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Post by crowblack on Nov 6, 2023 14:13:29 GMT
Bts video on Stranger Things (TV)'s Twitter today (because it's Stranger Things Day).
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Post by crowblack on Nov 6, 2023 8:13:39 GMT
We watched this again on BBC4 last night and enjoyed it more: mum in tears in Ophelia's scenes. It's on BBC iPlayer 'for over a year'.
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Post by crowblack on Nov 3, 2023 14:43:57 GMT
I don't seem to be able to post pictures on here, but Ralph Steadman's poster for the RSC's mid-80s Mother Courage is stunning -
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Post by crowblack on Nov 2, 2023 12:25:52 GMT
It wasn't showing in any cinemas in the entire region (NW of England) which was very disappointing. We are poorly served here when it comes to things like this, indie films, director's talks and the like. And don't get me started on the trains... Anyway, hopefully it'll come to NT at Home or a similar service at some point.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 30, 2023 21:00:34 GMT
There's a fascinating late 1960s documentary 'The London Nobody Knows' that turns up on Talking Pictures TV from time to time. Our guide is James Mason, and one of the first locations visited is the derelict music hall often featured in Sickert's paintings.
Theatre reviews in Punch and the like used to be accompanied by illustrations/caricatures by Ronald Searle and other top cartoonists of the day. They're an aspect of Searle's work that isn't as familiar as, say, St Trinians or Molesworth, but I think they're brilliant. There are a lot of them online now.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 30, 2023 7:43:44 GMT
I doubt I'll get to see this but who knows, maybe rewritten a lot it could make an interesting film. I liked the sound of it when discussed on Radio 4 Front Row but the snippet of dialogue they played was clunky. However, there have been a lot of plays in recent years that are unsubtly message-heavy but with little or no characterisation or plot, but haven't received the critical panning this has, which does feel rather sexist!
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Post by crowblack on Oct 26, 2023 8:22:04 GMT
It's a really bad era for men's fashion, though, going by the red carpet, fashion week and 'oh god, look what they've made me wear' fashion shoots with actors. Shorts with socks and clumpy shoes on adult men - Monty Python Gumby, suits and trousers so badly cut and badly fitting and in such horrible materials they look like sized-up 1990s Ken doll outfits. The colours are horrible too - burned orange leatherette, olive green, maroon with white saddle stitching, no. There's a Paul Mescal one for Interview where he's dressed like a kinky sex Nazi in a 1970s exploitation film (god knows what's going on in that stylist's head!). I remember the 1970s but this is worse (first world problems, I know, but a few people in my family work in fashion, modelling, shoots etc. so it's something we enjoy watching: really naff examples go on the fridge)
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Post by crowblack on Oct 24, 2023 12:04:44 GMT
They should be protesting 'lifestyle'. The Halloween or Christmas aisles in supermarkets, spider outfits and reindeer antlers for dogs, out of season fruit and veg flown in from halfway round the world. 'World T shirt day' in November (world jumper day, that should be!), teenagers who wear something for an hour then chuck it in the wash. Turn your central heating down a notch or two. Stop flushing chemicals down the drains. Fast fashion. All disposable tat. Packaging. Highlighting the appalling human rights records of many of the places profiting from oil. But not ruining the special events that many people less well off than many of the Jocastas and Mungos doing this turn up to ruin.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 22, 2023 18:51:17 GMT
It's also a film about female agency directed by a man (or maybe that explains why it's so bawdy!). I read the novel recently and I'm curious to see how it's been translated to the screen, though don't want to spoil the very vivid 'book in my head'. Tbh I'd have preferred to see a female director taking this on or a male directing the unreliable male narrator section of the novel and a woman taking the helm for the latter part. Or maybe it'll surprise me and actually do this? .
