America
Masters of Sex, Channel 4Wednesday, 09 October 2013
Sexual intercourse was, famously, invented in 1963. Before that, of course, babies were delivered by beak. So Channel 4’s Sex Season marks the golden jubilee for shaggers. Perhaps there should be bunting and pageantry throughout the land. Instead we... Read more... |
Machete KillsWednesday, 09 October 2013
In a deranged world where Charlie Sheen is President of the United States, Hollywood gets a much-deserved and highly amusing roasting. Robert Rodriguez’s sequel to Machete goes straight for the jugular by mocking Hollywood's golden child, that "... Read more... |
Homeland, Series 3, Channel 4Monday, 07 October 2013
Is this the real Homeland, or a different series with the same name? The original, and fascinating, hook for the show was the question of whether Marine Sergeant Brody had been brainwashed into becoming a fanatical jihadist during his years in... Read more... |
The Blacklist, Sky LivingFriday, 04 October 2013
No brilliant new ideas? Well then, let's just boil up a compilation of a few old ones. Result? The Blacklist, a slick and surprisingly brutal spies-and-black-ops drama from NBC that speeds along blithely without an original thought in its head.A... Read more... |
PrisonersWednesday, 02 October 2013
What would you do if your six-year-old daughter vanished in broad daylight, and the man you’re sure took her is walking free? The answer for Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman, pictured bottom left) is as plain as the paranoid survivalist’s stockpiles that... Read more... |
The To Do ListMonday, 30 September 2013
In this refreshingly rowdy, distinctly feminist film from debut writer-director Maggie Carey an inexperienced, tirelessly sensible teenage girl prepares herself for college life by taking charge of her own sexual awakening. She does so in a way that... Read more... |
Secret Voices of Hollywood, BBC FourMonday, 30 September 2013
They called Rita Moreno the triple threat – she could dance, act and sing. But even her spirited performance as Anita in West Side Story could not satisfy United Artists: the doomy low notes of "A Boy Like That" were considered out of her range, and... Read more... |
CD: Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2Sunday, 29 September 2013
Justin Timberlake continues his global charm assault with the second in his 20/20 Experience project. Teaming with long-term collaborator Timbaland, the duo turn the taut funk and chart-busting hits of the first instalment in the series on... Read more... |
Springs Eternal, Orange Tree TheatreMonday, 16 September 2013
The American repertoire has featured big-time on the London stage this year but perhaps nowhere more oddly than courtesy the ever-adventurous Orange Tree's staging of a World War Two play from Susan Glaspell, here receiving its world premiere. Long... Read more... |
Paul Bunyan/The Secret Marriage, British Youth Opera, Peacock TheatreThursday, 12 September 2013
It’s raining Bunyans, and since Britten’s early American operetta with its sights originally set on Broadway teems with song and invention that can’t be a bad thing. A fortnight after Welsh National Youth Opera commandeered Stephen Fry to voice-over... Read more... |
CD: Mark Lanegan - ImitationsThursday, 12 September 2013
Mark Lanegan is a forbidding figure, which makes him appealing. In interviews he’s often taciturn and not very likeable, as if he cannot be bothered with the presentation of his art to the media. Good on him. There are now a billion bum-suckers out... Read more... |
Eels, Shepherd's Bush EmpireSunday, 08 September 2013
The last time Mr E toured these shores he looked as if he might be heralding the end of the world. Dressed all in white with a Moses beard and gangsta bandana, his songs were about inner struggle and personal redemption. Between songs he remained... Read more... |
