Dumbo review: Tim Burton turns a family favourite into an animal rights advocacy project March 29, 2019 In case you’ve forgotten – it did come out in 1941 – the animated Disney film Dumbo is deeply odd and wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for a live action remake. There are barely any humans in it, for a start, then there’s Dumbo himself, a doe-eyed, speechless pachyderm who gets bullied for 70 per [...]
At Eternity’s Gate review: A dreamlike and impressionistic portrait of Van Gogh March 28, 2019 In this dreamlike journey through the artist’s later years, American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel frames the artist as the director wants to see him, keeping his drunkenness, violence and bouts of psychosis somewhere just off-screen. The film presents a fragmented and impressionistic series of vignettes filmed in a drunken POV aspect, as though the [...]
Van Gogh and Britain review: Just how much did London inspire the artist? March 28, 2019 You really don’t need much of an excuse to dust off a collection of Van Goghs, but Tate Britain has reached for one all the same with its latest exhibition of twenty of the man’s works. Van Gogh and Britain contextualises the artist’s output around his few interactions with this country, which amounts to a [...]
Drawing a crowd: Tate Modern pips British Museum to the post as UK’s most popular visitor attraction March 27, 2019 Tate Modern has knocked the British Museum off the top spot of the UK’s most popular visitor attractions, which it has occupied for a decade. The British Museum welcomed 5.82m visitors through its doors last year, while Tate Modern overtook it with 5.87m people – an increase of 3.7 per cent on 2017. Read more: [...]
Why I’m proud that the art industry has taken a stand against the Sackler family March 27, 2019 When I heard that the Tate Group was following the National Gallery’s example by refusing to take further donations from the Sackler Trust, funded by the Sackler family, I felt a sense of both relief and pride in the arts industry. The Trust has for many years made generous donations to leading artistic and philanthropic [...]
DEBATE: Are galleries and museums like the Tate right to shun donations from the controversial Sackler family? March 25, 2019 Are galleries and museums like the Tate right to shun donations from the controversial Sackler family? Sian Flynn, a curator and museums and galleries consultant, says YES. All publicly funded museums and galleries in Britain need to generate their own income to survive and thrive: this is a fact. They are also guardians of the nation’s [...]
The White Crow: Ralph Fiennes’ biopic about legendary ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev is a slow burner March 22, 2019 Saying someone is a ‘white crow’ in Russia is a bit like saying someone ‘sticks out like a sore thumb’ over here. It isn’t meant as a compliment in either country, but it could cost you your life in Krushchev’s Russia. Legendary ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev learnt that the hard way when he defected from [...]
Us review: Jordan Peele’s ambitious new film is a brilliant and unsettling commentary on social inequality March 21, 2019 Jordan Peele’s 2017 debut Get Out redefined what a modern horror movie could be. It was slick and smart and terrifying, its body-horror a twisted allegory for the racism – casual and otherwise – suffered by black people. And for a long time, I was pretty sure this follow-up was addressing the same issue, albeit [...]
Downstate at the National Theatre is a difficult drama that questions how society should treat its worst criminals March 21, 2019 A new play about a group of four convicted child sex offenders on supervised release in a social home in Illinois, Downstate is at times a difficult act to stomach. It’s an exercise in humanising a quartet of sex criminals, an exploration of the complex relationship between an abuser and their victim, and of the [...]
What Men Want review: A badly made reboot of badly aged Mel Gibson comedy March 15, 2019 Back in the year 2000, before anyone knew any better, Mel Gibson was still a beloved star of the big screen. His Freaky Friday-esque comedy escapade What Women Want was smashing it at the box office, a bigger hit than anything he’d done previously and grossing three times what Mad Max had taken in. Alongside [...]