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jokermatt · 6 years ago

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Once again the Royal Mail deliver some pop culture quality. Their Marvel stamps are more than a cash-in, although their pulp power can’t paper over some side-way glances at the Special Relationship, on page and off.

Thanos is coming!

Royal Mail’s Marvelous Marvel Stamps

Stamps stack!

RELEASED ON 14 MARCH, THE LATEST LAVISH SET OF POP CULTURE STAMPS FROM ROYAL MAIL ARE PART OF A SEMI-REGULAR SERIES READY-MADE TO APPEAL TO PHILATELISTS, A PARTICULAR FAN-BASE AND ALSO COME IN PRETTY HANDY FOR SENDING LETTERS TOO.

The set comprises 10 main stamps, diplomatically giving a tenner of Marvel characters a first class value, while a secondary sheet has a variety of denominations bedded into a short comic strip that finds Marvel Heroes UK take on galactic rogue Thanos.

It’s not an exclusively UK line-up. Though led by Captain Britain, stronger together is an alternative Avengers team comprising him, Americans Dr Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Hulk, Wakandan Black Panther and Asgardian Thor. All the heroes and villains are brought to life in ink and colour by Mark Farmer and Laura Martin respectively, but the pencils and framing (the originals printed under the stamps in a nice touch) are courtesy of Alan Davis, an artist with a pedigree across DC and Marvel comics. He can count as one of his career highlights a seminal mid-1980s run on Captain Britain.

The Brits

Blighty’s Second World War Super Weapon – Peggy Carter

Vampire Vanquisher and Blitz Beater Union Jack

Blood Brilliant Brian Braddock Captain Britain

It’s Captain Britain who takes point on the stamps. More than a Limey mirror of the vastly more famous Captain America, he is Brian Braddock, twin brother of the mutant Psylocke, of Maldon, Essex. A young academic from an aristocratic family, Merlin saved him from a fatal accident, bestowing on him the Amulet of Right, powers of strength, flight, and the mantle of Captain Britain. In one of popular comics greatest moments, Alan Moore penned the Alan Davis illustrated tale that took UK’s Cap to fight the reality-altering Mad Jim Jaspers and his multi-dimensional creation the Fury (also featured here) – a comic run everybody should read.

Alongside him are Davis’ interpretations of two of Cap’s wartime predecessors. Union Jack, who’s first incarnation was Lord Falsworth, a Pimpernel-type figure who fought as part of Freedom’s Five during WWI, most frequently against his vampiric brother Baron Blood. His current incarnation shown here is Joey Chapman, the Manchester-born son of a shipbuilder, but on the stamps appears to be the middle incarnation, Brian Falsworth.

Thirdly, typically calm amid the explosions of the Second World War as ever, is (Agent) Peggy Carter. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has seen her legend grow as portrayed by the brilliant Hayley Atwell.

A certain historical mysticism blended with a jingoistic heyday is not an unusual bedrock for four-colour origins. But it’s difficult not to view this super-powered manifestation of the Special Relationship through the prism of current events; when the United Kingdom and the United States face their greatest peace-time turmoil for many decades, certainly beyond the creation of these comic characters.

Perhaps Peggy, Brian and Joey are fighting Brexit in-between Thanos’ visits.

The Villains

Captain Britain and his Furies; Thanos snaps into action

Captain Britain leads the Heroic Horde against the roguish rabble.

The Mandarin leads the Corrupt Cadre of the Marvel Universe

Marvel Villains

Stronger Together!

The presentation packaging wraps the stamps, comic sheet and a number of quite warranted comic bubble stickers in biographies of key Marvel heroes and villains. But the fact Thanos leads the villainous plot on the secondary stamps, earning a quite imperious stamp of his own, reflects the House of Ideas‘ major success on the big screen, Though a major Marvel villain since Jim Starlin brought him to page in 1973, the big purple fiend has pulled the strings behind the scenes of the MCU‘s 10-year arc as its cemented its position at the top of the box office. Presumably he’ll reach his Waterloo in the Avengers Endgame, in theatres near you at the end of this month. Sadly, his downfall won’t feature any of these British heroes, unless Peggy Carter can pull off something quite spectacular.

Crash!

Secret Wars, Secret Invasions, Siege…

Thwip!

Although the emphasis of this collection is on the four-colour history that started with Marvel’s arrival in the UK in 1972, Royal Mail have once again earned a gratuitous jump onto the bandwagon. Not only because they do it so well, but because they wrap in a few of points of thought, cultural and political.

Finally…

The real shame is that RM chose four of the American heroes for their framed print editions – and strangely, unlike recent Bowie and Game of Thrones versions, they don’t include post-marked stamps in the frame. There’s hope though: No idea ever dies in comics, and every success warrants a sequel.

As the late, great Stan n Lee would have said: Excelsior!

Marvel Stamps Stronger together! Once again the Royal Mail deliver some pop culture quality. Their Marvel stamps are more than a cash-in, although their pulp power can't paper over some side-way glances at the Special Relationship, on page and off.

#Captain Britain #Marvel #MCu #Stamps

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jokermatt · 6 years ago

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The Front Pages - 29 March 2019 (Brexit Day)

The Front Pages – 29 March 2019 (Brexit Day)

After 1009 days of preparation and the Prime Minister’s explicit promise that today was the day the UK stepped away out of its European Union membership after 40 years… We’re still there. As you may expect, I’m pretty pleased about that, but not so much I can’t dig into the monumental occasion of one of the greatest damp squibs in this country’s history.

Last Saturday, an estimated million took…

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#Brexit #EU #Europe #Newspapers

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jokermatt · 6 years ago

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My race to catch the Oscar films was on… Host or not! Here’s my take on the contenders.

2018 was the first year I managed to watch every Academy Award Best Picture nominee before the award ceremony. It wasn’t just a 90th edition thing – I’d been trying for years, even after a category increase doubled the pain at the start of the decade. Last year, it helped that many of the contenders surfaced at the right time (Awards Season, right?), but that’s not always a given. This year I had a glimmer of a chance, having caught just one film when the field was announced, and that was Marvel’s chronological outlier.

