cartoon
Sarah Kent
The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at Tate Britain is to start at the end by watching Nurses Come and Go, But None For Me, a film he has just completed. It lasts nearly two hours but is worth the investment since it reveals what the rest of the work tries hard to avoid openly confronting – grief.Actor Toby Jones reads from a diary kept by Atkins’ father, Philip during the months before his death from cancer in 2009. With mordant humour, he titled it Sick Notes and, by turns, the entries are sad, funny, banal or full of pain and fury. Jones’ audience is a group of young Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.Suddenly, this magical image is rent asunder. Thunder and lightning shake the heavens and torrential rain cascades down in stair rods. Spotlights flash and dance through billowing smoke while Laurie Anderson serenades the tempest on her violin and Kenny Wollesen lashes symbols and drums into a clamorous frenzy. The Apocalypse!DEATHLY HUSH.Anderson breaks the silence. “Hi, Read more ...
The SpongeBob Musical, QEH review - musical based on popular kids' animation sinks for lack of focus
Gary Naylor
There are many things that you are not told about being a parent, a vast landscape of details that batter you with unwelcome difference from that comfortable life of Friday night prosecco and pizza. One is a whole new palette of garish colours barging into your eyeline – fluorescent yellow, eye-bleeding orange, vomity green. As quickly as you learn about this hitherto unknown spectrum that even van Gogh might think a little too much, you forget, the brain too addled by fatigue to retain any information from those shocking sleepless years. Until you go to see The SpongeBob Musical – then they’ Read more ...
Justine Elias
Superhero movies are the nearest equivalent to American holiday parades: they come along with noisy, bright regularity, and crowds either flock to them, many eager persons deep along the sidewalk, or flee to quieter neighbourhoods.The Flash, yet another foray in the DC Comics Universe (the one that contains Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman) is extraordinary only for the pre-release bad press surrounding its star, Ezra Miller, who after brushes with the law in the US and Iceland, announced that they are seeking psychiatric care.As a movie, The Flash turns out to be a mix of adequate, Read more ...
theartsdesk
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention.Enola Holmes ★★★★ Millie Bobby Brown gives the patriarchy what-for in a new Sherlock-related franchiseEternal Beauty ★★★★ Craig Roberts's fantasy conjurs surreal images and magnetic performancesI'm Thinking of Ending Things ★★★★ Charlie Kaufman's eerie road trip through love and lossLes Misérables ★★★★★ An immersive, morally complex thriller set in the troubled suburbs of present day ParisMax Richter's Sleep ★★★★ Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
The world might have changed drastically in the wake of Covid-19, but thankfully those hyperactive, candy-coloured Trolls haven’t. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are back as the delightful odd-couple, Poppy and Branch, for round two of pop-infused peppy animated adventure in the land of felt and feelings, where music can solve a myriad of problems. The first movie was a gleeful delight. Yes, it was slight on plot, but it possessed an infectious optimism and a message of love and acceptance. It wasn’t going to have the bosses at Pixar quaking in their boots, but it was an undeniable Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it begins with a separate elegy. “Long ago,” we’re told, “the world was full of wonder.” Until the day that convenience killed magic — electricity was invented, spells cast aside. Today’s mythical creatures have become ordinary: trolls run tollbooths, gnomes are garden-variety.Such is life for Onward’s heroes, the elven Lightfoot family. There’s meek Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Modern children’s films wink knowingly over kids’ heads at their paying parents, as with the Lego movies’ rapid-fire pop-culture salvos. Lino DiSalvo (Disney’s Head of Animation for Frozen) could have sulked upon receiving the apparent short straw of rival Playmobil’s toys for his directorial debut. Instead, he finds modest charm in a simpler childhood world. The live-action opening sees 18-year-old Marla (Anya Taylor-Joy) break into Disney-style song while delighting her 6-year-old brother Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) with adventurous possibilities, only for an especially perfunctory Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Manga, the Japanese art of the graphic novel, took its modern form in the 1800s. Illustrated stories already had a long heritage in Japan — encompassing woodblock prints and illustrated scrolls and novels — but the introduction of the printing press by foreign visitors changed the rate at which works could be made and the extent of their distribution.Part of manga’s appeal is its restlessness — it never gets stale. While the 1950s saw distinctions crystallise between shōnen and seinen manga (respectively for boys and young men) and shōjo manga (for girls), the 70s saw the Year 24 Group of Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s an event that only comes around once a generation: a new Matt Groening TV series. The Simpsons is rightly regarded as one of the greatest shows ever made. It changed the face of American television, and 10 years later was followed Futurama, a series that may lack the cross-demographic appeal of its predecessor, but consistently produced satirical masterpieces. Now, with a vastly changed viewing landscape, Groening makes the jump to streaming giants Netflix with his new show Disenchantment. The question is, can lightning strike thrice?On first appearances, probably not. Disenchantment is Read more ...
theartsdesk
Summer's here, which can only mean Hollywood blockbusters. But it's not all Spider-Man, talking apes and World War Two with platoons of thespians fighting on the beaches. There's comedy, a saucy menage-à-trois, a film about golf and even a ghost story. It's called A Ghost Story. We hereby bring you sneak peeks of the season's finest and more titles anticipated in the autumn (and hey, the trailer might even be the best part).AUGUSTThe Odyssey. Director: Jérôme Salle, starring Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney and Audrey Tautou. Jacques Cousteau: le movie. Released 18 AugFinal Portrait. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For some of us Blur were an irritant during the 1990s rather than one of the decade’s premier bands. However, once Gorillaz arrived it was impossible to ignore Damon Albarn’s outrageous talent any longer. His golden touch ensured his cartoon group with artist Jamie Hewlett straddled not only multi-million-selling global success, but awed critical kudos. 2010’s The Fall album did not fare so well, but seemed to be a different kind of project, more experimental, cobbled together by Albarn on tour in the States, then fired out without extra polish. Their fifth album, though, seven years later, Read more ...