Cultural News Today

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker brings Exterminate All the Brutes, starring Josh Hartnett. Plus: The Great Garden Revolution begins. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aPNH4r

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As the UK emerges from lockdown and live performances return, we pick this month’s both live and streamed musical highlights 8Bit The Royal Opera House makes a belated contribution to the last year’s proliferation of specially conceived online music-theatre pieces, with eight free to view “experimental experiences”. Among them are a guided “listening experience” exploring our relationship with the moon, a web-based “interactive opera experience” featuring music by Brian Irvine, as well as more conventional fusions of words, music and images, some of them convincing, some less so. The music ranges from Handel, Catalani and Tchaikovsky to Anna Meredith and Matt Huxley. • Available on demand until 30 May Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e6fBv9

London gets high on Opie, Miró visits the countryside and legendary nightclubs fling open their virtual doors – all in your weekly dispatch Julian Opie This stylish and scientific student of perception playfully reveals how simply art can suggest the real. • Lisson Gallery , London, 4 May to 12 June. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3311nFs

Sky halts work on award-winning police show Bulletproof as actor denies women’s accusations Noel Clarke accused of groping, harassment and bullying by 20 women Television production companies have halted their work with the actor and director Noel Clarke after the Guardian published detailed allegations of sexual harassment against him. On Thursday night, the Guardian described the accounts of 20 women who claim Clarke sexually harassed them. The director, who first became famous for his Kidulthood series of films, strongly denies the accusations, which were made shortly after Bafta announced that it planned to give Clarke a special award for outstanding British contribution to cinema. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3xEvGQr

Fifteen years after it was axed, the iconic show is a drawing in nostalgia junkies by offering eclectic music, dodgy lip-syncing ... and lockdown escapism For many of us, it was the soundtrack to our childhood. The opening riff of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love still inspires an atavistic excitement in full-grown adults decades on. On Thursday – and later Friday – evenings, warbling singers and preening boybands would be beamed into homes across the nation as we waited to see which artist would take that week’s coveted No 1 spot. But in 2006, after years of falling ratings, Top of the Pops was cancelled . As music and TV streaming fractured our collective viewing habits, the singles chart started to feel like an irrelevance and, therefore, so did TOTP. Related: In sync: how the mime-ban stripped Top of the Pops of its charm Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e2dZme

The actor, writer and People Just Do Nothing star on the things that make him laugh the most A Mitchell and Webb sketch about football; as a non-football fan I related to it so much. The sentiment of it is: football, no one really ever wins; it just keeps going. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3nDPejA

A sculpture by Alex Da Corte, installed on the roof of the museum, combines allusions to Alexander Calder, “Sesame Street,” and lunar landings. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3eKXtGb

Is Ted really a bent copper? Is brilliantly awful DCS Patricia Carmichael up to her polo neck in it? Is Marcus Thurwell actually dead? As Line of Duty draws to a close on Sunday, the big questions are: who really is H? How might it all end? And who is most definately (remember that one?) going down? Supt Ted Hastings is H , or ‘the fourth man’ It would be a shock for viewers if the man who has spent six series proudly railing against bent coppers turns out to be a bent copper, but there’s no denying the gaffer’s behaviour is looking more and more suspicious. There’s the money given to DS John Corbett’s widow, Steph, the meeting last series with Carl Banks’s brother, Lee, in prison, who claims Hastings told him there was a rat in the organised crime group, and then there is Hastings’ inability or refusal to spell a certain word favoured by the digital OCG puppet master who has been pulling Jo Davidson’s strings. Is Hastings bent? Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, he may j...

Culture minister says country is facing up to ‘historic and moral responsibility’ by returning artefacts to Nigeria Germany is to become the first country to hand back the Benin bronzes looted by British soldiers in the late nineteenth century, after the culture minister, Monika Grütters, announced it would start returning a “substantial” part of the artefacts held in its museums to Nigeria from next year. “We face up to our historic and moral responsibility to shine a light and work on Germany’s historic past,” Grütters said after museum experts and political leaders struck an agreement at a summit on Thursday. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3xJX0x1

Whatever field you are in, if it uses language, it is about to be transformed. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3ucxKNK

Phat Thai, burgers, and roti egg sandwiches to eat outside, inside, semi-inside, or at home, from Ann Redding and Matt Danzer of Uncle Boons. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/331Nved

The poet on his life changing encounter with William Blake, comfort reading Paradise Lost, and the book he plans to read once he retires The book I am currently reading Poetry in a Global Age by Jahan Ramazani. His key argument is that poetry is inherently constructed by a network of global engagements, this being the most generous way to appreciate a text. The book that changed my life At the age of 19, I found William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience in an independent bookshop in Sheffield; it was the first time I’d read poetry and I’ve yet to stop reading it. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e2rkuG

Office romances, festive misery, an almighty family fall-out – here are some of the small screen’s most audacious rug-pulls Modern Toss on plot twists Jessica Raine’s arrival in the cast of Jed Mercurio’s anti-corruption police drama was at the heart of the publicity leading up to the show’s second series. The opening episode constructed DC Georgia Trotman’s character: dedicated, perhaps overly fond of a drink. And then, oops, a bent copper threw her out of a fifth-storey hospital window and she was gone. Trotman, we barely knew you … Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e4ZaiX

McDormand plays a boomer forced out of her home and on to the road in Chloé Zhao’s inspired docu-fiction Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland is an utterly inspired docu-fictional hybrid, like her previous feature The Rider . It is a gentle, compassionate, questioning film about the American soul. With artistry and grace, Zhao folds nonprofessionals into an imagined story built around a cheerful, resourceful, middle-aged woman played by Frances McDormand . This quiet, self-effacing performance may be the best of her career so far. Nomadland is about a new phenomenon: America’s 60- and 70-something generation whose economic future was shattered by the 2008 crash. They are grey-haired middle-class strivers reduced to poverty who can’t afford to retire but can’t afford to work while maintaining a home. So they have become nomads, a new American tribe roaming the country in camper vans in which they sleep, looking for seasonal work in bars, restaurants and – in this film – in a gigantic Amazon warehou...

