Author Archives: admin

Departure: Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Archie Panjabi, Kris Holden-Reid, Karen LeBlanc, Mark Rendall, Christopher Plummer, David Hewlett, Dion Johnstone, Kelly McCormack, Etienne Kellici, Charlie Carrick, Wendy Crewson, Donal Logue, Jason O’Mara, Greg Bryk, Jennifer Podemski, Cara Ricketts, Diana Bentley, Florence Ordesh, Danny Waugh, Lindsey Connell.

Accidents happen, it is inevitable as a good man making a poor choice that leads to his ruin, and yet some accidents are merely the underplaying of planned catastrophe, the chance taken by one person or a group of like-minded individuals to further their cause but presenting it as a freak mishap, a calamity of coincidence that just happens to change the world, or at least the locality in which it took part, forever.

Departure: Series Two. Television Review. full post

(479 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Godzilla vs. Kong. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eliza González, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Kaylee Hottle, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Ronny Chieng, John Pirruccello, Chris Chalk.

When Titans collide it is either a simple case of love or hate for the audiences who cannot but help pick a side, cheer on the winner, take cheap pot shots and boo with bravado the expected loser; this is hard enough to convey with any appropriate meaning when it is two boxers slugging it out in the ring, their signature moves keenly studied and reported, the grudges they bare against each other, but when you transfer that sense of toxic, animalistic brutality to a wider, less human shape, you can end up with a Battle Royale that you cannot keep your eyes from watching, and your heart from pumping with excitement.

Godzilla vs. Kong. Film Review. full post

(590 words, estimated 2:22 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Flux. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop, Barbara Flynn, Jo Martin, Kevin McNally, Craige Els, Steve Oram, Nadine Albina, Sam Spruell, Sarah Powell, Jemma Redgrave, Craig Parkinson, Rochenda Sandall, Jacob Anderson, Annabel Scholey, Blake Harrison, Dan Starkey, Robert Bathurst, Jonathan Watson, Barbara Fadden, Paul Broughton, Gerald Kyd, Sue Jenkins, Nicholas Briggs, Bhavnisha Parmar, Alex Frost, Vincent Brimble, Jemma Churchill, Penelope McGhie, Nicholas Blane, George Caple.

Doctor Who: Flux. Television Review. full post

(659 words, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

Ian Prowse, One Hand On The Starry Plough. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

To turn the means of another person’s war to that of peace, requires insight, observation, skilled diplomacy, righteous anger, and patience. Although in a world that is slowly turning itself inside out, threatening to tear proverbial limb from limb, and in a place where its wrongs have forever either gone unnoticed by its populace, or even aided by its subjects, to have One Hand On The Starry Plough is not only act of defiance against a set of people in ties and suits using nefarious means and counting on blind faith to push back against progress and compassion, it is a right of self-preservation, an appropriate response to the mass hate, the rank hypocrisy of those who offer you nothing but subjugation.

Ian Prowse, One Hand On The Starry Plough. Album Review. full post

(551 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Bob Stone: Letting The Stars Go. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We live in an unequal world; that much has always been true, and it is to the detriment of all who give the world their finest smile and go through life with one simple aim, to give others the time that they inhabit with a reason to love.

Love, it is the most powerful of emotions, one that push us to achieve great things, to prove the impossible, one that will see us reach for the stars, and witness us Letting The Stars Go once we realise that all we have achieve goes beyond the sacrifices we have made.

Bob Stone: Letting The Stars Go. Book Review. full post

(537 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

The Fires No Longer Burn.

The darkness hides the invisibility I wear

as a cloak disguises the cold that is felt

when my courage is stripped bare,

and the clemency I sought remains undealt.

Is it that you see me, but choose to ignore,

declaring to those able juice ridden ears of all my every crime,

faults, corruptions, misdeeds and more

that once friends saw good in me, destroying a rusting shrine.

I am cold out here. My skin has become shallow and worn,

I feel no warmth from the lit fires along

The Fires No Longer Burn. full post

(137 words, estimated 33 secs reading time)

Supergirl: Series Six. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Melissa Benoist, Chyler Leigh, Katie McGrath, Jesse Rath, Nicole Maines, Azie Tesfai, Julie Gonzalo, Staz Nair, Peta Sergeant, David Harwood, Jon Cryer, Brenda Strong, Sharon Leal, Claude Knowlton, Jason Behr, Matt Baram, Jhaleil Swaby, Mila Jones, Calista Flockhart, Mechad Brooks, Jeremy Jordan, Chris Wood, Helen Slater.

There are finales that leave you breathless, there are finales that make you question your beliefs, and there are endings in which the length of time invested in a particular television series leaves you understandably devastated by its removal from your timetable and television schedule that it can hit you like a bereavement, not of the physical, but of the declared love you have shown it.

Supergirl: Series Six. Television Review. full post

(550 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

How far can a song take you, how much are we willing to allow, to permit your heart to feeling the direction of dichotomy as it lurches like an out-of-control pendulum between heartbreak and affirmation of spirit. As both emotions centre of the self, as they govern how other’s see us at our most vulnerable, The Beat Goes On is the understanding that the heart and mind are there to remind us to keep believing we will not surrender to others who demand defeat and capitulation of the soul.

Sean Taylor, The Beat Goes On. Album Review. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Old Habits don’t just die hard, they are the building blocks to the emotions we feel, to what we experience later, and the hope that somewhere the new customs we forge and the behaviours that took us unblinkingly to the moment of inspiration merge and create additional, original thinking.

We cannot dismiss the habits of our youth, whether they were ill-intentioned or pieces of the puzzle that is by definition us; they are there in our past like marionettes, the strings being pulled by our own external force, waiting to dance to a novel and flavoursome tune.

Treetop Flyers, Old Habits. Album Review. full post

(398 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

What is offered for commercial gain is not the full story, and quite often the full story never sees the cold light of day.

We have all seen what we believed was a cog in The Beatles story, culminating in a London roof top performance in which the ‘Fab Four’ showcased several songs that were to become part of the legend and myth of the group’s legacy; and yet what was presented, as with all edits, conflicts of interests, and trickeries of presentation, was barely even the surface of what was scratched, and as the crowds gathered, as bowler hatted men, as young girls and bemused, disgruntled police officers gathered in their masses, the idea of getting back was sold to the world.

The Beatles: Get Back. Television Film Review. full post

(611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)