Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October, 2018

On your way, Pinochet! The factory workers who fought fascism from Glasgow

When Scots refused to service Chile’s jet fighters after the 1973 military coup, their protest all but grounded the air force – and may have saved prisoners’ lives. Nae Pasaran, a powerful documentary, tells their story The artificial spiders’ webs hanging in the windows of the Royal British Legion in East Kilbride, on the edge of Glasgow, are just part of the Halloween decorations. But they feel oddly appropriate on this bright, frosty morning in the company of men whose distant triumphs have recently had the cobwebs dusted off them. Sitting off to one side is the 41-year-old Chilean film-maker Felipe Bustos Sierra . Huddled around a table next to him are the former Rolls Royce plant workers whose bold statement of solidarity with the Chilean people in the mid-1970s is the subject of Nae Pasaran! , an inspirational documentary that proves principled acts can have positive consequences – even if they take decades to come to light. Six months after the bloody coup of 11 September 1973...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mohammed Hanif’s Red Birds brims with anger at the absurdity, ugliness and human cost of war

Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif Bloomsbury For his third novel, Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif has turned to the vast, arid landscape bombed relentlessly in the never-ending war on terror. Novel retrieves forgotten memory of massacre in Pakistan This land could be Pakistan or Afghanistan, carved out of desert-like nothingness and lying in an unruly fashion between the two political entities, with a boundary that those who live there neither recognise nor understand. The people, who all seem... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2zhRdB3
Post a Comment
Read more

James Acaster review – a comedy genius at the peak of his powers

Vaudeville theatre, London The standup refines his intricate tales with a note of personal poignancy for a set that will leave you drunk on its brilliance We had no right to ask more of James Acaster – already a five-times Edinburgh Comedy award nominee and the first UK comic to shoot multiple Netflix specials. But with this West End show, he raises his game still higher. To the meticulous, mind-warping standup we expect, Acaster now adds a personal intimacy from which he’s hitherto fought shy. The result – two sets for the price of one, effectively – is an absolutely cracking night of comedy from an act at the peak, surely, of his powers. There’s a rush you get when you watch a routine that has been burnished to gem-like perfection, every phrase and pause chiselled and grooved to maximise the surprise; I felt drunk on it after two hours of this set. Joke after joke operates on a plane to which standup seldom ascends, culminating in the extraordinary anecdote about Acaster being d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hookworms split after abuse allegations against band's singer

Matthew Johnson accused on Twitter of abusive behaviour towards an ex-partner The Leeds band Hookworms have announced that they are splitting after allegations of sexual and mental abuse made against the band’s frontman, Matthew Johnson. The five-piece posted a statement to the group’s Twitter account stating that all upcoming shows had been cancelled and that they “can no longer continue as a band”. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2P24sRd
Post a Comment
Read more

Top five films to watch in Hong Kong this week (November 1-7), from The Quake to Bohemian Rhapsody

Click on the film titles to read SCMP.com reviews. 1. The Quake The 2015 Norwegian film The Wave is an engrossing disaster thriller that impresses as much for its spectacle as its humanistic touch. The same can be said of this equally exhilarating sequel, which finds the same family of characters at the epicentre of a huge earthquake that threatens to destroy Oslo. (Opens on November 1) 2. One Cut of the Dead The best zombie comedy in years is also a tale of resourceful filmmaking at its most... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2OjfX1x
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wolves review – swaggering, tender tales of women's football

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London Teenaged soccer players in the US suburbs laugh, gossip and fight in Sarah DeLappe’s play In Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer-nominated debut play, the Wolves are a women’s indoor soccer team, navigating their wobbly way from adolescence to adulthood while training for their next game in the US suburbs. DeLappe wonders if, “plucked from its native habitat, this deeply American portrait will feel even more so”. She’s right: her team of nine high-schoolers might as well have played basketball instead. But in Ellen McDougall ’s production, the primary focus is not sport but the nature of the group itself and the way the girls speak to each other in this female-only space. They talk at once, in multiple conversations. One player comments on the limits of freedom in China: “They don’t have Twitter there.” At the same time, another speaks about the benefits of tampons over sanitary pads. They laugh, bitch, gossip and fight, the dialogue reflecting a certain ki...
Post a Comment
Read more

Matt Hamon's best photograph: his daughter Lur feeding a beheaded deer

‘She was picking grass, putting it in a yogurt tub and feeding it to the deer, not yet understanding death’ Lur is my daughter. Her name means earth or homeland, the place where you’re from. She’s five now, but she was about three when I shot this. It was in the fall and that’s a deer I had harvested. Wild game is the primary source of meat in my family. We live in rural Montana, on 11 acres in the forest. Typically, when we butcher a deer, a certain amount of the animal is left around before it’s taken to be composted. I’m not sure if Lur took the head out there to where we chop wood, but that’s where the image was shot. She was picking grass, putting it in a yogurt tub, and feeding it to the deer, not yet totally understanding death. It was around this time she started to ask questions. Are the animals asleep? Do they wake up? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Jt5tM9
Post a Comment
Read more

The Battle of the Big-Tech Titans Over San Francisco’s Tax for the Homeless

Anand Giridharadas writes on the argument, which unfolded over Twitter, between Marc Benioff, the co-C.E.O. of Salesforce, and Jack Dorsey over San Francisco’s ballot measure Prop C that proposes a modest tax for homelessness services. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Q9NnRK
Post a Comment
Read more

Blue Is the Warmest Colour director Abdellatif Kechiche accused of sexual assault

Film-maker denies accusation that he took advantage of an unconscious female actor at his Paris flat Abdellatif Kechiche, the Palme d’Or-winning director of Blue Is the Warmest Colour , has “categorically denied” an accusation of sexual assault. According to a report by the French news channel BFMTV , Paris’ public prosecutor’s office has opened an inquiry into an allegation made on 6 October by an unnamed 29-year-old actor, who accused Kechiche of assaulting her in June after a dinner at his flat in Paris. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OX8VVc
Post a Comment
Read more

Jennifer Lawrence’s Excellent Cadaver: why do stars give their companies unusual names?