From Playing It Straight to Towie, queer people haven’t always had it easy on reality TV. But times are changing – and ITV has a chance to lead the way Homophobes have been having a tough time of it lately, what with Lil Nas X’s queer anthem Montero being at No 1 for four weeks despite a backlash from conservative critics, and Love Island producers said to be actively encouraging LGBTQ+ singletons to apply via Tinder. This step wouldn’t provide the show with its first same-sex couplings – female bisexual constestants have already coupled up in both the UK and Australian editions – but it would mark the first time the show has intentionally included LGBTQ+ people. It’s hard to tell whether this is yet another cynical spin on the prevalent practice of queerbaiting (a marketing technique in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, queer romance or representation). In any case, it’s a stark U-turn from comments in 2017 from ITV’s director of television, Kevin Lygo. At t...

With stirring songwriting that considers grief, philosophy and ecological collapse, the French quartet have become one of the world’s greatest heavy bands. They discuss their journey so far Joe and Mario Duplantier grew up in a calm idyll – perhaps surprisingly for two of metal’s most forthright rabble-rousers. Born to a sketch-artist father and yoga teacher mother, the brothers were raised in Ondres, a remote commune on France’s western coast. Their house was so rural that, when a journalist visited, he compared it to a “hermitage”. Music was always playing, from folk to Mike Oldfield; it only stopped when poets and painters stayed the night and the children overheard the grownups discussing international philosophies. The pair often passed the time on the beach. Joe collected wood and stones – only to come home to find his hands black with crude oil. Mario, meanwhile, had plastic bags flying in his face when he was out surfing. The serenity of the fairytale upbringing cracked. “We ...

As a new exhibition documents the UK ska-pop sound, stars including the Specials, Elvis Costello and Pauline Black recall how it opened up music, fashion and racial understanding 2 Tone Records began in a Coventry flat in 1979 and peaked two years later, when the Specials’ era-defining Ghost Town went to No 1 as riots blazed around a UK in recession. The label launched the Specials and the Selecter from the current City of Culture, plus Londoners Madness, Birmingham’s the Beat and others, all to chart success, but also ended up naming an entire movement: dance crazy, sharp-suited, political, multi-racial ska-pop that reverberates to this day. As a major two-tone exhibition comes to the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry, the Guardian spoke to the people who were at the centre of a multicultural revolution. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2S4NP9N

The Oscar-winning director’s delicate cinéma vérité style is a million miles from the cosmic chicanery of the MCU Marvel’s decision to hand Chloé Zhao the reins to The Eternals, the studio’s sprawling, millennia-spanning tale of godlike superheroes, looks like a stroke of genius after the Chinese film-maker won the best director and best picture Oscars for her film Nomadland this week. What was it that Marvel president Kevin Feige saw in the director’s intimate, sober yet ultimately spirited work that inspired him to think that she could become the film-maker to spin the Marvel Cinematic Universe into its most far-out venture yet? It could not have been Nomadland itself, for all reports suggests that Zhao worked on The Eternals (due out in November) concurrently with the best picture winner. More likely it was Zhao’s previous film The Rider, a poetic tale of poverty and desperation among the Lakota Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation which, like Nomadland, used untrained actors for ...

The latest in our series of writers defending films hated by many is an ode to the 1995 William Gibson adaptation starring Keanu Reeves as a tech antihero Johnny Mnemonic, Robert Longo’s 1995 William Gibson adaptation, offers a wide target for derision. The more cynical among us might scoff at the depiction of technology run amok in “the future” (the film is set in 2021), the irrepressibly sweet earnestness of Keanu Reeves’ cynical antihero, and (spoiler alert) the salvation of humanity coming in the form of a cybernetically enhanced dolphin (“It’s a FISH!?!” yells an incredulous Keanu). The very premise of the story – that Keanu (as data smuggler Johnny) has so much information contained within his brain that it may explode at any time – may even be enough to raise a smirk. Related: Hear me out: why The Paperboy isn’t a bad movie Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3t3kCZB

With public art collections closed we are bringing the art to you, exploring highlights from across the country in partnership with Art UK. Today’s pick: The Great Picture at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal This grand painting was commissioned by Lady Anne Clifford to mark her achievements and celebrate her prominent family, particularly its women. Made in 1646 during the English civil war, it is a rare celebration of the life of a woman of the period. It holds within it the story of Anne’s fight for her rights, and her talents as a writer who captured history from a woman’s perspective. The huge work across three canvases is believed to be by Jan van Belcamp . It features Anne three times. The central panel places her mother at the centre, pregnant with Anne, with her husband and two young sons, both of whom died in childhood. To the left is Anne aged 15, surrounded by objects illustrating her education and vast accomplishments. Following the death of her father, Anne, his sole hei...

Josie Bevan considers her own family’s story and societal flaws in Prison Break. Plus: more nuanced takes on black lives and racism from Resistance Prison Break Josie Bevan’s Radio 4 series and podcast, Prison Bag, charted her family’s unexpected and traumatic experience with the UK penal system following husband Rob’s conviction for fraud. This striking and honest follow-up considers the justice system more generally, and what it seeks to achieve. Insights come from the likes of Carl Cattermole, who wrote a book about his experience in Wormwood Scrubs and describes prison as a “static pirate ship”, and Dave Merritt, whose son Jack was killed in the London Bridge terror attack in 2019 while working with ex-offenders. Hannah J Davies Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R9LD0v

A veg patch on the dancefloor, invites printed on cheese, $30,000 makeovers every six weeks … a new show at V&A Dundee celebrates a half-century of club culture. Is it a thing of the past? Dancers grind, twist and pump their bodies beneath a billowing parachute, while other revellers sprawl across six-metre long polyurethane silk worms, or perch on seating made from washing machine drums and refrigerator cases. A VJ mixes trippy visuals to the beat of the music, using junkyard scraps mixed with water and food colouring on an overhead projector, her psychedelic creations drifting across a vegetable patch sprouting from the centre of the dancefloor. This was just another regular night at Space Electronic , an experimental nightclub that began in an old engine repair shop in Florence in 1969, where music, art and performance were combined in a heady, night-long cocktail. It is one of many such extraordinary spaces featured in Night Fever: Designing Club Culture , a show at the V...