Controversies

This year’s shortlist made for a rather extraordinary year even if not for the quality of the films, which fell below last year’s bar. But behind the scenes… Marvel’s powerful Black Panther surfaced just after last year’s ceremony and was a surprise addition to the list, mainly because it wasn’t even the blockbuster studio’s best film of 2018. But it had a swagger and an incredible weight outside its narrative that Oscar was astute to pick up. Vice was the most polarising film to earn a Best Picture nomination, but its vivid and startling approach to political biopic is tellingly two Presidents old.

While the ultimate Hollywood remake, A Star Is Born, found its star fading as the Award Season approached, Roma‘s credentials were bolstered by a Best Film BAFTA win earlier in February, which promised a remarkable shift in the industry as a streamed Netflix production – albeit from one of the great directors. Green Book emerged at the end of 2018, as incapable of avoiding incidents on its journey to awards as the road trip it portrays. Many critics piled on apathy, others accused it of taking huge liberties, playing a racism card they thought had disappeared or forcing a purposefully white perspective. This wasn’t helped by criticism from (supporting character) Don Shirley’s family, or Viggo Mortensen’s poor choice of words on the promotion circuit. Discredited tweets surfaced from the co-writer’s 2015 stream, expressing some extraordinary opinions on 9/11. And director Peter Farrally was dogged by revealtions of sexual misconduct on film sets during the 1990s. The odds seemed stacked against it, but the man behind There’s Something About Mary did survive to hit the podium.

Unlike Brian Singer who was removed from history – possibly the first director not to receive a tribute from his Oscar-winning lead actor. He was removed from the troubled production of Bohemian Rhapsody a fair way through shooting (which I thought was a major contributor to its extremely dodgy editing until it picked up Best Editing!). This was more than compounded by the mounting sexual assault allegations that saw his name removed from the BAFTA director shortlist just days before that ceremony. None of this dented the film’s prospects. Bohemian Rhapsody has powered on through critique and sing-along alike to more than double its musical rival’s box office haul – second only to Black Panther on the list.

Allies

But box office isn’t everything, and certainly not something that links these films. Of course not, the Oscars hardly ever rewards those numbers. Still, there are many themes that do connect them. The Trump-era hasn’t made its presence truly felt yet (as proved as it is disproved by Vice), but true stories, or adaptations of them, dominated five of the eight films. Social justice and civil rights were also strong, nothing new in itself, but certainly in the diversity shown by Green Book and BlackkKlansman and Black Panther. Gender and LGBT politics were alive and well and represented in five of the picks, at least. And the age-old story of fame, perhaps now confirmed as Hollywood’s greatest story, was key to two of the shortlist’s big box-office hitters.

Autocues

The ceremony itself was surprisingly hitch-free; in fact, it could hardly have set a better argument for a revolving stage, from Queen’s loaded opener to Julia Robert’s professional farewell. The effective Me Too suite of dresses that filled the Dolby Theatre in 2018, highlighting poor red carpet questions as much as Frances McDormand’s speech, was replaced by a wave of pink, all the way to Jason Momoa’s dapper Karl Lagerfeld tux. Naturally, there were jabs at Trump, but the appeals for love outnumbered them. A particular emphasis fell on the song nominees, and not just because of May, Taylor and Lambert’s opening of Champions. There was also Cooper and Gaga’s laidback gossip-grinder.

An eclectic number of hosts popped out to introduce the Best Picture nominees – I was particularly taken by the brilliant Tom Morello introducing Vice. No questions there, he’s one of the most articulate political performers out there. More of him please. There were peaks and troughs, lulls and guarantees, but the broad smattering of surprise results crept up as the ceremony progressed. Few expected Bohemian Rhapsody to claim Best Editing (least of all Twitter memes), but absolutely no one expected it to claim the most awards. It was clear as the balance grew that the shortlist of potential Best Picture Winners had broadened by two-thirds of the way through, prompting me to lay down the pizza and fried chicken to Tweet:

https://twitter.com/Jokermatt/status/1099874223277907969

Here’s my verdict on the Oscar picks of 2019:

Black Panther

Limited by the near-year that’s passed since its release, Black Panther remains a stunning film, but rather more for the way it transcended the Marvel mould. You may argue, correctly, that the tent-pole perfection of the MCU‘s highest grossing film (and fourth highest of all time) outshone it, but that’s to miss the point that Infinity War was a part-sequel to this Wakandan epic. Black Panther deserved its nomination whatever naysayers maintained in the run-up, but more for what it represented than the solid and occasional sparkling content.

For me, its inescapable error comes right at the end. Enduring a decade of valid complaints that MCU villains rarely stray from the hero-opposite or mundane, Black Panther produced a believable, three-dimensional villain with legitimate complaints that resonated in the early 21st century. And then killed him. A huge mistake, and interestingly one not repeated in DC’s December smash Aquaman. Hugely entertaining fun, DC’s effort wouldn’t trouble the Oscars (surprisingly on the special effects scale) and drew comparisons with Marvel’s Thor and Black Panther. But what it lacked in social metaphor, it reprieved when it managed not to (spoiler ahead) massacre its Royal pretender.

BlacKkKlansman

BlacKkKlansman will be remembered for Spike Lee’s antics during and after claiming a long-deserved Oscar on the 24 February as much as for being a brilliant and charged film. Entertaining, powerful, exquisitely cast and supremely directed. It’s arguably Lee’s most outwardly accessible film and brought many back to the director’s work, but it’s also tricky. The ending stutters leaving a dissatisfaction that questions Lee’s rage at Green Book.

