Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

In 1997, Melbourne Australia, I was intrigued to review a film called ‘Gross Point Blank’, starring John Cusack and Minnie Driver, Joan Cusack and Dan Ackroyd.

A fusion of dark sarcasm, excellent soundtrack and strong character acting, this film revealed a side of enthusiastic, intelligent, madness that John Cusack portrayed extremely well.

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A Jim Henson family fantasy for television seems an unlikely contender at a film festival, but at its screening in the Anthony Minghella theatre, The Storyteller drew heartfelt appreciation.

The series starred John Hurt, prematurely aged, rushing from one Grimm’s fairytale to the next in a pair of prosthetic ears and a false nose. He insists this was ‘nothing, really’, given his previous transformations.

Do children like ‘Art’?
According to Hurt, people are surprised when they find out who the series’ writer was. “When you say Anthony Minghella, they say, what?”

Initially, even Henson had his doubts about bringing Minghella into the project.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

Written by Ronnie Christensen and starring Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson – an actor of immense bravado for appearing in the extremely intense ‘Hard Candy’.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

From the ‘land of the brave’ hails a DVD that throws new light on the role of the detective and how they work and gives pursuit to solving a murder that at first seems almost impossible to even begin to understand.

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Many thanks to David Champion for his review of Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou’s trip to the Island a couple of weeks ago. Ed

Freshwater Memorial Hall played host to London’s Lantern Society folk music group on Sunday 21st of February. The evening was the final date of the ‘can’t wait for the spring’ tour, and featured a superb mix of Lantern Society regulars and local talent.

The evening kicked off with a mesmerising performance from Swedish born, London based Benjamin Folke Thomas.

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Many thanks to VB reader Kelvin Currie for his report from yesterday’s Isle of Wight Young Chamber Annual Conference. Ed

“No Limits” Speed Networking
The Isle of Wight Young Chamber held a successful speed networking event for local students at Cowes Yacht Haven yesterday.

The event, entitled “No Limits” was organised by the Isle of Wight Chamber to give local young people an idea of the world of work.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

There have been occasional documentaries that follow the process of creation and through perseverance and attempts at understanding of the subject, something stunning or worthy of attention duly arrives.

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With sun-kissed vibes and surfer videos, The Studio hosted a happy blend of retro, rock and psychedelia in Newport’s first indie/live club night, Radieux.

A gleeful spree of teenagers skipped along to the event, with the police in pursuit to sniff out underage drinking.

Having spent my high school gigs in the back-ends of pubs and drafty halls, I’m jealous of the Island’s new wave of indie kids – this is better than anything on offer five years ago.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

If you have not heard of Chuck Palaniuk, an American writer, then ‘Choke’ is an excellent introduction into his perspective on ‘the land of the free…’, with its excellent dialogue and brave attempts at understanding of taboo subject matter, ‘Choke’ reveals the talent Chuck really has.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

Being a female film director in an industry that is predominantly more male cannot be too easy.

Then having the added grand pressure of having a Father who has single-handedly and very successfully changed the very structure of film-making in America to an art-form, Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch has at long last become a proven successor.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just 98p per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

From the very start, ‘Papillon’ tells a story of immense struggle and attempts at escaping the injustice of impressive situations and spectacular settings in a way that allows the audience to gradually understand the struggle for freedom is something that ‘Papillon’ has to do regardless of the situation.

What makes this film so worthwhile is purely down to the intense and moving portrayals by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.

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Thanks to VB friend and contributor Roger Regular for his review of this recent gig at the Wight Rock Bar in Ryde. Ed

React, who always perform strong songs, generated another great night, but first they had support from Poppy & Jake at the Wight Rock Bar.

I had not seen these before but just caught the last part of their sound-check. “Hmmm, this sounds promising” thought I.

Well Poppy & Jake began their set with some great vocals (we are getting spoiled with so many great female vocals here on the Island).

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just 98p per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

The work of cinematic films is not always a case of impressive budgets and special effects, sometimes there is an intimacy with the viewer that of all directors in America, Woody Allen genuinely seems to achieve, there is a great deal more in 90 minutes here than other film-makers achieve in a lifetime.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just 98p per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

An established director in Sweden, Jan Troell has managed to capture a story on film that is remarkable, poetic, romantic and at times very Swedish.

Personally speaking, a film set over the 1900’s in Sweden might not create an interest.

Yet the capability to encapture an audience in the story is pretty much down to the work of Maria Larsson, the central character.

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Talking of Island Libraries …. don’t forget that you can hire a DVD for just 98p per night. Read on for Liam’s next review of films you can hire from the Library. Ed

From Sweden, hails the release of ‘Let The Right One In’ on DVD, a subtitled into English story based on the book by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist.