Actor-producer categorically denies allegations from all 20 women Bafta suspends outstanding contribution award and actor’s membership Alleged misconduct including claims he secretly filmed naked audition Doctor Who and Kidulthood star allegedly showed colleagues sexually explicit photos and videos of women When Noel Clarke appeared on stage at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 April to collect his Bafta, the typically self-assured actor looked a little on edge. Viewers might have concluded that Clarke was simply overwhelmed: he was clutching one of the most prestigious accolades bestowed by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the prize for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Yet there were other reasons why Clarke – and Bafta – may have felt preoccupied. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Rei0e8

Steve Coogan’s masterly spoof of the chatshow, This Time With Alan Partridge, returns for a second series. Plus: Intergalactic. Here’s what to watch this evening Steve Coogan’s beloved and bumbling broadcaster Alan Partridge returns for another spoof of sedate magazine shows such as The One Show and This Morning. Accompanied by eternally patient fellow host Jennie Gresham (Susannah Fielding), the second season follows Partridge as he is now established as the show’s co-presenter but is battling behind the scenes to keep his spot amid controversies surrounding his stream of on-air tirades and faux pas. Ammar Kalia Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QzTe8H

What the case of Blake Bailey tells us about the state of the crusade against sexual misconduct. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3vzSkI5

These exercises will restore elasticity to your body, clarity to your mind, and buoyancy to your soul—whatever a soul might be. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/332dkuA

The New York City Ballet star talks about her thrilling lockdown collaboration with master choreographer William Forsythe – and the injury that almost ended her career Possibly the best piece of dance to come out of lockdown is William Forsythe’s The Barre Project . This half-hour film set to the music of James Blake transforms something basic and well-worn – the ballet dancer’s daily exercises at the barre – into something completely fresh. It is short but magnificently satisfying, and thrilling in its low-key virtuosity. Forsythe is a master choreographer , but The Barre Project’s brilliance is in large part down to its central dancer, Tiler Peck, a principal with the New York City Ballet . Peck is breezily effortless even at top speed, titanium-strong, crystalline in clarity. She’s also a dancer of warmth and connection, that California-girl sunniness in evidence when she Zooms from her apartment in New York. She has just arrived back from the west coast, where she spent the last ...

The response from Republicans to the President’s controversial plan was swift and ferocious. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3u3uSSZ

With the 40th anniversary of Jones’s masterful fifth album Nightclubbing approaching, we rank her best work Jones’s debut single was joyous, cantering mid-70s Eurodisco, its lyrics clearly written with one eye on the dancefloors of gay clubs. It was rerecorded for Jones’s 1977 debut album, Portfolio, with an arrangement by the Salsoul Orchestra’s Vince Montana and a stronger vocal, but the original drips with slightly shonky period charm. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eHAOup

The Super League fiasco exposed the sport’s complex relationship with finance – and these books by David Conn, Jimmy Hill and more are brilliant While we wait for the inevitable slew of books about the heart-of-stone-not-to-laugh fiasco of the European Super League, we can familiarise ourselves with the luridly complex relationship between football and finance. The most assiduous and perceptive follower of the money is David Conn . He was one of the first writers to analyse, in his 1997 The Football Business , how a new financial model was changing the culture of the game both on and off the pitch. Later, as a lifelong Manchester City fan, he was well placed to chart, in Richer Than God , how the scruffy, under-achieving poor relations to swanky United were elevated into the global elite via the almost unlimited resources of the Abu Dhabi royal family. Most recently his study of the sport’s governing body, The Fall of the House of Fifa , charted an organisation that when formed looked...

You no longer have to stand in an actual lobby to ask a politician to change the law in your favour Since it emerged that vacuum-cleaner émigré James Dyson was texting Boris Johnson last year to clarify that there would be no change to the tax paid by his workers, in the UK temporarily to build medical ventilators, the issue of political “lobbying” has once again come to the fore. But why is it called that? A “lobby”, from the Latin lobium , was originally a cloister of the sort found in monasteries, not much frequented by the present prime minister. After its introduction in the 16th century it began also to be used to describe any kind of corridor or anteroom. As Polonius says of Prince Hamlet: “You know sometimes he walks four hours together / Here in the lobby.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/33cEiA5

“Do not be afraid—we are fully vaccinated!” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2QzycHg

The President, channelling his inner Elizabeth Warren, pitches an American utopia after a dystopian plague year. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3eHUUF6

From Lizzo to Lana Del Rey, celebrities have taken umbrage with reviews online. But arguing with journalists only warps the public’s view of the media, and puts writers under siege In 2018, while working as a freelance writer, I travelled three hours outside of London on a train, and then a coach, to review a music festival. I camped in the cold and the rain, waking up at 8am each morning to make sure I didn’t miss anything. When I got home, I filed what I thought was a generous review. I did not expect the organiser and the founder of the festival to find me on Twitter to tell me that I clearly hadn’t attended, or that my three-star review was full of lies. They were hurt that I hadn’t given it five stars. I was hurt that my hard work – complete with blood blisters, swollen glands and glitter that took two weeks to wash out of my hair – was now seen as a declaration of war. As an editor and sometime critic specialising in pop culture, differing perceptions are par for the course. I ...

The star of A Passage to India and Coronation Street on gigging in Portugal aged 17, discovering theatre in Suffolk and his love of David Lean’s films I was first aware of the Beatles when Please Please Me got into the charts when I was 12 or 13. They sank in when the album came out. I put the LP on the record player, sat down and listened to it in one go. They wrote their own songs with three guitars, a drummer and vocal harmonies. It’s hard to realise what a monumental change in music that was. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/330X25a

(Republic) She’s had billion-streaming hits and written songs with everyone from Dua Lipa to Linkin Park – but Michaels’ pedigree doesn’t translate into an indelible pop personality The world of the songwriter for hire is filled with ex-performers: former pop stars, indie rockers and – in the case of Max Martin – glam metal frontmen who slipped gratefully into the background when success, or their desire to be in the spotlight, faded. The sheer number of them suggests it’s a relatively straightforward transition to make. But there’s a distinct lack of traffic in the opposite direction, suggesting the journey from the backroom to the centre of attention is more vexing. The career of Julia Michaels is a case in point. In 2017, she looked remarkably like a pop phenomenon in waiting, having served an extraordinary apprenticeship as a songwriter for hire. By the age of 24, she had co-authored 10 platinum singles – among them Justin Bieber’s 10m-selling Sorry, Ed Sheeran’s Dive and a str...

