Yarn and Glue: Joanna Newsom

Advantages: She yodels, plays a damn fine piece of harp, but isn't actually a weirdo
Disadvantages: She yodels, she plays a damn fine piece of harp?

...Yarn and Glue: Joanna Newsom Every year when the music awards are given out, there is always one artist who you've never heard of; someone who has garnered critical acclaim, but yet hasn't broken into the popular subconscious. Joanna Newsom is a fine example of this brand of artist. With the release of her second album proper 'Ys' (pronounced "ees") in 2006, her name quickly became tossed around in musical circles as being someone it was clever to like. She made her way into several 'best of' lists for the year, and has been nominated for several major awards, all without her music getting a single piece of airplay, so it seemed. How come such a loved artist has never managed to make it onto the radio? In Newsom's case, there is a simple answer: she's a harpist. Born in the 1980's within the confusingly named Nevada City...

Seresecros 04.11.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Joanna Newsom

FREE DVDs

Advantages: Free trial, large choice, post included,new realeases
Disadvantages: see review

...I like movies and I like freebies, so when you get offered both in one swoop you?re bound to accept! I used my two week free trial with this company and remained with them for a couple of monthsbefore moving on to try many other companies free trials (and winning a new DVD player on Tesco DVD rental site on their free trial offer). I then had an email from DVDs 365 asking me to go back, and offering me a free DVD if I did so. I had just left Tesco (with my new DVD player) so I chose to go back with them. ∆◊◊ THE SERVICE THEY OFFER ∆◊◊ Basically it?s like going to a video shop and hiring films on DVD, except you don?t pay for each film you chose ? rather a monthly fee for which you can watch as many movies as you can fit in, for us this is usually around 8 a month (2 a week usually weekends...

dabmim 15.11.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of dvds365.com

Joanna

Advantages: *
Disadvantages: *

......

Hirudo 10.06.2007 (30.10.2007) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Joanna Newsom

Surprising Picture Quality - Panasonic DVD-S54

Advantages: Incredible picture quality when compared to my old non-upscaling player with a scart lead
Disadvantages: Sometimes disc drive can be really noisy when DVD's initially load.

...At first I wasn't convinced by up-scaling DVD player technology but was persuaded after reading an article in "What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision" magazine. Unable to afford a Blu-Ray player my sister and I bought the Panasonic DVD-S54 to match our parents brand new Panasonic TX-32LZD80 LCD television as their Christmas 2008 present. Admittedly it was a slightly selfish purchase as we both live at home and wanted to watch DVDs on the big new TV ourselves! We bought the player from the electrical retailer Comet for about £100 just before Christmas so there were no discounts applied. On Christmas day when opened we found a relatively small box tightly packed with the player in polystyrene packaging. All the components such as cables, remote and manuals were well presented in their own protective plastic bags, to keep them protected. The player...

bobbacon985 12.02.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Panasonic DVD-S54

VAN HELSH**

Advantages: Great theme tune and some good action sequences.
Disadvantages: Overuse of CGI, bad writing and a waste of money.

...I went to see Van Helsing the past weekend and I wasn't all that impressed. I mainly went to see the film because it looked good from the trailer and the fact that it was made by the director of one of my favourite films 'The Mummy'. It just shows you how important trailers are nowadays to the movie industry. Even a crap film with a good trailer can do well. For example Charlie Angels: Full Throttle, what a bad film, but it had an excellent trailer with that loud prodigy music blarring. Anyway back to Van Helsing. The movie opened in the U.S with about 50 something million dollars in total and will probably make a lot next week too. Though I'm not sure it will make it's £180 million budget back in America alone. This flick will have to take some hard earned cash from the worldwide box-offce. The Story Basically Van Helsing is...

ralfschumacher 12.05.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Van Helsing (DVD)

Van for the Money

Advantages: Tremendous fun that doesn't take itself seriously
Disadvantages: Shoddy CGI in places, more plot holes than a colander

