Author Archives: admin

The Accountant, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jean Smart, John Lithgow, Andy Umberger, Jason Davis, Robert C. Treveiler, Mary Kraft, Ron Prather, Susan Williams, Fernado Chien, Alex Collins.

Anybody can make a film it seems where the protagonist has a deep dark past, something in their history that has driven them to the point in which the audience joins them in the carnage, mayhem and resolution to come; anybody and everybody has made a film in which the leading role or the anti-hero has a quirk, a certain eccentricity that makes them stand out but rarely do they do it such a way that the characteristics of autism are made to be so dynamic and fully mapped out, explored in a way that the hero is anything but fulfilled and given absolute purpose.

The Accountant, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool. full post

(392 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Paranoid, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Robert Glenister, Indira Varma, Dino Fetscher, Neil Stuke, Christiane Paul, Lesley Sharp, Dominik Tiefenthaler, Michael Maloney, Anjli Mohindra, Kevin Doyle, Jonathan Ojinnaka, William Flanagan, John Duttine, William Ash, Daniel Drewes, Polly Walker, Richard Wheeldon, Jason Done, Danny Hutson.

When taking on a big television production, one with a tale that should be enormous and potentially gripping beyond anything else on television in a single year, it often helps the series realise its own levels of genius by not overpowering it with too many subplots and characters to whom the story would not miss one single iota. Some of the greatest mini-series ever have relied solely on the narrow focus, on the detail and not the illusion and it is unfortunately a piece of television advice forgotten largely in the creation of Paranoid.

Paranoid, Television Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

She Is On Fire.

I cannot see America

anymore, she has slipped away,

ghost like but on fire, flames

orange, red and cobalt blue,

the stripes scorched,

the stars starting to singe

and the great experiment dies

a little more each day,

in anger, frustration and with the word of God

upon their cracked and dishevelled lips;

ghost and fire,

I mourn you now

every which way possible.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016

Permanent link to this post (71 words, estimated 17 secs reading time)

November 2016, Sleep Now.

You have become too big,

now I fear

that you will fail, spectacularly,

with liberty in hiding

and the prospect of internal war

grinding,

dividing,

chomping and salivating over your soul;

you are flat-lining in the heartlands

and the political elite never understood why,

you rebelled for a while

before falling into a coma

one autumn day.

Break apart, you

cannot live together in peace

and the bullet will surely

now seek revenge

upon revenge

upon revenge;

till in the midst of four Presidents

November 2016, Sleep Now. full post

(108 words, estimated 26 secs reading time)

Nick Ellis, Daylight Ghosts. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Never dismiss the softly spoken, never believe that the quietness in a person’s soul is indicative of their passion, their drive or their worth, for even the most still of volcano’s are capable of absolute destruction, wrath and sincere, serene rage; it is just that in the hours in which the sunshine almost obliterates the shadows attached to the body like some hangover from Peter Pan, Daylight Ghosts cannot be seen, but they can be heard to be real by great and unbound by chains effect.

Nick Ellis, Daylight Ghosts. Album Review. full post

(403 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Touchstone, Lights From The Sky. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

No matter where the past ends up, it becomes the present for a reason. Past glories never truly fade but they do become the bench mark to which future endeavours are judged and scrutinised over and in respect that always seems to be a moment in which can be looked upon as surreal, almost bogged down; nobody is ever the same person ten years on, what an individual did or didn’t do a decade ago is not indicative of the person they are today, the same should be said of music, musicians and bands.

Touchstone, Lights From The Sky. E.P. Review. full post

(461 words, 2 images, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Hacksaw Ridge, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Vince Vaughn, Goran D. Kleut.

Much is made of the hero, the person who can look insanity in the face and treat it with kindness, who can see the horror of war and find the grace to be compassionate to those who perhaps don’t deserve it but give each soul the benefit of their own internal wisdom.

Hacksaw Ridge, Film Review. full post

(503 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Shark Bite.

I can do no right

for doing wrong

and it does me no favours

to see the words come

back and bite me

with nibbling teeth,

drooling with spittle

foamed sarcasm

and the odd knee to the groin

verbal jibe.

How much simpler for the sharks

to swim and attack

at the same time,

false cartilage protruding and hitting

me in the ribs, softening me up

in a minute or two, making

me tender, making me scared

and tired, before ultimately

Shark Bite. full post

(122 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

The Nether, Theatre Review. Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, Ontario

 

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mary-Maria Bourdeau, Tim Funnell, Randy Hughson, Andrea Runge, Nigel Shawn Williams.

It is the reveal of who we are in cyberspace, the change we make to be someone we cannot or should not be, that perhaps defines us; it is one thing to create a persona that others would not recognise if they were to bump into us in the unconscious sphere, it is quite another to let that simulated version of us to do damage, to harm sexually or mentally, another human being with our base and destructive desires.

The Nether, Theatre Review. Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, Ontario full post

(397 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Doctor Strange, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelson.

To corrupt the great Bard, there is more in the Universe than we can ever understand, and at times it feels like that when you immerse yourself into the world of the comic book Superhero, to many it just seems a waste of celluloid or its digital sister and yet under the surface, the latent power it fills others with is at least enough to further enhance their imagination, and for that alone films from the houses of D.C. and Marvel have a place that would leave the world slightly less colourful for their absence.

Doctor Strange, Film Review. full post

(406 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)