Hill-bombing requires self-assurance and—to do it safely—a trustworthy crew. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3nxhnZs

During the pandemic, a job that’s often hidden has become indispensable. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/32Wru0z

Skateboarding the steep hills in San Francisco is undoubtedly dangerous, but for these skaters, it offers a sacred place to find stillness. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3gN5flz

A taste for cat food, an Etsy doormat order, your dog’s gastrointestinal distress, and other avenues to love with the UPS deliveryman. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2PwYlFV

Jimi Hendrix watched them rehearse, Stevie Wonder joined them on drums, and Fela Kuti partied with them in Lagos. Osibisa, whose African sunshine sound captivated the planet, have now returned Two Ghanian pensioners are discussing how they first met, almost 60 years ago, in London’s Soho jazz scene. Teddy Osei, a saxophonist and drummer, and Lord Eric Sugumugu, a percussionist, forged a friendship “playing among the diaspora”. Sugumugu had a gig with Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers, while Osei played with Dudu Pukwana, the great South African jazz saxophonist. Sugumugu is ebullient, leaping out of his seat to exclaim about their role in making the 60s swing: among many other things, he was part of an African drum troupe the Rolling Stones employed at their 1969 Hyde Park concert . Although Osei wasn’t there himself, he did join the Stones to perform Brown Sugar on Top of the Pops. Osei, aged 87, is a stroke survivor, his voice rarely rising above a whisper. But with a new a...

A moving new documentary provides a sensitive first-person account of a chimp raised as a human, and the caretaker who followed her to extraordinary ends Janis Carter was 25 when, in September 1976, she responded to a bulletin-board ad for a job as a part-time caretaker of a chimpanzee. The job was relevant to Carter’s interests as a graduate student in the primate studies group at the University of Oklahoma, and could help pay for school. It was also mostly hands-off; the caretakers, psychologist Maurice Temerlin and his wife, Jane, relayed instructions via note left on the kitchen counter, save for one hard rule: no physical contact with Lucy, their 11-year-old chimp. Related: Primatologist Jane Goodall: ‘Tarzan married the wrong Jane’ Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3nunkpY

Actor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in little-loved trilogy, says negative reaction was ‘quite difficult’ While he may have been one of the biggest names in three of the highest grossing movies of all time, Ewan McGregor has said he found it “hard” when the Star Wars prequels were panned by critics and audiences. The actor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the little-loved episodes I, II and III from 1999 to 2005, told the Hollywood Reporter it was “hard they didn’t get well received”. He added: “That was quite difficult. They were universally not very much liked.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vpejBi

The deeply gendered experience of freedom is cunningly exposed in a shocking interrogation of art, privilege and property If you wanted to locate a defining preoccupation in the consistently remarkable, formally daring fiction of Rachel Cusk, you might well alight on the issue of property. Cusk is obsessed with houses. Her revelatory Outline trilogy, completed in 2018 with the publication of Kudos , faltered on the awkward class politics of its central volume, in which the narrator’s efforts to renovate an ex-council flat are undermined by the inconvenient working classes living below. Now, in her first novel since the trilogy’s reimagining of novelistic form, Cusk gives us not just a dream home but a dream home with a second home attached – the “Second Place” of the novel’s title. And it’s not just any old place either. It is, says the narrator, “a place of great but subtle beauty, where artists often seem to find the will or the energy or just the opportunity to work”. Indeed, she...

Karl goes in search of a woman who helped him after the terrorist attack in Saved By a Stranger. Plus: the final episode of This Is My House. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ntKRHJ

Celebrate International Dance Day by watching some of these great short films at home, from Scottish Ballet to a global collaboration in South Korea Premiering on Thursday, this is a brilliant film from Scottish Ballet and their resident choreographer Sophie Laplane. Inspired by Yves Klein’s famous shade of blue, which appears in all sorts of unexpected ways, it’s 10 minutes of dance that’s funny, surreal, surprising and bursting with ideas. Crucially, Dive makes the most of the medium to create something that could only be done on screen, with the help of theatre director James Bonas and film-maker Oscar Sansom. Available until 31 May . Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eHyMuf

19th-century campaigner helped change divorce law after being ruined by abusive husband Caroline Norton, a woman at the centre of one of the most publicised court cases of the 19th century and an “unsung hero in the fight for women’s rights”, is being celebrated with a heritage blue plaque in London. The biographer Lady Antonia Fraser this week unveiled the plaque for someone she said deserved to be far better known, a woman who was in an abusive marriage and was ruined by her husband , but fought back and helped change the law. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R9AT29

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay on grief adapted for theatre among lineup for mostly outdoor event A 42-metre sculpture of Big Ben made out of political books, a new film featuring Cillian Murphy and a theatrical performance of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ’s essay about grief are among the standout works at this year’s Manchester international festival, which will take place throughout July. The large-scale arts event will be one of the first to be held after 21 June, when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, and organisers say the lineup – which also includes the Turner prize-winner Laure Prouvost , Patti Smith and an animation by Akram Khan – is filled with work that reflects on the coronavirus pandemic and the impact it has had. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vmqSxl

Perhaps the director wanted a holiday in Hawaii or to audition for a gig making episodes of Love Island Four friends who look like models take a trip to a remote Hawaiian island to check out a shuttered resort where spooky, unnatural things happened years ago. Apparently, the place is haunted by the vengeful ghost of a native girl whose face was mutilated back then. Will anyone survive to write a TripAdvisor review? This inane horror movie is so ludicrously cliche-ridden one starts to wonder if it’s not some kind of sophisticated meta-joke being played on us. How else can we account for choices such as having the whole thing told as a flashback from a hospital bed, by sole survivor Lex (Bianca Haase)? Is it some kind of nudge in the proverbial ribs that, as we see the quartet strip off to swim near a waterfall, we hear Lex intone solemnly that this was the last time they were happy? (Spoiler: because everyone is going to die.) And was writer-director-producer Taylor Chien hoping to u...