This is a remarkable and breathtaking piece of work that is beautifully timed for the lead into the transformation of the onset of Winter.

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The Island Libraries might be closed today, but when they re-open you can hire a DVD for just 98p per night. Read on for Liam’s next review of films you can hire (nor not) from the Library. Ed

In-flight movies of an American nature seem to be a genre all to themselves and ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ is an all-star movie that would seem to be made for an audience who are detached momentarily from the planet Earth and are therefore cruising at around 30,000 feet.

However, when viewed on DVD at closer ground level, the force of gravity causes the viewer to question the movie a little too much, to be rather critical.

‘Something’s Gotta Give’ is as shallow a movie that Nancy Meyers could have made.

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Liam delivers his next review of DVDs available from Island Libraries – rental just 98p per night. Ed

As the writer Theodore Roschak pointed out in his excellent book ‘Flicker’, every film has something in it that makes watching it an experience worthwhile, even if it was a two second cut of a leaf with water dripping on to it.

‘Le Serpent’ – a subtitled French film appearing at the Ventnor Library on DVD, is highly recommended to anyone who has the notion that French cinema is not so ‘bon’.

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Liam delivers his next review of DVDs available from Island Libraries – rental just 98p per night. Ed

It is rare that an American movie reveals its power through the use of subtleness. This is definitely the case with the release of Michael Clayton. A sophisticated film that demands a more concentrated focus from the viewer than most American movies.

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Liam delivers his next review of DVDs available from Island Libraries – rental just 98p per night. Ed

In 2003 in London, a film called City of God was released by Brazillian director Fernando Meirelles that achieved both critical and commercial success and for an Independent foreign film that was subtitled, it became enough of a commercial success in Europe and America that Fernando Meirelles benefited massively.

Now six years later, Merielles has produced City of Men but the job of director has been passed to Paulo Morelli.

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Liam gives us his view of this Woody Allen film, which you can hire from Island libraries for just 98p per night. Ed

For some time now, the impression of Woody Allen to most people is of a man with a serious problem with relating to the people.

He makes films that are usually quite detailed and analytical but the point is always that somehow out of all the madness, life is good.

With this in mind, comes the DVD of Vicky Christina Barcelona – a story of set in Spain of two American women travelling from New York to spend the Summer in Barcelona.

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The Ventnor Reading Group meet on a regular basis to discuss the books they’ve been reading. Last month it was the turn of William Boyd’s Restless.

Here’s what they had to say. If you’ve read it, let us know what you think by leaving a comment at the bottom.

“..a really good read..I engaged with the characters and wanted to know what happened..”

“.. really enjoyed it and will read more of his work..”

“..obviously a man writing about women..made his women very ‘feminine’ – almost cardboard cutouts – perhaps his secret woman., beautiful, intelligent and dangerous?..”

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Liam delivers his new review of DVDs available from Island Libraries – rental just 98p per night. Ed

With the advent of DVD cinema, films have emerged that in one sense are fascinating, sharp and remarkably nimble but surprisingly the technology has helped the evolution of film-making to new levels.

The Life Before Her Eyes is a film that is based on a novel, but is a breath of fresh morning rain for any viewer that might be disappointed with American cinematic movies.

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Liam returns this time with a review of Chris Fisher’s S. Darko. Ed

When I was living and working in the Big Smoke around 2004, a regular haunt of mine was a cinema off Leicester Square called the Prince Charles. The affordability and enthusiasm of the staff and the audience maintained a level of energy that I have rarely experienced in a cinema in a city.

One night I was intrigued to see Donnie Darko, a film that was so close to some of the experiences I was having in life that I was stunned.

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Thanks to Roger for his review of the Australian Duo, Bug Girl who played at the
Wight Rock Bar in Ryde last week. Ed

Who put the Rock in the Wight Rock Bar?

Answer, well that was easy; Bug Girl.

Bug Girl are a hard rock band with awesome energy, from Australia. The duo played for nearly two hours, only stopping to re-tune Amber’s guitar which was bugging her (did I really say that)?

The musical brother-sister duo, made up of Amber guitars/vocals and Clinno drums/vocals, have an immense rawness to there well rehearsed set.

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Yikes, just realised we didn’t publish this yesterday as anticipated. Here’s Liam’s next review of DVDs available rent from Island libraries. Only 98p per night. Ed

Ah, the path of true love never runs smoothly and with the release of Two Lovers on DVD it would seem that James Gray has not only assembled a fine cast to explore a story of the effects of this powerful little noun, yet has also managed to focus on a form of accuracy.

What is inspiring about TWO LOVERS is the dilemma faced by Joaquin Phoenix’s lead character and how the dilemma resolves itself at the end of the film.

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