From the category archives:

2011

George East’s Top Ten Films of 2011

February 26, 2012

You thought I’d forgot.   But no, I’ve decided that unlike my top albums and gigs lists, that this final review of the year should take up its appropriate place in the film awards season.     The Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Cesars have been awarded.  Tomorrow night will see the Oscars; today my definitive list. 2011 may [...]

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Queen of the Mountains Award 2011

January 4, 2012

Our King, or in this case Queen, of the Mountains Award goes to the person who has seen their reputation or status grow the most over the year.  Last year, it went to Diego Forlan, the one time mediocre Man United player who shined in the World Cup for Uruguay. This year, our choice comes [...]

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King of The Valleys Award 2011

January 4, 2012

This Award goes to the individual or institution which has seen their reputation or status fall the most in the course of last year.     In 2011, there could only really be one winner of this award, step forward…Dominique Strauss-Khan. A year ago high life loving DSK was the managing director of the IMF during the world’s [...]

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Prat of the Year Awards 2011

January 3, 2012

 Here at All That’s Left, we can’t yet quite run to a star-studded evening to celebrate our prestigious end of 2011 awards.  So, get yourself a glass and a packet of dry-roasted peanuts and use your imagination as we recognise the biggest prats of 2011. As an extra prize, if the award itself isn’t enough, [...]

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Villain Of The Year Award 2011

January 3, 2012

2011 was a good year for villainy – the bankers, the politicians, the newspaper magnates, the Middle East dictators all earned our displeasure with their dastardly deeds. 2011 was also the year we saw the end of two of the World’s great villains – Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi. But dying is not enough [...]

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Hero of The Year Awards 2011

January 3, 2012

That time is upon as again.   The time for our annual awards.   There have been 52 weekly winners of each of our Prat, Hero and Villain awards in the course of 2011.  But our annual awards are more than simply totting up the number of weekly awards won.  Instead it is a question of looking [...]

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George East’s Top Ten Albums of 2011

January 1, 2012

The last 12 months were not a vintage year for music by any means.  However, what I found when going through the albums I had bought this year and listening to them again for the purposes of compiling this list, is that while there were not many great albums, there were plenty of  really good [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Amy Winehouse

December 31, 2011

We wrote at the time of Amy Winehouse’s death in July about what a grievous loss her death was to music, and despaired at politicians trying to make capital out of her death to push their own narrow social-conservative agenda when her body was hardly cold. With all the headlines over the years, her talent [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Elizabeth Taylor

December 30, 2011

By the time she died in March this year she was a slightly absurd figure and had been so for three decades or more.  Overly made up, overly jewelled up, the Queen of conspicuous consumption – an appropriate friend for that most ridiculous of all megastars of recent years, Michael Jackson.  It is not surprising [...]

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George East’s Top Ten Gigs of 2011

December 30, 2011

It is that time of year again.  Time for reviews and lists and top tens and what not.       Like last year my first top ten list will be  my favourite gigs of the year.  albums and films will follow.   2011 was a great year for live music – with some truly top drawer gigs.   Indeed [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Charlie Louvin

December 28, 2011

Ira and Charlie Loudermilk, the Louvin Brothers as they were known professionally, were pioneers of close harmony country singing. The Everly Brothers stole their act and popped up the Louvins sound and the millions came rolling in. The Louvin Brothers didn’t have the Everlys puppy dog looks or pushy parents, and had to make do [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: The News of the World

December 27, 2011

A little controversial, this one maybe.   But we have ended the year with James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch still in their positions – still controlling The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and yes Sky.   Rebekah Wade so it seems has been set up in an office for a couple of years at News International’s [...]

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Sad to See You Leaving 2011: Fred Shuttlesworth and Bill Waller

December 27, 2011

2011 saw the death of two outstanding figures from the American Civil Rights era. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth From 1956 onwards Fred Shuttlesworth (seated centre in the photo) played the role of the Birmingham, Alabama equivalent to Montgomery’s Martin Luther King.   Along with King he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that led the civil [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Gil Scott Heron

December 26, 2011

‘RIP GSH.  And we do what we do and how we do because of you’ tweeted Public Enemy’s Chuck D on hearing that Gil Scott Heron had died from pneumonia at the age of 62 on May 27.    The links between the intelligent political rap of black consciousness epitomised by Long Island’s finest and Gil [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Socrates

December 24, 2011

Perhaps, one of the greatest football matches ever played took place on the 5th July 1982, when Brazil met Italy at the Estadio Sarria, Barcelona for a place in the semi-final. Brazil had been outstanding throughout the competition, they’d hammered Scotland and New Zealand and comfortably overcame a very good team from the Soviet Union. [...]

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Sad To See You Leaving 2011: Pete Postlethwaite

December 24, 2011

Maybe he will be remembered most for playing Mr Kobayashi, the lawyer, in The Usual Suspects or the band leader in Brassed Off but for me his greatest film performance was the one that originally made his name as a film actor: as the violent father of a working class Liverpool family in Terence Davies’ hugely [...]

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