A documentary short explores the lessons being passed from fathers to sons at a California shooting range. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2R6YSis

English attraction originally called the Millennium Wheel: nine letters. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3sTt5i4

Sixty years after the Bay of Pigs, the Castro brothers are gone from the main stage, and Cuba is a threadbare place facing an uncertain future. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3sZwhsr

Never forget that you are only as successful as I perceive you to be. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3gLZbK3

A child shooting a gun can be an unnerving image, but, for many Americans, spending time at a gun range is an important family tradition. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2QGN6v7

In New York, the Mayor and police leadership have repeatedly voiced commitments to “create a bond” between cops and communities of color. The problem, according to high-level officials, is that the city chose the wrong people for the right job. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3aHfp3q

The Oscar-nominated movie – along with Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets – is the latest film to play with the truth Awards frontrunner Nomadland has been widely praised for its mix of poetry and realism. It is as much documentary as it is drama: adapted from a nonfiction book, cast with non-actors playing themselves (apart from Frances McDormand and David Strathairn), filmed in real landscapes and workplaces. It reveals truths purely fictionalised stories could not. This is not a brand new idea but it’s one that is energising American cinema. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3nE59hT

An egotistical ringmaster gives his “monsters” a chance to shine in this glittering follow-up to The Doll Factory Elizabeth Macneal’s bestselling 2019 debut of art and obsession, The Doll Factory , was set against the backdrop of the 1851 Great Exhibition; lurking behind it was John Fowles’s terrifying The Collector , also a spider-and-fly battle of the sexes. Several texts underlie her follow-up, again an atmospheric Victorian tale: Frankenstein is a favourite of manipulative circus owner Jasper, while Nell, the protagonist, sees uncanny echoes of her own fate in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Little Mermaid”. Mottled head to toe by birthmarks, Nell is plucked from her lowly trade of making candied violets to appear in Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders. To grip the imagination of a freak-sated public, Jasper prides himself on creating irresistible backstories for his collection of “monsters”. “Leopard girls” are old hat, so Jasper retrains her as a star-dappled aerialist, Nel...

Steve McQueen’s series nominated, with stars Letitia Wright and John Boyega in running for acting awards Small Axe, the anthology series directed by Sir Steve McQueen, has garnered 15 nominations at this year’s Bafta TV awards. It has been nominated for nine craft awards and six in the television category. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3dY779p

Four new series revolving around puppets highlight the enduring appeal of the format as Sesame Street enjoys its 51st season on air This month, junior gourmands are in luck. Tykes with sophisticated palates will find their interests catered to with the new series Duff’s Happy Fun Bake Time, in which celebrity chef and Ace of Cakes star Duff Goldman takes a younger audience through the nuts and bolts of cooking with a mad-scientist spin. As he demonstrates the basics of kid-friendly cuisine, he also breaks down the physical and chemical processes behind baking, sautéing, boiling and other little feats of kitchen magic. The show is motivated by the simple, beautiful idea that if the grown-up business of making dinner can be sufficiently demystified, children will want to be more present in the kitchen and adventurous at the grocery store, building a healthy and curious lifelong relationship to food. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2S1acgi

With public art collections closed we are bringing the art to you, exploring highlights from across the country in partnership with Art UK. Today’s pick: the Royal Academy’s Looking Towards Bexhill by Chantal Joffe Chantal Joffe and her daughter Esme are sitting on a beach near to her mother’s house in St Leonard’s. The pair huddle together on the exposed and bracing beachfront. Joffe’s pose feels both tender and fiercely protective as her hand creeps around her daughter’s shoulder and clings tightly to it. She gazes out at us unapologetically. Esme, by contrast, seems shy or uncomfortable and looks away. Joffe painted this work shortly after returning from a trip that she made with her daughter to America. It was a poignant moment for the London-based artist, who anticipated that it may be their last trip of this type together as her daughter was approaching her teenage years. The work is part of a group of paintings exploring the power shifts and co-existent states of joy and hear...

From Duchamp to Orwell, fascism to Brexit … this collection of journalism and speeches showcases one of the world’s best haters, who has never composed a dull paragraph Jonathan Meades is a sceptic. Not in the debased sense of someone who gullibly parrots the claims of shills and the deluded that global warming is a hoax, or that masks don’t mitigate the spread of respiratory viruses. Nor in the idly egotistical sense Meades himself identifies as “the English bents towards spiritual sloth and intellectual incuriosity, what we dignify as scepticism”. But in the fiery and ancient sense of scepticism: he is not just a man of little faith but an enemy of belief itself: a jeerer at creeds, a sneerer at doctrines of all flavours, metaphysical and otherwise. He has too much sly wit, of course, to identify himself as such: “While it would be beguiling to appoint oneself part of that knowing cadre which lacks conviction,” he admits in the preface to this new collection of journalism and speec...

In 8 Billion Angels, a new documentary about the rising population, experts explain how it will be those consuming less who will face the worst consequences Bill Mai, a Kansas farmer, was 12 years old when his irrigation system, rigged to the Great Plains Ogallala aquifer, was installed in 1948. At the time, it was a great novelty which helped increase yield and profit. But the water has dropped about one foot every year it is in use, leading many to wonder about the future of it. Related: ‘Do something’: an intimate look at the personal lives of climate activists Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3tYTnkn

The Lisa Eldridge-fronted series continues with an episode on the Victorian era, when makeup was often considered vulgar – and contained some very interesting ingredients There is plenty of entertainment to be found in the three-part documentary Makeup: A Glamorous History (BBC Two), which began last week with the Georgians. Mostly, that’s been down to the surprising gruesomeness of the seemingly benign world of cosmetics. The celebrated makeup artist Lisa Eldridge, who presents here, has a knack for casually dropping in details that don’t so much require a double-take as a full Exorcist neck-swivel. “At least it’s not bear fat,” she says, as her model’s hair is styled to the skies. “It could be made with talc, flour or even bones,” she says, of an early face powder. This week, for episode two, Eldridge delves face-first into the Victorian era, which throws up a particular challenge. The 1800s favoured a fresh, “natural” feel; a no-makeup makeup style – the kind of look that boybands...

