Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We never used to be so out of tune with the call of nature, but then of you tear down the countryside, if you pull up trees and spray poison after poison into the soil and the air, if you turn greenbelt land into concrete monstrosities just to placate the bloated figure of economy, then it could be thought of that nature, in all her glory, has abandoned us.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Home, there should be nowhere safer, comforting, it should be a place filled with rejoicing, memory and the soft song that fills every room. Not everybody is able to experience this, not everyone has the means or the companionship to be able wallow in the pleasure of staying in, yet for some home is where ever the see the sun rise, the beauty on the pastoral charm as dew breaks on the grass and fields; home is everywhere and some make it sound soulful where ever they look upon.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Tradition can be a fruitful reminder of what binds us as a family, as a nation, or if we are fortunate, as a species, the practise of the art forms, of singing with one beautiful voice, of keeping a belief and hope in the struggle of linguistic oppression.
Tradition has its critics, those who suggest nothing short of a bonfire of the vain and institutionalised will wipe the slate clean, give a new reason in which to overthrow the settled and comfortable; however, without tradition, the world is poorer, less fuelled by a common sense of purpose, it doesn’t have to be the tradition which keeps society at each other’s throats, just the custom of declaring a love, of keeping the habit alive so that others can dream.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world is a perplexing place of indecision, double-talk and hidden conversational meanings, we never truly say what we mean, hiding perhaps behind the facade of wishing for a quiet life and knowing that damage to another’s soul is never truly rectified. An erroneous word uttered, a seemingly innocent remark placed in jest to the audience, and the suggestion that comes back with authority and pursed lips, is that Everything’s Fine, nothing is wrong.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Paul Duckworth, John Burns, Carl Cockram, Keddy Sutton, Joe Shipman, Aimee Marnell, Scott Lewis, Adam Byrne, Victoria Hammond, Erin O’ Connell.
In a city where football is the main topic of conversation, where old ladies carrying their shopping home from The Strand in Bootle, to the young children playing on the streets of Toxteth and the public houses rammed full with those who cannot get a ticket to the next game, congregate and chat about the near religious experience they had watching Kenny Dalglish, Joe Royle, Andy King, the young and older version of Wayne Rooney and Ian Rush ply their trade on the stages of Goodison and Anfield, the city of Liverpool always has room for a play about the love of the game and the characters, the fans who make it what it is.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Denzil Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey, Kazy Tauginas, Garrett Golden, Adam Karst, Tamara Hickey, Jim Loutzenhiser, Rory Benjamin Smith, Ted Arcidi, Karen York.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Hasan Minhaj, Gillian Anderson, Dustin Demri-Burns, Mirjam Novak, Jane Curtin, Paul Reiser, Ivanna Sakhno, Fred Melamed, James Fleet, Carolyn Pickles, Justin Wachsberger, Kevin Ezekiel Ogunleye, Tom Stourton, Roderick Hill, Olafur Darri Olafsson.
When a film doesn’t know what it wants to be, perhaps the best thing that an audience can do is allow it to flow naturally and under its own progression. Putting a film into a genre specific box sometimes doesn’t fit, too many square edges, a piece of corner missing, and allusion to subtext which has no space to breathe; and yet flow it does, it somehow squeezes past defiance and nestles in the hole it has walked with confidence into and refuses to budge.
I could build a fort
out of the boxes
stacked up,
almost threatening me with insecurity
and false hope, a twin assault
on my nerves as I lead up
to the big day.
Fort anxiety, Fort Pride comes before a fall,
Fort…possibility, Fort…no, Garrison of optimism,
I didn’t sign up to the French Foreign Legion
or to be the bag man at Custer’s last stand,
this Norman tower I build from boxes
filled with the death of trees, Pulp Fiction,
is today the stronghold in which I
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Love, it is the greatest thing, the poets and the pop stars agree on that at least, even if their view points on the rest of life and existence differ wildly. Love is like a beast, it is the slow caress by Time. It can hurt, confuse and exhilarate and almost never in equal terms, never as if the times or the beat of the heart were in synch; but then Seasons of Love rarely do come together with the idea of the ever-lasting, it is only in the anthology that we see the potential of the relationship, no matter the form, no matter the aspiration, all that matters is love.
It was just a brush of lips
from what was at first a passing
stranger, undecorated, unperfumed,
more than a hint of beauty
tucked away in foreign,
never to be explored shores,
a stranger that came to represent so much more,
a passing of daily time, now
separated by sea and the once only,
never to be repeated kindness
of such youthful female gaze;
it was just a brush of lips,
that I would never taste again.
Ian D. Hall 2018