The Oscar-winning actor has launched a production company with an odd name – and she’s not the first star to do so Big news out of Hollywood, as Deadline reports that Jennifer Lawrence’s production company Excellent Cadaver has just signed a first-look development deal with … Hang on, Jennifer Lawrence’s production company is called what? Excellent Cadaver? Where the hell did that come from? Either Jennifer Lawrence is inexplicably the world’s biggest fan of the made-for-TV 1999 Chazz Palminteri-starring HBO mob movie Excellent Cadavers – which, given that reviews from the time called it “mundane” and “pedantic”, doesn’t seem particularly likely – or she’s secretly been some kind of expert-grade corpse connoisseur all these years without telling anybody. Maybe we’ll never know. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QastlM
Post a Comment
Read more

Nazi slavery recalled at UNESCO-listed Völklinger Ironworks

Grenades, aircraft parts and military equipment originated in Nazi Germany's largest steel smelter, which utilized slave laborers from occupied Europe. An installation by French artist Christian Boltanski remembers them. from Deutsche Welle: DW.com - Culture & Lifestyle http://www.dw.com/en/nazi-slavery-recalled-at-unesco-listed-völklinger-ironworks/a-46105122?maca=en-rss-en-cul-2090-rdf
Post a Comment
Read more

Channel 4 chooses Leeds as new national headquarters

City beats Manchester and Birmingham to become broadcaster’s new HQ Leeds has unexpectedly been chosen as the new regional base for Channel 4, beating rival bids from Birmingham and Greater Manchester. The decision follows a fierce competition over the location for the broadcaster’s new outpost , which will see hundreds of staff relocated from the broadcaster’s current London headquarters. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CPSsuR
Post a Comment
Read more

BBC and Sky call for EU crackdown on Saudi pirate TV service

Broadcasters highlight ‘threat’ from BeoutQ, which provides illegal access to content such as Premier League games The BBC and Sky have called on the European commission to take formal action against Saudi Arabia over a pirate TV and streaming service that provides UK viewers with illegal access to content including Premier League football , The Bodyguard and Game of Thrones. Related: Premier League​ games 'screened illegally via Saudi satellite firm' Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/31/bbc-sky-eu-european-commission-saudi-pirate-tv-service-beoutq
Post a Comment
Read more

Pixies review – punk-rock preachers revisit their gloriously deranged roots

Roundhouse, London The weird, wild veterans perform their visceral early material and remind us of the flair that established their cult status If Charles Thompson IV, formerly known as Frank Black and three decades ago as Black Francis, is pleased to be performing his band Pixies ’ debut mini-album, Come on Pilgrim, and sublime first full-length, 1988’s Surfer Rosa, in full tonight, it’s hard to tell. His eyes hidden behind shades, he utters barely a syllable not found on those albums, even reading the infamous studio banter from Surfer Rosa off a printout. Any fears he might struggle to evince the deranged fire of his youth, however, are scorched by opener Caribou, slow-dancing to its own infernal, sweltering swoon as Thompson – having successfully located his inner Black Francis – bellows “Repent!” like a brimstone preacher, or a wild beast caught in a bear trap. These records represent the nascent Pixies sound, before the more accessible later work that saw them tipped for the k...
Post a Comment
Read more

Birmingham Royal Ballet: Fire and Fury review – flaming hot dancers

Sadler’s Wells, London Fire ripples through dancers’ bodies in Juanjo Argues’ vital new work, while David Bintley rekindles his Sun King spectacle This double bill from Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) is totally lacking in fury but you can’t deny there’s fire. In David Bintley’s The King Dances (first performed in 2015), flaming torches evoke the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, where the young king performed at the centre of lavish spectacles. This Louis (Max Maslen) seems more of a dreamer than the arrogant ego you might expect. The steps are based on the ramrod-straight poise and quick, precise footwork of ballet’s baroque roots. It needs to be rhythmically watertight, but composer Stephen Montague’s irregular accents thwart both dancers and orchestra at times. A pared-back palette can force great creativity, but here that comes in the shape of Halloween monsters under the bed rather than choreographic ingenuity. The finale, however, is utterly masterful: the simple power of bodies...
Post a Comment
Read more

Slaughterhouse Rulez review – boarding school comedy-horror

Simon Pegg and Michael Sheen star in a watchable jape that has plenty of charm but not enough scares Elite boarding schools have been a favourite microcosm for film-makers to explore over the years: as the crucible of revolution in If…. , the breeding ground of spies in Another Country , and the vessel of intellectual liberation in Dead Poets Society . Despite one or two nods and winks (including a picture of If….’s Malcolm McDowell getting plugged in the face with an airgun pellet), this watchable if basically undemanding jape opts to take a very different tack: a teen comedy-horror with little aspiration to make any bigger points other than to chase its group of shrieking and bellowing schoolkids around an educational establishment’s venerable passageways and adjacent woodland. Strangely enough, the coincidence of the real-world news cycle has given Slaughterhouse Rulez an unlikely topicality: a giant fracking drill in the school’s grounds has disturbed a pack of ravenous subterra...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bohemian Rhapsody film review: Rami Malek anchors bombastic if sanitised Freddie Mercury biopic

3/5 stars Flamboyant, bombastic, yet sanitised and sketchy on detail, Bohemian Rhapsody plays it safe recounting the rise of rock legends Queen and the turbulent life of iconic frontman Freddie Mercury. Rami Malek, sporting false teeth and an assortment of preposterous wigs, gives his all as Freddie, but the reluctance to sufficiently explore his hedonism, homosexuality and battle with Aids leaves the film as conflicted and schizophrenic as its protagonist. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2QcZE8l
Post a Comment
Read more

Back in bloom: how queer male pop reclaimed its star status

The 80s put the gay man front and centre of pop. Then came the Aids crisis – and three decades of demonisation and displacement. As Troye Sivan leads a new wave of gay stars, has true change finally arrived? Troye Sivan is the hottest gay pop star in the world. For his legion millennial and Generation Z fans, he’s among the first artists of their lifetime to frankly explore gay sex in pop – notably on his recent second album, Bloom – and they’ve hailed him as a trailblazer. But Sivan is part of a complex legacy of male queerness in music, one that exploded during disco and commanded the mainstream centre in the 80s only to wither in the 90s. Why has it taken two decades for the gay male experience to reclaim its place in pop? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Jr6CUB
Post a Comment
Read more

The Favourite dominates British independent film award nominations

Women make up over 40% of Bifa nominees while Olivia Colman comedy edges American Animals as film up for most awards The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurdist Restoration-era comedy starring Olivia Colman as a volatile Queen Anne, leads the nominations for this year’s British i ndependent f ilm a wards (BIFAs) . The film, which premiered at the Venice film festival in August but is yet to go on general release, won 13 nominations including for best British independent film and best screenplay. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2qmkVAS
Post a Comment
Read more

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick review – dark fable of artistic creation