Singer rarely takes part in hearings but has asked to speak directly to court, lawyer says Britney Spears will personally address the Los Angeles court dealing with her long-running conservatorship in June, a judge agreed on Tuesday. Spears, 39, has been under a conservatorship since 2008 but rarely takes part in hearings. Her lawyer said on Tuesday that she had asked to speak to the court directly, but he did not say what matters she wished to raise. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QFtPKu

Following Oscar win for Thomas Vinterberg’s Danish film about boozy teachers, a remake starring DiCaprio has been announced Another Round , the Danish comedy-drama about a group of teachers who attempt to survive a term under the influence of alcohol, is set for an English-language remake. Leonardo DiCaprio will take the lead role, played in the original by Mads Mikkelsen. Another Round won the best international feature Oscar on Sunday night , having triumphed in the same category at the Baftas two weeks before. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3sVRofs

Organizers announced Tuesday they are canceling the annual counter-culture festival in the Nevada desert for the second year Burning Man organizers announced Tuesday they are canceling this summer’s annual counter-culture festival in the Nevada desert for the second year in a row because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The San Francisco-based group posted a video on its website that said there are too many uncertainties to resolve in time to hold the event as scheduled 26 August to 3 September in the Black Rock Desert 100 miles (160km) north of Reno. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aN0Uv8

In Is Uni Racist, Linda Adey questions whether the systems put in place to deal with racism are adequate. Plus: Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs. Here’s what to watch this evening Linda Adey presents this documentary, aiming to examine how safe Britain’s universities are for its students of colour. Beginning in Manchester, Adey meets a 19-year-old student who claims he was harassed by university staff who thought he was a drug dealer, while at Oxford’s Christ Church college she hears from students who have also alleged racist incidents from other alumni. Adey questions whether the systems put in place to deal with racism are adequate, as students keep quiet rather than face potentially dissatisfying consequences. Ammar Kalia Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/32RZzyE

The Kick-Ass and Kingsman creator is back with a TV series about a warring super-powered family. The Scot reveals how Carrie Fisher helped inspire it – and why he’s delighted Covid scuppered his move to Hollywood Mark Millar is remembering one of the best bits of advice he ever came across, something he read as a teenager that was said by Alan Moore , the legendary creator of such milestones in comics as Watchmen and V for Vendetta. “Never believe that you’re a genius,” quotes Millar, himself the creator of such revered titles as Kick-Ass and Kingsman, “and also never believe you’re rubbish.” Speaking by Zoom from the office he keeps in his Glasgow home, Millar rounds this off with the words: “You’ve just got to do your best and enjoy it.” It’s a healthy rule to live by, given the sometimes toxic fandom that surrounds the comics world. Millar, whose only dream as a five-year-old was to write superhero adventures, has experienced this vitriol a fair few times. That’s no surprise, cons...

New Directors/New Films presents an extraordinary first feature by the Indian director P. S. Vinothraj. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3dXOn9X

The recent deaths of two musical pioneers show how difficult it is to grow old in hip-hop. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3dYiKxi

“He has all of his shots and, still, not even a cursory sniff. I’m starting to suspect that he’s avoiding us.” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3gJ03PN

After a year of delays, the next 12 months offers a wealth of big, awards-aiming movies from intimate dramas to historical epics It’s not often that the word unusual gets attached to the Oscars, one of the most staid and predictable nights of the year, as sober as the Golden Globes is drunk. But after an unusual year, the awards season followed suit, extended by two months, films dropping in and out of the race and some that might otherwise have been ignored instead taking centre stage. Related: And this year’s Oscar for inclusivity goes to … the Academy! Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3nqp7MF

Petition signed by more than 200 Simon & Schuster employees delivered to publishing house also calls for end to deals with members of Trump administration More than 200 members of staff at Simon & Schuster have signed a petition calling for the publishing house to cancel its seven-figure book deal with former vice-president Mike Pence and commit to not signing any more book deals with members of Donald Trump’s administration. The petition was delivered to the publisher on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported . It was signed by 216 S&S employees – about 14% of the publisher’s staff –and backed by more than 3,500 supporters outside the company, including authors such as the National Book Award-winning writer Jesmyn Ward. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aIOJPE

The author discusses her novella “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?” from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2SbJIZT

True or false: You would help your friend hide a dead body. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2Qs7YX9

Huge concerts and nonstop touring mean the music business is in dire need of reform. Performers have begun to lead – but can their industry reshape itself as the world reopens? Before the pandemic struck, it wasn’t uncommon for DJs to fly between three European cities in a weekend. The carbon footprint of globetrotting tours was massive. Festivals and gigs were criticised for the levels of waste they created. Streaming services, requiring ever more processing power, have had a burgeoning impact, as has the recent craze of selling music via NFTs (non-fungible tokens). But a series of announcements last week, coordinated by the Music Declares Emergency collective, have challenged the idea that the industry is not taking the climate emergency seriously. After a uniquely difficult year for those in live music, perhaps this is an inflection point: can the recovery from Covid-19 be green? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aIAvP7

The Rising Damp and Death in Paradise actor recounts his love of doggy adventure TV and how his current show seeks to inspire the same sense of wonder When I was a child, the television was mainly for me and my siblings. Our parents weren’t too keen on it themselves, probably because they were busy with work and their own lives. They would watch it for an hour, late at night, after we had gone to sleep, but otherwise they would sit up telling each other stories and entertaining themselves with their memories instead – that was their tradition. I loved adventure shows, though, and would watch all kinds, from William Tell to Robin Hood, The Lone Ranger and this strange show, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, about a Mountie in Canada who would rescue people in the freezing cold with his dog, King, pulling a sled alongside. I loved any show with a dog as the lead, actually – programmes such as The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin – so much so that I even named my own dog King after the Mountie se...

A gap in vaccination rates between residents and staff means that long-term-care facilities remain particularly vulnerable to coronavirus outbreaks. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3vtq0XT

Brother of the late actor congratulates the 83-year-old, as Academy criticised for not allowing Hopkins to make his acceptance speech on Zoom The family of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who had been widely expected to received a posthumous best actor Oscar for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, have come to the defence of the man who took the prize. The brother of the actor, who died last August of cancer aged 43, says the family had no hard feelings towards Anthony Hopkins. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aGbHHa

These fiendishly clever mystery novels have spawned pop culture icons, anime and a museum. And, best of all, honkaku plays fair – you have the clues to solve the crime After a day of joyous wedding celebrations, a bloodcurdling scream echoes into the night. The newlywed bride and groom are found dead in their bed, stabbed with a katana sword, now thrust into the snow outside. Their bedroom was locked from the inside, and there is no way the murderer could have broken in to do the deed, let alone escaped without leaving a trace. How was this impossible crime committed? Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R5z3is

Taking inspiration from the magazine, our latest offerings range from kites to coffee mugs. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3dT0JjG

Artificial intelligence may help us decode animalese. But how much will we really be able to understand? from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3dT0Hby

An award for craftspeople, a museum to celebrate home and a beautiful building created to remember a tragedy Everyone needs their own space and this issue of design news features a number of projects that honour space in different ways. There are studio spaces on offer courtesy of a new award from Cockpit Arts and New Craftsmen gallery – two mainstays of the London craft community – for makers from underrepresented ethnic groups. The importance of a creative space is also recognised by charity Men’s Sheds Association, which creates community spaces where local people can gather and share skills. Finally, two museums show how commemorative space is important. London’s Museum of Home celebrates what makes us feel like we belong, Ukraine’s Babyn Yar Memorial Complex will become one of the world’s largest holocaust centres. Used in the right way, space can help us create, to celebrate and also to make sure we never forget. To receive more stories about art, architecture, design and susta...

