awards
theartsdesk in Brussels: The EU Takes On GoogleSunday, 02 January 2011This year the Eurozone is going to be the big political subject; fragmentation the looming concern. Culturally too, one would think that Europe, with 23 official languages, and another 60 minority languages spoken, is too much of a warren to be able... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: Films to Remember and ForgetMonday, 27 December 2010Avatar or The Hurt Locker? Although the Academy Awards are by no means the only barometer of cinematic trends, at this year’s Oscars the two centrifugal strains in contemporary movie-making went head to head. For Best Picture and Director, James... Read more... |
2010: A Film OdysseyMonday, 27 December 20102010 will go down as the year I fell out of love with Johnny Depp. And not just because of his cringe-making Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, an over-produced farrago which reduced Lewis Carroll's dark Victorian whimsy to a dull computer gamelike... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Tallinn: 23rd European Film AwardsSunday, 05 December 2010Roman Polanski’s The Ghost won five of the seven European Film Awards it was nominated for last night. It was a display of the sort of sentimental herd mentality familiar from the Oscars which the European Film Academy’s voters like to feel they... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Composer Dario MarianelliSaturday, 06 November 2010Dario Marianelli won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his score for the movie Atonement, and his return to the theatre after a long absence as composer for the Young Vic's new production of Tennessee Williams's first big Broadway success, The Glass... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Opera North Double BillSaturday, 25 September 2010"It is a curious tale. I have it written in faded ink, a woman's hand, governess to two children, long ago..." So begins Benjamin Britten's operatic re-imagining of Henry James's ghostly chiller The Turn of the Screw. Oscar Wilde called it "a most... Read more... |
The xx win Mercury Prize, the oOoOO next year?Tuesday, 07 September 2010The Arts Desk has been in two minds about Mercury Award winners The xx, who picked up the £20,000 cheque last night. Joe Muggs loved them, Bruce Dessau was sceptical. Singer and bass player Oliver Sim told the audience at the Grosvenor House Hotel... Read more... |
The Man Booker Prize 2010 shortlist announcedTuesday, 07 September 2010Could Peter Carey possibly become the first author to win the Booker three times? Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001) both previously won him the most prestigious and hotly contended literary gong this side of the... Read more... |
Time for European film-goers to voteWednesday, 01 September 2010Every year the European Film Academy asks film-goers to become an electorate. They have the chance to vote on their favourite film for the People’s Choice Award. Last year they plumped for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. Previous winners include... Read more... |
Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards: and the winners are...Monday, 30 August 2010In a terrific year for comedy at the Fringe, the winners of the 2010 Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perriers) are Russell Kane, Roisin Conaty and Bo Burnham. The prizes - cheques for £10,000, £5,000 and £5,000 - were presented to the... Read more... |
My Perspective: Down's Syndrome Photography Prize, Strand GalleryThursday, 05 August 2010“There is a tradition of photographing people with Down’s syndrome, but not of positive, strong images of people staring back at you, challenging you to look at them. This exhibition reverses that. The images we produce are not sympathetic or... Read more... |
WOMAD 2010, Charlton ParkTuesday, 27 July 2010“We all come from the same DNA, as Desmond Tutu is always reminding us, and we shouldn’t be surprised that these musical collaborations take place - and work so well.” That was Peter Gabriel's comment on the music at WOMAD last weekend, a festival... Read more... |