But, it’s confidence isn’t lacking, probably only matched by The Favourite on this list. In the central role, John David Washington brings quiet and captivating gusto, brimming with risk and charisma. Adam Driver makes for solid watching as always, extending the potential for mainstream mumblecore with every performance. While BlackkKlansman is glorious in embarrassing the Klan, the threat never softens, the commentary is full of rage and there is far more than one aspect of civil rights and anti-discrimination in its long sights. That’s an astonishing achievement but then there’s also… The mighty Harry Belafonte in cameo of the year.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Before the Oscars, The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw mischievously suggested Rami Malek’s central and overwhelming performance has a bit of “Tonight Matthew” about it. Even if many of us know very well what he means, to represent Freddy Mercury is to present the ideal and the concept as much as the man. Malek balanced that with super-real brilliance. Only the Chinese censors can begrudge him that. And BoRhap brought that same zeal to almost every area of its production, troubled or otherwise. That mostly includes stretching the elastic of artistic license further than any other fact-inspired film here. I can forgive the odd dramatic addition of say, a false band break-up, or the bringing forward of Mercury’s diagnosis by two years. But the sheer short-hand cheek of suggesting Queen set the phone’s ringing at Live Aid is really beyond the pail. I’m sure the brevity of those scenes is a sign of its embarassment.

Somehow, which is testament to the legend of Freddy Mercury as much as the ridiculous artistic license, it really does stay with you in the days that follow. There’s something there… Which certainly helped it to its four awards to join its near $900m haul.

The Favourite

Brilliantly named, as Joanna Lumley failed to make sound hilarious at the BAFTAs earlier this month. I have to say it. Apart from the gloriously entertaining camerawork, performances, and production design, this is the Best Picture nominee that made me laugh most.

The Favourite basks in its silliness and unsettling period menace. The balance of Yorgos Lanthimos’ direction and the creeping surreality that never slips to parody, marks it as another classic view of England that’s cast pitch perfectly by a foreign eye (see also, the Rachel Weiss-starring Meirelles classic, The Constant Gardener). There may be moments that Olivia Colman is incredibly and unmistakably Olivia Colman, but it’s true – she turns in a performance here that has never been seen before. In a way the balance to Bohemian Rhapsody this season, major award for major award, regally and factually.

Cannot wait to see what Yorgos can bring back to the Oscars. He will.

Green Book

At last, a film about fried chicken! Well, a couple of scenes, anyway. Well, one scene and a punchline.

All finger-licken food of the gods aside, there’s no doubt Green Book starts with a heavy-hand, and that lasts well into the picture. Easily seen as a sign of old-fashioned racial storytelling, it didn’t endear it to many but it may be a necessary trade-off. Whether it’s a pointless throwback or unnecessary and unwanted addition to the genre, by the end of film, for all the keys it hits and misses and many of the more obvious detours it takes along the way, it really has gone on a journey and swept you along with it. It could be a number of factors that provide that warmth, from Christmas to the pinpoint period to the stirring of wonderful piano, but they all combined to overcome the wave of bad-publicity it brought with it to the Awards circuit. I’m pretty sure its broad old-fashionedness is what elevated it in a year marked with several other film pitfalls. Two highly classical, to the point of stylised, performances certainly helped. Whether it will stay in the memory remains to be seen.

Roma

Here was one of the category’s creeping controversies. Roma‘s success at the BAFTA’s triggered a protest from the Vue cinema chain at the accolades bestowed on a film born from streaming. Roma has received a limited theatre release, one that will no doubt grow and many pine for, but its home will always be at Netflix. the home giant will make sure of that.

As such, it could never sit comfortably in an Academy berth. Like Green Book, Roma takes us on a period journey, this time deftly exploring early 1970s Mexico through Alfonso Cuaron’s breathtaking cinematography and frequent, stunning pans and tracks. It’s a gentle giant in many ways and particularly notable for the unique black and white mix, intended by the helmer to be quite different to anything seen on screen before. That really shouldn’t have been a surprise from the Oscar-winnng director of Gravity, it may be to legions of home viewers. I feel a tad bad suggesting that it wasn’t the best monochrome feature in consideration at the awards. For me, it doesn’t capture the sparse dramatic brilliance of Cold War, though I’m aware my European eyes could be blinding me – it’s not the only film I’ll be watching on its post-awards trajectory with interest.

In many ways, this year’s Get Out. While it had the power and momentum to shake the Academy’s tree (streaming versus young pretender Blumhouse), it lacked the sizzling contemporary resonance or genre-twisitng.

That said, Roma is a rare film in capturing a past and fictional life and tracking it perfectly to our everyday. That’s a mean feat and it comes with such simple, brilliant catharis at the end that reaffirms it all, before pouring into the most restful closing scene and credits in living memory.

A Star Is Born

Here’s where the story’s blown… Sorry, I haven’t seen A Star is Born.

That’s despite being offered a free ticket outside a cinema when I was about to watch Halloween (again, and Oscar-shunned that is too!). Outside a cinema is simply the worst place to offer a cinema ticket, but I digress.

Falling just outside my viewing range (Halloween!), I just couldn’t muster up the effort, mainly because of THAT song I find inexplicably popular.

I will try, and I will update. All credit to Bradley Cooper for steering a familiar story to big numbers and big reviews.

Vice

What a treat Vice is. Bravura film-making, that takes the time to craft, with shocks, as it walks the tightrope between humour and terrifying reality.

Yes I know: It’s not for everyone.

It was always easier to predict the accolades falling to the actors in this piece (Bale! Rockwell!) rather than the magicians behind the camera. It’s a shame the film’s Oscars will be mostly remembered for the make-up crew’s absolutely abysmal speech. Bless them.

Some of Vice is utterly audacious and jaw-dropping, doing exactly what film-making should. Here’s hoping this is the start, or perhaps the next evolutionary step, of new studio-backed and overtly challenging craftsmanship, than it is the promise of more vice presidents of the Cheney-mould to come.

Honourary mentions

Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse

I fitted in Spiderverse because, well, word of mouth and the Best Animated Picture nod. Oh and that and the Sony-renaissance that has signalled a real change of fortune and quality two years after the peak of misfiring Ghostbusters and Pixels.

Maybe they were right all along, Spiderman can rival the MCU on his own. Pulling Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man into the theatres and packing in a ridiculously number of canon-stuffed in-jokes under the guidance of Phil Lord, and not least a tonne of heart and soul and laughs. it proved to be a good instinct – almost supernaturally spider-sense eerie. Is this really Sony? Would they take that kind of risk? they did and it paid off in Rhinofulls. AT last comic book films are both the serious potential and opportunity for fun they should be. This was the Oscars that recognised that.

