Reviews
Katie Colombus
For the headliners of the Women Of The World Festival at London's Southbank Centre, there is less feisty feminism put on for show than you might expect. It's a nod to how far things have progressed - that other than the obligiatory thanksgiving for "being a loud woman on a stage of loud women plus a man who loves women", it's strength of self belief in the artists of tUnE-yArDs that lets us know what they believe in - and it's truly inspiring. It's testament to their credence that they are this strong in themselves, their musical talents, their creativity and their confidence to be able to Read more ...
David Nice
Shock and Shakespeare were the two forces that powered a typically thoughtful programme from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I said as much in a pre-performance talk where the links weren’t hard to find: that also means coming clean at the start about my involvement. But the world needs to know about this one. With no intention to write about the event, I found myself too astonished to keep quiet by the brilliant work of Brazilian Carlos Miguel Prieto, a conductor I haven’t encountered before, and struck afresh by the top-notch invention in James MacMillan’s The Berserking, now 25 years Read more ...
Simon Munk
Skateboarding, in games and in movies, has always been presented as quite a laidback sport. This couldn't be further from that idea – it's a "twitch" arcade stick-and-button mangler that adeptly balances risk and reward and will wring hardened players for beads of sweat.Like the original, its name an apparent mangling of the skateboarding term for a jump, "Ollie", and perhaps the cycling spectator's imperative "Allez! Allez!", OlliOlli 2 is a side-scrolling arcade blast. Your diminutive skater speeds through levels covered in increasingly unlikely hazards, the concept being you're ripping Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Adolescence, youth culture and rebellion – often luridly and violently expressed – are the stocks in trade of American director Gregg Araki, who has one of the most distinctive voices in US cinema. But while Araki’s work has tended to exist on the fringe, White Bird In a Blizzard feels like a tiptoe into the mainstream – and the journey seems to have seriously neutered that voice.Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke and set in the late Eighties, it centres on Kat Conners (Shailene Woodley), a suburban 17-year-old whose teenage growing pains are exacerbated by the sudden and unexplained Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
We get the big city views of Chicago, the bright lights and the skyscrapers, a few times in Kim Longinotto’s Dreamcatcher, but for the most part we’re planted firmly down at street level, in areas of town probably you wouldn’t want to go to, a fair amount of the time at night. That’s where we first meet the film’s protagonist Brenda Myers-Powell (though I don’t think we ever actually hear her addressed by her surname), who’s cruising the streets, handing out condoms to any prostitute she can find. What she’s really offering, though, is advice – the advice of one who has herself managed to Read more ...
Heidi Goldsmith
Mari Kvien Brunvoll - Norwegian improviser, singer and composer - enters the Kings Place stage more like a pianist's page-turner than the night's sole performer, and sits cross-legged at her pedals. Dressed in a neutral dark grey, she doesn't seek applause so instead we are left silently watching her adjust a microphone and untie a little red book. Her methodical calm creates a patient audience, intrigued enough to find her subtle actions compelling. Without a word she begins singing a rhythmic melody, as if a phrase of Indian classical recitation had been uttered, and traveled from the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
This venue is one of the coolest in London — and its regular audience is both trendy and well-heeled. In the foyer, you get jostled by a better class of person. For this immersive show, written by the prolific and ever-inventive Mike Bartlett, the audience arrives and, after getting its tickets, is divided into four groups: A, B, C and D. Each group is then summoned by tannoy to enter the theatre though a different entrance. Yes, this is not a theatre show — it is a game show.Once inside, we are each given a set of headphones and seated on benches, which are arranged on the four sides of a Read more ...
Barney Harsent
I first saw Spectres last October at the 10th birthday celebrations for their label, Sonic Cathedral. That night, they struck me as noisy, spiky and fun. If that sounds like faint praise, it really wasn't meant to be – noisy, spiky fun is in my all-time top three funs. Now, they've gone from bottom of the bill to headline act in less than six months on the back of an album so incendiary it should come wrapped in a fire blanket (well, it beats a tote bag any day) and, oh my… how they have grown. Really, this band’s development needs to be measured in cat years.They step out, plug in and the Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Here is an exhibition that tells us how something we now take totally for granted actually came about: how our love affair with the Impressionists was masterminded by an art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922). He was a prime mover in inventing the way art is dealt with by commercial galleries and even museums, and is credited as the inventor of the modern art market.It is to Durand-Ruel, we discover, that we owe the parade of public retrospective monographic exhibitions devoted to single artists and accompanied by catalogues, publicity, private views, critics, and general furore and hubbub Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Oscar winner Julianne Moore: the phrase has been a long time coming but it finally came true 10 days ago when the actress, long considered one of Hollywood's best and brightest, added an Academy Award to her groaning mantelpiece of trophies for her work in Still Alice. Is this actually the finest performance yet given by the flame-haired 54-year-old? Probably not (Far From Heaven, anyone?), and Still Alice – an entirely well-meaning venture that inspires admiration more than actual affection – is some way from the most memorable movie to yet showcase Moore's gifts.But as a Columbia Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The owl – symbol of wisdom, harbinger of death – is a powerful if disparate symbol in human mythology worldwide. But this outstanding visual essay provided a riveting array of astonishing facts to make of the bird something even more remarkable than the myth.The species (all 240 varieties) is a great survivor, at home on all the continents bar Antartica, inhabitating the world from the frozen north to the desert, with home county barns in between. The film alternated touchy-feely moments as the charming bird obsessives, Lloyd and Rose Buck, raised barn owl sisters Luna and Lily from Read more ...
Matthew Wright
“Something strident and stirring – play to us now, please!” demands Martin Clunes’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the piano-playing vicar’s wife, on apprehending that their conversation is being eavesdropped on. Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly have responded more adeptly to frustrate the eavesdropper, and as Conan Doyle’s pursuit of the intruder leads him to a sinister, candle-lit shrine containing the vicar’s daughter’s long-lost favourite doll, it’s clear that ITV has a new thriller both strident and stirring on its hands.The story is based on historical events surrounding George Edalji, Read more ...