Author Archives: lisathatcher

February 24

Stranger than Paradise – Jim Jarmusch and the deadpan comedy of the absurd. (film review)

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The film world on the internet is buzzing with Oscar chat at the moment, and seeing as so many of American offerings in the best film category this year are a poor affair at best, I thought it was a good idea to remember there have been some truly great American films made – even […]

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February 23

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Simon Stone takes the South out of Tennessee Williams. (theatre review)

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is starting to look a little like a Shakespeare play, it’s been done and played with so many times. When one is going to see  a play one is so familiar with, it becomes more an exercise in interpretation than an attempt to seek any sort of surprise from […]

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February 23

Cloud Atlas – The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer make the most expensive independant film of all time. (film review)

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Lana and Andy Wachowski have definitely got a “real is not really what you think real is” thing going. With the enormous success of their Matrix trilogy and then the follow-up successes with films such as V for Vendetta, they have established themselves as a powerful force in that world between worlds narrative. Tom Tykwer […]

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February 23

VA – Fukushima! Artists answer the call for beauty. (Music Review) Disc Two

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This post is the second in a series of two looking at the double disc. For the first part of the review, please go here.  This double disc collection is inspired by a lecture given by Otomo Yoshihide.  The lecture can be found here and is well worth the reading. Disc two is composed of […]

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February 20

Beautiful Creatures – Richard LaGravenese and the love of a good script. (film reviews)

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Richard LaGravenese seems to be an odd choice as the director for the first of the series post-Twilight fantasy series Beautiful Creatures, mostly because he’s a screen writer and not a director. Yet, in a way this odd twist has worked out well for the film because it has a fantastic script based on the […]

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February 18

Anna Karenina – Joe Wright and Tom Stoppard squeeze Tolstoy down to theatre size (film review)

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I was rather shocked to find, as I was researching this film, that the story of Anna Karenina has been made into a film twenty-five times. It was considered by Dostoyevsky – a favorite writer of mine – to be the greatest novel ever written, and Dostoyevsky is not alone in that opinion. Having seen […]

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February 17

Johnny on the Spot – Steelesque and the Pittsburgh sound. (music review)

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According to the bands website, Steelesque originally started with the idea of bringing together musicians (unique sounds) to share ideas. This seemed to have worked, because two musicians decided to stay – it seems after all the beer and chips ran out.  Rob Eldrigdge (who conceived of the original idea) and  drummer Josh Eagen. Together […]

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February 16

Hiroshima Mon Amour – Resnais and Duras and the tragedy of memory. (Film review)

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How does one speak about a project that both Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais called ‘impossible’? I’ve been thinking for days how to talk about Hiroshima Mon Amour and I still can’t think about what to say. It was intended originally as another documentary like Night and Fog, only this time about the horrors of […]

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February 13

Ma Mere – Christophe Honoré and Bataille on the silver screen. (film review)

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I love Bataille for many reasons but one of the biggest is his ability to circle around the beautiful and the ugly as if each can be interchanged in a perpetual whirlpool or vortex slung over our base desires. When Christophe Honoré decided to make a film of Batailles unfinished novel published posthumously, he took […]

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February 12

Stephen Kelman chats with Lisa Thatcher (Interview)

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I was extremely lucky to have a chance to ask Stephen Kelman some questions about this wonderful book and also about the remarkable achievement of having a first book short listed for such a prestigious prize. Stephen is a wonderful man, and it was a huge pleasure to have a brief chat with him. Check it out: Lisa:  Pigeon […]

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