An exploration of the sexualisation of pre-adolescent girls, St Vincent winds up her tour, and Lars von Trier is back
Opening this week
■ Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model
Bryony Kimmings on fine kick-ass form as she explores the sexualised female role models pushed upon pre-adolescent girls and, with the help of her 10-year-old niece, considers whether there might be alternatives. Bristol Old Vic Studio (0117-987 7877), Thursday to Saturday. Then touring.
■ Orlando
Everyone is in love with Orlando, a young boy in the court of Queen Elizabeth, including the old queen herself. But when Orlando wakes up one day as a woman, it is the start of an odyssey across countries and centuries. Virginia Woolf's novel is adapted by Sarah Ruhl. Royal Exchange, Manchester (0161-833 9833), Thursday to 22 March.
■ Birmingham Royal Ballet: Three of a Kind
Triple bill of vintage 20th-century ballets showcasing the wit and style of John Cranko, George Balanchine and Kenneth MacMillan.
Opening this week
■ Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model
Bryony Kimmings on fine kick-ass form as she explores the sexualised female role models pushed upon pre-adolescent girls and, with the help of her 10-year-old niece, considers whether there might be alternatives. Bristol Old Vic Studio (0117-987 7877), Thursday to Saturday. Then touring.
■ Orlando
Everyone is in love with Orlando, a young boy in the court of Queen Elizabeth, including the old queen herself. But when Orlando wakes up one day as a woman, it is the start of an odyssey across countries and centuries. Virginia Woolf's novel is adapted by Sarah Ruhl. Royal Exchange, Manchester (0161-833 9833), Thursday to 22 March.
■ Birmingham Royal Ballet: Three of a Kind
Triple bill of vintage 20th-century ballets showcasing the wit and style of John Cranko, George Balanchine and Kenneth MacMillan.
- 2/17/2014
- The Guardian - Film News
Stuart Hall, the so-called 'godfather of multiculturalism' changed Britain for the better even while he showed us the ugly truth about our racist society
"The very notion of Great Britain's 'greatness' is bound up with empire," Stuart Hall once wrote. "Euro-scepticism and Little Englander nationalism could hardly survive if people understood whose sugar flowed through English blood and rotted English teeth."
For the Jamaican-born intellectual, who was one of the Windrush generation, – the first large-scale immigration of West Indians to the capital after world war two – that rottenness was unmissable. Hall came to that rotten land with its in-part slave-generated wealth from Kingston in 1951 as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. "Three months at Oxford persuaded me that it was not my home," he told the Guardian in 2012. "I'm not English and I never will be. The life I have lived is one of partial displacement. I came to...
"The very notion of Great Britain's 'greatness' is bound up with empire," Stuart Hall once wrote. "Euro-scepticism and Little Englander nationalism could hardly survive if people understood whose sugar flowed through English blood and rotted English teeth."
For the Jamaican-born intellectual, who was one of the Windrush generation, – the first large-scale immigration of West Indians to the capital after world war two – that rottenness was unmissable. Hall came to that rotten land with its in-part slave-generated wealth from Kingston in 1951 as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. "Three months at Oxford persuaded me that it was not my home," he told the Guardian in 2012. "I'm not English and I never will be. The life I have lived is one of partial displacement. I came to...
- 2/11/2014
- by Stuart Jeffries
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ John Akomfrah's documentary about leading cultural theorist Stuart Hall offers a vivid portrait of the Jamaican-born academic, who was at the centre of the New Left movement. Exploring this integral figure, The Stuart Hall Project (2013) dexterously employs the use of archive footage, reminding us of the man's contribution to the shaping of modern British society. Today, Hall's prominence has diminished, even if his theories haven't. For those of us who aren't old enough to remember, it's almost a revelation to learn that he once was a frequent figure on our television screens, discussing issues of gender, race and identity.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Hall was more commonly seen on the high-brow shows. This being the case, Akomfrah's considered documentary reminds those who lived through the same era, as well as introducing a new generation to this enigmatic man and his impact in what is undeniably a fitting, although perhaps a touch too reverential,...
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Hall was more commonly seen on the high-brow shows. This being the case, Akomfrah's considered documentary reminds those who lived through the same era, as well as introducing a new generation to this enigmatic man and his impact in what is undeniably a fitting, although perhaps a touch too reverential,...
