Cultural News Today

Amy Adrion’s new documentary rounds up 40 film-makers, including Ava DuVernay and Lena Dunham, to talk about systemic undermining of women in Hollywood Here are words that film executives use to describe their ideal director: a general. A captain. A fighter. Someone in the trenches. They’re describing GI Joe, and until recently, 93% of the directors they hired fit that masculine mold. Women didn’t, so – consciously and subconsciously – female directors weren’t imagined as being hardy enough to helm a big blockbuster. The stereotype has been tough to shatter. Yet, the movies are an art form stitched together from creativity, empathy and connection. “What we need is a communicator who can lead,” says film-maker Karyn Kusama in Amy Adrion’s inquisitive documentary, Half the Picture, which screens this weekend at the Sundance London. “This isn’t a war.” It isn’t. But it has been as the women of Hollywood have publicly waged a battle for fair hiring practices, with a boost from the Equal ...

Star will leave BBC show after 26th series to spend more time with family and friends Matt LeBlanc is to leave Top Gear after the next series, BBC Studios has announced. The actor thanked the team for “a great drive” and said he was leaving the motoring show to spend more time with his family and friends. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xxUyhO

National Gallery to show Louis-Léopold Boilly works that hung in house targeted by robbers The first exhibition in the UK of an artist who almost lost his head in the French Revolution, and whose paintings survived the biggest domestic art and antiques raid in UK history, will be seen next year at the National Gallery in London. The paintings by Louis-Léopold Boilly were all owned by the late property billionaire Harry Hyams , who changed the London skyline forever when he built the Centre Point tower in the 1960s. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2sv1ir9

Andrea K. Scott on the photographer Wendy Ewald and her artistic practice of teaching children in rural communities how to use cameras. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2xvgSJ5

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Jeremy Nguyen’s Daily Cartoon advertises “Ambien,” coming to ABC this fall. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2L9U6br

While most of the films shown at Cologne's Visions of Iran film festival were created by filmmakers born after the Islamic Revolution, it also features the final work of Iran's late cinematic master, Abbas Kiarostami. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2kBFvKN

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Why did many intellectuals and leftists at first sympathize with Germany's Red Army Faction (RAF)? A documentary highlights the poisoned political atmosphere in West Germany during the 1970s while questioning witnesses. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2LLF5hj

As a young political campaign worker, Jessica McIntosh found herself in a car, dodging drunk kisses from the future Attorney General of New York, on a date she never wanted to be on. For the next 13 years she tried to rationalize what happened. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2svubTQ

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XCOM 2 heads up PlayStation Plus for June Sony announces a strong June 2018 PlayStation Plus lineup with XCOM 2 and Trials Fusion 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2LauwDm

Touching exhibition probes the isolating impact of dementia Invisible Flock’s Remote Contact looks at how digital technology can connect to memories and human intimacy 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2Jj50OU

Royal Festival Hall, London The fruits of Simon Rattle’s long partnership with the Berlin orchestra were evident in a magisterial Bruckner Ninth and vivid miniatures by Hans Abrahamsen In 2002, newly installed as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Simon Rattle brought Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth Symphony to the Festival Hall on one of their first joint visits. The performance was a serious disappointment , wonderfully played – as you would expect, but all on the surface and with little interpretative depth. What a change the intervening 16 years have wrought. Here, in the first of two London concerts marking Rattle’s departure from Berlin, was a performance for the ages of that same Bruckner symphony. It showed how much Rattle has come to terms with Bruckner during his Berlin years but, above all, it displayed the deep musical rapport between players and conductor that has matured during his long tenure in the German capital. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guard...

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President launches plan for national lottery to raise funds for decaying historic buildings France is to introduce a national lottery to pay for the restoration of decaying historic buildings and works of art, the president has announced. Emmanuel Macron launched the plan for special €15 “heritage” scratchcards as he visited the €9m (£8m) restoration Voltaire ’s chateau in Ferney, near the Swiss border. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2J1SCiT

Emily Nussbaum writes about the series finale of FX’s “The Americans,” starring Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2LaZpHM

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang Harper Voyagers 4/5 stars The Poppy War is the first novel by R.F. – or Rebecca – Kuang. Born in Guangdong province, Kuang emigrated to the United States and then England, where she plans to study at Cambridge University. The Poppy War, which she wrote aged 19, opens a trilogy that promises to “[grapple] with drugs, shamanism, and China’s bloody twentieth century”. Her heroine, Rin, has something of her creator: she is young,... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2kDsfW7

A rare exhibition of the Hobbit author’s life and art reveals an imaginary realm that continues to inspire new generations As a fantasy lover, I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t aware of JRR Tolkien. I read The Hobbit until it fell apart as a child, and have always strived, in my own contributions to the genre, to take even a shred of the care in my world-building that Tolkien did in his. “It is written in my life-blood,” he said of The Lord of the Rings , “such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” A rallying cry for anyone who has known what it is to inhabit a world of one’s own. “Tolkien was a genius with a unique approach to literature,” says Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford. “His imagined world was created through a combination of his deep scholarship, his rich imagination and powerful creative talent, and informed by his own lived experiences. We are incredibly proud to hold the Tolkien archive and to be able to share so many pr...

