Radiohead X Nosferatu: Why you should be excited about Silents Synced
F.W. Murnau's silent German Expressionist classic, which was based on Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and is widely regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre, will be set to Radiohead's classic albums 'Kid A' (2000) and 'Amnesiac' (2001).
This comes as part of a new series called Silents Synced. Created by Josh Frank, the series pairs iconic silent films with era-defining records.
Kicking off in the UK this autumn, the series will begin with Nosferatu – which was recently remade by Robert Eggers.
In our review of the remake, we said: 'While fans of Eggers may bemoan this pronounced reverence for the source material, especially since the director's unique sense of creativity has never felt restrained before, Nosferatu's bite will satisfy those wanting purist vampire folklore, more sexual overtones, and a lot of close-up shots of Lily-Rose Depp in states of both euphoria and agony.'
Screenings in October coincide with the 25th anniversary of 'Kid A' - a critically acclaimed album widely regarded as one of Radiohead's most ambitious.
In 2026, the second instalment of the Silents Synced series will see Buster Keaton's 1924 comedy Sherlock Jr. matched to R.E.M's albums 'Monster' (1994) and 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi' (1996).
'The question for independent cinemas all across the world has become: what can we do to not remain solely reliant on new tentpole Hollywood releases to get product and experiences people can—increasingly—often wait and get at home?' said Silents Synced creator Josh Frank.
He added: 'This has led us to something brand new out of necessity, in the same way great outsider art has always been created. It's a whole new cinema experience that we feel both film obsessives and music fans will find something really unique in.'
This is not the first time that Radiohead's music has been used to update a classic.
Last year, we reported that Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was adapting the band's 2003 album 'Hail To The Thief' for a new production of Shakespeare's play 'Hamlet'.
The production, titled 'Hamlet Hail To The Thief', sees Yorke team up with Tony and Olivier Award-winning directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones to create a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's play, described as a 'feverish new live experience, fusing theatre, music and movement'.
Yorke 'personally reworks' and orchestrates 'Hail To The Thief' for a cast of over 20 musicians and actors, and the music will be performed live during each show.
'Radiohead X Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror' will be playing in cinemas from 2 October, while 'R.E.M X Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.' will be available from 5 February 2026. Visit here for more information.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk's friendship is seemingly coming to an end after the tech billionaire pushed back against the US president's divisive One Big Beautiful Bill Act - which he called a "disgusting abomination".
Despite public support for one another, Musk's role in Trump's election campaign and his previous (and incredibly controversial) position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the bromance came crashing down due to the aforementioned bill, which proposes a range of tax cuts and changes to social programs that Musk claims would "burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt".
Trump publicly said that he was 'very disappointed with Elon', claiming the former DOGE head 'knew the inner workings' of the Big Beautiful Bill 'better than anybody' and had 'no problem with it' until he realised that the government was 'going to cut the (electric vehicle) mandate'.
Musk responded: 'False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!'
The increasingly explosive fallout continued with Trump threatening to cut Elon's government contracts, including with Tesla and SpaceX, and claimed that the CEO was "crazy".
"Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Musk promptly hit back, claiming that the President would have lost the election without his contributions to the campaign. He also agreed with an X user that Trump should be impeached. "Such ingratitude," he added.
The came the bombshell X post on Thursday, in which Musk alleged that Trump had shared a long friendship with convicted abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
'Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrup is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.' 'Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,' Musk added in a follow-up post.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed his claims in a statement, saying: "This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted."
As to be expected, the entertainment world has been reacting to this swiftly escalating public feud.
Among the first people to react to the ongoing feud was Kanye 'Ye' West, who has publicly and controversially aligned himself with Trump and Musk countless times before.
'Broooos please nooooo We love you both so much,' he posted on X.
Piers Morgan reacted to Musk's claims that Trump is in the Epstein File with a 'Holy Shit', before offering both men a platform to 'duke this out for a few hours'.
'BBB actually stands for Big Beautiful Breakup,' commented right-wing activist Laura Loomer, while conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wrote: 'God Help Us ALL….' after Musk's accusation.
