News

The Leopard: a truly great movie

Ask any Marxist film fan (say, me) to name their top ten movies and I’d guarantee that Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard would be on it.

SkinnyMan: a voice for tower block dreamers

SkinnyMan has been a stalwart of the underground British hip-hop scene for years, working with his crew Mud Family.

Rock Against Racism: a new fanzine for a new movement

In March Love Music Hate Racism organised a tremendously successful gig at London’s Astoria.

See the world in new, exciting ways

THE EDINBURGH Festival is the biggest arts event in the world.

Taking arts to parts others can’t reach

THE EDINBURGH People’s Festival was set up two years ago by a diverse group of artists and political activists.

Mercury has nasty side-effects

IT’S MERCURY Music Prize nominations time again. So the papers have been gushing about how music in Britain is incredibly rich and varied.

Spider-Man 2 | Status Symbols: Identity and Belief on Modern Badges

Spider-Man 2Directed by Sam Raimi Spider-Man is a superhero we can all identify with. Peter Parker, the teenager who becomes the superhero, is an impoverished student. He lives in a squalid flat and struggles to keep up with his rent payments.

It’s going to be hot inside the covers

The Mermaid and the Drunks Ben Richards, £6.99

The bad news that just isn’t reported

ANYONE WHO has campaigned for the Palestinian people will have come across some bizarre arguments explaining why the Israeli government should pursue its policies of repression against the Palestinians.

Bringing us all together

One Plus One Is One Badly Drawn Boy

Photo exhibition

A PHOTO exhibition opened last week in Hackney, east London, remembering the campaign for justice which followed the death of Colin Roach in January 1983.

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11

MICHAEL MOORE’S new film Fahrenheit 9/11, released in Britain on Friday of this week, has got right up the nose of the establishment. First they tried to stop us seeing this anti-Bush documentary and when that failed they attacked it by saying its facts were questionable.

Shakespeare is relevant every time

Why did you think it was important to write the book William Shakespeare: In His Times, For Our Times?

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 8 June-16 August

Longstanding socialist Chanie Rosenberg's Lips sculpture has won a place in the Royal Academy's prestigious summer exhibition. If you want to visit the exhibition it is at Burlington House, London, W1J. Nearest tube Piccadilly Circus.

A sonic assault on George W Bush

Sonic Nurse Sonic Youth

Some deaths more equal than others

On 2 March, over 270 Iraqis were massacred in a series of horrific bomb attacks in Kerbala and Baghdad. The BBC's Six O'Clock News devoted less than ten seconds to the atrocity. By contrast, the Madrid train bombings on 11 March, which killed around 200 people, received continuous, impassioned coverage for more than two weeks.

RESPECT - What seven letters mean

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me." When Aretha Franklin belted out those eight simple words in the summer of 1967 the music world was turned upside down.

The Day After Tomorrow: what if this film is not fiction?

Abrupt climate change has been a growing topic of concern for climate scientists. They fear that global warming could shut down the "ocean conveyor" that warms the North Atlantic, plunging Europe and parts of North America into Siberia-like conditions within a few decades or even years.

Gilad Atzmon: 'Zionism is my enemy'

Gilad Atzmon wanders on stage in Brighton tugging on a customary cigarette. "Smoking kills," he announces. "But Blair kills more." On clarinet or saxophone, Gilad is now among the top UK-resident jazz musicians, winning awards and plaudits from all corners. Last year his Exile album won both the Radio 3 and Time Out awards for jazz album of the year.