A slender, but beautifully written evocation of the travails of writing and the deep sources of horror ‘I announced that I had thought of a story,” wrote Mary Shelley , describing the birth of her most famous literary creation. “What would terrify me would terrify others,” she intuited, waking after a hideous dream, but Frankenstein did more than scare its readers. Two hundred years after its publication in January 1818 it continues to fascinate, haunt and inspire. Not that the narrator of The Monsters We Deserve – unnamed, but we’re told he shares initials with Mary Shelley as well as with his own progenitor – thinks that it’s a masterpiece. The author of a global horror bestseller, he has retreated to a remote chalet in Switzerland, not far from the novel’s setting, to seek fresh inspiration. He spends some time outlining Frankenstein ’s failings, an excellent example of writer’s rancour against a more successful rival, albeit one who has been dead for more than 150 years. Contin...
Post a Comment
Read more

MRSHLL, first openly gay K-pop singer, dedicates new release to all the ‘aliens and misfits’

By Celeste Kriel K-pop’s first openly gay singer, MRSHLL, has released his new mixtape, Alien Issa Mixtape, which he says is dedicated to all the “aliens and the misfits” and those on the margins of society. Who were K-pop’s biggest influencers in October? Report reveals all “These are songs I’ve been working throughout the past year that didn’t make it onto the Breathe EP released this past June, nor did it quite fit into the concept of my next album... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2DdQ5Tz
Post a Comment
Read more

Google, Apple, BBC and others join UK Council for Internet Safety

UK Council for Internet Safety signs up tech's big players The government-backed scheme aims to keep children safe from harm online 31 Oct 2018 News from Life & Culture https://ift.tt/2RwpgNJ
Post a Comment
Read more

Dealing With Clair review – Martin Crimp's fierce swipe at pious yuppies

Orange Tree theatre, Richmond This revival gains an eerie topicality, yet its ingenious study of moneyed hypocrisy makes it truly timeless By an extraordinary quirk of fate, Martin Crimp ’s 1988 play is being revived at the very moment the unsolved murder of Suzy Lamplugh is once again headline news. While Crimp’s play touches on the theme of an estate agent who mysteriously disappears, its topicality shines through in countless other ways: it is, ultimately, about the moral equivocation of the middle classes, and men’s abuse and belittlement of women. Property lies at the heart of the artfully told story. Mike and Liz are a yuppie couple anxious to get the maximum price for their London house. So, although they have already accepted an offer, they are open to a higher cash bid from an enigmatic picture-dealer named James. Clair is the estate agent caught in the middle, who becomes the excuse for the couple’s double-dealing and an object of unhealthy curiosity on the part of the cr...
Post a Comment
Read more

She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer review – the latest thinking on heredity

What do we pass on from generation to generation? This deeply researched book explores the murky past of genetic research as well as its fast-moving present Genealogy is apparently the second most searched subject on the internet … after the obvious. Now that we can map our genes, we want to know where we come from. But heredity is not as simple as the passing on of traits from parents to offspring: mothers can acquire cells from their own children; race “is not a feature of the natural world beyond our social experience”; we can chop up DNA to replace the bits we don’t like; and a lot of those genealogy sites are nonsense. In this painstakingly researched book, the science writer Carl Zimmer takes a long view of heredity. Stories of how discoveries were made often start with farming and plants (Mendel’s peas) and continue via unusual humans (the Habsburg jaw) before being proved or disproved by DNA sequencing, and then potentially rethought as knowledge increases. Mini-biographies...
Post a Comment
Read more

Top 10 deaths in fiction

From Dickens to Woolf and Updike, novelists have taken on a dark but compelling challenge: to imagine their characters’ final experience In some ways, our dealings with death have changed beyond recognition since the birth of the novel. Medical advances have transformed the statistics of infant mortality, death in childbirth and infectious disease. But if death seems less present in our lives and easier to ignore – for a while – we know that is a false and fleeting comfort. For die we still must. All our ingenuity cannot prevent it, for ourselves or our loved ones and it is our human capacity to love each other and the world that gives death its distinctive, bitter sting. By examining our looming fate in art and literature we can attempt to soften that sting, though our prospects are doubtful. I’m not interested here in the most spectacular, moving or memorable literary deaths, but specifically in attempts to shed light on the experience of dying itself. An experienced death in fict...
Post a Comment
Read more

Varina by Charles Frazier review – clear-sighted view of a divided America

The Cold Mountain author has returned to the civil war for this novel of flight and separation In February 1911, at a whites-only ceremony in New Orleans, the Jefferson Davis monument was erected to mark 50 years since the inauguration of the first and only man to hold the office of president of the Confederate States. Schoolchildren dressed in red, white and blue sang “Dixie” and were choreographed into a living Confederate flag. On 11 May 2017, under cover of darkness, the statue was taken down . If historical fiction seeks to to shed light on the present, now is the time for Charles Frazier to return to the civil war period that provided the background for his million-selling debut, Cold Mountain . As statues of Davis and other Confederate leaders come down across the south, Frazier has chosen to focus on the president’s second wife, Varina Howell: bluestocking, opium addict, friend of Oscar Wilde and surely the most obscure woman to have borne the title first lady in America. Co...
Post a Comment
Read more

26.2 Miles of Emotion

Runners from all over the world participate in the New York City Marathon to compete and experience the dramatic highs and lows. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2DeNXuL
Post a Comment
Read more

The Bi Life

While Love Island has become a big hit, its format is rigid and doesn’t allow for same-sex relationships. E!’s new show could be the answer Along with the blistering heat and the glimmer of World Cup glory, the overriding theme of the summer was just how invested the nation became in one Spanish villa. Love Island was the sleeper hit turned national phenomenon, with even peripheral player Hayley Hughes briefly steering the nation’s Brexit conversation. But one criticism frequently levelled at the show was its overwhelming straightness , its format not truly allowing for same-sex relationships (there was one in the show’s second series, between the late Sophie Gradon and Katie Salmon). Enter E!’s The Bi Life – hosted by Drag Race and Celebrity Big Brother alum Shane Jenek AKA Courtney Act. On the face of it, this new series appeared to be both a vehicle for redressing dating shows’ lack of queerdom, and also a ripped-from-Twitter attempt at emulating the success of ITV2’s hit. Conti...
Post a Comment
Read more

How “Religious Freedom” Laws Became a Flash Point in the Georgia Governor’s Race

Charles Bethea writes on the Georgia gubernatorial contest between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp, and how the latter has pledged to pass Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislation, threatening the film and television industry’s involvement in the state. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2PBU3eI
Post a Comment
Read more