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Post by crowblack on Oct 19, 2023 18:03:26 GMT
It carries associations of being cattle, livestock, a dancing bear - a nose ring is traditionally something the farm animal or performing animal's owner uses to drag it around on a rope, often to market or the town square. It's painful so the animal - even something as impressive as a bull or bear - is forced to do the owner's bidding. Clothing can and often does carry cultural associations and for nose rings, in the West, these are negative and submissive. It can also make the wearer look like they have a constant bogey that needs wiping. Funny you say that because the greatest trend pushing women to be meek and submissive are trad-wives dressed modestly brainwashing teenage girls on tiktok and Instagram I wasn't aware it was a competition.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 19, 2023 18:01:43 GMT
I can also understand how the idea of body piercing (i.e. willful self-mutilation) could be off-putting. What I don't understand is how ears are ok, but apparently septums and toes -- never seen those; did the OP mean tongues? -- are not. That just reads to me like a prejudice towards difference. Could not ear piercings remind of the ear tags that cattle have? An ear stud could, just as ludicrously as the bogey idea, remind of a dollup of leaking ear wax. A pierced earlobe isn't interfering with a vital part of your body though. The nose is there to breathe through, catch scents sand smells and to filter and catch dust and germs. It's highly sensitive. To stick a great big ring through it, especially in a period when we're even more aware of airborne illness, is daft. And tongue piercings - they damage teeth, damage your tongue. Even with the 'bog standard' ear, it can go wrong: I remember when my teenage cousin did it and her ears were suppurating with pus for ages. There are plenty of other ways you can make a statement without actually damaging your body and the way it functions healthily. (On a related note, I'm always surprised by actors who get big tattoos when they're already into their careers - what a faff that must be for the make up people!)
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Post by crowblack on Oct 19, 2023 10:23:29 GMT
I'm sure women everywhere are devastated to hear this It carries associations of being cattle, livestock, a dancing bear - a nose ring is traditionally something the farm animal or performing animal's owner uses to drag it around on a rope, often to market or the town square. It's painful so the animal - even something as impressive as a bull or bear - is forced to do the owner's bidding. Clothing can and often does carry cultural associations and for nose rings, in the West, these are negative and submissive. It can also make the wearer look like they have a constant bogey that needs wiping.
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HS2
Oct 12, 2023 18:16:20 GMT
Post by crowblack on Oct 12, 2023 18:16:20 GMT
I think it was the hobby horse of a man called Andrew Adonis. He's still on Twitter and comes across as detached from reality, recently tweeting that China manages to get these things done - yeah, when you're a dictatorship with poor human rights and can just order whole towns and villages out of your project's pathway.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 11, 2023 15:48:43 GMT
Hoard is absolutely wonderful - I loved it! It's a first feature by Luna Carmoon who is an amazing young woman, self taught, working class, devours films, and if you've been missing the sort of pure unfiltered cinema of the days of Ken Russell, Nic Roeg, this is a treat (her shorts Nosebleed and Shagbands are online, if you want a taster - and she sprayed us with a blast of milk, sweat, blood and sperm perfume before the show!). It has already picked up a bunch of awards. The cast were there (and sitting around me), including lead magnetic newcomer Saura Lightfoot Leon, Joseph Quinn bringing in the Stranger Things fans who probably won't have encountered anything like this before, Hayley Squires coming in at the end to join the Q&A after her show at the NT next door finished. And yes, looks like the Hollywood strike has given this more room - it was the cover feature of last week's Time Out.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 8, 2023 16:12:43 GMT
Btw, is it t-shirt weather in London? I've had to replan my wardrobe for a 2 day visit.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 8, 2023 11:58:50 GMT
Taking a couple of pictures to remember you were there: fine, I took a couple myself that weren’t of a quality that I think is good enough to share on social media, there was one clown who spent pretty much the whole event just taking pictures and filming bits, I wonder if he was even taking in what was being said. Some people do this to post online globally as a 'fan service' though, so I can understand why people do it, even if it is annoying. There was a woman doing it a lot in the front row of a gig I went to a couple of years ago and she had her phone flashlight on too - it was in the RX theatre, in the round, so it was shining right into the band's faces as well as ours.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 6, 2023 17:11:05 GMT
Nice, wide ranging interview with Patsy Ferran on Radio 4's Front Row this week btw.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 5, 2023 14:51:12 GMT
We used to live a more sustainable lifestyle - the environmental footprint of daily life in the 1980s was far greener than today, where people think it's some sort of human right to dress and eat like it's midsummer in December. We need a campaign to go back to that, with the more energy efficient technology of now. And cheap or free public transport to get more people off the roads. The train website I use now has a 'pay in three' option! That's where we are now - for a train journey! Electric cars are not the answer - they're heavier causing more wear on roads, more tyre debris washing into oceans, and they're a fire hazard.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 5, 2023 14:37:51 GMT
If I were in the oil industry and intent on promoting it, I would be covertly funding JSO. JSO is more successful than any lobby group in driving public opinion against support for green policies. This is why they are "tolerated" by oil firms. You've hit the nail on the head (not about funding) but about them being self-defeating in trying to persuade public opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be working for the oil industry, like the 'militants' in Alan Bleasdale's GBH, tarring the image of Labour for a generation and who turn out to be a bunch of posh agents provocteurs at the end . The opening of that new oil field last week passed with less mainstream protest than I'd have expected. This is such an important issue and they're turning it into some sort of middle class scout badge collection.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 4, 2023 22:12:59 GMT
am I right in remembering Gary Oldman and Cheryl Campbell in the Royal Exchange's wonderfully rude Country Wife. The letter scene still lingers as pure joy. A production which also had Alex Jennings Yes, Gary Oldman, Ian McDiarmid, Cheryl Campbell and Alex Jennings - what a treat! The RX also had a production of The Alchemist around that time too - not Restoration obviously, but great fun.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 3, 2023 21:12:02 GMT
It's a shame - I saw some very entertaining productions as a teenager when I was starting to get into theatre, including Hytner's The Country Wife with a cracking cast at the RX. It feels related to the decline in the TV sitcom too.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 3, 2023 12:27:14 GMT
I live in North Wales. Nearest venues appear to be either Harrogate or Bristol. So that’ll be a no from me too. Same here - impossible - I'm in the NW and my nearest would be Bristol or Harrogate too! How very disappointing and annoying!
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Post by crowblack on Oct 2, 2023 18:46:48 GMT
Thanks, I'll print out the email and hope I can get the discounts and whatnot with that for the time being. My new membership card finally arrived this morning, so maybe they’re making an effort to send them out following the opening of festival bookings: unfortunately, due to the train strikes on Wednesday it looks like I won’t be able to attend the screening of You Can Call Me Bill. That's a shame - hope you can get to the rest! Still no card here though our post is slow and intermittent.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 1, 2023 20:09:39 GMT
Btw, in case anyone isn't aware, the Pinter theatre production with Toby Jones and co. is still on BBC iplayer until Wednesday.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 29, 2023 17:24:45 GMT
Btw, are you allowed to bring quiet snacks in, like a banana or tangerine? I've just seen a tweet about bananas being confiscated on the way in to a music gig, so I wondered! As you can probably tell, I haven't been to the BFI Southbank in years!
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Post by crowblack on Sept 29, 2023 9:17:22 GMT
I thought for a moment there they were doing genital symbols which tbh seems like the only logical way out of the tangled mess Theatreland's love of gender ideology has got them into. They could get someone like Julian Opie to do some tastefully vague drawings of genitals and stick them on the doors - a triangle and a line maybe. If you've got these bits, this is where you go.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 28, 2023 19:40:08 GMT
a preference for trousers and comfy clothes rather than an insta-pout and spray-on leggings is now rebranded a sign a girl is 'non-binary' or wannabe-boy. This actually isn't terribly new. In 1950s/60s US, I was labeled a tomboy because I hated frilly dresses and wanted my hair short. My dad nicknamed me "Charlie" and Mom made him stop because she was worried I'd be confused if I was a boy or a girl. Me and most of my friends would have been classed as tomboys, so would my mum in her day - it was seen as a normal part of growing up: it's even used on the cover of a 1952 American period education pamphlet I have ('You're a Young Lady Now!)' and the later 60s version. The issue now is that it's being forgotten. A dislike of frocks and princess tat is taken as a sign you're not really a girl after all. I've have a friend who talks like this about a girl pupil who doesn't want to be a bridesmaid - proof she's really a boy, apparently. It's at that level. It's exasperating!
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Post by crowblack on Sept 24, 2023 19:37:25 GMT
The set design looks surprisingly dull/ugly from the photos I've seen. Is it?
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Post by crowblack on Sept 21, 2023 22:05:26 GMT
I’ve been a BFI member since 2012: every year they’ve told me in advance they will be taking payment of the renewal of the membership fee and a new card has arrived before the expiry date, but this year the date on the card shows it expired at the end of August but no new card has arrived, I’ve mentioned this to a couple of members of staff at BFI Southbank and they had no idea why new cards hadn’t been sent out (I’ve still had members discounts in the shop and the bar but it’s shoddy all the same) Thanks, I'll print out the email and hope I can get the discounts and whatnot with that for the time being.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 21, 2023 16:20:38 GMT
Another query (sorry!), but how long does it take to receive a new BFI membership card? I took out membership at the start of the month but nothing in the (admittedly very erratic) post so far!
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