America
The Big YearThursday, 01 December 2011
There are times when one marvels that some films ever get the green light; whether it's difficult subject matter, unknown leads or first-time directors, they each have their own, different hurdles to cross with studios more interested in the bottom... Read more... |
CD: The Black Keys - El CaminoWednesday, 30 November 2011
For a couple of uber-hip rock nerds, The Black Keys do often still make pretty conventional music. After flirting with hip hop on the Blakroc project (and some of that mentality rubbing off on 2010’s release, Brothers), it’s back to straightforward... Read more... |
Money: Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? BBC TwoWednesday, 30 November 2011
It’s not long until we’re told, “There is enough money in the world to make everyone in the world a millionaire.” And if everyone was? Utopia and freedom might not be inevitable. Inexorable price rises would restore some sort of balance. Or a crash... Read more... |
The Underbelly Project: New YorkTuesday, 29 November 2011
New York, late August 2010I am at the opening of a swanky new gallery. Around me, the latest daubs by the hottest names adorn the walls of room after room. It’s worth mentioning a couple of discrepancies from your regular opening. This is a canapé-... Read more... |
DVD: Mildred PierceTuesday, 29 November 2011
One of the great revelations of the decade-long HBO TV invasion is that so many of their series take everything at a truly leisurely pace. Their groundbreaking MO is not to rush, as pre-millennial TV shows usually did, but to give the plot space to... Read more... |
Hats off to Randy NewmanMonday, 28 November 2011
There are many reasons to love the music of Randy Newman, who turns 68 today. For starters he’s a renowned ironist and a caustic wit who is nevertheless capable of being as emotionally straight as any heart-on-sleeve singer-songwriter. The man who... Read more... |
CD: Peter Broderick – Music for ConfluenceThursday, 24 November 2011
It sounds Vietnamese. A wordless vocal floats above bowed strings. Chiming strings drift in, shimmering. Piano notes twinkle. Musical fog, it rolls in and is then suddenly gone. “In the Valley” opens Music for Confluence. It’s a perfect evocation of... Read more... |
Josh T Pearson: the man comes to townWednesday, 23 November 2011
“My first album was a personal love letter to God,” Josh T Pearson tells me, looking like a cross between Johnny Cash and Moses. No wonder, then, that it took him 10 years to record another. On this year's release, Pearson had moved on, talking... Read more... |
MoneyballWednesday, 23 November 2011
It's a problem many a cash-strapped Premier League football manager is familiar with. The über-teams like Chelsea and Manchester United have loads more money than you, and can simply spend you out of contention. Over in California, this was what was... Read more... |
Dream HouseWednesday, 23 November 2011
Dream House’s crude selling point is the chance to see newly married couple Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz co-star as Will and wife Libby, in the film they made just before their first date. In bed and around the home their characters have moved to... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Singer Gregory PorterSaturday, 19 November 2011
Born in Los Angeles, raised by his mother in Bakersfield, and now living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, Gregory Porter's resonant baritone is one of music's wonders. Porter's Grammy-nominated debut album, Water, has earned him praise... Read more... |
How the World Began, Arcola TheatreSaturday, 19 November 2011
It’s the God factor. Although, until very recently, most British playwrights - being a secular bunch - have shied away from tackling questions of religious belief in their work, their American counterparts have had no such inhibitions. The market... Read more... |