'It's great to be niche. It also sucks': inside the grind of queer publishing

For queer publishers, life can be tough: despite the corporate love of all things LGBTQ, there’s no money in it Someone has queered the magazine shelves of McNally Jackson, the boujee bookstore in Soho, New York. The shelves are throbbing with thick, glossy, high production magazines with titles such as Butch , Cakeboy , Cave Homo , Gayletter , Headmaster , Posture and The Tenth . Queer publishing – at least on the surface – appears to be having a moment. With the same-sex marriage debate (mostly) over and trans rights now a mainstream topic, it seems like there is a shift in media. Even publishing giant Condé Nast is in on it, launching Them , “a next-generation community platform” that will tell its stories “through the lens of today’s LGBTQ community”. Grindr, the gay dating app, has Into, its own online magazine. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zfxPES
Post a Comment
Read more

Zombie dogs to talking foetuses – the 13 scariest video game moments ever

The greatest horror titles are haunted by marauding monsters, eviscerating aliens and little girls in red coats. Steel yourself to meet some of the most chilling ghosts in the machine Video games are the perfect medium for horror. They offer a unique sense of immersion, of being trapped within an interactive nightmare, and this has proven irresistible to players and developers since the industry began. Some have faded with time – you’re unlikely to shiver with terror at the sight of 1987 Spectrum adventure Jack the Ripper, the first game to receive an 18 certificate thanks to its “gory” visuals . But many classic horror titles still leave us cowering helplessly behind our joypads. Here then are 13 unforgettably terrifying video game moments. Feel free to add your own chilling favourites in the comments section. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q7WLpf
Post a Comment
Read more

LGBT cinema still needs more happy endings | Benjamin Lee

As a juror for a gay film festival, I’ve been reminded of the bleakness that has come to typify LGBT cinema. To progress, it must allow for some joy A drag queen dies of cancer. A closeted gay man chooses a loveless marriage over a man he loves. An older lesbian woman returns from a brief, joyful sojourn to a life of staleness. A gay man decides to stay in the closet for his career, saying goodbye to his lover. A gay father kills himself after being ostracised. A young gay man is left alone in a society that doesn’t understand him. A gay couple are forced apart by circumstance. A lesbian couple ends their relationship. Related: Why are there so few queer female coming-of-age movies? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SAJ97g
Post a Comment
Read more

Secrets of the seat fillers: London's labyrinth of free theatre tickets

A number of agencies offer freebies for struggling shows, but the growth in ‘papering’ doesn’t seem to be harming sales Theatre in London can mean an expensive night out. While lots of venues have their own schemes for cheaper tickets, another option is to join the ranks of the paperers. Operating beneath the surface of theatreland, paperers pay only the marginal booking fees levied on free tickets to struggling shows – those that have been panned by critics or haven’t got their attention. I’ve been able to impress friends and family by treating them to off-the-wall and experimental plays, as well as musicals, ballet and opera. Paperers – so called because they paper over gaps in an audience – help conceal that a show is struggling and hopefully lend it a word-of-mouth boost, if it’s any good. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2EVagrf
Post a Comment
Read more

Women Poets' prize reveals first three winners

Honorees include Claire Collison, whose works include a performance piece about female beauty that she performs with her mastectomy scars revealed A breast cancer survivor who performs a monologue with her mastectomy scars exposed in order to address attitudes towards female beauty is among three recipients of the inaugural Women Poets’ prize . The award aims to celebrate the empowerment of women and reward “creatively ambitious practitioners who are making or are capable of making a significant contribution to the UK poetry landscape”. Claire Collison , who moved to writing poetry and prose after working for 30 years as a visual artist, was awarded the prize alongside New Zealand-born Nina Mingya Powles and London-based Anita Pati . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2yI4mE5
Post a Comment
Read more

Philip Larkin: Letters Home review – the poet as loyal, guilt-ridden son

What do your parents do to you? This correspondence, edited by James Booth, reveals a new side of Larkin, as he tries to make up for how much he hated visiting his mother “My very dear old creature,” Larkin wrote to his mother Eva in August 1968, “a man has just presented me with a copy of The Letters of Wilfred Owen … Most of his letters are to his mother! The book is 629pp long. He starts his letters ‘Sweet my Mother’, which takes some living up to. I like mine better – my beginnings, I mean. My mother too probably.” James Booth’s selection of Larkin’s letters home, most of them written to his mother, is 688 pages long. “Dear Mop,” the early ones begin – he addressed his father, Sydney, as “Pop” but “Mop” also evoked Eva’s role as domestic drudge. His letters include drawings of her as a seal-like creature, often wearing a servant’s mob cap. After his father died in 1948, he began addressing her differently, as “My Dear Mop-Monst-Haugh” or “Dear creaturely one” or, most often, “My...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keyboard Warriors film review: internet nerds take spotlight in vigilante crime-fighting comedy

3/5 stars Having found fame with his serialised novel Men Can’t Be Poor via strong support from his fellow Hong Kong Golden Forum users, part-time writer and full-time businessman Sit Ho-ching turns the spotlight back on the hugely popular internet portal that made his name with this entertaining film directing debut. Lucid Dreams review: superficial horror-comedy anthology Yau Hawk-sau ( No. 1 Chung Ying Street ) and Lam Yiu-sing ( House of the Rising Sons ) play Ang Ray and Jay Kwan, a... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2JsIz7A
Post a Comment
Read more

She created a monster: how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein invented modern horror

On the 200th anniversary of her terrifying masterpiece, our writer uncovers the heartbreak that inspired Shelley – and the gruesome masterpieces her astonishing creation blazed a trail for One stormy night in 1816, while staying at Lord Byron’s villa near Lake Geneva, an 18-year-old woman tossed and turned in the thunder-filled darkness. Her name was Mary Shelley, and she was having a nightmare about a monster made from scraps of humans. Frankenstein, the novel Shelley would fabricate from her vision, is regarded as a fable of science gone wrong. Yet it is also a rumination about art. Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s creator, is as much sculptor as scientist. Like Pygmalion, the sculptor from Greek myth, he makes a body and it comes to life. And what is this monster but a collage? A full century before the likes of Kurt Schwitters and Georges Braque, Shelley seems to have presaged every modern artistic discipline that sticks together fragments of the world, from collage to photomon...
Post a Comment
Read more

