Film review: Maggie is a nuanced entry to the zombie canon July 23, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ There are no one-liners or knowing winks in this Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie movie; it’s a bleakly plodding, quietly affecting drama that’s not so much interested in moments of terror, but what happens when they subside. On the face of it, the premise is familiar: a “necroambulist” virus that turns people into [...]
Film review: The Legend of Barney Thomson July 23, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★☆☆ Robert Carlyle’s directorial debut is a grotesque carnival of murder and excess that consistently entertains but eventually trips up on its own wild ambition. It follows the titular Barney, a spiritless Glasgow barber guilty of the only sin that’s beyond redemption in his home-town: having nae banter. When he accidentally murders [...]
Theatre review: American Idiot July 23, 2015 Arts Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ Green Day and musical theatre seem like odd bedfellows until you consider that both are fun, infantile and the kind of thing that no self respecting adult would confess to enjoying. When the two came together for 2010’s Broadway production American Idiot, the show won two Tony awards and a Grammy; [...]
Film review: Inside Out July 23, 2015 Cert U | ★★★★☆ Kids are notoriously difficult to read. Try asking one whether they like school or turkey dinosaurs and all you’re likely to get is a non-committal shrug. But Disney Pixar’s latest animated feature will make you completely reassess the way you talk to pre-teens as it fires you right into the turbulent [...]
Perfect Saturday July 23, 2015 COFFEE COME-UPS THE BLACK LAB If you can’t function in the morning without a cup o’ joe then head to Clapham’s endlessly trendy Coffee House ‘The Black Lab’. Once you’ve had your morning fix of liquid gold head over to nearby Clapham Common for a Saturday morning stroll. Visit blacklabcoffee.com SUMMER COCKTAILS TOWN HALL YARD [...]
Theatre review: Constellations is a beautiful and sad play about life’s possibilities July 16, 2015 Trafalgar Studios | ★★★★☆ A disconcerting and comforting thought: everything that has ever happened, every permutation of what could possibly take place, is taking place now, forever, and stretched back infinitely into the past. It’s a point drummed softly but precisely home in Nick Payne’s thoughtful play Constellations, in which bee-keeper Roland and cosmologist Marianne [...]
Film review: True Story lacks direction July 16, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ True Story takes a fascinating premise and does its best to drown it with clumsy story-telling and a lack of clear direction. The film, which really is based on a true story, begins with two men on opposite sides of the world introducing themselves as Michael Finkel from the New York [...]
Theatre review: The Mentalists is overblown and overstretched July 16, 2015 Wyndham’s Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ Long before the crowd-pleasing slapstick of One Man, Two Guv’nors, outrageous phone-hacking satire Great Britain and musical Made in Dagenham, there was The Mentalists. Playwright Richard Bean debuted this short play back in 2002 and now it’s back for a limited run. Only this time his success has ensured it’s in [...]
Film review: Self/less is slick but not memorable July 16, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★☆☆ Immortality is rarely given a positive spin in Hollywood – from mopey vampires to haunted Wolverines, it appears living forever ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The latest to tread this path is Tarsem Singh’s Self/Less, in which a dying businessman (Ben Kingsley) pays for a secret, expensive procedure to [...]
Film review: Ant-Man is entertaining but forgettable July 16, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★☆☆ Ant-Man is an entertaining but largely forgettable romp set on the peripheries of the rapidly expanding Marvel universe. It follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an earnest ex-con who accidentally steals a suit that can shrink him to the size of an ant (it also allows him to talk to ants). He’s [...]