Spider-verse‘s animation takes a while to adjust to and the stakes and concept sets a minefield for a follow-up. But it earns a slight claw back on an earlier comment that buries that. Sure, The Favourite was the film that made me laugh the most among the Best Picture nominees. But this is the one that made me laugh the most full stop. that’s mainly down to Nic Cage, and possibly a hayfever jab.

Cold War

This hits the list thanks to Paweł Pawlikowski’s nomination for Best Director, even as it was cruelly denied a slot in the Best Picture category. Perhaps there wasn’t room for two films with a monochrome palette AND subtitles.

Cuaron may have won that slot with Roma, and ultimately claimed the Directing award in this category, but Pawlikowski could feel slightly aggrieved. Called an intimate two-hander by its director, it’s so much more than that. The language is reduced to the bare minimum, the time jumps and assembled scenes are immaculately precise, but brimming with emotion. There’s an extraordinary atmosphere captured in its 90 or so minutes, a good half an hour shorter than most other films here.

Pawel draws out the longer time frame from near the start of the Cold War to tell a simple love story that crosses more than borders and time to an ending of exquisite metaphorical ambiguity. It’s sublime, rivetted into place by intoxicating central performances and I’m probably being terribly obvious to place it in the grand tradition of Kieslowski. I just wish a Best Picture nod had brought it to the attention of more people.

Oscars 2019 – Catching the Best Films, Round 91 My race to catch the Oscar films was on... Host or not! Here's my take on the contenders.

#2019 #Acadey Awards #Oscars

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jokermatt · 6 years ago

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The Candy Wrap: Christmas Ad Review 2018

“Reliving the adverts, so you can’t forget them” – my annual round-up of UK advertising candy returns!

EVERY YEAR I START TALKING ABOUT THE SEASON’S BEST ADVERTS, BUT THAT’S REACHING…As usual, this round-up is a non-exhaustive list that stretches from the aspirational to the ubiquitous to the entirely misjudged. The real tradition lies in the usual suspects rubbing carrots, or plush doll carrots,…

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#Advertising #Christmas #Christmas 2018 #Marketing #Mattketing #Television

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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To Portugal… Once again improvisation and unconventional cooking methods are the real friends in my annual tribute to the world’s longest-running song contest. You know, the one that really wants us all to be friends.

39 points. That’s how you reward a host country.

May 2018, and about 370 million eyes fell on the capital of Portugal, where friendly neighbours lined up to vote her hosting ability a whole and crucial digit under 40 points. For some, a sign of huge success. As the salient knowledge goes, whispered among the continent’s cognoscenti, no country willing to win the competition two years in a row has any damn right to be there in the first place. As if to ram that point home, 2018 saw a mini-resurgence from Ireland. Although tellingly not strong enough to win them the Contest once again. That ship’s long sailed, but thanks for the thought guys.

In the event, Portugal’s pummelling to the muddy sole of the table was soon lost in the fervour of Israel’s triumph. And naturally another favourite mantra: ‘It’s not really in Europe, but at least it’s not Australia, right?’

Meanwhile, perplexed American tweets slowly switched on to #Eurovision. How quickly they forget.

Yes, it’s Eurovision alright.

But for all the things that stay the same, there are many that change. On stage, pixels were replaced with props. Overtly political voting patterns gave way to an unusually open finale, no doubt thanks to some of the major players who fell in the semi-finals. And as if that wasn’t change enough, my annual gastronomic tribute duly flew to the glamour to the Iberian peninsula.

Mindless absurdity, cringeworthy politicism, a feat of satellite-delayed style over substance. And that’s just in my kitchen. And as with many European projects, all a good deal better than throwing grenades across No Man’s Land.

No need for gimmicks. the rules remain the same.

An annual concoction of a dish or two inspired by the host country and something I’ve never made before. After a mass of undercooked Swedish meatballs and rollmop, ah rollmop, that met Stockholm 2016. After last year’s intriguing twist on Ukranian Borscht, and a valuable experiment into eat-by-dates (minimal), attention has shifted to the south of the continent. It remains a triumph of compromise and luck. And bloody great to eat.

Portuguese Steamed Clams

Well, this is where mussels stepped into the breach, packed in with 1.5lb of chorizo, a large onion and tomatoes, swimming in a balanced stew of white wine (2 cups) and olive oil (1/4 cup). Cooked in 20 minutes, served with Vinho Verde, naturally.

Portuguese chicken and potatoes

A generic choice, but pitched nicely against the pork and seafood brew above. Effectively piri piri chicken, taking its name from the sauce, and the labour intensive chilli cultivated across many African countries. Here the spice came from dried ancho chillies, rehydrated and liberally applied to a bed of red potatoes and a spatchcocked chicken (or borboleta’d as no one ever calls it). Conjuring up the latter is not something to do when introduced to somebody new, but I managed it. Any sense of immense sense of immense achievement is also liable to be quashed when someone says, “yeah, it’s not that hard” (thanks mum).

The lightly boiled chillies I pesteled into a marinade with two tablespoons of paprika, six-plus cloves of garlic (always use more), fresh coriander, pepper, salt and red wine vinegar. A blender would have been more convenient, but not as much fun.

The beauty of a butterflied chicken is in its quick roasting. 20 minutes one way, on the potato bed, 20-30 minutes the other, before a final 15 minutes splattered with the remaining marinade. An artistic dish, but one that tastes marginally better than it looks, maximising flavour over spice.

Served with a cilantro sauce – a cup of plain yoghurt combined with finely chopped coriander, pepper, salt and a heady mix of lemon juice and olive oil.

My usual ‘cauldron cooking’ style found its best fit yet… Portugal, and Eurovision 2018, done. See you in 12-months for an Israeli spectacular, where hopefully the world’s still in one piece, ‘post-Brexit…’

Dishing up: Eurovision Festa Portuguesa To Portugal... Once again improvisation and unconventional cooking methods are the real friends in my annual tribute to the world's longest-running song contest.

#2018 #Eurovision #Food #Portugal #Recipe

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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Oscars 2018 - Catching the Best Films, Round 90

Oscars 2018 – Catching the Best Films, Round 90

For about a decade I’ve tried to catch every Oscar-nominated film. This year I actually managed it.