Klimt / Schiele review – the double act who saw the profound in the pornographic

Royal Academy, London This sumptuous collection of drawings reveals how the master and his protege caused a scandal by bringing sex and death into collision A model lies on her back on soft pillows, clutching the flesh of her raised left thigh as, with her right hand, she strokes her clitoris. Her eyes close in enjoyment. The artist watches with a pleasure his drawing fully communicates. When I saw this drawing the caption next to it seemed to be in the wrong place, for it was labelled as a work by the notoriously sensual Austrian artist Egon Schiele. In fact the drawing is clearly signed, in elegant art nouveau capitals, GUSTAV KLIMT. Like pupil, like teacher. The Royal Academy’s mix and mashup of drawings by Klimt, born in 1862, and his protege Schiele, born in 1890, is a surprising, enriching, rewarding comparison of two geniuses who influenced and supported each other and whose imaginations turn out to have much more in common than I thought. Continue reading... from Culture...
Post a Comment
Read more

Donald Trump Launches Operation Midterms Diversion

John Cassidy writes that Donald Trump’s recent announcements—deploying troops to the U.S. border with Mexico, and possibly revoking birthright citizenship—are tactical diversions, meant to gin up enthusiasm among his base before the midterm elections. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2DcxiYH
Post a Comment
Read more

Soldier On review – veterans and actors join forces to tell military tales

The Other Palace, London Ex-service personnel work alongside professional actors in Jonathan Lewis’s ingenious piece of meta-theatre Written and directed by Jonathan Lewis, this is a play about the military community. What makes it unusual is that professional actors work alongside veterans in a show jointly presented by the Soldiers’ Arts Academy , which is dedicated to helping ex-service personnel fulfil their artistic potential. When, however, we were asked in a curtain speech to think of the Academy as “the Invictus Games of the arts”, I felt, as a critic, I was being put in an impossible position. Is one being asked to review a play or applaud a cause? That said, Lewis has created an ingenious piece of meta-theatre in which we watch a harassed director, convincingly played by David Solomon, persuading a group of ex-combatants and their families to tell their stories. We quickly grasp that post-traumatic stress disorder has a devastating effect on the families of those affected:...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Quake film review: after The Wave, Norwegian disaster movie sequel turns to an epic earthquake

4/5 stars Lightning may never strike twice, but Norwegian geologist Kristian Eikjord (played by Kristoffer Joner) and his family are not so lucky. Just three years after surviving a deadly tsunami in the 2015 hit The Wave , the characters find themselves at the epicentre of a huge earthquake that threatens to destroy Oslo. Rampage review: Dwayne Johnson and gigantic beasts in a dumb CG monstrosity Blending big-budget disaster-movie thrills with an emotionally grounded story about family and... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2Q80keQ
Post a Comment
Read more

‘The coolest thing': Great British Bake Off champion crowned

Mandal beats Ruby Bhogal and Kim-Joy after making doughnuts and an ‘edible landscape’ A Rotherham-based Indian research scientist who started baking only two years ago has been crowned champion of this year’s Great British Bake Off. Dr Rahul Mandal said winning the programme was “the coolest thing that I have done in my life”. He said he had gained confidence by appearing on the show, adding: “I hope it helps me try new things and be a bit more adventurous in baking and life itself.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2qkRbUU
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump Strips Citizenship from Children of Immigrants, Thus Disqualifying Himself from Presidency

Andy Borowitz jokes that Donald Trump unintentionally disqualified himself from serving as U.S. President by trying to strip citizenship from the children of immigrants. Trump’s mother was an immigrant from Scotland. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2SuGhZK
Post a Comment
Read more

'I want my art to matter. I want it to be of use': John Luther Adams

How to change the world? The Pulitzer-winning composer explains why he chose music over activism, and how his concern over the future only raises the stakes In the early evening of 4 April 1968, while standing on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated . Two years later, on the anniversary, my girlfriend and I climbed over the locked iron gate of our exclusive boarding school on the north side of Atlanta and hitchhiked downtown to join the candlelight vigil at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Related: John Luther Adams: a force of nature Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2qkigri
Post a Comment
Read more

Martin Amis on London Fields: 'I never thought it would be a popular film'

As the troubled adaptation finally hits screens to negative reviews and bad box office, the author talks about the difficult journey from page to screen Hollywood fiascos of this caliber come once or twice per decade. After over 15 years of assorted delays, a big-screen adaptation of Martin Amis’ murder-mystery novel London Fields arrived in US theaters at the weekend. David Cronenberg was attached to the earliest phases of the project in 2001, replaced by a series of decreasingly prestigious film-makers that has led to Katy Perry music video veteran Matthew Cullen. Cullen prepared a cut of the film for the Toronto film festival in 2015, but was decidedly displeased to discover that the producers had re-edited the film for exhibition on the festival circuit. He sued over the rights to final cut privileges along with fraud and failure to provide payment, and the production team countersued over his contractually prohibited choice to pursue side jobs while working on London Fields. Co...
Post a Comment
Read more

Orson Welles' jungle book, Bilbo on mushrooms: the great unmade movies

For every glittering Hollywood project that hits cinemas, there’s a whole lot more that don’t make it. Here are five of the most fascinating films you’ll never see It has been a big year for lost movies, with the completion and release of both Orson Welles’ long-shelved experimental drama The Other Side of the Wind and Terry Gilliam’s decades-in-the-making The Man Who Killed Don Quixote . But what of those major movies that never even made it past the script stage? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q72zz2
Post a Comment
Read more

Shock of the old: how Wexford opera festival dares to be different

The Irish festival specialises in reviving neglected rarities – and proves that the road less travelled is well worth taking Always do something different. Richard Wagner’s famous advice to his admirers should be the motto of Wexford Festival Opera . Different is what Wexford does, year after year – sometimes in the face of daunting financial, artistic and political challenges. It has made the festival what it is: an improbable but unique place of annual autumnal pilgrimage in the opera world as well as one of the prime cultural achievements of modern Ireland. This year’s festival, which ends on 4 November, has been hewn from the same operatic motherlode as its 66 predecessors. Wexford’s speciality is the unknown and neglected operatic repertoire. Its calling cards are the works – sometimes written by household names – that have fallen into neglect. This year’s edition offers new productions of Franco Leoni’s L’Oracolo, Umberto Giordano’s Mala Vita, and Saverio Mercadante’s Il Bravo,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stephen Colbert on Pittsburgh shooting: 'Hate is not what America stands for'

Late-night hosts discussed the president’s response to both mail bomber and the synagogue attack Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s response to the mail bomber who targeted the president’s enemies critics and the shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Related: Seth Meyers: ‘If you’re asking if Trump’s lying or stupid the answer is all of the above’ Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zb4w6q
Post a Comment
Read more

