A blog on Newcastle Arts and Culture, Cinema and Life.
The best cinemas show more than just films. Cinema auditoriums are now spaces in which to enjoy the latest plays and operas, experience live music alongside silent classics and, thanks to Mamma Mia, indulge in karaoke sing-a-longs. Ever a passionate advocate of the versatility of the cinema screen, Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema played host to Manet: [...]
It may seem strange for a film about genocide to open with a sex scene, but for historical drama Lidice it couldn’t be more fitting. A film that ends with mass murder, Lidice is for the most part bursting with life. In memory of the hundreds of men, women and children murdered by Nazi’s in [...]
I try very hard not to tell lies, even those tiny little white ones. LIE: “I’m sorry I’m late for work, there was a problem with the metro” TRUTH: “I’m sorry I’m late for work, I’m dangerously hungover.” LIE: “An unexpected bill has come out of my account, I’m skint.” TRUTH: “I spent all our [...]
Last Tuesday I went to my first ever book launch. Although, it wasn’t a book launch in the traditional sense because it was actually a film screening, with the bookish parts squeezed in before the film began. Nevertheless, it was my first time, and unlike another memorable first, I really enjoyed it and look forward [...]
On the release of Moonrise Kingdom, some random London-based film critic made the following comment on Twitter, “Oh, I see Wes Anderson has made ‘his film’ again.” Ordinarily, a theatrical grimace and a swift tap of the ‘unfollow’ button is enough to remove Twitter-based annoyances from my life, but for some reason this bloke really [...]
Watching theatre at the cinema is a new experience for me. Seeing any ‘live event’ on the TV or in the cinema has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I still avoid watching music festival coverage on the TV as sense that I’m getting a second-hand, lesser version of the events and the [...]
Last weekend, the most sparkling jewel in Newcastle’s cultural crown, the Tyneside Cinema, hosted an epic 75 hour cinema extravaganza in celebration of their 75 year anniversary. This is the second time the Tyneside has organised such a cinematic feast and at just 75p per ticket, it would be rude not to gorge. I’m not [...]
I’ve mentioned my love for silent film with live soundtrack before and as though the Gods of cultural oddity were reading my badly-punctuated plea for more, a whole initiative has sprung forth, promising to unite more films from the silent canon with contemporary musical accompaniment. Wunderbar! The latest incarnation of this magnificently diabolical marriage of [...]
Did you know that there are whole TV channels dedicated to true crime? Actual channels showing endless documentaries on serious crime; investigating and re-investigating, telling and re-telling the shocking and tragic details of the story, feeding our insatiable desire for factual analysis of events that can never be properly explained. Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss [...]
At Bombay Beach ex-cons and addicts hold barbecues with new age hippies and old-timers. Untamed children chase each other across sand dunes where ancient men free-wheel golf carts and the high school football star eats hamburgers where an alcoholic with a broken arm lies on the floor, hoping to bleed to death. Bombay Beach is [...]
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