Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk review: Ang Lee’s directorial return is pocked with missed opportunities February 10, 2017 Much like the title character, Ang Lee’s first film since Life of Pi comes with some baggage. A huge flop on its release in the US, low box office number summed up the indifferent reaction from customers as well as critics. It’s easy to see why. Based on the Ben Fountain novel, the story takes [...]
Fences film review: Incredible acting overcomes stagey direction in this Denzel Washington movie February 10, 2017 Stepping into the director’s chair for the first time in a decade, Denzel Washington also takes the lead in this adaptation of August Wilson’s play. Troy (Washington) is a hard working, hard drinking garbage man in 1950s Pittsburgh. Resentful of his lot in life, he pushes away his sons, leaving his wife (Viola Davis) to [...]
The Lego Batman Movie review: This might be the best Batman film ever, watch your back Affleck February 9, 2017 Batfleck may have thus far been a mixed blessing for comic book fans, but there's no doubting the popularity of his smaller, Lego counterpart. Will Arnett's cocky Caped Crusader was the breakout star of The Lego Movie three years ago, earning his own solo adventure. Having saved Gotham again, Batman finds himself alone and without [...]
Revolution: Russian art 1917-1932 review: A dense and difficult exhibition that rewards those who look beyond the red flags February 9, 2017 Revolution: Russian Art marks the centenary of the momentous turning point in Russian history, the October Revolution of 1917, with a monumentally packed survey of the complicated, politically charged visual art up to the suppression of the Avante-Garde by Stalin in 1932. The bright red first room, filled with propaganda and state-sanctioned Social Realist painting, [...]
David Hockney at Tate Britain review: A Bigger Splash still makes a bigger splash than the artist’s weak newer works February 9, 2017 This major David Hockney retrospective, the first for 30 years, flits between brilliance and nonchalant mediocrity, with virtuoso paintings hanging metres away from self-cannibalising pastiches of the artist’s best work. Hockney is the nation’s favourite painter, a national treasure on a level with Alan Bennett, popular enough for The Sun to ask him to redesign [...]
The Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is a fascinating (and a little creepy) history of human-like automata February 9, 2017 Greeting you when you first enter the Robots exhibition at the Science Museum is an animatronic baby, pinned like some prized insect to a wall of pulsing lights. Commissioned especially for the exhibition and built by a special effects company, the mechanical baby repeats a series of pre-programmed animations, sneezing and wavings its arms and [...]
The bastard’s guide to business: How to grow a company the Ray Kroc way February 8, 2017 Ray Kroc may be the man who created arguably the western hemisphere's most recognisable symbol – but he wasn't always nice about it. In new movie The Founder, Michael Keaton stars as McDonald's founder Kroc, telling the story of his unlikely rise from small-time milkshake mixer salesman to big bucks entrepreneur after he was dazzled by Mac and Dick [...]
This curious series of matchbook prints pays homage to a lost Japanese advertising artform February 6, 2017 Today, the chances are you don’t even own a box of matches, let alone appreciate the lost artform that used to adorn them. But in the early to mid-20th century, Japanese advertisers created tiny wonders of graphic art on these pocket-sized canvases. As urban centres began to proliferate and the population was drawn away from [...]
Interiors: Pick up the perfect craft piece at Collect at the Saatchi Gallery this weekend February 3, 2017 Do you need a stunning centrepiece for the coffee table? Or a trio of pots for the console, or a stunning piece of art glass for a spot-lit plinth? This weekend the Collect fair at the Saatchi Gallery, the “Frieze” of the craft world, brings 37 galleries together from across the globe in a selling [...]
Fantastic Mr Fox at Hammersmith Lyric review: stage musical is good, dirty fun February 2, 2017 Roald Dahl’s fabulously lurid stories translate well to musical theatre, and since the runaway success of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Tim Minchin’s Matilda, we can no doubt look forward to a production line of singing Witches and Twits and Dirty Beasts. The latest to get the treatment is Fantastic Mr Fox, in a [...]