Mighty Shadow obituary

One of the great calypso musicians admired for his originality and wry humour In the flamboyant world of calypso, Mighty Shadow, who has died aged 77, stood out as an eccentric counterpoint to the colourful norm. On stage, typically clad in dark cape and wide-brimmed black hat, he would perform with a slight frown while either standing still or moving in jumpy, jerky movements as his deep, tremulous voice conveyed a vulnerability that was matched by songs of personal frailty and wild imaginings. It was a persona and outlook that stood in dramatic contrast to the classic bravura of the typical calypsonian, one that might have been expected to generate either bemusement or scorn in his native Trinidad and Tobago. But in fact it proved so original, so eerily amusing and so engaging that Shadow quickly came to be hailed as one of the greats. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zeFvr4
Post a Comment
Read more

Cabaret group Duckie to celebrate Fanny Cradock in Waltham Forest

Year-long London borough of culture programme includes queer tribute to fearsome TV cook Fanny Cradock is to be celebrated in the borough of her birth in a way she probably never imagined – with an alfresco gender politics summer party of drag queens and kings. Members of the cabaret group Duckie are planning what they say will be a very queer mashup of postwar pop culture, style, food and gender politics in honour of the fearsome TV cook in Cradock’s home area of Leytonstone. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PtpfN6
Post a Comment
Read more

Cardi B reveals death threats to daughter amid feud with Nicki Minaj

Minaj denies claim she leaked fellow rapper’s phone number to the public after altercation at New York fashion week Cardi B has accused Nicki Minaj of leaking her phone number to the public, which led to death threats against her daughter. In one of a series of Instagram videos , Cardi B accuses Minaj of the leak following an altercation at a New York fashion week party that left Cardi B with a bruised forehead after she reportedly threw one of her shoes at Minaj. “How come my phone number got leaked one hour after that altercation at the Harper’s Bazaar party?” Cardi B says. “How come everybody that y’all have issues with, y’all have the numbers in your camp and they numbers got leaked?” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PqmZ9l
Post a Comment
Read more

Bohemian Rhapsody champion of UK box office as A Star Is Born rocked off top spot

The biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury sweeps Lady Gaga aside while YA drama The Hate U Give wins a lot of love Knocking A Star Is Born off the top of the UK box office after two weeks, Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody debuted with a commanding £6.48m (£9.53m including takings last Wednesday and Thursday). In other words, one movie involving a fair amount of singing has supplanted another, although neither is a musical. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OfTyCi
Post a Comment
Read more

Candi Staton diagnosed with breast cancer

The 78-year-old soul singer received the diagnosis on the first day of rehearsals for her summer tour – which went ahead as planned Soul singer Candi Staton has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The Alabama-born singer, 78, received the news on the first day of rehearsals for her summer tour in support of her 30th studio album, Unstoppable . In a statement, Staton said: “I decided to keep it to myself and do some soul-searching. I went through all of the emotions: denial, ‘poor me’ and anger. It really helped me to be on the road, doing something I love to do, and was born to do.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Sv8obl
Post a Comment
Read more

Ali Siddiq review – charisma and hard-won authenticity from an ex-con

Soho theatre, London The US standup, who spent six years in a Texas prison, delivers an accomplished set drawing on his misspent youth One in three black men in the US will spend time in jail. So it’s safe to assume that – at any given moment – there’s major untapped talent stuck behind those bars. Step forward Ali Siddiq , who spent six years in a Texas prison for selling drugs, and is now a hot-property comic. For 15 years, Siddiq didn’t address prison in his act. Then, last year, the 45-year-old performed It’s Bigger Than These Bars to inmates at Bell County Jail, Texas, broadcast as his first hour-long special for Comedy Central . Tonight’s show draws on that material, and proves Siddiq to be an accomplished, authoritative standup. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q68nZP
Post a Comment
Read more

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop
Post a Comment
Read more

Shinedown review – rock showmen ride towards arena stardom

O2 Academy, Newcastle With their positive affirmations, pop sensibilities and hair-metal heaviness, the Tennessee group unites rock fans young and old ‘We’ve played to five people and 500,000 people,” Shinedown’s vocalist Brent Smith yells, over a boom-boom-whack drum beat reminiscent of Queen’s We Will Rock You. “But tonight it’s all about you. Newcastle, let’s create some magic.” On his cue, almost every phone in the building is held aloft, every other arm is waving – as are drummer Barry Kerch’s sticks. When the lasers kick in, Smith’s “magic” spectacle is complete. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2OZ1JrJ
Post a Comment
Read more

'I have to confront it': Shocka, the grime MC who came back from a breakdown

He was playing arenas with rap trio Marvell – then lost it all. Now, after a powerful freestyle about the Grenfell tower fire, Shocka is back, and preaching a message of self-care “All UK rap videos look the same: same rented cars, same bling, same penthouse, same girls. It’s boring. I wanted a change.” Grime veteran Shocka is ruminating on the instinct that made him reshape his career. Sipping a coffee in a Shoreditch, London, he looks every inch the socially conscious MC – tall, bearded, and conspicuously lacking designer logos. He’s riding high from the viral success of his latest single, the ridiculously catchy Self Love, an ode to positivity with a truly diverse cast for its video, which has been viewed by millions on social media (helped in no small part by a repost from rap’s favourite uncle, Snoop Dogg ). Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2DaVJFX
Post a Comment
Read more

Backlash over Lena Dunham script for Syrian refugee film

The Girls creator is accused of ‘whitewashing’ after news that she is to adapt the story of Doaa Al-Zamel whose boat was rammed in the Mediterranean Lena Dunham has suffered a social media backlash after it emerged she has been commissioned by Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams to write the script for a film about a Syrian refugee who was stranded at sea. Dunham tweeted a report by Variety magazine that she was to work on an adaptation of A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea , the harrowing story of Doaa Al-Zamel, who survived the sinking of the boat on which she was attempting to cross the Mediterranean. (Her fiance drowned after their vessel was rammed.) The book was written by Melissa Fleming, head of communications of the United Nations’ Refugee Agency. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Ptm8Vb
Post a Comment
Read more

Pharrell Williams bars Donald Trump from playing his music at rallies

Order comes after Williams’ hit Happy was played at an event just hours after a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue Pharrell Williams has ordered Donald Trump to stop playing his music at rallies, after his upbeat song Happy was played at a Trump event in Indiana just hours after a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue . “Pharrell has not, and will not, grant you permission to publicly perform or otherwise broadcast or disseminate any of his music,” reads the letter from the R&B star’s lawyer Howard King. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RqEHHb
Post a Comment
Read more

