America
DVD/Blu-ray: The Big KnifeTuesday, 12 September 2017
Hot on the heels of his furiously original sci-fi noir, Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich cranked out this film adaptation of Clifford Odets’s tortured play about tortured artists in venal Hollywood. The Big Knife doesn’t... Read more... |
IT review - killer clown is kids' stuffThursday, 07 September 2017
Stephen King’s IT attempted ultimate terror, cutting far deeper than a killer clown. It idealised childhood friendships and their adult honouring even as one of those kids was forced to eat shit by sadistic bullies, and their idyllic small-town of... Read more... |
Prom 70 review: Denk, BBCSO, Canellakis - high, lucid and brightWednesday, 06 September 2017
It can’t be too long before “women” no longer needs to prefix “conductors” to define what’s still a rare breed. Yet seven at the Proms is certainly an improvement, with many more coming up through the ranks. And American Karina Canellakis turned out... Read more... |
Prom 61 review: Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oramo - heliotropic ecstasiesThursday, 31 August 2017
No sunshine without shadows was one possible theme rippling through this diva sandwich of a Prom. Even Richard Strauss's chaste nymph Daphne, achieving longed-for metamorphosis as a tree, finds darkness among the roots; and though Renée "The... Read more... |
Patti Cake$ review - endearing tale of a big girl with big dreamsTuesday, 29 August 2017
Hearing that a music video director has just made their first feature film generally strikes fear into my heart. But in this instance, Geremy Jasper has done a pretty good job, directing a warm and quirky drama about a young woman from a working-... Read more... |
CD: Liars - TFCFSaturday, 26 August 2017
Across their 17-year career, Liars have become renowned for both their genre-jumping and for making good music wherever their stylistic tent is pitched. With founding member Aaron Hemphill leaving the Los Angeles band on amicable terms earlier this... Read more... |
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power review - Al Gore's urgent updateFriday, 18 August 2017
When An Inconvenient Truth won the best documentary Oscar 10 years ago, the film’s success marked two significant events: a positive turning point in the campaign to avert environmental catastrophe; and the resurrection of the public career of Al... Read more... |
Quest review - intimate documentary about a north Philly communityTuesday, 15 August 2017
Christopher Rainey, aka "Quest" – his hip-hop name – lives with his wife Christine’a and their young daughter PJ in north Philadelphia. Jonathan Olshefski’s restrained, absorbing documentary follows this African-American family over almost a... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The 5000 Fingers of Dr TTuesday, 15 August 2017
There are lots of ideas bubbling away under the surface of The 5000 Fingers of Dr T. There would have been even more had the studio not panicked after a disastrous preview screening. Half the musical numbers were scrapped, subplots ditched and a new... Read more... |
Proms 34 & 35 review: Oklahoma!, John Wilson Orchestra - music triumphs, words and drama sufferSaturday, 12 August 2017
Only one thing could equal the "wow!" factor of seeing and hearing a youngish Hugh Jackman launch into “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’“ at the start of the National Theatre’s 1998 staging of Oklahoma!: John Wilson and his orchestra trilling and... Read more... |
A Ghost Story review - spellbinding vision of life, death and timeFriday, 11 August 2017
A Ghost Story must be the first film with a sheet – a very expressive one – in the leading role. Beneath it is C (Casey Affleck), with two holes for eyes. It’s funny at first, but the Halloween cliché is rapidly transcended. C, a musician, haunts... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: American GodsFriday, 11 August 2017
Neil Gaiman understood the country where he’d landed as an immigrant in the Nineties by writing American Gods. His first substantial novel after his crowning comics achievement, The Sandman, mined an idea of infinite plenitude: if every immigrant... Read more... |
