π₯ Discover this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Doja Cat,Music,Culture,Melbourne,Australia news π Main takeaway: WWhen Doja Cat's Ma Vie world tour kicked off in Auckland last week, some fans immediately complained β not about her (authentic) sound or her (fiercely unconventional) band, but about the lack of costume changes. This is the way of modern pop stardom: the spectacle, not the music, is what sends phones flying into the air, with footage that is then captured on TikTok and Instagram.Doja Cat has been singing about this banality for years β βYou follow me, but you…
π₯ Explore this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Painting,Art,Art and design,Culture,Exhibitions,Pregnancy,Miscarriage,Family,Health & wellbeing,Life and style π Key idea: 'TβThe subject comes with huge baggage and I love that,β says Tom de Freston. The painter and I are in his studio in a village outside Oxford, surrounded by nude photographs of his wife, the novelist Kieran Millwood Hargrave. βI wanted to ask: What does it mean for an artist to look at a female figure? Where is the agency's headquarters located?We were talking about Titian's "Poesie" series, and how those paintings β commissioned by the most…
π₯ Explore this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Fiction,Books,Culture π‘ Main takeaway: "I βIt's become a living cliche: the evil bookseller,β the narrator declares a third of the way through John Tottenham's first novel. βNo book or movie that included a scene in a bookstore would be complete without such a stock βcharacterβ.β This is one way to pre-empt criticism, and Sean Hangeland is just an ordinary character. Bitter, rude, apathetic, resentful of others' success and happiness and intellectually arrogant, a 48-year-old aspiring writer who makes ends meet is about to take a job at…
β¨ Check out this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Film,Drama films,Sydney Sweeney,Domestic violence,Ben Foster,Boxing,Culture,Society,Sport π Hereβs what youβll learn: AAn uninspired and undirected performance from Sidney Sweeney means there is a fatal lack of agency in this film on the part of director and co-writer David Michaud. She is able to be subtle without being strong. Its subject is Christy Salters-Martin, who under the tutelage of a smiling Don King became the world's most successful female boxer in the 1990s and 2000s, but faced a misogynistic nightmare outside the ring.The film fails to deliver on…
π Read this awesome post from BBC Culture π π Category: π Main takeaway: It has also spawned a whole series of spin-offs and tie-ins, including a theatrical prequel (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) and an upcoming animated series (Stranger Things: Tales from '85), as well as board games, comics, and clothing lines. What's more, it has made stars out of its young cast, including Millie Bobby Brown β who plays Eleven, a girl with supernatural powers trapped in a cruel live science experiment β Sadie Sink, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, and Noah Schnapp.This first volume of episodes…
π Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Theatre,Stage,Charles Dickens,Culture,Jermyn Street Theatre β
Key idea: TThe first approach to the holiday season can always be marked, in the theatre, by the raising of Charles Dickens' Ghost of Christmas. Here's something different about Scrooge and his ghosts, though, ready for a season of goodwill. Three actors lead this lively tale of a Victorian boy's misfortune, adventure - and a formative trip to Yarmouth.Written and directed by Abigail Pickard-Pryce, who was behind last year's three-person film Pride and Prejudice, the film is much more than just a…
π₯ Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Classical music,Music,Barbican,Culture,Poland β
Hereβs what youβll learn: IIn the crowded post-minimalist world, Hania Rani has managed to carve out a respectable niche. The Polish pianist and composer's wide-ranging, yet accessible works often defy genres, appealing to classical, jazz and electronic music lovers alike. This concert consisted of two 40-minute premieres and fell firmly into the classical category, but the lively audience was much younger than those of Brahms and Beethoven. It was elegantly performed by the Manchester collective, and it sounded just like it was happening.The first…
β¨ Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Television,Culture,Television & radio,The Beatles,Music,Paul McCartney,John Lennon,George Harrison,Ringo Starr β
Main takeaway: TThere's no doubt that the arrival of The Beatles Anthology in 1995 was a big deal. The series was broadcast in prime time on both sides of the Atlantic, and the ABC network in the United States even changed its name to ABeatlesC in its honour. The three accompanying albums (the first time the Beatles had allowed excerpts from their recording sessions to be officially released) sold for their millions. Its success helped launch the modern…
π₯ Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Art,Jarman award,Film,Culture,Art and design,Derek Jarman,Awards and prizes,Tate Britain π Main takeaway: SOmersett House in London was known as the "National Beehive," says artist and film-maker Onyeka Igwe, leading the way through corridors and stone steps to her studio at the inner edges of the building. As the former home of the Inland Revenue, the public register office responsible for registering births, deaths and marriages, Somerset House held all the information needed to levy taxes and manage the population. βThere were a lot of workers here,β Igwe says.Archives…
π₯ Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian π π Category: Film,Drama films,Dance music,Culture,Music β
Key idea: HeyLivre Lax leads its audience into a wilderness of meaninglessness in this strange, oppressive, unrewarding film that won the Joint Jury Prize at Cannes this year and garnered all sorts of critical superlatives. For me, SirΔt is the most over-praised film of the year β infuriating and bizarre in ways that become less interesting and more ridiculous as the film progresses.There is a moment of tragic horror in the middle of the work, which is neither understood nor explained, and whose…
