Tag: tomb

Middlesex Hospital Blues

Middlesex Hospital Blues

Curators – Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard – 2026 – UK

****

A chapel interior is repurposed as a reinvention of Derek Jarman’s final film Blue – exhibition / installation at Fitzrovia Chapel from Friday, October 16th to Wednesday, November 18th

Pollard and Forsythe’s third and final installation / exhibition at the Fitzrovia Chapel is a deceptively simple setup.

With the space opening from mid-morning to midday to five or six pm depending on day of the week, most visitors will be entering the building from daylight – although, as the evenings creep in, towards the end of the day, and losing an extra hour of daylight in the evening after the clocks go back an hour on Sunday, October 25th, some visitors may be entering from fading light or even darkness.

Entering from daylight as this visitor did, one is immediately struck by the lighting.

In a reimagining of the late director Derek Jarman’s final film Blue (1993), the interior is lit in that colour, which has the effect of locking the architectural interior into a sort of perpetual twilight, and not one in which the light goes slowly from light to dark but which seems more or less fixed. … Read the rest

Tags ‘caught in the web of capital’, 1987, AIDS, armour, artwork, Arup, blue, Byzantine, chapel interior, church interior, collective care, contemplative space, death, Derek Jarman, dying, empathy, exhibition, experimental, final film, final journey, Fitzrovia, Fitzrovia Chapel, font, gay man, hospital, hospital uniforms, Iain Forsyth, installation, International Klein Blue, Jane Pollard, knight, LGBTQ, light sculpture, light show, lighting, London NHS teaching hospitals, loudspeaker system, medieval dignitary, meditative space, mercy, Middlesex AIDS unit, Middlesex Hospital, Middlesex Hospital Blues, minimalist, music, numinous, paint hue, personal tragedy, Princess Diana’s dress, Raj Patel, reflectIion, reflection, repurpose, sculpture, Simon Fisher Turner, sound field, The Spirit of the World, Tilda Swinton, tomb, transcendence, twilight, two-way mirror, upright couples embracing, Verbal texts, vocal collective, Yves Klein

Art Exhibitions Movies Documentary Features Live Action

Exhibition on Screen
Michelangelo
Love and Death

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date May 20 2025
No Comments on Exhibition on Screen
Michelangelo
Love and Death

Exhibition on Screen: Michelangelo – Love and Death

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2017 – UK – Cert. U – 91m

*****

Sixteenth Century Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo remains one of the greatest artists of all time, yet his overreaching ambition frequently proved his undoing – back out in UK cinemas to tie in with the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth from Tuesday, May 20th

“From a fountain of mercy… my suffering is born.” These words (voiced by James Faulkner as Michelangelo) accompany images of a present day sculptor (Marco Ambrosini) working away at a piece of marble in his studio. The writings of Vasari (voice: Lawrence Kennedy) take up the story. A boy was born to a noble family in 1475. Art Critic and Author Jonathan Jones places Michelangelo among the greats, like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso. He deals with the strangest, darkest and most difficult stuff. He is the original famous artist. He had two biographies written about him in his lifetime, and took great interest in them, helping bring them to fruition. He painted, sculpted, built architecture, wrote poetry, even built military fortifications. This was the time when artists started being regarded as creative geniuses, according to Art Historian Jennifer Sliwka.… Read the rest

Tags 1475, 1530, 15th Century, 16th century, acolyte, Alessandro Cecchi, ambition, anatomy, ancient ruins, and Martin Clayton, architect, architecture, Arnold Nesselrath, Art Critic, art historian, artist academy, artists’ workshop, assistants, attack, author, Bacchus, Battle of the Centaurs, Bertoldo, Bible, biographer, biographies, block of marble, burning at the stake, cadavers, Carrara, Casa Buonarotti, Casa Buonorotti, Christ in judgement, Christian redemption, church, Clinical Anatomy, closed access, Colosseum, columns, commission, committee of artists, Condivi, Conservator, control freak, Cosimo de Medici, Creation of Adam, creative genius, crucifixion, cupola, David, David Bickerstaff, David Rintoul, Dawn and Dusk, dead Christ, decorative, delegate, design, Divinity, Donatello, Duomo, end of the world, engineering, English, Exhibition On Screen, eyes, facade, family, Florence, Florence Cathedral, flow, football, fortifications, frame, France, Francesca Nicoli, gay, gay sexuality, Genesis, German, God’s finger, grief, hands, Heaven, hiding, higher spiritual realm, Holly Trusted, imagination, impart life, interview, irrationality, Italian, Italy, James Faulkner, Jennifer Sliwka. Art, Jonathan Jones, Laboratoire Artistici Nicoli, language of architecture, Laurentian library, lava, Lawrence Kennedy, Leonardo da Vinci, library, London, Lorenzo di Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, male world, marble, Marco Ambrosini, Martin Gayford, Mary, medical science, Medici, Michelangelo, military fortifications, mother, motifs, motion, movement, muscular nude body, Neo-Platonist, New Testament, night and day, nudity, Office of Works, Old Testament, painter, painting, papal court, patrons, peace deal, Peter Abrahams, Phil Grabsky, Phillippa Abrahams, physical agony, physical beauty, Picasso, picture frame, pietà, poet, poetry, Pope Clement VII, Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X, Pope Paul II, power, Prints and Drawings, problem-solving, professor, punishment, quarry, religious art, Rembrandt, Renaissance, Rome, Royal Collection Trust, sacristy, San Lorenzo, San Lorenzo monastery, Santa Croce church, Santo Spiritu, sculptor, sculpture, self-portrait, Senior Curator, Sistine Chapel, Sistine Chapel altar wall, Sistine Chapel ceiling, sodomy, St. Peter’s Rome, staircase, studio, studying cadavers, tactile, Tania Kovats, teenage angst, The Battle of Cascina, the Divine, The Last Judgement, tomb, torment, touch, trams, turn convention on its head, UK, upbringing, V&A, Vasari, Vatican Museums, Virgin Mary, vision, volcano, wall of flesh, Warwick Medical School

