Culture

Nine of the best TV shows you can watch this December

Nine of the best TV shows you can watch this December

✨ Discover this must-read post from BBC Culture 📖 📂 Category: ✅ Main takeaway: 7. AmadeusThe 1984 film Amadeus, in which composer Antonio Salieri admits to jealously (and imaginatively) causing the death of his more talented rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, won the Academy Award for Best Picture and is now considered a classic. But there's a lot to be said for this lavish, more expansive adaptation, especially for Will Sharp's intelligent performance as Mozart. Whereas Tom Hulse made the film's character a laughing fool, Sharpe portrays him as a free-spirited, selfish but self-aware artist. Paul Bettany plays Salieri, the role…
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The Firework-Maker’s Daughter review – Philip Pullman’s fairy tale is explosive fun | Christmas offers

The Firework-Maker’s Daughter review – Philip Pullman’s fairy tale is explosive fun | Christmas offers

🚀 Read this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Christmas shows,Children's theatre,Stage,Culture,Philip Pullman,Children's books: 8-12 years,Books,Children and teenagers,Polka theatre,Puppetry 💡 Main takeaway: SSome children's books—simple stories from familiar worlds—transfer to the stage without carrying much of the heavy creative burden. Philip Pullman's fantasy tale of volcano climbing, talking elephants, and "the greatest fireworks display in the galaxy" is not one of them. But with buckets of imagination and a stellar cast, Lee Liford's new production for six- to 12-year-olds is epic and startlingly intimate. My guest, seven-year-old Artie, is unfamiliar with the book but is instantly…
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Primal War Review – It’s Green Berets vs. Dinosaurs in a jubilant Vietnam War fest | film

Primal War Review – It’s Green Berets vs. Dinosaurs in a jubilant Vietnam War fest | film

✨ Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Film,Action and adventure films,War films,Period and historical films,Science fiction and fantasy films,Jeremy Piven,Culture,Film adaptations,Books ✅ Key idea: ACast directly and unabashedly on viewers who love soldiers, gore, and dinosaurs—as well as dinosaurs that maul soldiers—this adaptation of Ethan Pettus' 2017 novel is highly repetitive yet strangely watchable. Although the film was filmed in Australia with a mostly Australian cast and a few American actors, it is supposed to be set in Vietnam in the late 1960s when the American armed forces were facing the Viet Cong.But there…
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TV tonight: Mads Brügger’s brilliant series turns up the tension | television

TV tonight: Mads Brügger’s brilliant series turns up the tension | television

🚀 Discover this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Television,Television & radio,Culture 📌 Main takeaway: Black swan10pm, BBC4“A storm is brewing in Amira’s office...” This fascinating Danish documentary series by director Mads Brügger (above) follows the work of powerful corporate lawyer Amira Smajic and her dealings with gangs. In this penultimate episode, tensions rise as money launderer Vassar threatens to “crush you with my bare hands.” While the hidden cameras are rolling, Amira works to solve the crisis and deal with a violent confrontation, before the series concludes in the final episode. Holly RichardsonOn the front…
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Holbein: The Renaissance Review by Elizabeth Goldring – A Great Portrait of the Artist | books

Holbein: The Renaissance Review by Elizabeth Goldring – A Great Portrait of the Artist | books

💥 Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Books,Biography books,Culture,History books,Art and design books ✅ Key idea: MMost of what we know, or think we know, about the court of Henry VIII comes directly from the paintings of Hans Holbein. There is the famous image of the king himself – bloated, phallic, hard, looking more like an assassin than a king. But there is also the ascetic Thomas More, who hides his hard streak behind fine bones, and the sly and thuggish Thomas Cromwell, with those sly eyes and the beginnings of a double chin.…
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Jack and the Beanstalk Review – Fun, sass, glamour, and animation that gets to the bad guys | stage

Jack and the Beanstalk Review – Fun, sass, glamour, and animation that gets to the bad guys | stage

🔥 Discover this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Theatre,Panto season,Children's theatre,Stage,Lyric Hammersmith,Culture,Comedy,Comedy,Puppetry ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: TIt's not your standard Jack and the Beanstalk. In Sonia Jalali's version, the story is picked up and dropped at a school in Hammersmith, run by the meat-loving monster Fleshkrip (John Partridge, wearing a salami-printed suit). There's no giant either; Just a giant computer system hidden in the sky, designed to wipe children's brains of all their imaginations.It's all fun and good games, but sometimes you crave a little familiarity. However, with the truly adorable Fairy Godfather (Jade…
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Poem of the Week: Missing You by Miles Burroughs | hair

Poem of the Week: Missing You by Miles Burroughs | hair

💥 Discover this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Poetry,Books,Culture ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: I missed youDid you know that the moon was very old?Might have to go home?She keeps it closeThe way old people do.Goya wore candles on his hatBut Humphry Davy invented the miner's lamp.A day on Enceladus is longer than a year.Tonight, we have the Spanish Civil War.You can't go on like this, moonLooking into people's bedroomsAnd stars have their own lives to live.When did you last think about the same chair? truly? He thinks!You have to gather your strength, moon.You say…
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“The world is such a beautiful thing!”: Matt Maltese, songwriter for pop music… and Shakespeare | music

“The world is such a beautiful thing!”: Matt Maltese, songwriter for pop music… and Shakespeare | music

🔥 Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Music,Pop and rock,Culture,Rosalía,Celeste,Royal Shakespeare Company ✅ Key idea: TThree years ago, Matt Maltese was in an informal co-writing session with some friends. A song came out of it called Magnolias, which is an abstract piano song about imagining his funeral. “I didn't think anything of it,” he says. “Two years later, we heard some strange whispers that Rosalia somehow heard.” It was true: six months ago, the Spanish pop star's demo of the song was sent to the Maltese. He tried not to get too excited, even…
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The Godfathers of Hip-Hop The Last Poets: “In times of great chaos, there is opportunity” | hip hop

The Godfathers of Hip-Hop The Last Poets: “In times of great chaos, there is opportunity” | hip hop

🔥 Check out this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Hip-hop,Music,Culture,Rap,Poetry,US news ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: FOr for the first time in 35 years, Billboard's Hot 100 chart did not include a rap song among its top 40 hit records. Anyone who has listened to music for at least that long can list countless reasons why this is the case now: all the beats sound the same, all the artists are industrial factories, all the lyrics are barely intelligible and so on.. For the father of hip-hop, Abiodun Oyewole, it boils down to this: “We…
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Dharmendra, Bollywood’s ‘He-Man’ and one of its most enduring stars, dies at 89 | Bollywood

Dharmendra, Bollywood’s ‘He-Man’ and one of its most enduring stars, dies at 89 | Bollywood

🚀 Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Bollywood,India,Film,Culture,World news,South and central Asia 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: Dharmendra, one of the most prominent stars of Indian Bollywood cinema, has died at the age of 89.Born Dharam Singh Deol, but later known as Dharmendra, he rose to fame in the 1960s and became one of Hindi cinema's most recognizable and popular stars in a career spanning six decades.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among those who paid tribute to Dharmendra after his death was announced at his home in Mumbai on Monday morning.Modi said that…
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