...Gabriel Van Helsing is a Vatican-sponsored monster hunter sent to Transylvania to aid the Valerios family?s quest to destroy the evil Count Dracula. Once there, Van Helsing discovers Dracula?s nefarious plot to take over the world. The question is, can he save the world and get the girl when he has vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein?s monster to deal with too? Director Stephen Sommers brought us the hugely enjoyable ?Mummy? movies and here he plunders Universal Pictures? back-catalogue for a tale that incorporates all of the studio?s best-loved monsters. Sommers isn?t known for his subtlety and this film is no different. It is chock-full of big action set-pieces, dashing heroes and occasionally dodgy special effects. But it is a rollicking good Saturday matinee movie with enough thrills and spills to keep you cheering the heroes...

afy9mab 13.06.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Van Helsing (DVD)

Van Wilder

Advantages: Some funny scenes, Ryan Reynolds plays his part well.
Disadvantages: Not really bringing anything new to the genre.

...Van Wilder: Party Liaison is a comedy film starring Ryan Reynolds and Tara Reid with Kal Penn and Daniel Cosgrove the most notable supporting cast. Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) has been at Coolidge College for seven years and has shown no intention of graduating. He is enjoying his time there and spends it partying, helping his fellow students and organising parties and fundraisers. Understandably, Van's father no longer wishes to pay for his 'education' and withdraws his funding. As Van is the big man on campus, the college paper journalist, Gwen (Tara Reid) is asked to write a paper on him and his exploits. This is such a success that she writes a follow up paper. Van attempts to romance Gwen but she is already involved with Richard (Daniel Cosgrove) so the two men start up a rivalry with one another which results in them playing...

dandadda 06.03.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Van Wilder: Party Liaison (DVD)

Listen Now to Joanna MacGregor

Advantages: MacGregor's chameleon-like arrangements render every piece interesting, appealing.
Disadvantages: She remains in obscurity in the US.

...demanded royalties for use of Cage's four-and-a-half minutes of *silence*, a situation I found extremely hilarious for its absurdity about the ownership of silence. (For the story, see end of article for link.) I myself have been hardly curious about contemporary music--until recently, that is, thanks to the tireless efforts of progressive, innovative, classically-trained (Oxford) British pianist Joanna MacGregor (b. 1959). The doors to new music have been flung wide for this listener. As have those to jazz, fusion, ethnic and world music?the kinds that don't necessarily make it to your Putumaya world music discs--and take up negligible space in the classical music racks. Released on SoundCircus in 2001, PLAY represents the wide-ranging musical interests of the pianist, and what a fascinating and broad selection are they! From...

zerbine28 17.10.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Play - Joanna MacGregor

Van-tastic

Advantages: Brilliant script writing that keeps the film flowing.
Disadvantages: Wish I had a personal assistant...

...Introduction - My friend Tim introduced to the film, he clearly had a misconception about what University (English version of College) would be like, turns out his false ideas all spawned from one film, Van Wilder: Part liaison. The film was released in 2002 as a comedy and was directed by Walt Beckers. The lead male role is played by Ryan Reynolds, an at the time fairly new actor who has since continued to play similar comedy based roles in films such as 'Just Friends'. Tara Reid plays the lead female role, best know for her performances in the American Pie films and Cruel Intentions. Plot - The film starts as it means to go on, we see Vance (Van) Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) standing with an old Chinese lady kneeling down in front of him, but we only see the top half of her head. Accompanying this rather suggestive scene are some...

B_O_M_B_A 25.09.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Van Wilder: Party Liaison (DVD)

Social history the Flemish way at the Huis Van Alijin

Advantages: an interesing little museum
Disadvantages: not groundbreaking

...Familiarity breeds contempt so they say, but sometimes it can also be very comfortable. Recently whilst in Ghent I visited the Huis Van Alijin Museum of Folklore and found it to be very much the latter. The Huis van Alijin Museum is housed in some charming almshouses that surround a central courtyard located opposite Ghent's main canal. These medieval almshouses came about in a very romantic but tragic way. In the fourteenth century there were two rival families in the cloth trade. These were the Alijins and the Rijms. The Rijms murdered two of the Alijins and due to this the Rijms were sentenced to death but were pardoned as long as they founded almshouses to provide shelter for poor elderly women. The houses were bought by the city council in 1959 to house the museum of folklore's collection. I found my welcome to...

duskmaiden 13.12.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Alijn House (Het Huis van Alijn), Ghent