sex
CD: Christina Aguilera - LotusSaturday, 17 November 2012
Entirely in keeping with the heightened narrative surrounding pop stars and their perpetual crises, Christina Aguilera’s recent history has been spun into the kind of tragedy worthy of Piaf or Callas. Her last album, Bionic, singularly failed to... Read more... |
DVD: Your Sister's SisterThursday, 01 November 2012
With her jewel-blue eyes and intense presence, Emily Blunt can illuminate anything – a screen, a stage, a red carpet, any location for any old interview. She might seem unable to put a foot wrong. With five film credits in 2011 alone (including the... Read more... |
Rust and BoneThursday, 01 November 2012
Considering that his last film was set in a prison, it’s perhaps appropriate to say that Jacques Audiard has an arresting track record. The French director has made a handful of very impressive features (Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped... Read more... |
Room at the Top, BBC FourThursday, 27 September 2012
Do we really needed to hear more from Joe Lampton, the anti-hero of John Braine’s Room at the Top? His battle for social advancement and sexual self-expression has long since stopped holding up a mirror to society, you'd think. In fact we nearly... Read more... |
The Guid Sisters, Royal Lyceum, EdinburghWednesday, 26 September 2012
The 1989 production at the Tron in Glasgow of Bill Findlay and Martin Bowman’s translation of Les Belles-Soeurs, the 1965 play by Québécois writer Michel Tremblay, has become a landmark event in Scottish theatre. This new co-production between the... Read more... |
Dexys, Queen's Hall, EdinburghWednesday, 19 September 2012
Kevin Rowland has gone to great lengths recently to ensure that no one is under any misconceptions: the return of Dexys is no nostalgia trip. Last night’s show in Edinburgh hammered home the point. There aren’t many bands that could return after 27... Read more... |
The Sacred Flame, English Touring TheatreTuesday, 18 September 2012
To revive a long-defunct play is dicing with death for a touring theatre company - was the play ahead of its time, or was it not good enough in any time? W Somerset Maugham was a commercial and critical giant in London theatre in the Twenties, but... Read more... |
HysteriaMonday, 17 September 2012
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” It is a truth less universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of a rich Victorian husband must be in want of a... Read more... |
Hope SpringsThursday, 13 September 2012
Even Meryl Streep, bless her, is allowed the odd dud, and Hope Springs is a snore. Much has been made of the film shifting Hollywood’s attention toward the middle-aged – meaning, in their terms, anyone 20 or older. But director David Frankel’s... Read more... |
DVD: EllesFriday, 17 August 2012
Elles promises much. Małgorzata Szumowska, from Poland, is an engaged, serious film maker. 33 Scenes from Life (2008), which won a Locarno special prize, had an edgy, bohemian authenticity to it, and looked with wry east European melancholy at the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Olympics: Suspense and Sensuality in Ozon’s Swimming PoolFriday, 03 August 2012
As a director François Ozon perpetually confounds, with a string of diverse films to his name (the intense 5X2 and the gambolling Potiche to name but two) and this effort from 2002 is characteristically capricious - is it crisp, contemplative drama... Read more... |
Sex Story: Fifty Shades of Grey, Channel 4Sunday, 29 July 2012
Having begun as a piece of fan fiction derived from the Twilight movie series, EL James's Fifty Shades of Grey has blown up into the publishing phenomenon du jour. It's supposedly the UK's fastest-selling book of all time, and has sold nearly 50... Read more... |
