Stick your nose into a copy of our “Music + Travel Worldwide: Touring the Globe Through Sounds and Scenes” and you’ll find at least a dozen global destinations, each of them home to a particular strain of music, a subculture supported by a localized cluster of clubs, record stores, venues, and hangouts. But though places like Melborne’s Pony club ... Read More »
Tag Archives: Europe
Picasso in Arles: A Modern Master Follows in the Footsteps of Van Gogh
We’ve gone on and on both on this blog and in our recently released “ART + TRAVEL EUROPE: Step into The Lives of Five Famous Painters” about Vincent Van Gogh’s troubled but productive time in Arles on the western edge of the Provence region of southern France that spanned from early 1888 to mid 1889. But Van Gogh was ... Read More »
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Real-Life Hogwart’s Locations
So, it was not without some measure of child-like excitement that we flipped through the recently released shots of the soon-to-open Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. There’s just something about J.K. Rowling’s creation—the books, the movies, the toy wands—that turns even skeptical muggle adults into wide-eyed kiddies. Certainly, the pictures of ... Read More »
Jordan’s “Ondine” Trailer Offers Great Looks of The Emerald Isle
Is the title character in the forthcoming Neil Jordan film a mermaid, a “selkie”, or just some lady who got lost between pier #5 and pier #6? In “Ondine”, fisherman and father Colin Farrell catches a soaking wet Alicja Bachleda in his nets, prompting mystery, intrigue, and some interesting turns toward Irish mythology. While we’ll all have to wait ... Read More »
R.I.P. Miramax: Our Five Favorite Locations From Three Decades of Big-Budget Arthouse Classics
Miramax, the once-pugnacious arthouse Hollywood indie studio that fought and clawed its way into mainstream success, quietly closes today after 31 years of bringing the great vistas of the world to American moviegoers. It’s been a long, slow death for the firm that, under the direction of the uncompromising, often combative Weinstein brothers, went from a small distributor, to ... Read More »
Cracked Finds Butts in Bruegel, Easter Eggs Elsewhere in Art
God bless the juvenile minds over at Cracked for going on a rather tawdry “Easter Egg hunt” in the European classics. They find a gigantic brain in Michaelangelo’s “Sistine Chapel” fresco (1475-83), porn in the same artist’s “Last Judgement” (1534-1541), and, yes, bared backsides in Bruegel the Elder’s “Netherlandish Proverbs” (1559, left). It’s a touch “The Da Vinci Code”, but ... Read More »
Movies in Malta
It’s a tiny island off the coast of Italy, but the Malta has had its fair share of starring roles in blockbusters with big-name stars like Brad Pitt and Madonna. The capital city of Valletta, with its pristine ancient and medieval architecture has been transformed into ancient Greece and Rome in flicks like ‘Troy‘, ‘Gladiator‘ and ‘Alexander‘. If you ... Read More »
The Scene in Six Sounds: Sweden
If you believe international stereotypes, Sweden is filled entirely about busty blondes with experimental social outlooks, saunas, snow, and dodgy Eurovision-influenced pop bands (which may, or may not include ABBA, depending on your definition of ‘dodgy’). More recently, though, this particular corner of Scandinavia’s been home to some enviable rock, too. James Hendicott braved the cold to give it all ... Read More »