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#TheClubW/Lucas on RCE & English Radio goes LIVE! & LOUD! with some #BlueMesaLiveSessions this week starring #ElMismoBand, fresh off a tour in Argentina and rocking the stage this SAT, 4 May just after 11h for the #FestesDeNouBarris2024! Clicky Clicky for the freshest news, clues and interviews in #VOSEng for #CAT & #ESP! 

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He's BAAAAAAACK! After a 7-week hiatus, your main man at #TheClubW/Lucas roared back to mid-season premiere LOVE with artist-in-residence at Mrs. Toolip Art Gallery, Adela Beltran, inaugurating her exhibition 'Dones del 1700' this Thursday, 21 SEPT at 19h! Clues, News, Interviews and Jamz like WHAT! this week from #Stormzy/ #REN/ #BurnaBoy/ #KenyaGrace, new #Hozier w/ #BrandiCarlile and more...AND Saturdays go BRUNCH on #TheClubWLucas from 11-13h starting 30 September...get LIT! get LEARNT! get HYPE! in #VOSEng on RCE!

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Actor @lukaperosofficial is keeping it real as he puts truth to power about the importance of 'the crew' in any production! Season 4 of @lacasadepapel premieres 3 APR on @netflixes PLUS a shout-out to the fine folks of @vancouvermedia_ ! #BCN #local #global #VOSEng #HI #actorslife #reality #thecrew #lacasadepapel #Netflix (at English Radio) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-UaMbkoX94/?igshid=1jmouf1zuljw6

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A WOKE! Film Review As Awards Season Begins...       by Lucas Avram Cavazos

Midway ###-1/2

Roland Emmerich is the mind behind the helming of huge blockbusters Stargate in 1994 and Independence Day a couple of years later. These flicks created stars and launched careers, but Emmerich went on to continue creating mega-movies that required big budgets, special effects and often (for this critic and viewer) way too much suspension of disbelief…e.g., Universal Soldier, his disaster flicks like Day After Tomorrow and 2012, Godzilla, the heinous Stonewall violation and yes, even the Independence Day sequel from three years ago.  I would also note that he is one of only two big budget directors who is gay and can still draw your atypical, straight male, aged 18-49 audience to his flicks. The other man would be Bryan Singer but as he is a paedophile piece of shit whose actions ruined the joy that was The X-Men and savagely drivelled out his take on Freddie Mercury, only to then be removed as director, we’ll not speak of his nasty, botoxed-ass face.

My grandfather on my mother’s side was one of the only (if not the only) Mexican-American naval admirals during the WWII era, so watching this film really kept putting a lot of my mother’s yapping over the years into focus and later became a notice of something awry, but we shall speak of that later. This autumn’s big (and a tad desperate attempt) at wooing Oscar falls a bit right of the middle, (almost) like a poor man’s version of a Dunkirk endeavour, though it’s fair to say that Emmerich and Christopher Nolan are very different directors.

Starting briefly in 1937 with an also quick meeting between Japanese Marshal Admiral Yamamoto and US intelligence officer, and a lead character in the film, Edwin Layton (never-ageing Patrick Wilson) where Yamamoto tells him that the Japanese will do whatever necessary if their oil supplies are in any way jeopardised. Fast forward four years, the world is at war, and what starts off as a film with way too many sappy one-liners that are ultra-cringeworthy soon turns into a visual tour de force that is incredible as much as it is laborious.

For certain, while Emmerich and film rookie writer Wes Tooke pull out all the wannabe-an-epic stops with a semi-lock on military vernacular and shoddy banter, they also do a decent job of covering the Pearl Harbor drama that securely put the US into World War II, and they end up nailing it with a lot of historical accuracies. From documenting the Doolittle Raids (Jimmy Doolittle is played here by a where’s-he-been Aaron Eckhart) to US cryptographers breaking some of the Japanese codes to highlighting the inefficiency of US weapons and their ridiculous uses, even bringing in cinema director John Ford and his presence during a Japanese raid that made its way into one of his movies, they accurately get a show-in of facts as the plot plods along. What does not seem to make its way into the film is a sense of realness expressed by the myriad of stereotypes employed here from the goofy Italiano-type guys to the smarmy Southerner to the golly shucks whitey fords, it seems that every 40s, male, US-American film role was taken up by someone except that there was not a single, solid scene that had any African or Native or Latin-American or Asian-American person in the mix here at all, despite the fact that millions of them, as well as, more than half a million Jews and Arabs and Armenians and so many more served hand-in-hand with the nearly 16 million men and women who comprised some part of the armed services during the WWII years. As a tutor and student of history, I take issue with that, and I also wonder if Emmerich had actually been from the US, would he have paid a tad more attention to that? I’d like to think so, but sincerely doubt it at the same time...Yet I digress.

It seems to me that the glory of Midway lies in its impeccable action sequences which engage the audience so vividly that it is virtually impossible not to stay glued to the intensity being displayed so spectacularly before you, but then that is exactly the stuff that big war movies are made of. Well…that and a huge lineup of stars to draw different audiences from all over the entertainment spectrum. To note, and in addition to anyone named above, we also have Woody Harrelson, Luke Evans, the odd-looking Ed Skrein, Darren Criss, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, and even Nickalicious Jonas, playing the role of an ill-fated pilot. I kept seeing a new actor every ten minutes and thinking, ‘Oh shit, is that so-and-so?’…and it was so-and so!

Now while I would likely be safe to predict that there may be a nomination thrown in for some of the effects sequences perhaps, this mediocre war film is not likely to pick up any major love come awards season soon, but what it does do in its own way is completely highlight all the chaos of the attacks over three crucial days in US and Japanese history. The battle moments fought over a blazingly clear and sunlit sky serves to add credence to the heroic and insane nature of the US and Japanese pilots, but what it also does is introduce just how vital passing through this evil war was in relevance to what would turn out to be this modern age.

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#Ethiopia has more fests and feasts than even #Catalonia: Fun fact of day! Catch what's good at #Gracia, BCN's own @abissinia.restaurante #bcn #local #global #gastronomy #VOSEng #ItBeganInAfrica #woke #humanity #studio #life #expats #deeper #real (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2z6Lq0H4YK/?igshid=1gp5r2t5ncqaf

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The #CoLiving experience by the expert gents of BCN's @mybluebricks where the charm of #allinclusive living meets #style and #freedom to do it YOUR way...! #life #shared #LIVErty #bcn #HI #woke #local #global #real #VOSEng #connect #rent #citywide #luxe #deluxe #LEAVEYOURPARENTS! (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Qu0EJol2o/?igshid=v5ai1230qqel

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The importance of thinking about what you're thinking about...! @theclubwithlucas caught up with insights by @jessicabreitenfeldcanada and some #gestalt #love & #livesurgery! #BCN #woke #local #global #VOSEng #HI #heal #feel #real #luv #laugh (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3zEEv9Honv/?igshid=etmq993d0qrf

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                                            “Villains of Verano”

                    WOKE! Film Reviews for a Hot Time in the City

                                                          by                                    

                                              Lucas A Cavazos

No summer cinema season is complete without some bad guys and gals to muck things up oh just so right. These three films have just hit our movie screens, and while they don’t necessarily run circles round a boogeyman, they surely do make it easy to despise a few characters. Let’s

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood #### Quite likely one of the finest films I’ve seen all year, Quentin Tarantino’s latest film burst into Spanish cinemas this week, and I do declare that this is perhaps some of the most fun he has had making one of his celluloid, revenge opuses in years. Why, you ask? Because he gets to return to the envisioned Hollywood of his childhood and in this way, we the viewers get to escape into an idealised late 60s Los Angeles. Starring Leo DiCaprio, who plays former TV Western actor Rick Dalton, as well as, Brad Pitt as his stalwart driver and stunt double, Cliff Booth, director Tarantino takes us into the hills to his Cielo Drive home and lets comical magic just flow. What we then learn is that his next door neighbours are Roman Polanski and his young actress and beautiful wife, Sharon Tate, played to utmost perfection by my newest fave actress over the last few years, Margot Robbie. It is certainly important to state that Tarantino more than takes his time giving us plenty to think about. I’ve heard that DiCaprio would not permit workers on set to look him in the eyes, even when speaking to him…only other actors of his ilk. If that is so, and it likely is, fuck him, but boy does the director do his fair job making us look at our own desperate attempts to not be left stuck in the past when we so want to be relevant in the here and now. DiCaprio plays this fear to utter success and there are so many joyously hilarious scenes that should earn him a spot on actors’ awards lists later this year, assuredly. But it’s the scenes with Pitt as Cliff that engage us and ingratiate us more into the goings-on of the time and just how easily Tarantino starts to play historian and detailing the scenes of US-American life via California, long before it was a Democratic/liberal haven. Using Pitt in his car, we meet some of the guys and gals that were clamouring together at the Spahn Ranch, and we even meet Charlie Manson for a quick spell. And one gets roused by the way Tarantino also tips his hat to filmmakers of yesteryear, players like Sergio Leone or the silly minds behind Sharon Tate’s film Wrecking Crew, nothing lost on me, and he paints a picture that definitely comes across as nostalgia gone all-too-real. When the finale presents itself, and it does so on an evening that hints at incorporating a good time and all next to Polanski’s compound, we kind of know what we are in for, but naturally Tarantino loves to paint history to his own liking. We then determine who lives on and who doesn’t. One thing should be known: Tarantino and his oeuvre will continue to live on proudly…Loves!

Cold Pursuit ###  Oh Liam Neeson, we verily know thee…If you think that this is just another over-55/60 year-old, angry dad getting revenge movie that the actor’s been so famous for the last decade, you’d be right. If you think that this may be the last in the tired genre that he can possibly eke out to moderate success, you’d also be very correct! As it stands now, the film which cost roughly $60 million to make has only recuperated $75 million in its worldwide box office. Let it be known that a film, in order to be considered financially successful, in this millennial digi-age in which we live, a film must garner two-and-a-half to three times more than its total budget. To have a varied cast that also includes Laura Dern as Neeson’s wife, as well as, TV faves Emmy Rossum and Tom Bateman, you certainly lack not for having a set of decent, emotionally-charged actors. The challenge with this hopefully last of the Livid & Vengeful Neeson series is that we dive so quickly and head-long into his pursuit of the band of no-goodniks who attacked his family and thereby set off the action which the film follows. Norwegian film director Hans Petter Moland remakes his own film from five years back, merely changing the main character’s name from Nils Dickman to Neeson’s Nels Coxman. Phallic naming aside, the film’s Denver setting does little to paint a picaresque action film and instead, stays true to the Neeson theme of late, pursuing him as he pursues those responsible for his family member’s demise until he slowly makes his way to the top drug lord. How this ski-lift plow man has the skills to bust up a ring like this and simply murder away is beyond anyone, except perhaps the Native Americano thugs thrown in for, I suppose, PC measure although that falls flat. In the end, what we get is a sometimes engaging, sometimes too formulaic film and a pile of mob boss and Native American villains do nothing to enhance the fun. Over it…NEXT!

Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs and Shaw ###-1/2… Say what you will about this interminable franchise as one must certainly have an opinion about this modern testosterone putz-fest by now, but man alive, do they serve up incredible, often impeccable, action sequences that either keep you at the edge of or throw you right the hell off of your seat. A couple of flicks ago, we had to say our goodbyes to poor Paul Walker after his uncannily and ill-fated final car ride demise. Since then, the last F&F was a sad complaint of a film, cast members had a series of rows and since Dwayne Johnson is also a businessman, his smart self decided to screw over shmuck Vin Diesel and silly-ass Tyrese and buddy up with charming Brit Jason Statham and POOF!... another branch of the series is born! This time around, we focus on a more comical, emotional and familial Hobbs and Shaw as, early on, we see a split-screen sequence between their US/UK lives, but soon enough after that, the action gets legit lit when we’re introduced to Shaw’s sister and criminal Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) who has been in possession of a fast-acting super-virus which can jelly one’s guts instantly. Throw in eye candy delight Idris Elba and a Robin Hood-esque attempt at “saving humanity’ from the spread of this virus only serves to boost the action and fun when we realise we’re also up against a real villain of verano, which in this case is a big tech demon called Etheon. As all my readers know, I despise spoilers so all I can say is that, even when the film cuts to a boring scene or two, it is the symbiotic nature and wittiness between the main characters that keep you smiling and highly convinced that F&F should be put to rest please and the mid-life crises adventures of Hobbs and Shaw should slide easily into its place…perhaps served up with non-stop celeb cameos and hot cars as always.

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First you #root and then #roll @rootsandrolls ...The origins, part II! #plantbased #local #bcn #healthdarling #Woke #tasty #fresh #GastroInBCN #veganlover #Eixample #HI! #ICantBelieveItsNotFish #theclubwithlucas #VOSEng •Tuesdays,11-12h @ 106.9fm (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx2I3IQHaTD/?igshid=1i2kt5xgq3msf

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Actor @jesuslloveras lights up Tuesday morn in #BCN and @theclubwithlucas is all set to serve up #jamz, #NewNews & the city's best #interviews in #VOSEng at 11h ONLY on @radiokanalbarcelona 🎭🎤 • • • #local #global #create #abate #innovate #actuate #educate aware #HI #actor #writers #directors #businessbuilders #FightingThePowersThatBe✊🏽 (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCAqxXMoMLp/?igshid=fs2rfs7zpjwp

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Actress @assumptaserna & Sir @actingcoach (Scott Cleverdon) grace us this week on @theclubwithlucas & all is right with the world for today, at least! #actingroyalty #actinglife #coaches #LIVE #radio #VOSEng #others #aware #bcn #local #global (at English Radio) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAVVKu_ICi3/?igshid=etjuhjhgmxrn

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@theclubwithlucas catches up with some #familytime when @germaine_mccormackkos the director of autobio doc #WalkOntheWildSide, soon on @filmhubhq joins from #Paris as does #KristianKos from #OK in the #USA...! #film #newNews #updates #jamz #classics #bcn #local #global #VOSEng #HI #aware #others #ahmaudarbery🙏🏿 #informed #Live! #georgefentonmusic (at English Radio) https://www.instagram.com/p/CADQuF0odvZ/?igshid=1n666gr1zyzy0

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#coronaviruscontainment got you down? Ahhhhhh hell to the NAH! @theclubwithlucas teams up this week with Lady @kikishakti to bring #BCN its weekly #VOSEng report as ish starts to hit the fan! #FearNot #local #global #daJamz #2tru #reality #news #bitchsession! (at English Radio) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-YDwlXID3r/?igshid=1pfp9x8pl1zae

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Stand Up and fight and be counted...we are so proud to host a couple of the ladies at @femdialeg this week as they clue #bcn about #GenderJam 2020! #lit #aware #VOSEng #live #genderjamBCN #local #global #jamz #news #truths (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8943qToEeK/?igshid=3tnr6wj6fv6f

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#theclubwithlucas gets #LIT Tuesday at 11h with the gents of @mybluebricks and BCN's answer to all of your #coliving queries, wants, needs & specs #liveFREE #VOSEng #BCN #local #global #woke #ongrid (at RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona 106.9 fm) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JPMY8I3Hl/?igshid=1hj8tt0zrpv8r