America
ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads, Netflix review - a story well told but marred by clichéd styleSaturday, 28 March 2020
Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson’s reputation was much enhanced by the story – never substantiated – that he’d met with the devil one night at a crossroads, and was miraculously taught exquisite guitar licks that astounded his juke-joint... Read more... |
Album: Pearl Jam - GigatonFriday, 27 March 2020
Eddie Vedder’s maturing from a mumbling, suspicious victim-star of grunge into a wise elder statesman leading the last convincing big rock band has been heartening. This first Pearl Jam album in seven years rings sonic changes with the machine drums... Read more... |
The Two Killings of Sam Cooke, Netflix review - civil rights and singing in an unjust worldWednesday, 25 March 2020
The Two Killings of Sam Cooke is a programme of multiples, a film which plays with doubles, divergences, and different narrative strands. It begins almost as if it will become a true crime investigation into a life cut short, moves into a more... Read more... |
Album: Waxahatchee - Saint CloudWednesday, 25 March 2020
Waxahatchee’s fifth album wasn’t intended as an escapist fantasy. Written shortly after Katie Crutchfield decided to get sober, Saint Cloud documents a journey towards self-acceptance; one woman’s reckoning with her past and its impact on the people... Read more... |
I and You, Hampstead Theatre review - now streaming online, this YA play is oddly pertinentTuesday, 24 March 2020
The way that theatres and other arts institutions have leapt into action over the past week, providing a wealth of material online and new ways to connect with audiences, has been truly inspirational. Yesterday, the Hampstead Theatre re-released on... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Kansas CityTuesday, 24 March 2020
After Robert Altman re-established his critical reputation with The Player in 1992, he directed nine more films – including two of his most ambitious multiple-character works, Short-Cuts (1993) and Gosford Park (2001).In terms of notable speaking... Read more... |
Sondheim at 90 Songs: 1 - 'I'm Still Here'Monday, 23 March 2020
Surely there’s never been a more apt time for Sondheim’s great cry of defiance? “I’m Still Here” is sung by showgirl-turned-actress Carlotta in Follies (1971) – added during the Boston try-out in place of “Can That Boy Foxtrot”. Loosely... Read more... |
Sondheim at 90: adults will listenSunday, 22 March 2020
Here's an irony worthy of the work of Stephen Sondheim, an artist who clearly knows a thing or two about the multiple manifestations of that word. On the same day that he turns 90, namely today, Broadway is unable to host the keenly awaited American... Read more... |
Sunnyside, Sky Comedy review - the immigrant experience and the American dreamTuesday, 17 March 2020
The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom... Read more... |
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am review - a fitting tribute to a masterful storytellerFriday, 13 March 2020
When the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison died last year, it was a chance to celebrate the remarkable life of a storyteller who shook the literary establishment. Her work, including her debut novel The Bluest Eye, broke radical new... Read more... |
RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 12, Netflix review - 13 queens up the gameMonday, 09 March 2020
As RuPaul's best squirrel friend Michelle Visage, co-doyenne of the amused and amusing judges, put it, "that was some next-level shit". She was referring to a high point in the contest's weekly lip sync-ing finales, right at the end of the new... Read more... |
Onward review - do you believe in magic?Friday, 06 March 2020
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... Read more... |