Sadler’s Wells, London The influential choreographer’s final solo show is a mythic elegy to India’s war dead It is surely key to Akram Khan’s magnetism that his first training was in kathak dance , a predominantly solo form in which the dancer must both command the stage and conjure a world into being upon it. While Khan has forged his name as a contemporary dance artist, those qualities still distinguish him as a performer. So it is apt that he begins Xenos – a tribute to the 1.5 million Indians who fought in the first world war – with a kathak scene. It is one of his best. The stage has been set for an intimate dance recital, with vocalist and percussionist in full swing before Khan – playing a shell-shocked soldier who was once a dancer – crashes in on them as if from another world. He performs a broken solo with all the exactitude, dexterity and fluency we’ve come to expect from him but, in place of kathak’s customary sweep and poise, he pulls all its energies inwards: palms ...

Paterson / Youn / Spence / Hartman / Bickley / Bayley / Hallé / Elder (Hallé, three CDs) It was 2009 when Mark Elder and the Hallé began to work their way through The Ring in concert. They started with the last work in the tetralogy, Götterdämmerung, and after nine years they’ll finally complete their cycle this weekend, when Elder conducts the third part, Siegfried, in Manchester. Each instalment has subsequently appeared on disc , and the release of Das Rheingold , taken from the performance in the Bridgewater Hall in 2016 , has been timed to coincide with that final live event. With their minimal stage trappings, all the concerts have generally been well received. But the excitement of such live performances doesn’t automatically transfer to disc so convincingly, and with so many great, historic Ring cycles now available, a new CD version needs to provide a bit more than just an enduring memento for those who attended the live performances. And though the discrepancies may not b...

By Jung Da-min Retailers have emerged as the latest beneficiaries of the soaring popularity of K-pop act BTS as fans rush to buy their latest album and band merchandise. Hundreds of thousands of BTS fans around the world are purchasing products, smartphones, apparel and other items promoted by the seven-member boy band online, while some even come to South Korea for shopping sprees. With the group’s latest album, Love Yourself: Tear, topping the Billboard 200 album chart less than two... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2shaVdJ

Olivier, London Brian Friel’s play about the infinite mysteries of language is richly realised in a meticulous Ian Rickson production, with excellent performances from a strong cast B rian Friel ’s 1980 play has long been regarded as a modern classic. In Ian Rickson ’s flawless production, it seems to expand to fill the vast space of the Olivier. Friel’s multilayered study of what Colm Tóibín calls “the clash between language and culture” is set against the epic breadth of the mist-wreathed Donegal hills , beautifully lit by Neil Austin and punctuated, in Ian Dickinson’s sound design, by the sound of steadfast Irish rain dripping into a bucket. What strikes one is Friel’s ability to find complex meanings in a simple story and to capture Ireland, in 1833, at a moment of historical transition. A rural hedge-school, where classes are conducted in Irish, is to be replaced by a national education system in which English is the official language. At the same time, British soldiers are enga...

An ongoing pay dispute between union members and the cinema chain over pay and benefits looks set to affect diffusion festival, first disrupted in 2017 Cinema workers are set to disrupt Sundance London, the capital’s independent film festival, for a second year in a row. Workers at the Picturehouse Cinemas chain, which hosts screenings and evenings, will picket Thursday’s opening night event, as well as striking for two days. Members of cinema workers’ union, Bectu, have been engaged with Picturehouse management for two years in a dispute over pay and union recognition. Striking workers say Picturehouse refuses to negotiate over issues such as sick and parental pay, and the London living wage (currently £10.20). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ss9Kr2

Joshua Rothman writes about the evolution of the “Star Wars” franchise into a “cinematic universe,” as seen in the latest film, “Solo.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2J4kG5p

The Namibian town of Swakopmund is a top tourist draw for desert lovers. Popular activities include quad-biking and sandboarding down its massive dunes from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian https://ift.tt/2smVWPj

