Blues on Sunday ...

It looks like Cate Blanchett will be collecting her Best Actress Award tonight - middle of the night here in the UK, so I will know in the morning. It was obvious back in August when I saw BLUE JASMINE that she would be unstoppable, just like Dame Helen (Mirren) was that year it was her turn ... 

It seems though that the girl from that three hour French explicit lesbian romance BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR - Adele Exarchopoulos - should also be in competition, and may be the real best actress of the year, according to newspaper pundits covering the Oscar nominations. I have just pre-ordered the film, due on dvd in 2 weeks. Tomorrow I get the  GRAVITY Blu-ray, and Pharrell's eagerly awaited new cd G I R L ... will we be "Happy" ?

We also pre-ordered the Coens' INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, maybe the biggest movie not to have many nominations .... and also PHILOMENA, due out in a few weeks.  Maybe the cat (or cats, I understand there were 3 of them) should be up for Best Supporting Cat of the Year ? It seems the Coens best in some time, with a great subject, that folk singer who does not make it, as another steps up to the limelight ...

Nice music for a wet afternoon, watching BBC documentaries on the Chess label, that record company based in Chicago with all those great hits in the 50s and 60s - with great footage of those artists I love listening to: Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, and Bo Diddeley and Chuck Berry, and Etta James, Fontella Bass ("Rescue Me") and Sugar Pie DeSanto with her "Soulful Dress" ....  my best late pal, Stanley, loved that one. Watching Muddy and Howling and Etta at their peak is simply wonderful. I even dug that album Howling Wolf did with the likes of Clapton and Stevie Winwood in the 70s. Time to get out my Chess compilation albums.  Next music documentary coming up features the great Muscle Shoals recording studio in Alabama, where Aretha and the others did all those 60s Atlantio classics. Lovely. 

We also record VH1's Saturday night's weekly 3 hour "Saturday Night 80s Disco" and fly through it on Sunday, savouring some of the videos all over again, like Wham's "Young Guns" or Blondie's "Rapture" - bliss incarnate, along with soul clips like Chaka Khan and Shannon. How great Debbie and the guys are toplining Glastonbury this year, along with, er, Dolly.