A blog on Newcastle Arts and Culture, Cinema and Life.
Last week, I gave up my customary Sunday morning lie-in, (that makes it sound like I don’t have one every other day, doesn’t it) and slouched along to the Tyneside Cinema to take in a screening of a series of short films made by young people aged 8-18 through the ACT2CAM drama school. More than [...]
Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair came to Newcastle yesterday, filling Northumbria University’s Student Union with stall upon stall of pre-owned, retro and vintage loveliness. Although I’m bang into second-hand shopping, I’ve always been a bit of a vintage sceptic. Too many times I’ve ventured into a vintage shop and taken my musty garment behind a precariously [...]
For the greater good of film blogging, I renounced my self-imposed ban on watching horror films (I wasn’t right in the head for months after watching Audition) thinking, perhaps, The Woman in Black would be a good way to dip my toe back into the waters of the creepy and disturbed. An extremely well known [...]
I still can’t fully trust Cronenberg after a screening of Videodrome in the late nineties caused me to violently regurgitate my lunch. This, combined with my rarely mentioned but deeply felt irritation at the mere sight of Keira Knightley, had A Dangerous Method at the very bottom of my to-do list. Taking an austere look [...]
What’s Your Story? Discovering Family History is the latest temporary exhibition to open at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle. Tracing family history, as a solo and almost completely paper-based endeavour, is a tricky subject to exhibit. Yet, this carefully thought-out gallery succeeds in pleasing the eye brightly displayed collection of objects, large photographs, decorative panels [...]
‘Cafe culture’ is probably the greatest by-product of modern city living. I spend worryingly large portions of my day mooching from one cafe to another, sometimes working, sometimes socialising, always eating pastries. It’s quite possible that I’ve had a cup of coffee in just about every cafe Newcastle has to offer and yet I just [...]
About half way through Martha Marcy May Marlene Patrick (played by John Hawkes) performs ‘Marcy’s Song’, a dreamy acoustic love song dedicated to the family’s newest member. As the strangely handsome if somewhat under-nourished head of the ‘family’ croons his rich, mysterious lyrics he locks eyes with Martha and you know she’s doomed. Drawing inspiration [...]
Recently, The Artist has succeeded in reminding us of cinema’s joyous ability to entertain and uplift. Like a piece of dental floss threaded through one ear and out the other, the silent delight has scraped away all the negativity that has affixed itself to our collective consciousness of late, leaving it minty fresh and clean. [...]
Can anyone remember when the story broke in 2006 that a 38 year old woman’s body had been found in a bedsit in London? No? Nobody? How about that she had lain dead since 2003 and her badly decomposed body was only found, surrounded by Christmas present and with the TV still on, by the [...]
The latest exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, Northern City Renaissance, centres on a painting commissioned and unveiled by international rock royalty, famously experimental shagger and secret Geordie, Sting. Described by the curatorial folk at the Laing as a ‘celebration of Newcastle, past and present’, Northern City Renaissance is a fairly epic artwork depicting a [...]
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