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3.5/5 stars A film conceived and shot in the wake of the idealistic, if arguably futile “umbrella movement” protests in Hong Kong in 2014, No. 1 Chung Ying Street is an artfully made, black-and-white character drama that paints an intriguing picture of life amid social chaos. Set in Sha Tau Kok, a town straddling the border between Hong Kong and China, the film doesn’t take sides. That ambivalence will almost certainly make it a target of criticism from both the city’s... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2sm8E0L

Reddit pips out Facebook to become third most popular site Users spend more time on Reddit than they do any other website 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2kDZpFa

In the latest installment of The New Yorker’s “Obsessions” video series, Cameron Hood writes about ASMR and the YouTube stars who cater to the ASMR community. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Jn1u6p

Sofia Warren imagines a humorous itinerary for a five-year college reunion. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2J0S394

There are myriad ways the show could be revived following its cancellation over Roseanne Barr’s racist tweets – but it might be better to leave it buried Leaving aside the grubby root of the issue, or Roseanne Barr’s rampant determination to keep making it worse, the cancellation of Roseanne has left one hell of a mess. A career is over, seemingly for ever. A television network is tens of millions of dollars out of pocket. A cast and crew are suddenly unemployed. The Roseanne writers, who started work on a new series the day the show was cancelled , are likely to be out of work and uncompensated for the season. It is, by all accounts, a terrible state of affairs. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H7wLVx

Male authors rarely recommend books by the opposite sex, while customers are reportedly bragging in bookshops about avoiding female writers – when will this be corrected? Lauren Groff did something brilliantly subversive last week. In her New York Times By the Book Q&A – an interview in which authors are asked such questions as “What’s the last great book you read?” and “What book by somebody else do you wish you had written?” – she named only women authors. You may not notice it at first, but about halfway through it clicks – perhaps because naming only women in a discussion about great books is so unusual, a point that she hammers home when asked about her ideal literary dinner party: “I would invite every woman writer I have mentioned here, plus hundreds of others I did not have space to name. I would serve unlimited quantities of excellent wine and we would get blitzed and the conversation may eventually meander to touch on that most baffling of questions: When male writers ...

Article 13: What is it and why is it controversial? Critics of a proposed EU directive on copyright warn that it could censor internet users 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2kFnvPI

The World Cup will be in 4K on the BBC with one catch... Get in early if you want better picture quality 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2H7JJCE

Twitter blocks "underage" users following GDPR The social network used profile information to determine which users were underage when signing up 31 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2ssXKFU

Simon Parkin discusses the phenomenon of fake Internet reviews, also known as review brushing, sock-puppeting, and review bombing, and how it’s shaping online commerce. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Lat2sK

Ahead of her appearance at the Africa Festival in Würzburg and the upcoming release of her next album, Love, Sweat and Tears, singer Mariama Jalloh talked to DW about music, motivation and the places she calls home. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2srht8M

DJ, who says he is ‘really tired’, will step down in September and be replaced by Greg James Nick Grimshaw will step down from hosting the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show in September and be replaced by Greg James. The DJ told listeners he is “really tired” and ready to hand over the early morning slot after doing it for longer than he had expected . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H6nME7

For a place that is known for how much it reveres money, Hong Kong has a lot of gullible people. They have been duped in all manner of financial scams over the years. The latest case emerged this week: a 56-year-old woman living in public housing who has become the biggest victim yet of an online love scam in Hong Kong, losing HK$26.4 million (US$3.4 million) in just 18 months. A look at 5 powerful leaders’ wives and their obscene shopping habits The fraudster, who posed as a financial... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2JibIow

The wildly popular celebrity talked prison and sentencing reform with President Donald Trump. Kardashian West hoped the president could pardon a US woman who has been in prison for 20 years on non-violent drug offenses. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2LI7epn

A Manhattan prosecutor said the indictment has brought "the defendant another step closer to accountability." But the ex-film producer's lawyer said his client "strongly denies" allegations of non-consensual sex. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2J0vMrY

The US television star Roseanne Barr has apologized for posting racist tweets earlier this week, saying she had been communicating under the influence of sleeping pills. Her relaunched show was axed by ABC in response. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2LIQi26

Trump has hit viral paydirt with an invented conspiracy theory that is masquerading as White House scandal. Is this a new, imaginary kind of ‘gate’? When is a gate not a gate? When it’s a “ spygate ”. This is not a hinged partition in a fence for secret agents, but Donald Trump’s recent coinage for something that by all other accounts definitely didn’t happen: that Obama’s team planted a spy inside Trump’s campaign in order to help Hillary win, which also didn’t happen. The suffix '-gate' is used with ironic hyperbole for trivial things. Or, in this case, purely imaginary things Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ssxqf4

