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Learning To Drive, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Jake Weber, Sarita Choudhury, Grace Gummer, Samantha Bee, Avi Nash, Matt Salinger, Michael Mantell, Daniela Lavender, Rajika Puri, John Hodgman, Randy Graff, Nora Hummel.

In times of trouble it takes faith to keep calm, to see the world beyond the mirror that has been put in front of you and look past the person you once were, to not give in under the pressure to the thought of the future; in times of trouble it takes faith to be who you are.

Learning To Drive, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

Tale Of Tales, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Hayley Carmichael, Bebe Cave, Christian Lees, Jonah Lees, Laura Pizzirani, Franco Pistoni, Guillaume Delaunay.

Be careful what you wish for, what lays in your deepest part of your heart, for inside the beating crevice where love may sit, instead comes bile and control, bitterness and bewilderment. By listening to the demons inside the head instead of the truth that you know, you condemn others to rebel and undermine your authority.

Tale Of Tales, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Earthquake In The Heart Of It All.

I felt the Earthquake

from underneath my feet, several

miles deep, hundreds of miles

wide in length and breadth,

I felt the Earthquake, the seismic shock

of a world reduced to falling down,

falling, brick by brick

and the laughter of madmen

in glass houses making sure

their sticking tape, black sided gaffer

tape, held their homes together.

The appearance of Herod in my desert,

the decree of now move on, leave

my world for you all are now unworthy

to live in my palace of tin, emanates

Earthquake In The Heart Of It All. full post

(127 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

Titus Andronicus, Theatre Review. Liverpool City College, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Vincent Skyner, Emily Hargreaves, Natalie Bedkowska, Sarah Williams, Alishia Killian, Amy Robinson, Henrietta Martins, Ayesha Tarbuck, Christopher Braden, Micahael Emmerson, Alice Williams, Carly O’ Hare, Sammi Jo Christie, Jerome Griffin.

At times there just doesn’t feel like enough gore in the world, especially in theatre, something meaty to get the teeth into, something with anger and bite, and if it must be done then it deserves credit. Titus Andronicus is still after 400 years the one play that feeds off all the negativity and feelings of revenge that can be ravaged in humanity; take one life and you are a murderer, take them all and you become a god, as Stalin once wrote, it is just a matter of statistics.

Titus Andronicus, Theatre Review. Liverpool City College, Liverpool. full post

(424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Place The Cross.

Where do I place the cross,

the age old question of democracy

to which a flipped coin,

smooth and pointless upon either

side, will invariably come down

after spinning in the air

like a cold mechanical Catherine

Wheel, defiance in the face of all the odds

down on its side, the universe

goading you

into believing there is a third way.

Place the x, remember the feeling

when you believed in heart and soul

that it meant to change

your life

but then the feeling withered

Place The Cross. full post

(187 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

King Harvest & The Weight, Maps. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Musical cartographers, those who love to pinpoint every detail of music ever recorded on to the map of the world, are always in for a treat when a new regime comes along to add emphasis to the coves, inlets and straggling shorelines; after all something new and so far undiscovered makes Maps, any map more complete.

King Harvest & The Weight, otherwise known as Ben Addy, Justin Edley and Olly Smith offer their debut album Maps as a cartographers dream, a musical offering to enrich the senses whilst at all times knowing that as with any debut, it should be taken that the lay of the land ahead is not charted territory but filled with desire to explore and chart for others who may pass by.

King Harvest & The Weight, Maps. Album Review. full post

(408 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Getaway. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

The Getaway, perhaps instead the hurried departure or even the escape from the expected, for that is the plain feeling that comes across with somewhat muted apology in the first Red Hot Chili Peppers album in five years.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Getaway. Album Review. full post

(435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

The Musketeers, Brothers In Arms. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Tamla Kari, Matthew McNulty, Hugo Speer, Rupert Everett, Andre Flynn, Farren Morgan, Simon Startin, Jonny Magnanti, Thalissa Teixeira, Richard Dormer, Lisa McGrillis. Matt Stokoe, Tom Morley, Daniel Brown.

The Musketeers, Brothers In Arms. Television Review. full post

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

You Came Home To Die.

You came home to die

and it was a decision that I

applauded, that I understood

and I told you so and you smiled

whilst deep into the coma,

the final rage of sleep,

the dawn yet unseen,

you smiled and a hundred miles away

the Earth stood motionless.

A quick release, less than a year

but oh my friend, the days since then

have stuttered on, have been less kind

because my picture of you

has been eroded by time, my faltering

You Came Home To Die. full post

(189 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Broken Witt Rebels, Gig Review. 02, London. Stone Free Festival.

Broken Witt Rebels at the 02, London. Photograph by Peter Noble.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is not often that Birmingham gets to wake up London, gets the chance to holler into the soft tissue of the capital’s head, especially first thing on a Sunday morning when the world has barely recovered from the day before, a Saturday in which the o2 Arena shook its foundations and sent shock waves across to the Isle of Dogs and hopefully terrified the Westminster village to its core.

Broken Witt Rebels, Gig Review. 02, London. Stone Free Festival. full post

(422 words, 1 image, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)