Catching Oscar Nominees in a timely fashion sounds easier than it is. Many films fall in the early-year window, but there’s always one or two that require some premonitionary skills the previous year. Often, a few features fall short of their post-big screen cycle in the window between the…

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#2018 #Acadey Awards #Oscars

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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“There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it. And it’s morals aren’t worth what a pig can spit, and it goes by the name of London” – Sweeney Todd

Alright Sondheim, give it a rest!

This year, I finally made it to Lumiere, the London leg of the four-day light festival that last hit the Capital two years ago. Again, this January was wet and cold. But also in need of illumination. Especially in the shadow of the tabloid-fuelled Blue Monday, in not just mid-winter, but mid the darkest winter for decades.

When better to get people out on to the streets of London? How much better than with this brief ground-level firework?

Where was I? Oh yes, “but there’s no place like London”

Photography – South Bank, Westminster, King’s Cross

Lumiere London 2018 "There's a hole in the world like a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it.

#King&039;s Cross #Lights #London #London Lumiere #Winter

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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2017’s Turner Prize hit Hull, in the kind of City of Culture-linked synergy that should give a strong boost to the post-‘is it art?’ conversation the Prize craves. But can any selection ever be impressive enough to escape three decades of that perception?

Leaving this year’s Turner Prize, and the wonderfully well-used space it dominates on the ground floor of Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery, I heard that customary mantra, or the start of it: “Like with any Turner Prize, some questionable…” Hmm. Displays? Floor panels? Light switches? Anywhere else it might be anything. But as the voice trailed off it was undoubtedly “choices” that was lost on the pavement of Carr Lane. A different venue, another year, the same challenge.

34 years on, a significant part of the Turner Prize’s identity, and one it shows no sign of growing out of, is its inability to a seize universal goodwill from its patrons. This year’s complementary newspaper ‘The Ferens Echo’ may lead with, “Have a completely fresh conversation about art”, but people will always get stuck up on, well, taste. No matter how thought-provoking it can be from year to year, that’s totally different from fulfilling and celebrating that central, core concept of finding and celebrating the most innovative artist born, living or working in Britain. There’s hope in the curator’s introduction that the Prize’s profile has risen over three decades to deepen the conversation beyond “is it art?” but I think it’s too broad a question to ever leave. And it’s in that context that selections of varying, range, scope and quality must be judged. Every year.

It may be inherently tricky when tackling four artists across multi-media, but it goes some way to explain its embrace of social media. The Turner Prize launched too early in that respect. But now the internet’s dained to catch up. Pointers tagged #TurnerPrizeQuestions posed a series of enquiries that encouraged sharing far and wide. It’s a core component of Hull’s City of Culture status this year, part of the Prize’s welcome and ongoing mission to take alternate years away from its established gallery space in Pimlico. Those questions hung between the prize and its current gallery, (What does the Turner Prize achieve? Must the gallery stay free to enter?”), generally letting the work speak for itself. And of course, the links between the artists that are there as much as they aren’t. This year’s Prize had a need to keep an eye on the past, present and future to reflect its host nation.

A large panel in the Prize’s central hub highlights the innovation inspired by that name it honours. As it says, Turner: innovative in his lifetime and subsequently regarded as one of Britain’s greatest artists. While many great names have claimed the Turner Prize since 1984, Jeremy Deller, Grayson Perry, Chris Ofili and Antony Gormley to name four, there are few visiting the exhibition who come expecting to remember a name for the future. It’s that kind of contrary. And this year served up an interesting mix. With conversation and snapping encouraged, no surprise that this is one of the loudest art galleries you’ll find, and that’s no bad thing.

I walked straight ahead from the hub to the large, attractive paintings of Harvin Anderson, Fusing abstraction and representation, the wide room housed two bodies of work. His expansive studies looping into final pieces, like portraits of landscapes, built from transparent studies. And intermingled with it his barbershop series, stretching from stark evocations of civil rights to minimalist studies of the shop space that brings space to time. Their mixing is a broad brushstroke representation of the “push and pull” essential to Aderson’s work, although it remains far more sophisticated in the paintings themselves.

Alongside, a real and instant beauty emerges the thoughtfulness of Anderson’s lush abstraction of nature, and much more, in giant canvasses that interpret the flora outside his Soho studio, as well as reminiscences from Jamaica and his childhood town of Birmingham. Studies reveal the transparent sheets and grid structure he uses to reposition elements for his final pieces, and uncover that vision he really wants to see. And they’re beautiful, no doubt about it. There’s a huge amount to see from what first appears to be an abstract life study, or darting your eyes away too soon keeps their power raw as it is soft.

New pieces Ascension and particularly the magnificent Greensleeves have an ethereal quality, with hints of myth-building and a distinct sense of time. The corner of the space, where the tropicality of Last House sits between Greensleeves and one of the minimalist Peter Barbershop pieces makes for an unintended and stunning triptych.

Recalling some early, and late, Hockney, in use of colour and geometry, it’s as fascinating how the abstraction elevates the floral work as tracking the removal and absence of elements in his Peter series. The most outwardly politic part of the room where traditional headshots of hairstyles are painted out or replaced with icons of the civil rights movement.

While the central figures remain late into the run of barbershop pieces, the mirrors and posters in front of them are replaced or removed until we’re left with the stroking blue bounding walls alone. Those walls provide the blunt challenge of perspective, while other parts of the series break down important if slight infrastructure in a subtler way: the central seat columns that connect, the left side of a shadow. In the trailing legs of his subjects Anderson conjures a highly enviable watercolour quality from the oil. Stunningly, beautiful, and of great appeal to my painterly heart. But really it’s the methodical grid and cycle between the end of each painting and the start of the next that’s most stunning. This is the kind of rugged innate concept in the painterly tradition the Turner Prize was built to thrive on.

