From James Bond to Glastonbury, we rate the chances of this year’s cultural events going ahead January 7, 2021 Last year was a virtual write-off for the cultural calendar, with the year’s most hotly-anticipated events being brushed aside by the ceaseless march of Covid. This year the world seems to be drawing close to a solution to the crisis – but will it come in time to save 2021? Marina Abramovic at the Royal [...]
Vanguard review: Jackie Chan plays the hits January 7, 2021 The current climate is exactly the right moment for a classic action movie, a genre that can provide us with escapism and some vicarious victories at a time when so much seems out of our control. Vanguard would seem to fit the bill – legend Jackie Chan reunites with Stanley Tong, his collaborator on two [...]
Pieces of A Woman review: The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby excels in harrowing drama January 6, 2021 The coming awards season sees a number of challenging subjects covered by contenders – civil rights abuse in Da 5 Bloods, Nomadland’s portrayal of a broken economy, and depictions of dementia in The Father and Supernova. This week’s drama Pieces of A Woman looks at an equally difficult topic, but one not often explored. Vanessa [...]
Nicolas Cage’s The History Of Swear Words is flippin’ average January 6, 2021 First, a warning. As you might have guessed, this review will contain some very adult language. Netflix’s latest series offering seems irresistible. Nicolas Cage, Oscar winning star turned living meme, presents a show about the history of naughty words. In the age of the endless scroll, that’s more than enough to entice most browsers to press [...]
Lockdown board games: Forget Monopoly, here are the real games December 30, 2020 For decades board games lived largely unloved lives, their battered boxes pulled off dusty shelves on rainy days and holidays. But as we approach essentially another national lockdown, many of us will be dusting them off once more. Back in their heyday, board games were designed to be simple, with concepts that could appeal equally [...]
Our top picks of art, film and theatre in 2020 December 30, 2020 It’s been a year of existential crisis for the arts, to the extent you could be forgiven for only remembering the closures and cancellations. But squeezed between 2020’s lockdowns were some excellent moments for the arts. Here are my top picks from the exhibitions, films and shows I managed to attend this year.
Shirley film review: Elizabeth Moss chills again in strange horror December 28, 2020 Having chilled us earlier this year with breakout hit The Invisible Man, Elisabeth Moss plays American horror author Shirley Jackson in an interesting non-biopic. Odessa Young and Logan Lerman play Rose and Fred, a young couple expecting a baby who come to live with Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), an academic and [...]
The top films of 2020, from Parasite to Mank December 27, 2020 The absence of cinema releases for much of 2020 gives this year’s ‘best of’ film list a strange new context, as the industry shifts from reliance on the opening week box office and cinema fans focus on what they miss about the big screen. Here’s our pick of this year’s best movies, comprised of titles [...]
10 video games that defined the strange year that was 2020 December 27, 2020 In a year that blockbuster movies were delayed en masse and people were confined to their homes for months at a time, video games played a more important role than ever in our lives. With the new Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 finally making an appearance last month, 2020 was also a last hurrah [...]
The best films to watch on a Tier 4 Christmas day December 25, 2020 As many adverts have told us, Christmas will be a bit different this year. There will be people we won’t be able to see, and celebrations we won’t be able to have. However, one thing that 2020 can’t take from us is our favourite Christmas films. Whether you like them as sentimental, dramatic, funny, or [...]