๐ฅ Discover this trending post from BBC Culture ๐ ๐ Category: ๐ Key idea: In visual media, the seductive and greedy zeitgeist of the 1980s found expression in series such as Dynasty and Dallas, and films such as Scarface (1983) and Wall Street (1987). The Laundromat, a nostalgic and outdated imitation of a mythical America, was presented as an antidote to excess. The design took its lead from the 1950s, with women admiring his sleek cut and tight shirt with cat-eye glasses and curly hair, while the soundtrack was from the 1960s.The scarcity of the female gaze in commercials is…
โจ Check out this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Film,Christmas,Culture,Frank Capra,Christopher Plummer,Sarah Polley,John Cusack,Comedy films ๐ก Key idea: It Happened on Fifth AvenueSomething that bugs me about a lot of contemporary Christmas movies is how insistently self-conscious they are about the whole production โ the ostentatious decorations, checklist of soundtrack chestnuts, the dialogue about the true meaning of the holidays that sounds canned even when the movie is trying to acknowledge its various stressors. Maybe because the idea of a holiday movie hadnโt yet ossified into routine, Iโve found that the versions of these films…
๐ฅ Discover this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Fiction,Books,Culture โ
Main takeaway: ANa North's fourth book, Queen of the Swamp, is a braided novel. First, โa colony of algaeโ speaks โ or rather, it doesnโt speak, but โif this colony could tell its life story,โ here is some of what it could say. Then we have Agnes in 2018, an American, tall, eccentric, a forensic scientist and unsure about everything else, including much of life in England. And then, in the first person, there's an Iron Age teenage girl, the priestess of her village, heading…
โจ Discover this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Film,Culture โ
Hereโs what youโll learn: TThe Dardenne brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre, have long served as Belgium's answer to Ken Loach, camping out their filmmaking camp among the most marginalized and forgotten. This usually means obvious myths about teenagers and twenty-somethings living in difficult circumstances: nightmare parents, petty crime, drugs, prison. In a string of films between the mid-1990s and early 2000s, they twice won the Palme d'Or, as well as Best Screenplay and the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for their distinctive brand of…
๐ฅ Discover this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Science and nature books,Books,Health, mind and body books,Culture,Psychiatry,Schizophrenia ๐ Main takeaway: IIn 1973, the American psychologist David Rosenhan published the results of a bold experiment. He arranged for eight "fake patients" to attend appointments at psychiatric institutions, where they complained to doctors of hearing voices saying "empty", "hollow" and "thud". All of them were admitted and diagnosed with schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis. They immediately stopped showing any โsymptomsโ and started saying they felt fine. The first came out after seven days; Last after 52When psychiatrists at a…
๐ Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Music,Radio,BBC,Culture,Media,Television & radio,Scotland,UK news ๐ Key idea: Musicians including Eddie Reader, Nadine Shah, Hamish Hook and members of Franz Fernanand, Del Amitri, Idlewild and others have voiced their disapproval at the planned changes to BBC Radio Scotland's late-night programmes, claiming the changes will damage Scottish artists' "career ignition" prospects.The BBC has announced that it will replace four programs currently broadcast between 10pm and midnight from Monday to Thursday, and will either remove or reallocate their presenters. These shows will be replaced by Up Late shows, which the…
โจ Explore this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Rob Reiner,Film,Culture,Spinal Tap,This Is Spinal Tap,When Harry Met Sally,Comedy films,Romance films,Drama films,Teen movies ๐ก Main takeaway: Stand by MeObviously The Shining remains the greatest Stephen King adaptation ever made, but Stand By Me is the one I love beyond all measure. Itโs the warmest, the saddest and the funniest, too: a lovely, grubby ode to the joys of misspent youth. โI never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12,โ remarks small-town adventurer Gordie Lachance, who sets off with his pals…
๐ฅ Read this trending post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Film,Avatar,James Cameron,Science fiction and fantasy films,Action and adventure films,Zoe Saldaรฑa,Edie Falco,Culture ๐ Hereโs what youโll learn: Heyn and on it goes. The planet-sized Avatar continues to orbit wildly in the universe - but without affecting the tides of any other world. Maybe an avatar He is The universe and its creator James Cameron is the new L. Ron Hubbard; The creator, or rather prophet, of a new belief system that includes large blue creatures with pointy ears that flap and twitch when they speak, and to whom…
โจ Check out this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Art and design,Culture,Exhibitions,Drawing,Art,Yorkshire,Ageing โ
Hereโs what youโll learn: IDuring his four decades as a curator, publisher and gallerist, Matthew Higgs supported the careers of many artists, including his contemporaries Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed and Peter Doig when they emerged in the early 1990s.Higgs also supports artists from alternative backgrounds โ those who are self-taught, or who have developmental or cognitive impairment โ โโand his latest discovery is one of these people. Christine Hazel is 88 years old, suffers from progressive memory loss, and had never practiced…
โจ Explore this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian ๐ ๐ Category: Theatre,David Ireland,Soho theatre,Stage,Culture,Comedy,Comedy ๐ Main takeaway: IThe film is set on a summer morning in Edinburgh during a festival, but David Ireland's play Two Hands, which was first performed as a sideline reading in 2012, has a strange kind of Christmas spirit heightened by the timing of its London premiere.The explanation requires some spoilers about the strange twists, but the setup couldn't be clearer. In a Travelodge hotel room, a couple wakes up after a one-night stand. She's in the bathroom. He devours a bucket of KFC…