A 'perfect storm' for the paranormal: touring America's most haunted town

Thousands of people died at Gettysburg – and they’re still here, ghost buffs say. A thriving cottage industry offers visitors the creeps Stroll Gettysburg’s darkened streets on any autumn evening and you’ll see guides in period costume leading packs of uneasy tourists from one macabre site to the next, lanterns held aloft. Approximately 10,000 lives were lost here, and 30,000 more people wounded, in the three-day 1863 battle to which the Pennsylvania town lends its name. Depending on who you ask, not all those casualties have left. Considered one of the most haunted places in the country, if not the world, Gettysburg has nurtured an appropriately robust ghost-tour industry. According to Destination Gettysburg, a tourism bureau, there are 10 ghost-tour and paranormal investigation companies operating in the town, which boasts a population of 7,700. For many visitors, the sober project of commemorating the dead by day at the Gettysburg national military park is followed by a lightheart...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ava DuVernay to make Prince documentary for Netflix

The director of Selma and A Wrinkle in Time, who has access to the late musician’s archive, says she will make the film ‘with love’ Ava DuVernay , the director of civil-rights drama Selma, sci-fi epic A Wrinkle in Time, and prison documentary 13th, is to helm a documentary about the life of Prince. Produced with Netflix , the multi-part documentary will cover the entire life of the late funk musician, and is being made with the cooperation of Prince’s estate, which is giving DuVernay access to his archive. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2znumEz
Post a Comment
Read more

The season of the witch: how Sabrina and co are casting their spell over TV

Diverse, digitally savvy and definitely feminist, our screens are full of witches who embody a new imagining of the original ‘nasty woman’ The season of the witch is truly upon us . A remake of Dario Argento’s giallo classic Suspiria has just been released, while this autumn, TV will conjure up not just one but three shows featuring a witch as protagonist: Sky’s A Discovery of Witches , Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina featuring Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka , and a reboot of Charmed in the US. But there is something different about TV’s new coven. In Sabrina, Shipka doesn’t spend much time crouched over a cauldron or on a broom; she is the embodiment of a new type of witch: young, woke, liberated and likely to cast spells that are socially conscious rather than caustic . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2DcfDAz
Post a Comment
Read more

Their horror film was banned as a national security threat, so this Thai couple opened their own cinema

What would you do if the government banned your films? In Thailand, a husband and wife team responded by building their own cinema. Manit Sriwanichpoom and Ing Kanjanavanit (who goes by Ing K) had made a horror film in 2011 called Shakespeare Must Die, based on the Thai translation of Macbeth. A theatre troupe staged the Scottish Play in the film and they all came to a gruesome end because their vengeful government was sensitive to certain similarities between Shakespeare’s bloody tyrant... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2RipTtO
Post a Comment
Read more

Betye Saar: the artist who helped spark the black women's movement

Heralded by the activist Angela Davis, the work of the 92-year-old remains prescient with its focus on how racism is entrenched in American culture In 1972, a black cultural center in Berkeley, California, put out a call for artists to help create an exhibit themed around black heroes. One African American artist, Betye Saar , answered. She created an artwork from a “mammy” doll and armed it with a rifle. According to Angela Davis, a Black Panther activist, the piece by Saar, titled The Liberation of Aunt Jemima , sparked the black women’s movement . Now, the artist’s legacy is going on view in New York with Betye Saar: Keepin’ It Clean , an exhibit opening on 2 November at the New York Historical Society, featuring 24 artworks made between 1997 and 2017 from her continuing series incorporating washboards. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zfdqjh
Post a Comment
Read more

Black Eyed Peas review – pop air-punchers revisit conscious hip-hop roots

Hammersmith Apollo, London Led by Will.i.am and with surprise guest Nicole Scherzinger, a more subdued Peas swap visual dazzlement for 90s-inspired beats Last time the Black Eyed Peas played London, in 2010 , they could barely move for props and effects. A motorcycle zipped overhead, costumes bristled with end-of-the-world hardware, fans’ real-time BlackBerry messages were displayed on a screen. This time? Not so much. It’s not quite Austerity Peas at this tour-opening show, but it is a visually subdued set, inasmuch as this group ever do things by halves. There is little in the way of dazzlement, apart from several moments when fans who had downloaded an app point their phones at the stage to see bursts of hearts and pyramids. The reason for the downsizing can be inferred from frontman Will.i.am ’s mid-set address to the audience. Since the departure of singer Fergie last year, the group have reverted to the original rap-based trio of himself, Taboo and Apl.de.ap, and rediscovered t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Buggles: how we made Video Killed the Radio Star

‘I heard Kraftwerk and had a vision of a future where record companies were manufacturing artists with computers in the basement’ I was playing bass in a cabaret band and built my own studio. Leicester City came in to make their 1974 FA Cup final single . I realised that the players couldn’t sing for toffee, so I brought some session singers in. Unfortunately, the week after it came out they got knocked out by an own goal, but I’d realised I wanted to become a producer. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CPV0sP
Post a Comment
Read more

How did Inside No 9 spring the biggest live TV surprise of the year?

Live episodes are often a painful, gimmicky exercise but Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s take on the format was one of 2018’s stand-out moments For the first five minutes at least, it looked thoroughly generic. Arthur Flitwick (Steve Pemberton) is back from the shops. He puts a mobile phone on the kitchen table, sticks Symphonic FM on and sets about coddling an egg. The phone rings, there is some sinister but indistinct white noise, the egg explodes in the microwave and the caller rings off. Flitwick redials the last number and what appears to be some vaguely underwhelming domestic farce involving a lost phone and a confused old lady begins to ensue. It is often said that in the age of Twitter and on-demand streaming, secrets are impossible to keep; shocks are diffuse and signposted; TV is no longer a communal experience. This autumn has presented two strong rebuttals to that idea. First, there was Jed Mercurio’s frantic drama Bodyguard. But last night, the truly audacious liv...
Post a Comment
Read more

English Heritage calls for female blue plaque nominees

Organisation wants public to help it redress low number of women represented English Heritage has admitted that not enough women from history are celebrated with blue plaques and has asked the public to help redress the balance. Only 14% of the more than 900 blue plaques in London are dedicated to women, a figure that is “far too low”, according to Anna Eavis, the curatorial director of English Heritage. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2yIrLoX
Post a Comment
Read more

Black Earth Rising finale review – slick Rwandan drama signs off in style

Hugo Blick’s sprawling, risk-taking thriller dealing with the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide came to an end that was assembled with precision Want to give your opinion? Our series recap has comments open And so, after eight exhilarating, sometimes confounding weeks, we reach the final episode of Black Earth Rising (BBC Two), a sprawling and boldly executed thriller dealing with the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. If you took notes, now would be a good time to refer to them. The series was written, produced and directed by Hugo Blick, who reserved a gem of a part for himself as the sleazy, war criminal-representing barrister Blake Gaines. Long gone and much missed ( dispatched by his own chauffeur in episode five ), Gaines returned in spirit in the form of an envelope bequeathed to his rival Michael Ennis (John Goodman). Inside was an invoice that showed that the genocidaire Patrice Ganimana’s legal bills were being paid by something called the Universal Church of Christ the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jeff Kinney: ‘Let children read anything; I’ll never say no to a book’

