Film review: Mr Holmes is an elementary character study of elderly Sherlock June 18, 2015 Cert PG | ★★★★☆ A century and a quarter after his literary debut, Sherlock Holmes has never been more popular. Given the renewed interest caused by two hit TV series and a Guy Ritchie movie franchise, it was only a matter of time before we got a film adaptation of A Slight Trick of [...]
Film review: The Look of Silence June 12, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★★ In Joshua Oppenheimer’s acclaimed 2012 documentary The Act of Killing, genocidal amateur dramatics played out against paradisal Indonesian landscape in a spectacle so bizarre and disturbing it felt instantly classic. In that film, ageing, unrepentant perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide re-enacted their murders in the style of their favourite [...]
Theatre review: Oresteia June 12, 2015 Almeida Theatre | ★★★★★ It may be undergoing a revival in London, but Greek tragedy is not an easy fit with the contemporary stage. Traditionalist directors risk creating something either staidly academic or bathetically hysteric, while would-be revolutionaries can dilute the sources’ inherent power. Robert Icke’s new Oresteia at the Almeida, which he has [...]
Secret Cinema Presents Star Wars will have you grinning in awe June 12, 2015 Secret location in London | ★★★★☆ Secret Cinema returns with its most ambitious project yet, and it’s out of this world. Reviewing Secret Cinema without giving away its… well, secrets, is tricky. Suffice to say you will explore a number of instantly recognisable locales from the Star Wars universe, each rendered in painstaking detail, [...]
Film review: Jurassic World is a blast from the past June 11, 2015 Cert 12 | ★★★★☆ Devil-may-care action hero? Check. Uptight career woman? Yup. Evil corporation? Obviously. Science gone wrong? Kids in peril? Emotional family drama? Check, check, and check. Jurassic World is a relentless succession of clichés – but, damn, it’s a lot of fun. After two relatively disappointing sequels, this is a pulpy, [...]
Something for the weekend June 11, 2015 DRINK! BROWN’S HOTEL This weekend, slip on your best suit and saunter down to the Donovan Bar at Brown’s Hotel to sample one of London’s best cocktail menus, including the Smoking Mary, a bloody mary with actual bacon and a Haribo fried egg. Call 0207 493 6020 to make a reservation WATCH! BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S [...]
Theatre review: Kafka on the Shore June 5, 2015 Barbican | ★★★★★ Haruki Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore is an ever-shifting mirage where dream and reality, past and future, here and there all twist and collide. It’s a book about ideas, encompassing western philosophy, Greek tragedy, psychoanalysis and science fiction. It should translate horribly to the stage, but legendary Japanese theatre director [...]
Theatre review: Bradley Cooper’s physical performance is a little too good in The Elephant Man June 5, 2015 Theatre Royal Haymarket | ★★☆☆☆ Bradley Cooper’s performance in The Elephant Man is an impressive feat of physical acting that’s a little too good for a largely uninspired play. In one of the few genuinely innovative scenes, we first see Cooper as a near-naked, barrel-chested vision of human perfection. As Joseph Merrick’s many [...]
Film review: Melissa McCarthy is hampered by her co-stars in Spy June 5, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ Bounteous as Melissa McCarthy’s comedic gifts no doubt are, do they justify a resuscitation of the spy-spoof genre? In a word: no. In Spy she plays a desk-bound CIA operative working in partnership with field agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) with whom she is not-so-secretly in love. Despite finishing top [...]
Art review: Agnes Martin brings peace and quiet to Tate Modern June 4, 2015 Tate Modern | ★★★★★ When we think of 20th century abstraction we tend to think of great male painters who divided the canvas into blocks (Mondrian, Rothko) or set colours against each other in explosions of warring pigment (Pollock). Agnes Martin’s approach was different. She ruptured the chains of figuration only to find another [...]