Wed 25, August 2010 @ 18:24
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
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Tue 03, August 2010 @ 15:02
Danton’s Death Review
A new version of Georg Buchner’s play Danton’s Death by Howard Brenton has just opened at the National Theatre in London. It runs till October and given it is part of the Travelex £10 ticket season, it is well worth a visit, says Stuart King.
Mon 12, July 2010 @ 20:25
Capitalism and sport
At the beginning of the twentieth century sport was patronised
by big business. It saw in the major sporting events of the world
the possibility of enhancing its prestige - and therefore its
market share - at both a local and national level. But the mass
spectator sports at that time were not the source of massive
profits. Patronage did not guarantee a return on outlays and in
many cases individual directors of sporting clubs were expressly
forbidden from making a profit. Today we face a very different
situation.....writes Mark Hoskisson...
Fri 25, June 2010 @ 10:13
The double life of Arthur Ransome: Roland Chambers: Review
Arthur Ransome was no socialist. His school was Rugby and his best friends Tories and Liberals. By the time he was 30 on the eve of the First World War he was a minor author, living a somewhat bohemian existence in Edwardian England. Fast forward 15 years and he became the hugely successful author of Swallows and Amazons, the book for which he is now most widely known. The book and its sequels kept him in the Lake District for the next few decades and he died, aged 83, in 1967.
Thu 17, December 2009 @ 11:05
Futurism Tate Modern: Review
This summer the Tate Modern ran a centenary exhibition linked to the 1909 Manifesto of Futurism published by the French paper Le Figaro. Futurism was an important European art movement with its strongest following in Italy and Russia.
Thu 17, December 2009 @ 11:04
Franny Moyle:Desperate Romantics: the private lives of the Pre-Raphaelites: Review
Don’t be put off Moyle’s book because of the TV series of the same name. While the TV version could well be described as “Carry on up the Royal Academy”, the book itself is a serious art history of the Pre-Raphaelites, albeit one that concentrates on the lives, loves and celebrity of the leading figures of the brotherhood.
Thu 17, December 2009 @ 11:00
Terry Eagleton: reason, faith and revolution: Review
Terry Eagleton is Britain’s most famous Marxist literary critic. Most recently he was involved in a polemic with Martin Amis over Islamophobic and racist remarks in an article “The Age of Horrorism”, a dispute which had added venom as Amis was appointed as a lecturer to Manchester University as Eagleton, a real lecturer, was let go.
Mon 28, September 2009 @ 21:57
Synedoche, New York:masterclass or folly?
APPARENTLY, the job of the armchair critic watching Synedoche, New York is to decide whether it’s a soaring masterpiece or monumental self-indulgence. Well, leaving aside the notion that a film maybe both of these things at the same time, Synedoche, New York, it turns out, is neither.
Thu 18, June 2009 @ 17:46
Revolutionary Road: Sam Mendes: Review
Richard Yates’s novel Revolutionary Road was published in 1961, just as the Eisenhower years were giving way to the Kennedy era. W H Auden called this post-war period the “Age of Anxiety” and, beneath the seemingly placid, self-satisfied surface...writes Eleanor Davies....
Mon 09, March 2009 @ 18:21
time and the city: review
Liverpool, in the early post-war decades, shaped Terence Davies and this film beautifully plunders the archives to bring it alive. Davies’ bitter-sweet commentary, poetic one minute, ribald the next and topped off with a wonderful soundtrack, is the sincerest homage.
Mon 09, March 2009 @ 18:06
The Wire: review
Two cops – one a rookie, the other a seasoned detective called McNulty – sit in a surveillance car across the street from where a tall, well-dressed black man is deep in conversation with a real estate agent. McNulty has his binoculars trained on the black man as the rookie enquires if he is a drug dealer and the detective, letting the binoculars fall but keeping his eyes peeled on his target, replies:
Wed 25, February 2009 @ 23:23
Review of Milk
“If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every
closet door…”
"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you!"
Milk is a relatively straightforward biopic of the US’ first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, elected in 1977 to the San Francisco board of supervisors and assassinated just eleven months later by Irish Catholic Conservative, Dan White. As films go...writes Vicky Thompson...
Thu 22, January 2009 @ 22:31
Che Part One: Review
Che, the unconventional biopic of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, opens
with grainy black and white footage of an infamous figure wreathed
in smoke. It’s Che, but we don’t recognise the physical qualities
of the man at first, so much as the tell-tale Cuban cigar.The
camera then pans out to show Che himself; he’s played by the
acclaimed Puerto Ricon actor Benicio del Toro, who bears a
startling resemblance to Guevara..writes Vicky Thompson...
Fri 02, January 2009 @ 19:00
Film review: Steven Soderberg’s “Che”
New Year’s day can be a bit of a come down – unless, that is, your fortunate enough to see Steven Soderberg’s two-part, four and a half hour epic film “Che”. Stuart King joined a full house in one of the few London cinemas that showed both parts of Soderberg’s film on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.
Tue 02, December 2008 @ 17:56
Terence Davies trilogy –of angels and gimps children madonna and child death and transfiguration
There are many who believe Terence Davies to be the greatest living English film-maker, his craftsmanship and poetic sensibility without equal. The Trilogy is not so much a catalogue of hardships but a stirring account of human dignity triumphing over emotional and spiritual confusion.
Sat 04, October 2008 @ 13:17
High Jinks – the varied cinema of ’68 - PR9
In the autumn of 1967 as students returned to their colleges in Paris the latest Jean-Luc Godard film, La Chinoise, was released at the Cinémathèque and in the arthouse cinemas of the Left Bank. Six months later, De Gaulle’s government dismissed Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque. It was the latest abuse of civil liberties by a vicious, authoritarian government.
Sat 04, October 2008 @ 13:12
The journey of an anti-Zionist Jew: If I Am Not For Myself: Mike Marquesee: Review - PR9
When more than one hundred Jewish anti-Zionists had a letter published in the Guardian recently stating that, for them, the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Israeli state was nothing to celebrate, they were assailed on all sides.
Fri 22, February 2008 @ 21:31
Battleship Potemkin, Strike, October by Sergei Eisenstein: Appreciation
The works of Sergei Eisenstein, in particular the films he made in the mid-1920s, Strike, Battleship Potemkin and October are eloquent tributes to the creativity of art in a young workers' republic. They are also moving and exciting commemorations of episodes in the history of the Russian proletariat.By Mark HoskissonWed 13, February 2008 @ 18:51
‘Oil’ without the politics:
You should never judge the film by the book. This is especially the case with There Will Be Blood starring Daniel Day-Lewis. But lets do it anyway....writes Stuart King...Sat 27, October 2007 @ 17:19
Review: Michael Moore: Sicko - a healthy antedote to private medicine
Michael Moore is not a film director who excites indifference. There are those, like Newsnight’s Gavin Esler, who suggest his documentaries are partial and one-sided, that they are selective with the facts and manipulate the audience’s emotions. Moore’s latest offering, Sicko, ticks most of those boxes....writes John Dennis....Wed 18, July 2007 @ 12:12
Redemption Song: The definitive biography of Joe Strummer (PR3)
“Remember Victor Jara in the Santiago Stadium”. These words sprang to my mind on learning of the death of Chilean tyrant, Augusto Pinochet last December. Jara, a left wing poet and folksinger, was among the early victims of the 1973 Pinochet coup.Fri 30, March 2007 @ 11:11
