so don't expect any surprises by the time it's over, but enjoy this period piece as the simple story it was meant to be with a few standouts in the supporting cast roles, if not the lead. There are some memorable items in the soundtrack and the location work cinematography could be called exemplary. The credits state it's a Dino De Laurentis production with much of the shooting done in Rome, which does contradict some of the IMDb data, FWIW. All in all it's the kind of tale that Hollywood had so tired of by the mid sixties they'd have sent it up as a comedy romp with an all star cast cracking one liners- but with admirable humility the spaghetti western production crew delivered this with straight faced sincerity, as if they still believed in what they were doing. Considering that I give it 7 not 6 stars.