Fonda, Keaton, Bergen and Steenburgen can do nothing to rescue this charmless luxury lifestyle offering about discovering EL James’s books This egregious luxury lifestyle romantic comedy made me put my clenched fists up to my cheeks and squeak with horror, as when I first watched Saw. Jane Fonda , Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen give performances in animatronic soft-focus as four friends – forever uninhibitedly laughing, gossiping, drinking chilled white wine from giant balloon glasses and not touching the plates of food dotted about. They’re not getting much bedroom action these days, but their life-affirming sensuality is reawakened when the “book club” they have going knuckles down to EL James’s super-saucy S’n’M romp Fifty Shades of Grey – apparently undeterred by how awful the films were. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2sw9LKO

Troy Patterson reviews “Pose,” a new FX TV series from Ryan Murphy about the ballroom scene in New York City in the nineteen-eighties. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2xuvecC

Maddie Dai offers humorous illustrations about the tribulations of launching a business venture, accompanied by limericks. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2LLhz40

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I can’t forgive her these latest awful tweets, yet she was once a rare voice that connected conservative and liberal America As the new king of primetime, Richard Madeley said of Roseanne Barr’s disgusting tweets that sedatives don’t make you racist. Barr, whose show has now been cancelled , left Twitter after comparing a woman of colour to an ape and then reappeared claiming that the sleeping pill Ambien had made her say these awful things. She has also said that she is being picked on while other celebrities are not. Her excellent cast has distanced itself from her outbursts, but still she goes on. Watching this woman has for some time been like watching a car crash , and yet her talent is undeniable. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xrV3dp

‘The image captures our relationship – the affection, the intimacy, the vulnerability. But why do so many people ask if he’s my boyfriend?’ The boy is a close friend, an artist I met in Ghana about a year before I made this photo. The image perfectly captures our relationship at the time: the affection, the intimacy and the vulnerability. People who see this often ask: “Is that your boyfriend?” It’s a double standard. I’m not sure male photographers get asked that kind of question. I’d been working a lot with my family, particularly my sisters, and was timid about making images of men’s bodies. I don’t think I was ready to navigate friendship and desire in the way this image does. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JjDVuU

Dismissing season 2 as provocative undermines its deeply felt story of recovery from trauma. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2sjZwdd

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How the sounds of crinkling, whispering, and tapping induce euphoria. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2H4GNqt

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Louise Brooks is the last word in amoral cosmopolitan chic as the serial seducer Lulu in GW Pabst’s magnificent tale of lust, greed and violence GW Pabst’s silent classic Pandora’s Box from 1928 is now on rerelease. It is his Weimar danse macabre , at the centre of which is Lulu, a beautiful woman who is a serial seducer and serial survivor, finally to fall victim to Jack the Ripper in London. This nauseous twist of fate is the final torsion of satire and melodrama for someone who is the plaything of her own fatal glamour. The movie is based on the two plays by Frank Wedekind – Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box (1905). Louise Brooks plays the showgirl and adventuress Lulu, and her serene yet calculating beauty is framed in a severe black bob, of almost helmet-like shininess and purpose – the very last word in amoral cosmopolitan chic. She is the New Realist flapper of 1930s Germany. That hair is a brilliant signature of her identity. When she escapes the law, it is crucially ch...

This sensational film presents a backstory-prequel to the making of the documentary that spotlit Big and Little Edie, two great American eccentrics They’re back! For fans of the classic 1975 documentary Grey Gardens , by Albert and David Maysles, this film is a startling, even sensational event. Despite some faults, it is basically a must-see, an archival gem with mouthwatering unseen footage of the two women who were turned by that film into pop-culture legends. It throws real light on them, and on the silent cunning of the Maysles brothers themselves, with a Greeneian splinter of ice in their hearts. Related: That Summer: the story behind the 'other' Grey Gardens documentary Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xqYQYe

Andy Borowitz jokes about Roseanne Barr’s claim that taking Ambien led her to tweet a racist statement about the former Obama Administration official Valerie Jarrett. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2LGdbmG

Dismissing season 2 as provocative undermines its deeply felt story of recovery from trauma. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2JetnNO

In a new book, top historians discuss the musical’s educational value, historical accuracy and racial revisionism from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian https://ift.tt/2xqA2zH

In Maddie Dai’s Daily Cartoon, Roseanne Barr deliberates about tweets. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2H2Z6MF

Fallout 76: Bethesda releases teaser for new Fallout game Bethesda has teased Fallout 76 ahead of E3 2018 30 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2shVt0Q

John Cassidy writes about Donald Trump’s recent efforts to discredit Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation, and why it is imperative that senior Republicans step in to denounce the President’s propaganda. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Jkp43G

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Plastic, plastic everywhere: Littering our beaches, swirling into a giant island in the middle of the Pacific, landing in the bellies of birds and marine beasts. Artists are trying to prevent that with unique works. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2LKRZMn

Belarusian investigative journalist and writer Svetlana Alexievich turns 70 on May 31. Her unique, and often harrowing, insights into life behind the Iron Curtain were rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 2015. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2J3H7HT

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A realist's guide to re-watching the HBO classic on Amazon Prime. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2J48e5K

Fight Club author says his income has dwindled, as Darin Webb is charged with embezzling $3.4m from his literary agency Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk has said that he is “close to broke” after it emerged that an accountant at his literary agency had been arrested for embezzling $3.4m (£2.5m) from the company. Darin Webb, an accountant at Donadio and Olson in New York, was charged on 15 May with “defraud[ing] a literary agency during his engagement as that agency’s bookkeeper, by converting funds that belonged to the agency and its clients to his own use”. The charge states that Webb allegedly admitted in video interviews that he prepared monthly financial reports and sent emails to the agency’s clients “that contained false and fraudulent representations, in order to accomplish the theft and evade detection”. The complaint does not name the literary agency, but the name was confirmed to the New York Post by Donadio and Olson’s lawyer . Continue reading... from Culture | The G...

Anger at repression is quelled under the military dictatorship – but the country’s punk scene is turning the protest volume back up again “It’s been four years, motherfucker!” – this is how a group of Thai punks promoted their gig, earlier this month, marking the fourth anniversary of military rule in the country. The provocative slogan, directed at junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha , helped the event’s Facebook page go viral, piquing the interest of pro-democracy activists and putting the small underground scene in the national spotlight. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xnW4Df

The visionary Swiss historian helps us understand our world just as much as his contemporary Karl Marx The bicentenary of the birth of a Swiss historian might not seem the most glamorous of anniversaries. Unlike his contemporary Karl Marx, also born in 1818, Jacob Burckhardt never inspired any revolutions and doesn’t get his face on T-shirts. Yet some of us are celebrating the 200th birthday of Jacob Burckhardt lavishly. This week a British Academy conference reinterprets his intellectual legacy with contributions from leading international scholars and me, kicking off with a public event tonight at the Warburg Institute . What’s all the fuss about? Take a look at the names of the Guardian’s online sections: opinion , sport , culture ... why culture ? Once upon a time, newspapers used to have arts sections. Today, they’ve caught up – very belatedly – with Burckhardt. The use of the term culture to mean a broad and changing flow of forms from opera to video games may seem like an inn...

The Latest from Folkways, a Label Marking 70 Years, revives music traditions from the African-American ranch crews of the West from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian https://ift.tt/2JeTwvX

New documentary shows author confiding that she once struggled to picture ‘a woman wizard’ and that ‘the Earthsea books as feminist literature are a total complete bust’ A new documentary about Ursula K Le Guin shows the late author reflecting on the impact of feminism on her work, revealing that she had been “a woman pretending to think like a man” and that her much-loved Earthsea books “are a total complete bust” as feminist literature. Le Guin’s first three books about Earthsea centre on the male wizard Ged, with women “either marginal or essentially dependent on men”, according to the author herself. In director Arwen Curry’s forthcoming Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin, which Curry worked on with Le Guin for 10 years, the novelist speaks of how when she started writing, “men were at the centre” of fantasy and admits that “from my own cultural upbringing, I couldn’t go down deep and come up with a woman wizard”. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2J3IW7O ...

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Benjamin Grosvenor’s chamber ensemble’s programme that included Schubert’s Trout Quintet was distinctive and deeply musical on its own terms The Southbank Centre’s newly refurbished Queen Elizabeth Hall has been open almost two months, its spruced-up interior resonating throughout this season with echoes of its musical past. This concert was one of the most daring backward glances yet. The young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor gathered an ensemble of friends for a programme including Schubert’s Trout Quintet: a nod towards a celebrated performance given at the QEH in 1969 by Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline Du Pré and co, captured lovingly in a documentary film by Christopher Nupen . Given the subsequent reputations of those involved in 1969 – Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta completed the group – this was a bold gesture. But the ambition on show was predominantly musical, the expressive style worlds apart from the messy, mesmerising exu...