Steve Bannon, a right-wing activist who has opposed Musk's role in the government, took things up a notch by telling the New York Times that Musk should be 'deported' and that the government should 'initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status.'
Elsewhere, popular politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered her take when asked about the feud: 'Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren't they?'
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff joked on X: 'Going to need a Big Beautiful Bucket of popcorn for this ugly brawl.'
Comedian, writer and TV host Jon Stewart wrote: 'Good thing Trump didn't willfully hand over the entirety of our country's operating system to Elon and his… oops.'
As for celebrated musician Jack White, who has consistently been critical of both Trump and Musk – he wrote in response to Kanye West's post: '3 fucking nazi clowns collapsing under the weight of their own unchecked egos. More popcorn gruppenfuehrer! L to R: Joseph Noballs, Yedolf Hitler, and Herman Boring. Is America 'Great' yet boys?'
Une publication partagée par Jack White (@officialjackwhite)
Another notable reaction came from Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged transgender daughter.
Wilson posted a short video of herself with the caption 'I love being proven right.'
She also posted a photo on Threads with the song 'Job Application' by Chase Icon and the caption, 'Such beauty in life.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
01-08-2025
- Euronews
Film of the Week: Luc Besson's ‘Dracula: A Love Tale' - Fangtastic?
Mere months after Robert Eggers returned vampires to their Gothic roots with Nosferatu, his stylish exhumation of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, it's now Luc Besson's turn to sharpen his fangs. "I'm not a fan of horror films," the French filmmaker recently told Le Parisien newspaper about his take, Dracula: A Love Tale, which straddles several centuries in the life of the immortal and cinematically ubiquitous blood-sucking count. "Nor of Dracula." Ah. That doesn't bode well, does it? Or maybe it's exactly what we didn't know we needed. Based on the original book by Bram Stoker, Besson focuses on Dracula's search for the reincarnation of his late wife. He kicks things off in Romania, 1480. Pillow fights, food fights, plenty of steamy sex... Prince Vladimir the Second (Caleb Landry Jones) and Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu) are two fusional lovebirds who are passionately into each other. Vlad gets called to war and after a rushed and poorly filmed fight sequence, he accidentally kebabs his beloved in a snowy field of wolf traps. He was trying to save her from an attacker, you see. Not trying to spice things up further. 'Tell God to send her back to me,' he pleads to the priest, who he promptly impales for failing to send the message in a timely manner to the Almighty. Renouncing God on the spot, Vlad is cursed, condemned to wander the centuries. 400 years later, in Paris, Christoph Waltz (a nameless man of the clergy referred to as 'Priest' but may as well be Professor Abraham Van Helsing) is called upon for a delicate case, featuring Maria (Matilda De Angelis). Her apparent sexual appetite is initially dismissed as hysteria by French doctors. However, he quickly deduces that she's a vampire, turned by her 'master' who is on the hunt for the reincarnation of his beloved. 'Sometimes pure souls can be reincarnated'. Not sure how 'pure' considering the religious morals of the time - not to mention the copious amount of fornication and food waste in the film's first act - but we make do. Before you know it, the damned and inconsolable prince, now a reclusive in his gloomy chateau populated with GCI gargoyles that may as well be Minimoy rejects, gets a lifeline. The escaped Maria may have found his princess... Her name is Mina (Bleu again), and she could be the reincarnation of his dead wife. Now looking like a boiled testicle, Vlad rejuvinates himself with some human Claret and sets out to win her over. But if he's condemned to eternal life, and therefore eternal suffering, that's not the sort of divine punishment one easily shakes off... A lovelorn incarnation of the famous vampire isn't as new as Besson seems to think it is. After all, Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula was billed as a love story, and since then, romantic devotion has always been a driving force in Bram Stoker adaptations. Indeed, this story has always been about a cursed man waiting hundreds of years to see again the only woman he has ever loved. It has always been the ultimate love story. Still, Besson colon-and-bills it 'A Love Tale' and... It's a royal mess. But a damn entertaining royal mess. Incapable of injecting tension or drawing out the horror from