Tony Bennett The Zen Of Bennett (2012) [dvd9] {columbia}

For all the progressive tendencies of contemporary bluegrass, which at its fringes sees virtuoso musicians take on expansive improvisations that resemble breakneck jazz, bluegrass has always been a music based on the songs and traditions of the old mountain string bands, albeit boosted and given more sonic range by electricity, amps, and microphones, the very thing that allowed it to be born into the modern world. But bluegrass quite likely never would have been anything more than the old string bands on steroids were it not for Bill Monroe, who almost single-handedly gave the new genre its shape, form, and dozens of its key songs.

Tony Christie is proud to announce his first new album in over 12 years – ‘We Still Shine’. To be released on 16th February 2024 on 1CD and Digital (including Atmos), it is from the heart and sees Tony go back to his love of country music, something he has been planning to do with long-time producer and close friend Graeme Pleeth for many years. This is an album made with passion and purpose. With the planning starting shortly after his dementia diagnosis in 2021, it has been a relatively swift and highly rewarding process fully recorded in Nashville and it’s been a real family affair…

In 2009, independent video game designer Markus "Notch" Persson released a work in progress that would go on to break every industry rule for achieving success. Part exploratory adventure, part creative building tool, Minecraft evolved from a cult classic into an unprecedented hit, raking daily sales in by the thousands.

Ideas about the soul and the afterlife, of sin and God's purpose have shaped human thinking for thousands of years. Religious rituals remain embedded in the major events of our lives. In this thought-provoking series, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins asks what happens if we leave religion behind. He explores what reason and science might offer to inspire and guide our lives in religion's place. Can science bring understanding in the face of death, help us tell right from wrong, or reveal the meaning of life?

Untouched for fifty years, a family finds a bundle of letters setting them on a journey into their past, and the rediscovery of a tragic love story amid the turmoil of World War II. Bermudian, Major Toby Smith lost his life at the Battle of Overloon during the final Allied push for victory. This film weaves a haunting portrait etched in Tobys own words through the letters he lovingly and dutifully wrote his wife and five children as he agonized over loyalty to them and the war against the Nazis during four years of service abroad.