Movies Features Live Action

Creation
of the Gods
I:
Kingdom
of Storms
(Feng Shen
Di Yi Bu:
Zhao Ge Feng Yun,
封神第一部
朝歌风云,
lit.
Investiture
Of The Gods
Part I:
Zhaoge Turmoil)

Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms
(Feng Shen Di Yi Bu: Zhao Ge Feng Yun,
封神第一部朝歌风云,
lit. Investiture Of The Gods Part I: Zhaoge Turmoil)

Director – Wuershan – 2023 – China – Cert. 15 – 148m

****

A king’s infatuation with a beautiful woman possessed by a vixen demon threatens to bring down a terrible curse upon his kingdom – first part of epic, period, mythological adventure trilogy is out on Blu-ray and DVD from Monday, June 24th

This first trilogy instalment of an adaptation of the Xu Zhonglin-attributed novel Investiture Of The Gods, written towards the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), deals with the downfall of the Shang dynasty (which existed well before a thousand years BC). While the tale may well contain elements of historical truth, it also mixes in supernatural deities and creatures to cover an awful lot of ground in its two and a half hours’ running length.

The novel is known by a number of titles in Chinese, one of which is Fengshen Bang, an artefact of which name turns up in this film as a sort of MacGuffin, here a mystical scroll endowing its owner with great power which at least one major character seeks to possess, others seek to help him do so and immortals want to make sure it gets into the right (i.e.… Read the rest

Tags abandonment, ancient history, aristocracy, armies, art direction, bat-winged, battlefields, black arts, blood, blue baby, Buf, capture, CG effects court, CG sets, China, Cisha, concubine, costume, costume design, court intrigues, curse, demon possession, despot, divination, Duke, dynasty, elder, fathers and sons, Fei Xiang, Fengshen Bang, forest, fox demon, fox spirit, France, gods, home city, Hong Kong, horseback riding, Huang Bo, immoral, immortal, India, Ji Fa, King Yi, Kris Phillips hostage-son, Kunlun, leader Jiang Ziya, Li Xuejian, massacre, Ming, monsters, moral, murder, myth, Narana Erdyneeva, Nezha, patrirachy, points of the compass, Queen Jiang, reanimation, rebellion, revolt, righteous, seduction, self-centred, Shang, sorcerer, stone dragon, Su Daji, Su Hu, succession, suicide, supernatural, Tim Yip, Tippett Studio, tomb, underground, upright, US, vixen demon, white fox, woodland, Wu Yafan, Wuershan, Xu Huanshan, Xu Zhonglin, Yang Jian, Yin Shou, Yu Shi, Yuan Quan, Zhaoge

Movies Features Live Action

Vampire
Vs
Vampire
(Yi Mei Dao Ren,
一眉道人)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date May 31 2023
No Comments on Vampire
Vs
Vampire
(Yi Mei Dao Ren,
一眉道人)

Vampire Vs Vampire (Yi Mei Dao Ren, 一眉道人)

Director – Lam Ching-ying – 1989 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 87m

***1/2

A Taoist priest must defeat various supernatural forces including a Western-style vampire occupying a coffin in an old church – out on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday, May 22nd as part of Eureka! Video’s Hopping Mad: The Mr. Vampire Sequels

Turned into a star by playing the Taoist priest who fights off jiangshi (hopping corpses) in the Mr. Vampire films, Lam went on to play similar characters in films and TV for the rest of his career until his death at age 44 in 1997. He directed this particular film himself, and while it sits easily alongside the ‘official’ Mr. Vampire entries, it’s a little bit different.

Once again, Lam’s Taoist priest and two bumbling assistants Hoh (Chin Siu-ho) and Fong (Lui Fong) battle with ghosts and other supernatural forces. First up is a ghost made up of excrement and teeth which escapes from imprisonment in a jar exposed to too much moonlight, which trope inverts Western vampire lore about burning up in sunlight.

Given directorial reins, Lam shows surprisingly little interest in jiangshi, their presence consisting of one friendly child (Lam Jing-wang) inspired by Mr.… Read the rest

Tags action, assistant, banana tree sprit, bats, Billy Lau, boyfriend, brothel, burning up, candles, Chan Suet-man, child, chills, Chin Siu-ho, church, church roof infestation, colonialism, comedy, corpse, cross, East and West, excrement, female vampire, Fong (Lui Fong, ghost, gothic, gothic female vampire, Hammer Films, Hong Kong, hopping corpse, jiangshi, Joanna Chan, Lam Ching-ying, Lam Jing Wa, Maria Cordero, mayhem, mirror, missionary Christianity, moonlight, mother superior, Mr. Vampire, nuns, period, priest, proselytise, red candles, red dress, red rope, Regina Kent, rope bridge, Sandra Ng, slapstick, sound effects, spooky, stake, stunts, sunlight, supernatural, swamp, Taoist priest, teeth, thrills, Tom And Jerry, tomb, undead corpses, vampire, vampire lore, Western vampire lore, Western-style vampire, wire work, Yip So, Yuen Biao