The author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series says that in an age of little empathy, it is vital to engage reluctant readers Jeff Kinney knows exactly why his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series appeals to reluctant readers. “If there is one lesson I’d like kids to take away from my stories, it is that reading is fun.” He thinks it is vital for parents and teachers to strongly encourage children to read whatever they are interested in and will enjoy, no matter what it is: “One of the things I said to my own children is that I will never say no to getting them a book.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Dajtdx
Post a Comment
Read more

'Gun at your throat': viral rap song tests freedom of speech in Thailand

New song taps in to pent up anger over corruption and nepotism under country’s ruling junta In a sweaty Bangkok basement over the weekend, hundreds of young Thais, hands in the air, roared angrily along with a rap song being performed on stage. “My country points a gun at your throat,” they sang. “It claims to have freedom but gives no right to choose.” Over the past week, the refrain “Which is my country” has become the rallying cry for dissent in Thailand. It is the chorus of an anti-military rap song Prathet Ku Mee (What My Country’s Got) which has become an unprecedented phenomenon in Thailand, racking up over 21 million views in just seven days and directly challenging the military government. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q6L3LA
Post a Comment
Read more

Geoffrey Rush trial: Eryn Jean Norvill alleges actor touched her breast, left her frightened

Actor says cast of King Lear was ‘complicit’ in endorsing Oscar-winning star’s behaviour The actor at the centre of accusations against Geoffrey Rush has claimed the actor “deliberately” touched her breast in front of an audience during a 2015 stage production of King Lear, saying she felt “trapped” and “frightened” by the Oscar-winner’s behaviour. On Tuesday Eryn Jean Norvill told the federal court that she had been made to feel “belittled” and “embarrassed” by Rush during the production, describing a “pressured” and “stressful” environment in which the rest of the cast was “complicit” in endorsing Rush’s behaviour. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zcgXz2
Post a Comment
Read more

Carey Mulligan calls for on-set childcare in film industry

Actor speaks out about lack of progress for working mothers in wake of #MeToo movement The actor Carey Mulligan has spoken out about the limited progress for working mothers in the film industry since the widespread reckoning of the #MeToo movement and has called for on-set childcare to help parents. She praised the introduction of codes of conducts for on-set behaviour in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, but argued the lack of childcare was preventing talented people from doing their jobs. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2AzE9ZD
Post a Comment
Read more

Southampton bookshop enlists human chain to move to new store

More than 2,000 books carried by volunteers to October Books’ new premises About 250 people formed a human chain to help a community bookshop in Southampton move to a new store after a rent increase left them unable to afford their old premises. Volunteers gathered on Sunday to carry more than 2,000 books the 150 metres to the new location, a former bank building that October Books managed to buy with funds raised from donations and loans, where the stock will be kept in the old vault. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2qfl60U
Post a Comment
Read more

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger – review

Rebecca Traister’s polemic around #MeToo has passion and fury but seems blind to the complexity of its subject How you feel about Rebecca Traister’s new book will depend, to a degree, on how you feel about anger. Personally, though furious as I am at both Brexit and the behaviour of Donald Trump, I think there’s a little too much of it around. Like most women, I fear male rage, for which reason I don’t exactly long to see my own sex indulging in even vaguely similar behaviour. Nor do I find anger particularly productive. Yes, it can power a newspaper column; carefully harnessed it will get people out on to the streets to march, too. But when it comes to deep thought – something we desperately need right now – it seems to me to be more of an impediment than a spur. This is not a thesis with which Traister, an American journalist, would agree. Good and Mad: the Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger was written, she tells us, in just four months, an unusually profitable stretch during w...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Flame by Leonard Cohen review – the last word in love and despair

The songwriter and poet’s final writings are full of youthful spark, beauty and romance The first time I came across Leonard Cohen – before I had ever heard his songs – I was an opinionated 16-year-old. I was drawn to a volume of his poetry in a bookshop but when I got it home dismissed it as a) too depressed and b) – more snootily – as not literature. Now, decades later, I no longer care whether Cohen’s work is literature. This grand book, The Flame , elegantly and posthumously published by Canongate, includes lyrics of last-gasp beauty from You Want It Darker – his final album with its against-the-odds satisfactions (to do partly with the octogenarian unlikeliness of its existing at all). The Flame is also a selection of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s unpublished work. Cohen’s son, Adam, has been its sensitive custodian . And as for the depression, it has a heroism now. Perhaps there was too much of the old man in the younger poet; youthful spark in the older writer is a finer th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sicario: Day of the Soldado film review – Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin return in riveting action sequel

3.5/5 stars Sicario, which was released in 2015, was a superlative action thriller that revolved around an age-old moral conundrum: is it justifiable to do the wrong thing to get the right result? Sicario: Day of the Soldado, again written by Taylor Sheridan but returning without director Denis Villeneuve and star Emily Blunt, dispenses with philosophy in favour of all-out action. Sicario review: Denis Villeneuve’s gripping drug war thriller is close to perfect Although the moral angle is... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2Ssl2rz
Post a Comment
Read more

The Stakes

David Remnick reports on how the midterm elections are a referendum on Donald Trump. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2CO2cpk
Post a Comment
Read more

Carole King on songwriting in the age of Trump: 'I am the honest opposition'

The songwriter has been drawn out of semi-retirement, rewriting her song One to try to persuade voters to ‘take us away from the terrible direction America is going in’ At her home in rural Idaho, Carole King is having some difficulty saying the president’s name. “Trump,” she manages eventually, her accent still pure Brooklyn half a century after she left New York and became the biggest-selling female solo artist of the early 70s. “I don’t even like using his name,” she says. “Let’s not use his name. Let’s just say ‘the leader of my country’ instead.” King keeps a low media profile that speaks more of a self-effacing personality than suspicion or reclusiveness. As reviews of her 2012 autobiography, A Natural Woman , pointed out, she has a tendency to play down her vast success, barely mentioning in the book that her 1971 album Tapestry sold 25m copies, and summarising the astonishing run of 1960s hits she wrote with her then-husband, the late Gerry Goffin – The Loco-Motion, Will You ...
Post a Comment
Read more