the story, Besson chooses to tell the tale of doomed love through the lens of a heightened fairytale. The director throws everything he has at it: tragedy, action, OTT melodrama, Danny Elfman's comically grandiose score, sexy magical elixirs, a Guillermo del Toro-esque carnival sequence, and a surprising amount of comedy. Yes, Dracula: A Love Tale is funny. Not Dracula: Dead And Loving It funny; rather, a film excelling at cartoonish and overripe comedy through committed performances by Landry Jones and his channelling of his inner Gary Oldman, the always terrific Waltz (whose delivery of the line 'She's alive. Clinically speaking' is fangtastic), and stealth MVP Matilda De Angelis. There is the niggling sense that the humour in this tonal hodgepodge is completely accidental, but it still lands. And the biggest joke of all is that this version is missing Gothic horror. Blasphemy for purists – and understandably so. For a film about the most notorious and celebrated Gothic figure in literature, a noticeable dearth of Gothic horror feels like heresy. However, in failing to create a serious meditation on love and salvation versus damnation, Besson may have inadvertently crafted a camp romp with Dracula: A Love Tale. Especially when considering the hilariously abrupt ending which has Waltz's Priest coming out of Vlad's castle and casually declaring: 'The spell is broken, everything is fine now.' CUT TO BLACK. TITLE CARD. THE END. Comedy gold. Intentional or no. So, while Dracula: A Love Tale doesn't inject too much fresh blood into the vampire myth, what it does is special. Egger's meticulous-to-a-mannered-fault approach may have been stunning, but Nosferatu ran the risk of alienating pre-existing fans yearning for less familiarity. When it comes to Besson, he risks alienating viewers for MANY other reasons. But get on his wavelength and again, accidentally or no, this may be the fated-to-be-hated high camp masterpiece of 2025. Alive and loving it. Dracula: A Love Tale is out in French cinemas now. It hits theatres in South America this month and is scheduled for release in other European territories like Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain in October.
LeMonde
01-08-2025
- LeMonde
'Dracula': Luc Besson's visual bloodbath filled with clichés and problematic female characters
Just a few months after the American filmmaker Robert Eggers released his version (Nosferatu, 2024), Luc Besson has now taken on the legendary vampire – a figure cinema has endlessly revisited and reinterpreted in line with technological advances and the obsessions of the times. By Besson's own admission, this film represents his "artistic rebirth" after a string of setbacks: financial troubles linked to his company Europacorp, which was ultimately sold, and to his ambitious film school project, the École de la Cité. These were compounded by several allegations of sexual assault, and a rape accusation that in 2023 resulted in the case being dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Although Dogman (2023) was meant to mark the start of "a new chapter," it was a resounding failure (with a budget of €20 million and fewer than 300,000 viewers). So another rebirth was needed. Enter Dracula: the story of this eternally melancholic vampire, wounded but unshakable, which inevitably takes on the quality of a self-portrait.
France 24
14-06-2025
- France 24
The city doth protest too much? Hamlet gets LA curfew exemption
Theater-goers with a valid ticket for the performance in Downtown LA were exempted from the overnight lockdown that has left much of the city center looking as ghostly as the banquet in Shakespeare's play about the prince of Denmark. "The Los Angeles Mayor's Office has updated guidance on the Downtown LA area curfew and has granted an exception to allow individuals with tickets to an indoor venue to attend that event as scheduled," said an announcement on the Center Theatre Group's website. "Center Theatre Group, The Music Center, and the surrounding streets have not been directly impacted by protest or law enforcement activity." Protests sprang up in Los Angeles last week over President Donald Trump's increased immigration raids as anger grew in the sprawling multicultural city. Violence flared, notably on Sunday when autonomous cars were set on fire and rocks were burled at police, but the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful. Trump, who has repeatedly exaggerated the scale of the protests, deployed 4,700 soldiers, including active duty Marines, in what he says is a necessary step to bring order. Opponents accuse him of a power grab and say troops have no place in policing civilian protest. A "No Kings" movement promises protests in more than 2,000 places across the country, including a large demonstration in Los Angeles, on Saturday. © 2025 AFP