- 9/6/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
In this absorbing documentary tribute, the pioneer of cultural studies comes across as a calm figure who insists on the fundamental topic of equality
John Akomfrah's film is a tribute to the critic and New Left Review founder Stuart Hall – a montage of existing documentary footage and Hall's own words and thoughts on film. It has an idealism and high seriousness that people might not immediately associate with the subject Hall pioneered: cultural studies. This is not about, say, postmodern readings of Lady Gaga, but a deeply considered project that reconsiders culture and identity for those excluded from the circles of power through race, gender and class. His is the progressive tradition of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, unfashionable since Margaret Thatcher dismantled the welfarist consensus. Akomfrah finds a new and quietly moving significance in Hall's own life story: a man who came from Jamaica – which Hall elegantly calls...
John Akomfrah's film is a tribute to the critic and New Left Review founder Stuart Hall – a montage of existing documentary footage and Hall's own words and thoughts on film. It has an idealism and high seriousness that people might not immediately associate with the subject Hall pioneered: cultural studies. This is not about, say, postmodern readings of Lady Gaga, but a deeply considered project that reconsiders culture and identity for those excluded from the circles of power through race, gender and class. His is the progressive tradition of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, unfashionable since Margaret Thatcher dismantled the welfarist consensus. Akomfrah finds a new and quietly moving significance in Hall's own life story: a man who came from Jamaica – which Hall elegantly calls...
- 9/5/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
From 50s migrant to 80s Thatcher critic, the cultural theorist has long led the debate on race and politics. A new film charts his life and his decades-long influence on the culture of modern Britain
As the Labour party prepares for another round of soul-searching next month about the left's place in modern Britain, it could do worse than organise a pre-conference screening of John Akomfrah's wonderful documentary The Stuart Hall Project.
It would be perverse to suggest that Professor Stuart Hall, 81, has been a neglected figure in British cultural life over the last six decades. He was a founding editor of the hugely influential New Left Review in 1958 and the co-creator of the first cultural studies programme (at Birmingham University in 1964). He has been the most prominent of black British intellectuals since the 1960s, a prominent figure of the Open University and among the most trenchant critics of Thatcherism.
As the Labour party prepares for another round of soul-searching next month about the left's place in modern Britain, it could do worse than organise a pre-conference screening of John Akomfrah's wonderful documentary The Stuart Hall Project.
It would be perverse to suggest that Professor Stuart Hall, 81, has been a neglected figure in British cultural life over the last six decades. He was a founding editor of the hugely influential New Left Review in 1958 and the co-creator of the first cultural studies programme (at Birmingham University in 1964). He has been the most prominent of black British intellectuals since the 1960s, a prominent figure of the Open University and among the most trenchant critics of Thatcherism.
- 8/17/2013
- by Tim Adams
- The Guardian - Film News
The erstwhile star of Cats returns to watch some young successors in Calder Valley where he took summer acting courses as a young man. Josh Elderfield reports
Actor Brian Blessed, who played in the original West End production of Cats, is returning to his acting roots in Yorkshire to see a production of the show featuring children from the Calder Valley Youth Theatre later this month.
Blessed, who played Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 classic, will be at the opening night at the Halifax Playhouse on 14 November. The show, performed by youth theatre members between the ages of eight and 18, will run at the Playhouse for four nights.
Blessed, the son of a miner and strong socialist from Mexborough in South Yorkshire, came to the Calder Valley in the 1950s as a 'summer student' at Calder high school. He was entranced by the drama classes...
Actor Brian Blessed, who played in the original West End production of Cats, is returning to his acting roots in Yorkshire to see a production of the show featuring children from the Calder Valley Youth Theatre later this month.
Blessed, who played Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 classic, will be at the opening night at the Halifax Playhouse on 14 November. The show, performed by youth theatre members between the ages of eight and 18, will run at the Playhouse for four nights.
Blessed, the son of a miner and strong socialist from Mexborough in South Yorkshire, came to the Calder Valley in the 1950s as a 'summer student' at Calder high school. He was entranced by the drama classes...
- 11/1/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
An acerbic teddy bear comes to life in Seth MacFarlane's hilarious first film about our refusal to abandon adolescence
To some, comedy is a funny business; to others it's no laughing matter, and critics from Aristotle to Eric Bentley have attempted to explain and define it. Pauline Kael's review of The Sting set out to explain why it was neither funny nor entertaining; the leftwing theorist and cultural historian Raymond Williams once told the readers of the Listener that Rowan & Martin's TV show Laugh-In was unfunny. They were as unpersuasive as the British Council lecturer who tried to convince an audience in Tirana that Norman Wisdom isn't funny.
