Joseph Brooker on Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets An early sequence in this film sees the title character, special agent Valerian, on a desert plain dotted with people. Thanks to a hi-tech implant he is also experiencing what seems to be a
Joseph Brooker on the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich Just to the North of the old centre of Munich is an expanse of land hosting several major art galleries. They include the Alte Pinakothek (apparently holding Old Masters, though I’ve not been in), the Neue Pinakothek
Joseph Brooker on Acting Out: the Fourth International Flann O’Brien Conference at the University of Salzburg Flann O’Brien is the best-known pen-name of the Irish writer Brian O’Nolan (1911-1966), who as well as five novels as O’Brien also published millions of words as a surreal and satirical
Joseph Brooker on Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship at the Towner Art Gallery The painter and engraver Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) was raised in Eastbourne on the Sussex coast, and has lately been adopted as a central instance of Sussex art. His watercolour paintings
Joseph Brooker on Damsels in Distress and A Quiet Passion. I happened to see Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress (2011) and Terence Davies’ new film A Quiet Passion (2016) in quick succession, and thought about them together. Stillman became cherished in the 1990s for a
Joseph Brooker on America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s at the Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibition of American paintings only occupies three large rooms, and even looking closely at much of the work I saw it all in
Joseph Brooker on ‘Carol’, by Chuck Berry & Keith Richards Last month it was announced that Chuck Berry had died, aged 90. This was a passing I had often thought about in advance. I had thought about how someone as momentous, crucial and venerable as Berry was still
Joseph Brooker on Eduardo Paolozzi at the Whitechapel Gallery The artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005), Edinburgh-born of Italian descent, was a pioneer of Pop Art. The Whitechapel Gallery is exhibiting his work (February to May 2017) in a major retrospective showing over 250 items. Paolozzi’s early
Joseph Brooker on SS-GB In a self-referential high point of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962), two characters debate whether a fiction depicting an ‘alternate present’ belongs to the science fiction genre, unaware that they are in a novel of alternate
Joseph Brooker on St Joan at the Donmar Warehouse. Saint Joan (1923) is among the most celebrated works by the Dublin-born playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). The play was recently staged at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, directed by Josie Rourke and with Gemma