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Why let John Goodman go to waste? from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2sq7a4T

Fisherman Andy Coetzee is holding onto his fishing line for dear life, as a monstrous tug threatens to drag him into the ocean from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian https://ift.tt/2L8jw9k

2/5 stars Japan has one of the world’s most prolific independent film scenes, one where soft-core pornography and eccentric auteurism regularly go hand in hand. The Limit of Sleeping Beauty falls squarely into this category, chronicling as it does the escapist fantasies of a struggling actress hoping to flee Tokyo’s clubland underworld. Since arriving in Tokyo 10 years earlier, Aki (Yuki Sakurai) has been making ends meet working as a magician’s assistant. She performs at the... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2splhY9

Produced by TNY Studio with Canada Keep Exploring: Experience the culture and energy of Toronto through a poetry-meets–street art collaboration between acclaimed poet Cleo Wade and visual artist Bareket Kezwer. Energized by the city, these artists uncover the local spirit, public spaces, and themselves in a collaboration inspired by each other and the places that surround them. Witness their expressive power through a mosaic of Cleo’s words created by Bareket on a once-blank wall in Toronto. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2H0zpMQ

Troy Patterson writes about the cancellation of “Roseanne” in the wake of a racist tweet from its star, Roseanne Barr, attacking the former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2J3vBfL

For one of the Hong Kong bands to have generated the most international buzz in recent years, Blood Wine or Honey are surprisingly difficult to see live in their hometown. The June 8 launch party for their nine-track debut album Fear & Celebration will actually only be the fourth time the band have performed live together. The party is at the Pearl Ballroom at the Eaton Hotel, which has recently been rebranded as a music space. As well as the band’s performance – during which... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2kBQLqA

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London Christopher Hampton’s erratic California-set adaptation features strong performances by Audrey Fleurot and Paul Anderson, but its lack of coherence is not just linguistic On paper, it might have seemed like a good idea. In practice, this bilingual version of Molière’s great comedy, played in both French and English, proves erratic and confusing. Even with a skilled adapter in Christopher Hampton, a good cast that includes Paul Anderson from Peaky Blinders and Audrey Fleurot from Spiral and an array of surtitle screens, the subtlety of Molière’s exposure of self-delusion gets lost. Hampton and the director, Gérald Garutti, justify the approach on various grounds. The action has now been shifted to California, where Tartuffe is a fanatical, white-robed guru who has taken over spiritual possession of his billionaire French host, Orgon. The fact that the pair, when together, speak English is a sign of Tartuffe’s successful imposition of his will. The rest ...

Opera Holland Park, London Rodula Gaitanou’s thoughtful production brings insight and clarity to Verdi’s tragedy R odula Gaitanou ’s new production of La Traviata for Opera Holland Park opens not with Verdi’s prelude but with the alarming sound of laboured breathing, of someone gasping for air and life. It’s a provocative start to a thoughtful, troubling interpretation that carefully and insistently reminds us that the opera’s tragedy lies in its confrontation with encroaching mortality. When the familiar opening string phrases steal in, we encounter Lauren Fagan ’s Violetta spitting blood, while her maid, Anina (Ellie Edmonds), prepares her for the party at which her world will be overturned when she meets Matteo Desole ’s gauchely attractive Alfredo. We are in the decadent fin-de-siècle Paris of Proust, where time is rapidly running out. Cordelia Chisholm’s set, meanwhile, resembles a glasshouse, where Violetta is displayed like some exquisite bloom admired for her beauty but d...

From Philip K Dick’s obtuse robots to Mark O’Connell’s guide to transhumanism, novelist Julian Gough picks essential reading for a helter skelter world I’m an Irish writer whose new novel is set in the digital, hi-tech future. Which makes it … unusual. If traditional Irish literature was a car, it would have a wide selection of reverse gears, 30 or 40 rear-view mirrors and no headlights. I admire much of Ireland’s brilliant, backward-looking, past-obsessed canon. But other literary traditions use the future: Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Sirens of Titan , A Clockwork Orange, Oryx and Crake, Accelerando, The Power … Irish literature has only recently begun to do this, in books such as Mike McCormack’s Notes from a Coma , Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane , and Sarah Davis-Goff’s forthcoming Last Ones Left Alive . Maybe Ireland needed to escape its own stifling past first, referendum by painful referendum. Related: Connect by Julian Gough review – a dazzling technothriller...

