Interspersal programmes – or “mind melds”, as I like to call them – can sometimes open up new vistas of listening and sometimes be tokenistic piffle. Happily, Monday morning’s EIF programme from the Gringolts Quartet (pictured below by Tomasz Trzebiatowski) was the first of those, mostly. Their idea was to take the four movements of Schubert’s final string quartet and to intersperse them with three pieces for string quartet by György Kurtág, the objective being, in Ilya Gringolts’ words, to bring Kurtág’s lyricism to the fore. The EIF isn’t doing much to commemorate Kurtág’s centenary Read more ...

Modesty is the last refuge of fantasy franchises once too big to fail. Much like The Mandalorian and Grogu and Captain America: Brave New World, Supergirl is a scaled-back sf story with minor-league villains and a manageable quest. Two films into James Gunn’s DC Extended Universe reboot, it already feels like a fill-in.It’s still a long way from last orders in the pub crawl glimpsed when Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock) cameoed in Superman as she continues her interstellar 23rd birthday party. The cousin of Kal-El/Superman (David Corenswet) is more like his surly kid sister, exasperated Read more ...

SASKIA BARON1 One Battle After Another2. Sinners3 It was Just an Accident4  Palestine 365  Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight6  April7 Motherboard8 Holy Cow9 The Brutalist10 Pillion It was hard work finding ten films I wholly loved this year, and even then, these have flaws (particularly the last third of The Brutalist).  But I’m pleased to find that five of my favourite films were directed by women, each exploring very different genres, and that Sinners and One Battle After Another were such densely visual treats they required repeated viewings. JUSTINE Read more ...