Laura Benitez And The Heartache, With All Its Thorns. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Vulnerability exposed is to be expected somewhere along the line in any artist’s life, it is the touch of the mercurial that has been opened to the elements, uncovered truths as the musician, the poet or the painter is given more time by those who express an interest in such things and breathe fire into the next piece of work offered. Vulnerable in artistic terms is not to be seen as weak or in a position of susceptibility, it is just a rose opening up to the praise and the sunlight and With All Its Thorns showing.

Laura Benitez And The Heartache, With All Its Thorns. Album Review. full post

(443 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Jigsaw. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Matt Passmore, Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Hannah Emily Anderson, Cle Bennet, Laura Vandervoort, Paul Braunstein, Mandela Van Peebles, Brittany Allen, Josiah Black, Edward Ruttle, Michael Boisvert, Sam Koules, Troy Feldman.

Back on track, refreshed and full of deserved karma retribution; for where the Saw franchise arguably lost its way after the first two incredibly decent outings, what Jigsaw provides is shock and horror of the best kind. There is nothing wrong with cinema grappling and glorifying in supernatural horror, it is a staple, a diet that has meaning and an audience, the ghost story turned inward has always the power of eating away at some of basest fears. However, for a true sense of delightful repulsion, one cannot escape the scenarios dreamed up by the human mind and carried out in the name of science, vengeance and enjoyment.

Jigsaw. Film Review. full post

(446 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Camp.

Damnation of any kind can eat away at your soul, from the careless whispering challenge to the outburst in which people regret their poorly chosen words of anger, all is sent out into the world like a Pandora’s Box of ill will; the revenge of something taken and the need to redress the balance is uppermost in such human episodes of grief made sentiments taken to extremes.

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. Film Review. full post

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

The Hand Thrusted Forward.

 

The hand was thrust forward,

a missile in manners that aided

the resentment, the cowardly tone

that carried sickly through the owner’s

clenched teeth;

“What’s your name again?,

unearned smug satisfaction

crept across his bland outer expression

and mocked the monster inside.

Don’t you hate those perfect grin toothed people

who live in sneers and the love

of leaving a scar for you

to itch and pull, the damage done

by ill manners.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

The Hand Thrusted Forward. full post

(81 words, estimated 19 secs reading time)

Annihilator, For The Demented. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It still seems peculiar that almost 30 years after Annihilator burst on to the scene with their tremendous debut album Alice In Hell, that the Canadian thrash metal band still live in the shadows of many of their American cousins, that despite the time spent with different ideas, charged atmospheres and sometimes, to be fair, varied results, they still seem to be placed inside a separate category to others, that the powers that decide such things are happy to place Jeff Waters and the band into the realms of the often overlooked and forgotten.

Annihilator, For The Demented. Album Review. full post

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

Vile Assembly, Fattened By The Horrors Of War. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Anarchy and Punk are rarely subtle when it comes to beating the backside of oppression and misplaced comfortable tyranny, the cane is flexed, the motion swift and like a growl from the stage, the meaning is clear. It might not always get the result it is searching for but it does leave an impression, large, scalding and full of rebuke, on the corpulent, the ill of compassion and those that profiteer on the bodies of those that die by the bullet, the bomb and the propaganda

Vile Assembly, Fattened By The Horrors Of War. Album Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The Birch Comes Down.

 

Of course, we are not all self serving parasites,

whose job it is to frighten, to terrify,

to hold firm the country’s birch

in one sturdy hand

and press down the face

into the dirt,

the intoxicating germ driven bog, and make

those less fortunate, the unlucky, the desperate

and the betrayed suffer for the potent,

some might suggest rotten,

up to their eye balls in the defecation

and smeared toilet roll wipes

whims of their so called masters.

We all get too suffer this fate eventually,

The Birch Comes Down. full post

(144 words, estimated 35 secs reading time)

Me & Robin Hood, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A former British Prime Minister once said, “Children should be taught at school to learn how to make a profit”… all that you need to know about how our relationship with money has changed is summed up in that sentence. By uttering those craven words, David Cameron has placed down the 21st Century dogma, that the Economy is by far of greater importance than compassion, community, art, service and people.

Me & Robin Hood, Theatre Review. Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Thor: Ragnorak. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins, Benedict Cumberbatch, Taika Waititi, Rachel House, Clancy Brown, Tadanobu Asano, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Luke Hemsworth, Sam Neill.

Norse mythology is such that it gets overlooked in the modern world in favour of a more fashionable awareness of modern possibilities, political issues and our place in the world. It is not only Norse that suffers, even now looking say at British history in the history of the Roman occupation can lead to sneers of derision in some quarters, people, perhaps understandably, forgetting that the way we are now is because of the stories passed down in myth and legend, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Native American, Inuit or even Norse, they play a part in the way we view heroes and evil in the world.

Thor: Ragnorak. Film Review. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Murder On The Orient Express (2017). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Willem Defoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Marwan Kenzari, Olivia Colman, Lucy Boynton, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Sergei Polunin, Tom Bateman, Miranda Raison, Paapa Essiedu, Michael Rouse, Joseph Long, Elliot Levey, David Annen, Kathryn Wilder, Phil Dunster.

It is a story that evokes images that many of us will never see, never experience and one that captures the raw cold hate of many emotions, as well as the beauty of the scenery that is on offer as one of the most famous pieces of engineering takes its passengers through Europe.

Murder On The Orient Express (2017). Film Review. full post

(492 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)