PUGB, creator of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, files lawsuit against Epic Games claiming similarities between two titles The creator of the smash-hit video game Fortnite is to be sued in South Korea for copyright violation. According to the Korean Times , a lawsuit has been filed by PUGB Corp, a subsidiary of the publisher Bluehole. It alleges that Fortnite bears many similarities to its own title, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which was launched several months earlier. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L9C7SP

Ali Elkin offers humorous ideas for a “Great Gatsby”-themed wedding, including coupe champagne glasses and a no-children rule. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2snTO9p

Disgraced comedian says ‘egregious’ statements were result of ‘Ambien tweeting’, and is scheduled to appear on podcast The Joe Rogan Experience on Friday Roseanne Barr has blamed a tweet in which she compared an African American woman to an ape on the influence of sleeping pills. The TV star, who falsely said that Valerie Jarrett, former advisor to Barack Obama, has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, says her tweet was written after she had taken the prescription sleeping pill Ambien. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JhwYKV

While the multiplex might be overrun with superheroes, dinosaurs and space cowboys, the season also offers up a set of films untouched by sequelitis Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H2mgmm

At the Storm King Art Center in New York, a group of artists has come together to showcase works that cover a growing, and often ignored, issue The week before the Storm King Art Center opened its public art exhibition on the 500-acre premises in Mountainville, New York, there was a tornado . It was fitting considering the topic of the exhibition, Indicators: Artists on Climate Change , which features over a dozen artists who tap into climate change “and hopefully, take action to help curb its advances”, explains the curator, Nora Lawrence. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JhshAE

These haunting, irresistible short stories interrogate the consequences of violence against a backdrop of African American history and family tragedy “Violence is as American as cherry pie,” the civil rights activist H Rap Brown informed us in the 1960s. The consequences of violence are what John Edgar Wideman has interrogated for decades in his tough but heart-rending books, returning repeatedly to the subject of his own African American family. This latest collection of 21 short stories – some purely fictional, some autobiographical, in which the past is never put to rest – features tormented historical figures such as John Brown and Jean-Michel Basquiat . Alongside them he explores his family’s pathology, its unnatural deaths and imprisonments standing as proxy for America’s tragedy. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2spGwZV

So far, it has been difficult to get a hold of documents of the renowned composer. But that will be much easier after the Wagner National Archive has been digitized. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2L8MxlB

Losers or winners of globalization? At the Berlin poetry festival, Ai Weiwei and Yang Lian connect through verse and on a T-shirt, while a Chinese factory worker becomes a literary star through her migrant worker poetry. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2snPGpO

With Solo: A Star Wars Story proving an intergalactic dud on its opening weekend, analysts have been pondering whether Lucasfilm’s enviable licence to print money might just have expired. The latest prequel in the iconic space franchise opened over the Memorial Day weekend in the US and Canada on just US$103 million, worryingly short of the predicted US$150 million debut. The news abroad was arguably worse, leaving Oscar-winning veteran filmmaker Ron Howard’s contribution to the... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2L6u0WQ

The actor signs to Decca following lifetime of piano playing, including with his band the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra Jeff Goldblum will release his debut album later this year – a collection of jazz piano recordings. The actor learned classical piano as a child before switching to jazz, and played in cocktail lounges in Pittsburgh from the age of 15. He has played ever since, and regularly performs jazz standards with his band, the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, named after a family friend – though he has never before recorded his work for release. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2sp4zZ4

New games aim to mix mass appeal of Pokémon Go with nostalgia of classic titles The Pokémon company and Nintendo have announced new Pokémon games for the Nintendo Switch , marking the debut of the franchise on the popular console. The announcements were headlined by two games that aim to mix the approachable nature of the hit mobile app Pokémon Go with the more in-depth appeal of the mainline role-playing game series, alongside a healthy hit of nostalgia. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L8cBNp

A desperate mother seeks to understand why her teenage daughter briefly disappeared in Healey’s follow-up to her Costa award debut In a world of ever more convoluted plot twists, here’s a true novelty: a mystery novel where the mystery is set up on the first page, and then straightforwardly solved at the end. Emma Healey is the young novelist whose debut, Elizabeth Is Missing , about an elderly woman with dementia, won the Costa first novel award in 2014 . The achievement of this follow-up lies its finely drawn mother/daughter pairing and sharp take on the nitty-gritty of contemporary familial relationships. The novel is written in the third person, but we see everything from the point of view of the desperately anxious Jen, who “never seemed to get the reaction she expected from other people. It was as though they didn’t think she was the person she thought she was.” Jen is trying not to put a foot wrong, but detonates bombs wherever she goes. Lana is her intensely strong-willed a...