The politics didn’t stop in that room, in a necessarily charged year, there’s a stark contrast in Andrea Buttner‘s space…

It’s a close call, but Buttner’s addition is the most multimedia, and the exhibit most overtly playing with time and space. It’s traditional and modern, from imagery to method. History is carried through to modern capitalist symbols stretching thoughts as much as the audience is made to move forward and back, or stoop through the vertical, to appreciate the pieces, sometimes much like the position of her recurring beggar motif. The only artist to take two rooms (excusing Nashashibi’s cinemas), Buttner’s art is confrontational and dazzlingly varied, some are lurid and others simply beguiling. Again there are two broad strokes of work, all filtered through crafted histories and references to provenance and her “line of artistic ancestors”. The table of collated historic works relating to beggars pushes that provenance to the fore using an original catalogue format. It’s catching, but not as much as the long line of her woodcut beggar series, dominating a wall and elsewhere separated; whittled down to a geometrical shape.

Alongside, that woodcut line a high-visibility coated wall is one of her works, framing three works shuffled to the far right, next to an affecting, rather hideous triptych “Duck and Daisy”. These guide through to the physical, townhall rows of exploration of the human condition. That travelling exhibit, formed around the text of Simone Weil, presents a loaned piece as extension and balancing point to her own, wisely placed across from that final, simple geometric woodcut.

There’s a huge amount here, esoteric, but cumulative. the opening line of exploring the ethic along with the aesthetic is exactly right. for much of the dualism pieces that spell out their own name and intention demonstrate the strong, determined line of literalism. It necessary for the works’ cohesion and power. But also, with those trademark painted walls and makeshift bench, the rooms that would easily coax you into sitting on or leaning against an artwork without realising. It’s a lot, and perhaps a little too strong for the Turner Prize, who’d have thought? Next came the similarly history-led and combative Lubiana Himid.

Himid’s is such a balanced exhibit, it momentarily shuts the conversation down. The confrontation of the repurposed ceramics on one side, intricate, fragile but also jarring. Across the space, the line of repurposed newspapers, the most overtly politic part of a Prize riddled with it. These are Humid’s previous exhibitions vying for attention. Her earliest work from the late ’80s took black people within historical painting as its springboard, and here are two multi-layered developments, one on ceramic, the other on media, both from 2007 onwards. The third wall has the stagey, perhaps even pantomimey cut-outs as part of the modernist The Fashionable Marriage – until you take a closer look. And opposite, on the fourth wall in solitude, in stark relief, the single portrait of the literal, time-stopping rendition of a slaveship. Surreal, interpretive, instant, modern, timely. Le Rodeur: The Exchange, from 2016, is the work most likely to stay with you most when you leave.

It’s quite an astounding range in a compact display that knows how to play to Humid’s strengths. Collective association is irresistible, especially when this well staged.

Rosalind Nashashibi’s Turner Prize video. See the original and the other short-listed artists here.

Moving through to a dark hexagon, two films from the Prize’s youngest artist, Rosalind Nashashibi. Hugely political once again, the introductory notes makes clear the danger and prescience of these films; particularly the account of Nashashibi suspending production on the Gaza strip under bombardment in 2014. On screen, incidental details blend in to form lived, compelling and real narrative. It’s a wonderful technique, her own style of foreshadowing jump cut that makes multiple styles work for the subject. The framing of motion art in between, the framing jumping slightly between different shots or recurring out of sequence. It encourages your mind to wander, then leaves you in no doubt that you’ve missed something as slight as it is hugely relevant.

Nashashibi is a collaborator, a painter, a sculptor and a printer. Her works explore the domestic and the state, mixing astute observation and lyrical montage. She finds places distinct and in possession of their own quality, within other larger geographies, concerns, or concepts. In doing so, she showcases the unnoticed and the overlooked. Perhaps the artist who’s most explored the essence of what it means to be an artist through other works, the powerful resonance of her work is certain to grow. And that’s as much about her treatment as the subject matter.

While my painterly side is always drawn to the expansive expression exemplified by Harvin Anderson’s work, I agreed with the award of this year’s Prize to Lubaina Humid. The sheer weight and the balance of her exhibit stands at the head of a generally well-structured exhibition, quietly exuding a raw and challenging power. Her emergence ahead of three thought-provoking artists on the back of that compact representation of a sheer wealth of work is striking.

I entered that exhibit in a mixed crowd, each person already preparing their exhibition takes for the exit, only to meet a notable change of atmosphere. that’s not as frequent as it should be in The Turner Prize. The quiet brilliance of Nashashibi’s film screenings notwithstanding, the challenging reach of Buttner’s multimedia sat alongside, the personal and vibrant journey of Anderson a counterpoint: The power of the politics, perfectly tied to an unexpected, original and repurposed core of creativity meant Humid had it.

It’s not just chalk and cheese in the Ferens. The painterly to filmic, the ceramic to textile. Politics has never been a stranger to the Turner Prize, it can’t be. But this year it’s acute in a diverse field. It’s not the loudest Prize, but it’s one of the most regional and international. there are jaw-dropping moments, but mainly a quiet and powerful quality that stays with you – proving the Prize’s relevance for another year, if never quite answering that central question.

Still, when the guide closes with the line, “Whatever you think about Turner Prize 2017, you’re right” it seems like a Prize far more comfortable with itself than many people think.

The Turner Prize 2017 runs at Ferens Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Square, Hull, until 7 January 2018.

Turner Prize 2017 – Quiet confrontation in Hull 2017's Turner Prize hit Hull, in the kind of City of Culture-linked synergy that should give a strong boost to the post-

#City of Cuture #Hull #Turner Prize

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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Hull: City of Culture 2017. In the year it dawned on some that the game will soon be up for European-supported cultural cities, Kingston-Upon-Hull embraced it. I stepped off Hull Trains for a weekend and my first visit to that patch of the East Riding.

It was quick step around Hull, loosely demanded by some deadlines; governed by one remit: sample a distinct slice of culture across multi-media across one weekend. I popped up at the start of October when events were heading from peak to wane. It was too late to attend the live recordings brought by the BBC’s mini-festival. it was a light kick to the teeth when alighting a train with a head half still back in the South East. But this is the City of Culture, so where better to miss something only to find something else?

