Edinburgh Fringe comedy awards nominations: Remember these names August 20, 2014 The largest arts festival in the world is preparing to wrap for another year. Thousands of performers have taken to hundreds of stages over the course of the month-long event, which will go out with a bang on bank holiday Monday. Originally a theatre festival, the fringe now encompassed comedy, theatre, dance, cabaret, magic and [...]
Film Review: The Expendables 3 August 14, 2014 “Why don’t you cut me loose and I’ll open your meat shirt and show you your own heart” – In another universe this could be poetry. In actual fact the line comes from the resolutely unpoetic gob of Mel Gibson, who sits trussed-up in a military plane flying somewhere over “Uzmenistan”, a fictional country dreamt [...]
Something for the Weekend: how to fill your days off August 14, 2014 To pay tribute: Dead Poets Society Secret Cinema Secret Cinema’s organisers have had their hands full with the Back to the Future event, but they’ve found time to honour Robin Williams with a screening of Dead Poets Society this Friday. £25, visit eventbrite.co.uk To dance: Jazz Festival Canary Wharf Some soul is [...]
Film Review: Hector and the Search for Happiness August 14, 2014 You’d think a psychiatrist would understand why people are unhappy. As it happens, Hector (played by ubiquitous everyman Simon Pegg) doesn’t even know why he’s unhappy. He lives a seemingly comfortable life with his beautiful and successful (but stubbornly childless, we’re reminded) girlfriend Clara in London. But he feels like a fraud imparting worldly advice [...]
The Weekend Starts Here: Richard Bernstein, Orbit Lates and more August 8, 2014 Art: Richard Bernstein at The Mayor Gallery Pop art creator Andy Warhol famously predicted that everyone would experience 15 minutes of fame. But Richard Bernstein, an artist and illustrator who partied with the Studio 54 set, immortalised the rising stars of the 70s and 80s forever on the cover of Warhol’s Interview magazine. The [...]
Film Review: God’s Pocket August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ God’s Pocket is what Goodfellas might have been like had it been directed by Alexander Payne. It follows the lives of a group of ageing petty criminals as they attempt to blot out the overwhelming futility of life in a down-and-out American town through the liberal use of alcohol and violence. At the funeral [...]
Film Review: Lilting August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ Mass migration is one of the epic stories of our time, but Lilting finds a smaller tale hidden among the great shifting of cultures. It’s primarily about integration; two parents move from China to the UK with their young son so he can “have a better life”. Thirty years on, the boy, Kai, has [...]
Theatre Review: My Night with Reg, Donmar Warehouse August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ Kevin Elyot’s 1994 play charts the romantic entanglements of a group of gay university friends, now well into their 30s, set against the backdrop of the Aids crisis. It explores issues of love, loss, infidelity and insecurity, and how they are all tainted by the shadow of the disease. The Donmar’s new production is [...]
Film Review: Welcome to New York August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ Welcome to New York is a grotesque character study of the French head of a world bank – not to mention Presidential hopeful – who stands accused of raping a maid in a New York hotel. Director Abel Ferrara’s film is certainly bold. In fact, you wonder how he got away with it: the [...]
Film review: Mood Indigo July 31, 2014 ★★★☆☆ Mood Indigo is a return to form for the tirelessly creative French director Michel Gondry, albeit one with some rather large caveats. The surreal, densely-packed opus combines the DIY aesthetic of his Be Kind Rewind with the darker, more psychological tone of the sublime Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and, thankfully, nothing at [...]