US network ABC has canceled the successful relaunch of Roseanne after its star alleged George Soros was a Nazi collaborator and compared a former presidential aide to an ape. A new season was in the works. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2soAWH7

Three new Pokémon games are coming to Nintendo Switch Let’s Go Pikachu! and Let’s Go Eevee! will be followed by a “core” Pokémon game later next year 30 May 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2L71wwb

As the French city bids for Unesco heritage status, the stylish Musée de la Romanité shows off the extensive treasures of Roman Nîmes Nîmes’ spectacular Musée de la Romanité will open on 2 June in a €59.5m complex next to the city’s equally imposing 20,000-seat Arènes de Nîmes – an amphitheatre used for events such as the recent Great Roman Games . The new museum, which will have free admission during its opening weekend, was designed by Brazilian-born architect Elizabeth de Portzamparc, who has incorporated waxed concrete, aluminium, wood and glass into the three giant rectangular buildings, the largest of which is swathed in a toga of glass tiles and is in front of the Roman amphitheatre. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ky8VcI

Sarah Larson reviews “The Most Unknown,” a gorgeous, amiable documentary directed by Ian Cheney. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2IVYr1b

In a humor piece, Olivia de Recat illustrates various types of insufferable eaters, like the picker, who eats peas one at a time, and the miser, who wants you to lay off those fries. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2LDLqv4

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In just one season, the tags add up—all the way up. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2kCp1Cl

Amanda Petrusich writes about the Korean pop band BTS and how its album “Love Yourself: Tear” ascended the Billboard charts. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2xo41YZ

In just one season, the tags add up—all the way up. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2kCp1Cl

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Emily Witt on three new books about psychedelic drugs and their impact from Timothy Leary, Michael Pollan, and Tao Lin. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2IXxhXV

How Weinstein is using color to manipulate his public perception. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2LFdMVG

The Weston Tower, a sci-fi-style wonder by Ptolemy Dean, opens up a hidden gallery above the nave where William and Kate’s wedding certificate is likely to draw crowds Nestled into an armpit of Westminster Abbey, hidden behind a flying buttress that leaps up to the chapterhouse, stands what appears to be a gothic space rocket. Sinuous bronze tracery loops its way up the faceted shaft, framing crystalline windows between bands of lead arrowheads, like go-faster stripes shooting towards the heavens. “We’ve had enormous fun doing this,” says architect Ptolemy Dean , surveyor to the fabric of the abbey since 2012. “It’s not every day you get to add a new tower to Westminster Abbey.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H0VURG

Royal Albert Hall, London Eco-protests met lover’s laments as the 77-year-old marked her final tour with a stirring reminder of her fighting spirit Joan Baez has said this will be her final tour, so this was less concert than communion, a congregation coming to terms with its collective past. The audience was greying, supportive and eager to join in with It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and The Boxer, the song with which she concluded her 100-minute set. Whether this extended tour will be her last is another matter – the programme contains a flyer advertising dates in London next year: there could be quite a few final bows. Baez, now 77, has been performing for 60 years and isn’t going quietly. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2soQGKc

Richard Brody reviews “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” directed by Ron Howard, from a sceenplay by Jonathan Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2saBnoz

He groaned at Valkyrie and despaired at Saving Private Ryan. The award-winning historian takes aim at the war films that make him furious – and reveals his own favourite For a long time now, my wife has refused to watch a war movie with me. This is because I cannot stop grinding my teeth with annoyance at major historical mistakes, or harrumphing over errors of period detail. She only made an exception when Valkyrie came out, with Tom Cruise playing Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg . Such a folly of miscasting was bound to be a hoot, and we were not disappointed, especially when Cruise saluted in that downward cutaway style as if he were still in Top Gun. But I was soon grinding away again when the director and screenwriter felt compelled to improve on history, by making it look as if the 20 July plot to blow up Hitler had still very nearly succeeded. I despair at the way American and British movie-makers feel they have every right to play fast and loose with the facts, yet have t...

Brendan Loper’s Daily Cartoon puts together a conspiracy board. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2IZPvYK

Popularized by Thomas Jefferson, this versatile dish fulfills our nation's quest for the 'cheapest protein possible' from Arts & Culture | Smithsonian https://ift.tt/2ISPABM

Dismissing season 2 as merely provocative undermines its deeply felt story of recovery from trauma. from Culture - ELLE https://ift.tt/2JetnNO

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Filmmakers who can manage to direct a new movie at the age of 89 are rare. But legendary French director Agnes Varda has done just that with her latest, Faces Places, set to hit theaters just a day after she turns 90. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2LFx7GC

A 120-year-old boat from the South Sea that's twice the size of a killer whale has made its way across Berlin to its new home in the Humboldt Forum. "A milestone" for the new museum. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle https://ift.tt/2L26QRG