In the heart of the city’s library, a BBC Writer’s Room session kicked off with a thoughtful intro. I’m two scripts and many one-liners into some failed submissions, but for a quiet room, and a free event, there were grains of inspirational gold.

From Hull Central Library, I left one bookend and booked into John Godber’s Kings of Hull. With my Rugby League and Brid-rivalry knowledge lacking, at times it was like sitting in a huge in-joke, at others, total immersion therapy. I laughed along, as humour rise above these things, and the bathos and pathos shone through on the single set, through multiple generations and flashbacks. There was even a song dedicated to Spiders – the ever-more infamous nightclub I’m pleased to report I’ve still not visited 15-odd years on from first hearing of it. An impressive space the New Hull Theatre, despite the bar service being out of whack, no doubt deterring me from Spiders, and an evening far better than any city tour.

A new day, and having not been poisoned nor kept awake all night in a haunted hotel 20 minutes from the city centre, I realised how optimistic my targets for the day were. Horrifically far apart: How dare Hull be so bloody big? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But I sauntered into town to the Ferens Art Gallery, making up for not attending the Turner Prize the day before, by stepping into the superbly curated exhibition first. 2017 was a good year.

At the metaphorical, cultural crossroads, I headed east. To East Park to be exact, for a necessary pilgrimage. On the cans was Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. In the park lies the Michael Ronson Reflection Graden, at its centre a beautiful tribute to the legendary son of Hull unveiled earlier this year. An eight foot, lightning bolt-branded metallic guitar, designed by a very talented local student. Naturally.

The bands listed around the base are hardly exhaustive, a reminder, in negation, far more effective than my earlier Mick Ronson week’s failure to take in his breadth of work. Now was the real trek, as the album changed to Aladdin Sane. Looping around Hull, I headed to the university and the final day of the ambitious and divisive Philip Larkin exhibition. Not only focusing on items reclaimed from his house but reconstructing his bookshelves and record collections. Of course, the shells of his diaries were there – their innards burned away as per his testament, alongside legion stuffed envelopes yet to be documented. An exhibit that helpfully suggests the light and the dark in the centre of the building that remains a major legacy. Another excellently branded library exhibition, most effective when representing the slim volumes of his oeuvre on shelves, dwarfed by committee minutes, just as he once wrote.

In-between books, trinkets, below a hanging tie tree and some fabulous(ly bizarre) poems and sketches some visitors had mocked up, were select quotes from his letters. One fabulous one was typically bullish about the passing of HG Wells.It’s one that everyone should memorise, whether you agree with it or not, and use as often as possible:

“He couldn’t bastard write, he couldn’t bastard think, what he could bastard do was write bastard good scientific bastard romances, the bastard”. (Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, ed. Anthony Thwaite)

Had he known about this exhibition, Larkin would have likely been quite furious. I completed the loop back from the university to the station at the centre of town. By now the Bowie era had slipped on to Lodger, and through the russet leaves it’s the through of Larkin’s anger I took back to the poet’s statue, greeting and disptching visitors to Hull every day.

Well played Hull, well played.

A step around Hull: City of Culture 2017

A step around Hull: City of Culture 2017 Hull: City of Culture 2017. In the year it dawned on some that the game will soon be up for European-supported cultural cities, Kingston-Upon-Hull embraced it.

#BBC #City of Cuture #Hull #Mick Ronson #Poetry #Turner Prize

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jokermatt · 7 years ago

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The Candy Sketch: Christmas Ad Review 2017

“Reliving the adverts, so you can’t forget them” My second Christmas ad sketch – that makes a tradition!

Here’s my round-up of this year’s best of British festive ads – the ones we waited a year for – could they ever live up to the hype? Jump right in, repeating the familiar mantra, “Something’s happening and we have to spend some money.”

Warning:features a lot of fur, stuffed into giant…

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#Advertising #Christmas 2017 #Marketing #Television

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jokermatt · 8 years ago

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Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course – we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

The BBC’s Doctor Who Experience closed this weekend, ending the fourth permanent, but significant exhibition in the world’s longest running science fiction show’s history. A permanent exhibit to the corporation’s premier franchise that’s suddenly become a whole lot ephemeral. But just as its creation was made possible by the show’s huge resurgence in the middle of last decade, as much as the rise of ‘experience’ entertainment, its demise doesn’t signal the end of Doctor Who‘s so-far 54-year journey.

There’s no doubt that Doctor’s Who‘s lost some of the sheen it recovered 12 years ago, just as it waxed and waned over the 26 years of its original run. After its 2005 return, kids were talking about that weekend’s show on the bus to school on a Monday morning, for the first time in decades. Those kids of 9 or 10 are now 21 and 22. Times change, even for an ever-changing show like Doctor Who. Audiences change along with their Doctors. And so do Doctor Who exhibitions.

The Past

The first permanent exhibition to Doctor Who was set up at the seat of the Marquesses of Bath, the stately Longleat. Alongside the growing safari. It set the standard walk-through of costumes, props and exhibit cards that were as close to an immersion that young and old fans could get, whilst ocassionally hosting some events, like the 20th anniversary party in 1983. Longleat was big on those big anniversaries, running from 1973 until 2003, and was my first visit to a Whobition – a word I will never use again.

Like Behind the Sofa at London’s defunct Museum of Moving Image, which I visited during thatsame mid-1990s period, my strongest memories remain, in no particular order, Daleks and the blister packed Dapol models in the shop afterwards. Count them down: Seventh Doctor, Tetrap, Mel… It’s worth noting that my few brushes with Doctor Who as a child it bloody petrified me. Being scared is a great thing. My first memory – although it may appeal to some fans – is Colin Baker land-drowning at the cliffhanger of the penultimate episode of The Trial of Time Lord. I grew up on the coast, but not near hand quick-hand-sand.

Along the South Coast, Brighton’s Palace Pier (the only one left, horizontal) hosted a small, but prestigious and official exhibition in 2005. The lean years of the show’s prolonged hiatus between 1989 and 2005 had been partially bridged by Longleat and the resurgent Blackpool exhibition. originally open as a permanent installation from 1974 to 1985, that Golden Mile exhibition folded in 1985 not for a regeneration but a “re-evalutation”, coincidentally during the show’s 18-month mid-80s hiatus. Its second life ran from 2004 to just before the show’s anniversary in 2009 – but I never made it to either incarnation.