Against a backdrop of Covid, a striking number of musicians, from hard rock to jazz, made music rich with positivity. In the first of a two-part series, they tell their stories I had really given up on music after my mom passed away [in 2014], and then of course the record that I saw as my death rattle [2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet ] got picked up in a big way. It was a very bittersweet moment where all these great things were happening in the wake of loss. I didn’t allow myself to feel that for a long time. Now I feel ready to embrace feeling. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/32OGL3p

From Bling Empire to Made in Chelsea, the uberwealthy trend in TV is here to stay – and it might even be good for diversity In the first episode of reality TV show Bling Empire , heiress Anna Shay commits to an excursion so globe-straddlingly audacious it would make Greta Thunberg weep. Los Angeles resident Anna asks a friend and her objectively awful boyfriend to go to her favourite restaurant with her – in Paris. They chart a private plane, eat their dinner and head back to LA the next day. It sets the scene for a series that luxuriates in the lives of the super-rich, and the candour, conflict and rule-breaking that such an existence affords. Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3exMNL7

New figures from the Publishers Association show fiction and audiobooks did particularly well, with value of consumer sales up 7% on 2019 despite bookshop closures Fiction sales in 2020 soared by more than £100m for UK publishers, as readers locked down at home made their escape into books, with audiobook sales also climbing by more than a third. New figures from the Publishers Association show that fiction sales for UK publishers rose by 16% from £571m to £688m in 2020, with key titles cited for the rise including Maggie O’Farrell’s Women’s prize-winner Hamnet , Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winner Shuggie Bain , Richard Osman’s cosy crime novel The Thursday Murder Club , Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other , and Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing . The bestselling title of last year was Charlie Mackesy ’s philosophical picture book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3xoJuOV

In a powerful new documentary, American historians and descendants search for and restore cemeteries and burial grounds for slaves Just over five miles from where the Robert E Lee monument still stands is the formerly segregated East End cemetery, where African Americans who lived through the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras are buried, many in unmarked graves. For a century, the Lee monument – commemorating those who upheld slavery – stood tall, polished and revered. It took the murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests for politicians to seriously consider tearing it down. Meanwhile, the gravestones in East End for those people most affected by slavery’s legacy are faded, broken or lost to wildly overgrown weeds that make it impossible for family to even visit. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eCEAFo

Chloé Zhao, Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Kaluuya ... diversity has truly taken root at the Oscars – with women, older characters and people of colour being recognised Even before the curtain fell, this year’s Oscars attracted a lot of labels. Oddest Oscars ever! That seemed fair: no hosts, no songs, just 170 guests clapping in a train station. Most sombre Oscars ever? Also true. A global pandemic and a lot of films inspired by police brutality don’t make for the frothiest few hours. Most boring Oscars ever? That, too, has some validity: the meticulous stage-managing dictated by Covid protocols made for a remarkably smooth – and platitudinous – ceremony, with none of the slips that can help keep viewers from snoozing. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aChhKM

Early numbers suggest ceremony, which saw Nomadland triumph, watched by 9.85 million Americans, down from 23.6 million in 2020 The Oscars telecast suffered another major dip in viewership this year, with early ratings suggesting a 58% drop. The ceremony, which saw on-the-road drama Nomadland pick up the top prize , was watched by 9.85 million Americans, down from 23.6 million in 2020, according to preliminary Nielsen numbers. That year, which was led by a historic win for Parasite, was already the least watched televised ceremony ever for the Academy. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3gHqVzE

Diversity routine that drew 24,500 complaints is up against Nigella, EastEnders and Bridgerton A Black Lives Matter-inspired dance routine on Britain’s Got Talent that attracted thousands of complaints has been shortlisted for a Bafta television award. The dance group Diversity are one of six nominees for the must-see moment award, which is voted for by the public, following the reaction to their performance on the Saturday night ITV programme, which included references to the murder of George Floyd and contributed to a discussion on how race is covered in the television industry. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3sVhhf2

A father uses his obsession with the movies to help his daughter when she is unjustly suspected of murder It turns out that cinephilia is a productive use of time after all. When his computer is searched, Li Weijie, protagonist of this perky Chinese thriller, has watched 838 films in a year – and he uses his superior knowledge of the seventh art to get his family out of a pickle. Chinese but living in northern Thailand, he scrapes by as an internet technician, but his daughter finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation after she accidentally kills the son of a police chief who was trying to blackmail her with smartphone-filmed rape footage. A remake of the 2013 Malayalam film Drishyam, this big Chinese hit ultimately doffs the cap to Korean cinema: it is Jeong Keun-seob’s 2013 film Montage that inspires Li when he has to provide his family with an alibi. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2S79fDl

Actors roam Madrid, springing provocative performances on passersby, in Achero Mañas’s vibrant faux-documentary The stage on screen: more films about theatre Can theatre change the world? Not, you suspect, if it’s a ticketed performance watched from a red velvet seat with a glossy programme and an ice-cream. The guerrilla theatre-makers in the 2003 Spanish film Noviembre, directed by Achero Mañas, have a 10-point manifesto for the revolution they’re staging on the streets. All their performances are free and available to all, they accept no private or public subsidies, and only original material is presented. If you’ve acted for TV or film then forget it – you’re banned from Noviembre. The group is led by Alfredo (Óscar Jaenada), who arrives in Madrid from Murcia in the late 90s to attend drama school. Alfredo auditions with a piece he has created for a homemade marionette but comes to believe it is his fellow actors who are treated like puppets by their tutor, Yuta (played by vet...

