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Last posts

Mysteries of Lisbon

Mónica Boixeda Lisboeta, Only-Be

One of the most exciting things to be happening at the moment in European cinema just might be Mysteries of Lisbon, the latest film from France-based Chilean director Raúl Ruiz, who carries the weight of being for many, the most important, influencial Chilean director of all time. The novelist, screenwriter, cinema director, and chess player, (amonst other things) Fernando Arrabal (Founder of the Panic Group, along with Alejandro Jodorowsky, and French painter and actor Roland Topor) once declared that the cinema of Ruiz could be labelled as “cinema for the blind.” He was taught to watch films as a blind person. They would go to the cinema each week during the period he spent living in Italy. It was this blind person who taught him that The Apartment by Billy Wilder was a better film than The Process by Orson Welles, because the former had demonstrated a better sense of architectural and spacial oppression, using the same technique of showing the ceilings in shot. The knowledge, sensitivity, and intuition of this blind person totally convinced Arrabal that the only cinema which was worth making, was that for blind people – and with that intention, he has made his extraordianary – all be it few – films. The name of this blind person who had been such a mentor for the filmmaker, was in fact, ??Jorge Luis Borges – in case you wondering. Perhaps it couldn´t be said for certain that the surreal style cinema of Raúl Ruiz is a kind of cinema for blind people – but at one point, the critics at the prestigious cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinéma have referred to it as one-eyed cinema,... read more

Tower Bridge

The Only Team Londoner, Only-Be, Practical Guide to London

Tower Bridge is one of the most beautiful in the world. It crosses the river Thames and it´s also a drawbridge. It´s very beautiful and you cannot miss it.

Yelle comes to Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

Love her or hate her, what is certain is that nobody could be indifferent to the antidote to macho rap, Julie Budet – better known by her pseudonym Yelle, which is an acronym for “You Enjoy Life” as the singer has explained in one of her many interviews. The young woman, born in 1983 in Saint-Brieuc (Brittany, France) formed a band with DJs GrandMarnier and Tepr, and resolved to rebel against the codes of today´s hip hop culture, which is dominated by macho lyrics and attitudes, which tend to refer to women simply as “bitch” and other sexually vulgar words. But Yelle is not one to be intimidated, and always has a cutting retort or response. Yelle became better known back in 2006 thanks to a track she posted on her Facebook page, which was a kind of response to the sexism which is so rife in rap music. With the title “Short Dick Cuizi” is answered back to songs by certain bands, including TTC, and its singer Cuiziner, who wrote, amongst others, a song called “Sale Pute,” which basically complained about women (all of them), and implied that they were only good for sexually pleasing men, like instruments. Obviously, Yelle didn´t take kindly to this attitude, and she responded with a song hinting at the size (or lack of) of Cuiziner´s penis. The song, later produced in a studio, and released under a different name “Je veux te voir” became a Myspace hit, with over 125,000 hits on its first day online. Yelle´s fame grew in October 2007, when she went on tour with singer Mika. The following... read more