Back to Dapol, the factory that gave us those distinctive 1980s action action figures, enabling children everywhere to recreate Time and the Rani, hosted is own exhibition, Dapol Dr Who Experience, between 1994 and 2003 in Llangollen. I never made it to that either, although the figures persist.

In 2008, with the show at peak Tennant and its fourth television series since returning, a well put together show was hosted at Earls Court Exhibition Centre for just under a year. Never intended as permanent, coincidentally that ended in the year of Specials – a hiatus by any other name.

Then in 2011, London Olympia2 hosted the brand new Experience, a new interactive development of the old props and history format. It ran for one year, before relocating to Cardiff to replace the semi-permanent Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff that at the capital’s Red Dragon Centre that ran between 2005 and 2011. The London Experience was a whole different level. While it ended with a comprehensive tour of props, costumes and merchandise, the main draw was the interactive storyline that dragged willing family groups through a ready-made storyline, combining pre-recorded film with the Doctor himself, animated sets, classic monsters and a ground-breaking 3d segment that recalled early IMAX trips to that new dimension.

Of course, it was all helped by marvelous zeitgeist. It opened in the prime of the new series’ first reboot, with the arrival of the Eleventh Doctor, tying directly into storylines set out by the show’s fifth series and picking up from the three-dimensional vortex promos that accompanied that new era. But as well-knitted into the fabric of the show as it was, enhancing the immersion, it was always going to be the dating element. As the ‘cracks in time’device that effectively brought us into the show collapsed into a tangle of on-screen plotting over inconsistently broadcast series, it became a piece of historical interest far more quickly than the old exhibits ever had. As with many of the new era exhibitions, items would arrive as series were made, disappearing as they were recalled. it was a natural rhythm, when the series ran consistently.

In summer 2012 the Experience opened in Cardiff Bay, in a new 3,000 sq m building at Porth Teigr, handily near to the BBC’s Roath Lock studios, where Doctor Who is produced, aiding the ins and outs of props. Expected to attract up to 250,000 visitors a year, it was hailed as a further coup for the Cardiff Bay development and a further boost for the clocal economy delivered by temporal rift. I visited that incarnation of the Experience once at its opening in London, then in Cardiff, accompanied by, after a rain-soaked run, a trip around the TARDIS studio itself.

And then last month I took a trip to Cardiff for one final, sign-off visit to the Experience.

The Present

With the arrival of the Twelfth Doctor, the dated crack in time plot was deemed just that bit too passé. That earlier trip had served up some nice moments in its guided urgency, not least a trip into the off-screen Dalek civil war which went just a little way to explain the quick repealling of the multi-coloured New Paradigm Daleks in the show. As of 2014, a new storyline written by Joe Lidster brought things up to the Twelfth Doctor, making use of some sets – anachronistically the early Eleventh Doctor TARDIS remained – and twisting the scripted journey, spattered with some great scripting, but lacking the buzz of the television linked original, into a new shape.

As fun as it was – if you ever think it isn’t amazing, picture that desolate ’90s hole when the show’s fire was tended by a mere few thousand fans – there remains something wonderfully BBC about it all. The concept, not as strong in the Capaldi era as the former Smith Experience, was a little tattered around the edges come the end, the staff almost imperceptibly haggard. Camera phones are forbidden on the journey, but there was surely a day when enforcing that rule fell into the concept.

the Experience should haev soared to the end, but that seldom happens in Who. Like the show itself, 12 years on from its glorious resurgence. A trail traipsing between Angels lacked bite, the visit to the underside of the TARDIS was missing some sparkle (really, because it recalls the awful Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS). There was nothing to match the Dalek fighting in the first, but the pepper pots gave it a go, as we sought suspiciously kryptonion shards that could sort the merry temporal mess out. Perhaps the highlight lay in the past. While the 3d finale wasn’t as captivating and centre-stage as the previous version, it ended on Totter’s Lane, where the story began. There it broke through into the exhibition, with the TARDIS set and production notes of 1963, brought to screen for the 50th anniversary with An Adventure in Time and Space.

As Steven Moffat always propounds, a little too much, Doctor Who‘s a show about change. And time for change it is. So the Experience ends with its second and final Doctor. Concept experiences remain strong, perhaps stronger now than when it opened – certainly in London. In Cardiff, although filled by the promotion surrounding its final summer, its shelf-life is apparent. A root around the Experience merchandise shop, highlighted it. Pride of place fell to the new Mr Men tie-in range, but everything else felt flat and familiar. It’s a luxury for the brand, where every T-shirt, DVD and mug once gleamed new.

The trick remains in the exhibition that follows the tour, wonderful, expansive and still continually updating, it’s a far cry from the crawl past zygons and krynoids at Longleat or through Cassandra on Brighton Pier. The fad for the Experience is likely to stick and develop. Doctor Who and BBC Worldwide will return to the theme. But as contrary and awkward as the show it celebrates, it’s the exhibition that retains the ageless class. And unlike the walkthrough, it’s a photographers’ dream. I’ll miss these unscripted trips tothe past. Until the next time. The next Experience.

The Gallery

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Out of the Vault

Ring upgrade

Bakers hands

Angel Power

Mummy shake

Morbius claw

Cyber heads

Cyber legion

War Doctor TARDIS

Console

Clara memorial

Recreating The Leisure Hive

Sleepy

Hanging Silents

Mr Sweet

Classic Daleks

New Paradigm Daleks

Bloody Monks

New Mondas

Emperor Davros

New Davros

Season 18 Console

Facing the Raven

Special Weapons

Exterminate?

Blue cat future

Console

Blue doors

Console room mood

HDoctor Who Experience – hello Menoptera!ello Menoptera!

Invasion of Earth

The Beginning

The News 23 November 1963

Doctor Who: End of the Experience Vworp! Vworp? Click-bait of course - we all know the Doctor Who experience will never end! Still though, in one corner of Cardiff Bay, it has.

#Cardiff #Doctor Who #Doctor Who Experience

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