David Pogue explores the chemistry of life in a wide-ranging three-part series. Plus: Lisa Eldridge investigates the Victorian disdain for makeup. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/32S6gRe

A strong whiff of phoniness hangs over this derivative tale of a drunken Zoom-call birthday party that gets out of hand Of all the awfulnesses rained down on us by coronavirus, down the list in 457th place is the return of the found-footage movie, back on our screens in the guise of the Zoom-call film. Last year’s nifty little chiller Host was a masterclass in how to do it: a subgenre high. Much less satisfying is this gimmicky and derivative pandemic thriller directed by Will Wernick about a drunken virtual party that gets out of hand. There is absolutely no sense of it being shot in real time and a strong whiff of phoniness hangs over the whole thing. Newsreel footage sets the scene. It’s America, summer 2022. After four waves of coronavirus, 31 million Americans are dead, and a nationwide night-time curfew is in place. Stuck at home in Los Angeles on his birthday making do with an online party is Evan (Dan J Johnson). His girlfriend Jen (Jocelyn Hudon) is with him; she’s pregnant ...

In the century since the first on-air report in 1921, meteorologists have - almost - got the science of forecasting down to a fine art Exactly 100 years ago today, at 10.05am on 26 April 1921, an unassuming cleric and academic, Rev William F Robison, the president of St Louis University, made history as the first person in the world to broadcast a weather report. He was launching the university’s own radio station, WEW, and followed some opening remarks with a 500-word meteorological bulletin. Weather forecasting in Britain actually began 60 years before, when the Meteorological Office, a department within the Board of Trade founded to predict storms and limit loss of life at sea, began to supply the Times with weather reports in 1861. The shipping forecast was launched in 1867, when information about marine conditions was telegraphed to ports and harbours all round the UK coast. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PoSO4n

Overblown musical pomposity to some, the guitar solo is seen as a benchmark of brilliance to many. But which is best? In the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it “My solos are my trademark,” announced Nigel Tufnel in 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap . Cue footage of the topless musician performing some signature fret-fondling while curling his lip in satisfaction, then swapping his plectrum for a violin. Before long, the real-life rock stars satirised by Spinal Tap were handed a second blow – when the irreverent grunge scene of the 1990s arrived, ripping up the guitar histrionics rule book, and instead favouring scuzzier playing. Yet, while not as revered as it once was, the guitar solo remains the benchmark of musical brilliance for many. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/32LXHaL

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s last work starts as a sentimental elegy to cinema-going’s golden age but takes us through the heart of Japanese darkness Nobuhiko Ôbayashi is the Japanese film-maker who directed the cult 1977 horror Hausu, or House , and in his long and prolific career also specialised in TV ads starring American movie actors for the domestic market (satirised in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation). Just before his death last year, at the age of 82, he completed this film, his valediction to cinema, to Japan and to life: an epic blitz of pop-culture hyperactivity: baffling, surreal, tragicomic, then simply tragic. At first, it looks as if it is going to be a sentimental lump-in-the-throat elegy to cinema-going’s golden age. But then it takes us to the heart of Japanese darkness: the second world war and the atomic bomb. In the present day, a movie theatre in Onomichi, near Hiroshima, is playing an all-nighter of war movies and three guys in the audience, cinephile Mario (Takuro ...

Filled with product placement and advertising, the band’s newly reissued 1967 album put the pop in pop art, by showing how closely music was entwined with capital These days, we think of the period between 1965 and 1967 as one of white-hot musical progress, a dizzying three-year period during which innovation followed innovation, a succession of totemic albums and singles were released and pop music changed irrevocably. But, as Jon Savage’s superb book 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded made clear, not everyone at the time was impressed with how things were going. Savage’s research revealed a succession of contemporary naysayers, devoted to “ringing the death knell” as he put it: 1966 – The Year Pop Went Flat was noted music journalist Maureen Cleave’s assessment of 12 months that had seen the release of Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, Reach Out (I’ll Be There), Eight Miles High, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World and 19th Nervous Breakdown. The most striking contemporary quote of all might ...

Increasingly, what we’re after on social media is not narrative or personality but moments of audiovisual eloquence. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/3sWNXVv

Helvetica look-alike: five letters. from Culture: TV, Movies, Music, Art, and Theatre News and Reviews https://ift.tt/2QSI6mZ

Angie Thomas talks about exploring violence and black fatherhood in her latest young adult novel – and why she’s hoping it won’t be banned Angie Thomas does not hesitate when I ask whether her new novel will be banned somewhere. “Absolutely, I’m expecting it,” she replies. “Adults don’t like talking about teenage sex, they don’t want to get uncomfortable.” She has good reason to think so: The Hate U Give , her bestselling debut, was pulled from schools in the city of Katy, Texas. “The initial objection focused on swearing and the discussion of sexual acts and drugs. In her new young adult novel, Concrete Rose , drugs and violence are more than discussed: the book follows 17-year-old Maverick Carter, a self-described “drug-dealing, gangbanging, high school flunkout … who got two kids by two different girls”. Readers of The Hate U Give will recognise Maverick as Starr Carter’s father, and Concrete Rose – Thomas’s third novel – is effectively its prequel. Once again, the reader is tr...

Rolling Stones guitarist was recently treated for small-cell carcinoma following lung cancer treatment in 2017 Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has revealed he was recently diagnosed with cancer for a second time, but has been given the all-clear. Speaking to the Sun, Wood said: “I’ve had cancer two different ways now. I had lung cancer in 2017 and I had small-cell more recently that I fought in the last lockdown … I came through with the all-clear.” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2R204Dq

An unnamed woman in an unnamed city wavers between solitude and brief encounters in a spare examination of alienation When Jhumpa Lahiri published her previous novel, 2013’s The Lowland , a wide-angled family saga centred on the Naxalite uprising in 60s Bengal, she was known chiefly as a writer of cross-cultural dislocation. With The Namesake (2003), a novel about a Bengali-American child who rejects his origins, and two story collections, including her Pulitzer-winning debut, 1999’s Interpreter of Maladies , she anticipated a US vogue for fiction that viewed American culture through the eyes of another. Yet Lahiri, born in London and raised in Rhode Island by parents from Kolkata, was sceptical of that brand: asked in an interview about “immigrant novels”, she observed that, in literature, “the tension between alienation and assimilation has always been a basic theme”. Partly to escape these constraints, she taught herself Italian in her 40s, moving her family to Rome in pursuit o...