Woody Allen offers two definitions of comedy in Crimes and Misdemeanors, both ways of mocking the dislikable TV star played by Alan Alda and through him the celebrated writer Larry Gelbart, on whom the character is based. The fact is...
To some, comedy is a funny business; to others it's no laughing matter, and critics from Aristotle to Eric Bentley have attempted to explain and define it. Pauline Kael's review of The Sting set out to explain why it was neither funny nor entertaining; the leftwing theorist and cultural historian Raymond Williams once told the readers of the Listener that Rowan & Martin's TV show Laugh-In was unfunny. They were as unpersuasive as the British Council lecturer who tried to convince an audience in Tirana that Norman Wisdom isn't funny.
Woody Allen offers two definitions of comedy in Crimes and Misdemeanors, both ways of mocking the dislikable TV star played by Alan Alda and through him the celebrated writer Larry Gelbart, on whom the character is based. The fact is...
- 8/4/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Irish president Michael D Higgins has criticised video games, claiming that they can be detrimental to children.
The veteran politician said at a meeting in Temple Bar, Dublin, that gaming may prevent children from using their imaginations. "We must encourage all citizens, particularly children, to, as Raymond Williams put it, 'Be the arrow, not the target'," he said. "It is possible to form the impression that many of today's children no longer fully appreciate the joy of taking refuge in their own imaginations, preferring (more)...
The veteran politician said at a meeting in Temple Bar, Dublin, that gaming may prevent children from using their imaginations. "We must encourage all citizens, particularly children, to, as Raymond Williams put it, 'Be the arrow, not the target'," he said. "It is possible to form the impression that many of today's children no longer fully appreciate the joy of taking refuge in their own imaginations, preferring (more)...
- 11/26/2011
- by By Mark Langshaw
- Digital Spy
This is an article by Dr. Cynthia Ann Baron for Pure Movies. While simpleminded, it seems useful to ask: what is the attraction of “subversive” movies and media stars; how could fictional representations be subversive acts; how did contact with “subversive” movies become a politically radical gesture; why have “counterculture” audiences come to value “subversive” fictions? Work by Raymond Williams suggests that one way to answer questions like these is to consider, first, the degree to which we have become spectators of a world out there and, second, the way that industrial/post-industrial experience has channeled the expression of subjectivity into acts of consumption, to choices about what one watches and listens to, to decisions about what we value enough to bring into “private” space. His work provides a way to see that as a consequence of people being directed to engage in acts of “resistance” in the domain of consumption and taste-making,...
- 8/14/2011
- by Dr. Cynthia Ann Baron
- Pure Movies
One was an aspiring standup paralysed by his own political correctness. The other lacked focus and direction. But together Simon Pegg and Nick Frost found comedy chemistry. Simon Hattenstone plays gooseberry
• See a clip from the new film, Paul
It's a love story, simple as that. You can tell from the way they finish each other's sentences, the infatuated looks, the giggling. Simon Pegg is explaining how he and Nick Frost got together in the first place. Pegg's girlfriend and Frost were waitering in a restaurant. At the end of the shift, Pegg went for a curry with Frost and the rest of the staff. During the meal, Pegg made the noise Chewbacca makes in Star Wars. "Nobody else knew what noise I was making – it's the moment of light relief when they're taking Chewbacca as a prisoner." Pegg squeals "birbirbigut" in a high pitch and Frost smiles. "We call it,...
• See a clip from the new film, Paul
It's a love story, simple as that. You can tell from the way they finish each other's sentences, the infatuated looks, the giggling. Simon Pegg is explaining how he and Nick Frost got together in the first place. Pegg's girlfriend and Frost were waitering in a restaurant. At the end of the shift, Pegg went for a curry with Frost and the rest of the staff. During the meal, Pegg made the noise Chewbacca makes in Star Wars. "Nobody else knew what noise I was making – it's the moment of light relief when they're taking Chewbacca as a prisoner." Pegg squeals "birbirbigut" in a high pitch and Frost smiles. "We call it,...
- 2/5/2011
- by Simon Hattenstone
- The Guardian - Film News
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