America
Imagine... Jeff Koons: Diary of a Seducer, BBC OneWednesday, 01 July 2015
Feelings. Whoa whoa whoa feeeelings. Just like that Morris Albert hit of the Seventies for star-crossed lovers everywhere, I lost count of the number of times I heard that word in this Alan Yentob meets Jeff Koons love-in. Or, more precisely, “... Read more... |
CD: Meg Baird - Don't Weigh Down the LightWednesday, 01 July 2015
The first thing that hits you is the voice. Simultaneously full and fragile; assured, but with a distinctive, backnote graze that runs along it like barbs on a feather shaft, it sounds, at times, as if it’s ghosting itself. As well as lending... Read more... |
Batman: Arkham KnightFriday, 26 June 2015
You crouch atop a gothic skyscraper, barely distinguishable from the gargoyles you're surrounded by. A rainy sheen dimly reflects off your armour. Your cape flaps and cracks in the wind. You dive into the city… The Arkham game series has at least... Read more... |
Imagine... Frank Gehry: The Architect Says Why Can't I?, BBC OneWednesday, 24 June 2015
The hook for Alan Yentob's portrait of the 86-year-old architect Frank Gehry was the initiation and progress of an enormous new building in a rough portside area of Sydney, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building for the business school of the University of... Read more... |
CD: Richard Thompson - StillWednesday, 24 June 2015
The songs of Richard Thompson have always been tinged with a hint of bitterness and anger, passions that are tempered by guitar paying of near-miraculous fluency. His new album, produced with brilliance and tact by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, is no... Read more... |
Station to StationSaturday, 20 June 2015
Station to Station documents the transcontinental American rail trip taken by a group of musicians, visual artists, and performers in 2013. Local artists and marching bands also contributed to the series of "happenings", often enhanced by light... Read more... |
DVD: Forty GunsWednesday, 17 June 2015
Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford camped it up superbly as 1950s Western matriarchs in Rancho Notorious and Johnny Guitar respectively. Yet they were outflanked by the steelier Barbara Stanwyck, an actress passionate about the genre. She carved a... Read more... |
DVD: SelmaTuesday, 16 June 2015
The clue is in the name: Selma, after the Alabama city that was the site of three crucial confrontations in the 1960s struggle for African-American civil rights, not King, after the eloquent spokesman and de facto leader of that struggle. Because... Read more... |
CD: Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard - Django and JimmieSunday, 31 May 2015
Merle and Willie – these kind of senior country summits can either be a bit of a coaster, all well and good underneath your tumbler of Bourbon, or actually something to write home about. Keep this one away from the liquor. It’s produced by Buddy... Read more... |
DVD: WildFriday, 29 May 2015
Wild is solid, but Reese Witherspoon wasn’t necessarily the best choice to play a woman who took a 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail – from the Mojave Desert to the Bridge of Gods, which links Oregon to Washington State – to banish her... Read more... |
BB King: 'I play the way I'm feeling'Friday, 15 May 2015
B B King was the greatest blues guitarist of the age. Many contemporary rockers credit him as a formidable inspiration, from Mick Jagger to Eric Clapton to Bono. But when I met him in 2006, the then 83-year-old musician had a different perspective... Read more... |
World War Two: 1945 and the Wheelchair President, BBC FourThursday, 14 May 2015
More than an hour and a half, and not a moment too long: this moving and enlightening visual essay was a near-perfect example of broad brush modern history, enlivened by telling detail. It was a curiously intense history, written and narrated... Read more... |
