DEBATE: With the Oscars success of Roma, has Netflix broken the dominance of the traditional film studios? February 26, 2019 With the Oscars success of Roma, has Netflix broken the dominance of the traditional film studios? Abbie Llewelyn, freelance writer and commentator, says YES. Just six years after Netflix started producing original content, it has scored 15 nominations and three wins at the Oscars. This is a huge breakthrough for streaming platforms, as up until [...]
On the Basis of Sex film review: Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic is timely but takes few risks February 22, 2019 On the Basis of Sex is a timely reminder of all that US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accomplished on the long, winding road towards gender equality, and why it still matters today. We open on the Harvard victory song, extolling the triumphs of the “men” in attendance. It is 1956, the sixth year [...]
Cold Pursuit film review: Liam Neeson’s junket admission eclipses an otherwise serviceable revenge drama February 22, 2019 In an alternate timeline, Cold Pursuit would have been a low-key cinematic release, more of the same from an actor we’ve come to know as the go-to guy for revenge dramas. But Liam Neeson had other ideas. In a run-of-the-mill press junket, Neeson, apropos of nothing, told a story about stalking the streets of Belfast [...]
Shipwreck play at the Almeida review: An ambitious but flawed take on the Trump presidency February 22, 2019 You wait months for a fractured, meandering, three hour play about politics and then two come along at once. Following the Old Vic’s tortuous reheating of Arthur Miller’s depression-era memoir The American Clock comes the Almeida’s Shipwreck, a new play that concerns itself with the bleeding edge of the Trump presidency. It begins with a [...]
Berberian Sound Studio review: This homage to giallo horror films is a supernatural assault on the senses February 22, 2019 Berberian Sound Studio is a pedestrian name for a pretty out-there theatrical experience. Based on a horror film directed by Peter Strickland and starring Toby Jones, it was lavished with praise on the art film circuit when it was released in 2012. Now it’s a play in the Donmar Warehouse, whose intimate seating arrangements and [...]
Franz West at the Tate Modern review: A vivid picture of of a singular mind February 22, 2019 I left the Tate Modern’s Franz West exhibition with a strong desire to get extremely drunk with the artist. Now sadly deceased, West was louche and messy, arrested on at least two occasions for being publicly sozzled, and his entire oeuvre feels like a mad two fingers up to the art establishment. Producing work from [...]
Diane Arbus: In the Beginning at Hayward Gallery review: A master who helped define New York City February 14, 2019 The latest blockbuster exhibition at the Hayward Gallery makes me nostalgic for a time I barely remember, and that will be completely alien to many who visit this show. It was a time when a single photographer could come to define a place and time, their work spanning decades, their vision becoming ingrained on the [...]
The American Clock at the Old Vic theatre review: A bad production of a bad Arthur Miller play February 14, 2019 The American Clock is Arthur Miller’s attempt to chart the death of the old America and the traumatic birth of the new in the years following the Great Depression. It has a loose, fidgety structure – it’s a series of vignettes, really – but the central dramatic arc follows the Baums, a well-to-do family who, [...]
The Boy Who Would Be King review: Arthurian legend meets London suburbia in Joe Cornish’s latest adventure February 14, 2019 Almost eight years have passed since Joe Cornish brought science-fiction to an inner city council estate in his alien-invasion movie Attack the Block. Now the writer-director deftly splices London suburbia and Arthurian legend in The Boy Who Would Be King, the story of a 12-year-old who yanks a big sword out of a bit of [...]
Tracey Emin at the White Cube Bermondsey: An agonised howl marks Emin’s return as an artist February 13, 2019 It’s been years since the last major Tracey Emin exhibition, but she returns with an agonised howl of a show exploring the gaping emotional wounds that threatened to destroy her as both an artist and a human being. The White Cube’s first room is dominated by 50 giant selfies of Emin in bed, taken on [...]