The best places in London for a spooky Halloween cocktail October 27, 2021 While many of the good readers of City A.M. may baulk at the thought of a rowdy Halloween party – especially one at which you may have to wear a costume – this year there are some genuinely exciting events for the more discerning pleasure-seeker. Whether you’re in the market for excellent food with a [...]
Spend this Halloween in a hotel haunted by a giant sea beast October 26, 2021 The Averard Hotel in Lancaster Gate is perhaps the first such venue to guarantee a sleepless night. The pop-up hotel in the Grade II listed former home of a doctor, architect and two Liberal MPs is hosting a pre-Halloween “Kraken Dread And Breakfast”, offering the chance to join the Leagues of Darkness. The brainchild of [...]
Frieze 2021: An electric start to the new art season October 22, 2021 It is telling, though perhaps unsurprising, that in a time of expanding digital exhibition spaces, curators, artists, and collectors still value face-to-face contact provided by art fairs. Frieze is the best of them all to kickstart the new London art season, with its sculpture garden and two imposing marquees – Frieze London and Frieze Masters [...]
Helene Binet at the RA, review: Architectural photography at its finest October 22, 2021 In her first major retrospective, photographer Helene Binet’s work at the Royal Academy offers a fresh look at the lines found in architecture. Over a 35 year career, the internationally acclaimed Swiss-French photographer (b.1959) has captured both historic and contemporary structures, reducing them to their simplest forms. A practitioner of analogue photography, her work focuses [...]
The French Dispatch, review: A playful homage to journalism October 22, 2021 Twenty five years and ten films since his feature debut, Wes Anderson can be considered one of the few remaining superstar directors. Like Nolan, Tarantino, The Coens, and (Paul Thomas) Anderson, he exists outside of the studio franchise churn, making films in which he is the primary selling point. It’s likely many fans will forgo [...]
Dear Evan Hansen, Review: A crushing failure October 22, 2021 Big West End and Broadway shows often take a while to get big screen adaptations, partly because producers are reluctant to offer a home alternative to what they hope you’ll pay a lot of money to see live. Also, because when it goes wrong, it goes really, really wrong. Before December 2019, Cats was a [...]
Halloween Kills, review: More silly than scary October 18, 2021 Michael Myers is the perfect frontman for the Halloween franchise: an ageing but unstoppable juggernaut, pulling the same old tricks from all the way back in 1978 to an increasingly bemused audience. It’s no wonder director David Gordon Green wanted to try something new when he took over with 2018’s franchise reboot. Alas the curse [...]
Ron’s Gone Wrong, review: A family film with a tech twist October 18, 2021 It’s a sign of the times that an increasing number of family films are focusing on technology. The Jumanji movies moved from a boardgame to a video game console; Space Jam’s villain was a rogue AI; and one of the best family movies of this year, The Mitchells Vs The Machines, had our reliance on [...]
Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Review October 18, 2021 Despite being a patchy mess, 2018’s Venom rose to surprise box office success thanks to a charming star in Tom Hardy, and an audience that was growing weary of sombre superheroes (Aquaman succeeded in the same year for similar reasons). A sequel was inevitable, but has it done enough to flesh out the cult anti-hero? [...]
The Velvet Underground: An enjoyable rockumentary October 18, 2021 It’s becoming something of a rite of passage for successful directors to make documentaries about their favourite bands. Ron Howard covered The Beatles (with Peter Jackson’s Get Back series on the way), Shane Meadows explored The Stone Roses, and this year Edgar Wright shared his love for Sparks. This week director Todd Haynes (Carol, Dark [...]