Licorice Pizza (2021). Review by Alan Price. The title Licorice Pizza comes from a long gone record store that director Paul Thomas Anderson knew when he was growing up in Southern California. It featured a female cook holding up her freshly baked ‘licorice pizza’ – a yummy black vinyl record!
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast. Review by Graham Buchan. “Life is suffering”. If you need visual confirmation of that, look no further than this great exhibition of Francis Bacon’s work.
Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993). Review by Alan Price. In 1993 Naked was an abrupt shift from Leigh’s domestic comedy dramas. This raw and provocative film, full of black humour, about the underbelly of London cutting into a morally confused lower-middle class, both excited and dismayed people.
The Roman School of Painting at Villa Torlonia. Review by Carla Scarano. The impressive compound of Villa Torlonia, which is in via Nomentana in Rome, is the result of the development of various buildings in the natural environment of the park.
Charles Rammelkamp reviews THE BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2021
Memoria (2021). Review by Alan Price. Memoria is a remarkable non-judgemental and hypnotic experience. It makes you simply look, examine and contemplate the evidence of the image.
A DIFFERENT DISTANCE: Norbert Hirschhorn listens in to an email conversation between the poets Marilyn Hacker & Karthika Naïr which has been crafted into the form of a renga
Poetry review – A WOVEN ROPE: Sue Wallace-Shaddad follows the thread of human experience running through these poems by Jenna Plewes
Gianni Schicchi. Review by Barbara Lewis. Gianni Schicchi, the protagonist of Puccini’s only wholly comic opera, was a 13th-century Italian knight immortalised by Dante in the Circle of Impersonators for pretending to be the rich gentleman Buoso Donati and dictating a testament highly favourable to himself.
Poetry review – KEY TO THE HIGHWAY: Wendy French addresses the complexity and depth of Chris Hardy’s poetry.
Poetry review – PLATO’S PEACH: Carla Scarano reflects on John Freeman’s conversational and story-telling poems
Poetry review – LAVENDER FIRE, LAVENDER ROSE : Charles Rammelkamp reviews a prizewinning collection by Kenneth Pobo
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2022 • Tags: books, Charles Rammelkamp, poetry