Arts

New James Bond film - details announced today

The title of the 23rd James Bond movie is set to be released later today. Rumoured to be entitled Skyfall (Sony registered around a dozen URL domain names referring to Skyfall and James Bond last month), the latest installment will feature Daniel Craig for the third time. Spanish actor Javier Bardem has confirmed that he will play a villain in the new movie due to be released in autumn 2012.

The film will be directed by Sam Mendes of American Beauty fame, and it has been suggested that much of...

Lou Reed & Metallica album 'Lulu' worst album of all time?

Many of you will have seen the posters around Munich advertizing the new Lou Reed and Metallica album, Lulu. The bewilderment generated by the bizarre pairing seems to be commonplace. What happens when you cross metal legends with one of the best lyricists of our time? The result is, quite simply, horrific.

Based on the work of 20th-century German expressionist playwright Frank Wedekind and including some challenging lyrics from Lou Reed, the idea is esoteric, but without any sense of union....

James Bond 23 to be called Skyfall

Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney are just two of the stars who will join Daniel Craig in the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, it has been revealed.

French actress Berenice Marlohe will add glamour to the film, which will be distributed by Sony Pictures (following MGM's bankruptcy in November last year) and eagle-eyed fans were quick to point out that Sony registered several domains entitled Skyfall last month. Producer Michael Wilson said that the name for the movie was "the worst kept secret in...

Bavarians are happier than elsewhere in Germany

Southern Bavaria received third place Tuesday in the 'German happiness rating'. The least happy are the people in Thüringen.  Franconia which is in northern Bavaria made fourth place.

The research is based on a survey from the Institute of Demoskopie Allensbach. The researchers considered various factors such as income, job, family, health and culture into consideration.

Bavaria has the strongest economy, which evidently influences satisfaction in life. The gross income is around 61,000...

Golden Globe Awards

Science-fiction blockbuster "Avatar" took top honours at the 67th Golden Globes on Sunday, winning best picture and director to cement its status as an Oscars front-runner. Hollywood icon Meryl Streep scooped a record seventh Golden Globe win for her portrayal of television chef Julia Child in "Julie & Julia." The acting awards saw popular honors going to veterans Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock.  Bullock took best drama actress prize for her portrayal of an inspirational mentor in "The...

German film "White Ribbon" wins Golden Globe

The German film The White Ribbon, directed by Michael Haneke, about strange incidents in a small village on the eve of World War I, has won the prize for best foreign-language film at the 67th Golden Globe awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night. Last year the German black-and-white film won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Prize, reports Deutsche Welle. "The White Ribbon" was filmed in eastern and northern Germany and tells the story of guilt,...

Munich Blade Night 2010

Monday, 3rd May sees thousands of inline skaters come to take part in the popular inline skaters city tour, Munich Blade Night.

The Green City and Sports Department in 2010 won the health insurance company AOK as a cooperation partner. This "insurance contribution" will definitely secure 18 Blade Nights this year, says Jörg Senning, who in 1999 started the event in Munich with the city authorities. Since then, Sports Departments head Rudolf Behacker hass also become a big fan of this...

The Icing on the Cake

After Carrie Bradshaw bit into a delicate, decadent cupcake on Sex and the City, it wasn't long before the trend hit European shores. Unfortunately, the German coast isn't very long, so it was a while before Germany caught on. Berlin, trend-capital of the country, has seen independent cupcake shops spring up over the last year and thankfully, two former digital marketing experts in Munich have said goodbye to their corporate careers and hello to sugar, spice and everything cupcake.

Iris...

A Beautiful Compromise - Not For The Faint-hearted

REVIEW: A Beautiful Compromise by Peter McCoy; performed 27-29 May 2011 at Schwere Reiter Theater, Munich.

The audience sits staring into a dark fog-laden stage, gradually silhouetted figures emerge, the rustling becomes a syncopated, crunching rhythm, the lights come on and we behold a group of stationary figures huddled round a blue light.

Next, the "silent narrator/pantomime of fate," played by actor/dancer Makoto Sakurai, gets up from her seat in the audience and walks over to the "voice...

The Pride comes to Munich

Opening night at the BeMe theatre for the young and talented British cast directed by Tom Daley. Marcel Bruneau, Graham Dickson, Meren Vanholk and Tom McDonald brought on stage yesterday night The Pride, the first play of the awarded British playwriter Alexi Kaye Campbell. The Pride features a torrid, trans-generational love triangle. Alternating between 1958 and 2008, and featuring the same three people, forever thirty-something, living similar but radically different lives, The Pride...

100 Jahre Ballets Russes

The decadence of the Bavarian State Ballet, led by Ivan Liska as artistic director, can be seen not only in the pink velvet handrails, pink velvet chairs and huge chandelier suspended above the stalls but also onstage from the very first act; Fokine's '€œShéhérazade'€. One recalls tales of "One Thousand and One Nights" as dancers reenact a Persian love story of betrayal, jealousy and murder. The explosive colour onstage almost distracts us from the sensuous melodies of Rimski-Korsakow...

Art in Town - Freud the painter

One of the foremost figurative artists working today, Lucian Freud (born Germany 1922) is a British painter who has redefined portraiture and the nude through his psychological penetration, and his discomfiting examination of the human form and of the relationship between artist and model.

Freud's subjects are often the people in his life; friends, family, fellow painters, lovers, children. As he has said 'The subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality...