The Bottle Opener: Champagne’s leading man December 12, 2013 The last eponymous head of a champagne house talks about his passion for fizz Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, the last eponymous head of a great champagne house, personifies the wine he has spent his life making and selling; full of elegance, charm and effervescence. “I am a singular man. I am an iconoclast. My favourite food is [...]
Rewarding – if you battle through all the way to end December 12, 2013 FILM THE HOBBIT Cert PG | By Melissa York Three Stars THE DESOLATION of Smaug opens in a tavern a year before An Unexpected Journey (the first instalment). It’s here that Gandalf the Grey bumps into Thorin Oakenshield, the would-be king of dwarves, and convinces him to steal the precious Arkenstone from underneath a fire-breathing [...]
Fresh magic gets cast by Daniel Radcliffe December 8, 2013 FILM KILL YOUR DARLINGS Cert 12A | By Alex Dymoke Four Stars KILL Your Darlings revels in the cliché-saturated aesthetic of the Beats – think fusty professors, impromptu poetry recitations and furious typewriting in smoke-fugged Columbia dorm rooms – but admirably avoids hero-worship. Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), Jack Kerouac and co are presented not as [...]
A respectable remake still beaten by the original December 8, 2013 FILM OLDBOY Cert 18 | By Simon Thomson Three Stars IT’S COMMONLY assumed American audiences can’t handle foreign films. As a result, whenever you get a successful foreign film, somewhere in Southern California a producer will be asking whether it could translate into a Hollywood movie; this is the only reason Spike Lee’s 2013 remake [...]
Spectacle but no Disney sparkle December 8, 2013 FILM FROZEN Cert PG | By Melissa York Two Stars IT’S ABOUT time Disney set a film in Scandinavia – and what better time to do it than Christmas? Frozen is very loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen; thankfully, there are no children running around with shards of troll mirror glass in [...]
A journey into the colourless void of Midwest America December 8, 2013 FILM NEBRASKA Cert 15 | By Steve Dinneen Three Stars ALEXANDER Payne’s last three films – About Schmidt, Sideways and Descendants – have been bittersweet explorations of disappointment; a glimpse at the places we could all end up if life doesn’t go our way. Nebraska, his latest Oscar-baiting, black and white opus continues the theme, [...]
Thompson and Hanks shine in awards-baiting Disney biopic November 28, 2013 FILM SAVING MR BANKS Cert PG | By Simon Thomson Four Stars SAVING Mr Banks is the true story of how, over two weeks in Los Angeles, Walt Disney persuaded P.L. Travers to turn her children’s book series, Mary Poppins, into a film. Starring double-Oscar winners Emma Thompson as Travers and Tom Hanks as Disney, [...]
Awkward laughs prove to be just what the doctor ordered November 28, 2013 THEATRE IN THE NEXT ROOM (OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY) St James Theatre | By Simon Thomson Four Stars IT’S THE dawn of the electrical age in a spa town near New York, and the enterprising Doctor Givings is treating hysterical patients. With vibrators. This is the West End transfer of Sarah Ruhl’s Tony-and-Pulitzer-nominated comedy In [...]
Where to Drink: Warm your cockles this Christmas with a cocktail or craft beer at one of these new bar openings November 28, 2013 THE PARTY train is chugging full steam ahead as Christmas approaches. Perhaps Nick House and Kelly Brook have been inspired by the season for their new City venture, Steam and Rye, which takes cues from the Roaring Twenties and the Wild West. The massive venue is spread over three floors. The main room resembles Grand [...]
Hungry for more? You will be November 21, 2013 FILM HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Cert 12a | By Simon Thomson Three Stars THE HUNGER Games: Catching Fire is a story of survival and defiance in a dystopian future, where children are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of a ruling class, which uses the spectacle to hold the masses in fearful [...]