Emmanuelle: Softcore porn reboot somehow makes watching sex boring January 15, 2025 Emmanuelle (2024) | ★★☆☆☆ Emmanuelle, the 1974 film that helped drag softcore erotica into the cultural mainstream, remains among the most successful French movies of all time. Watched by some 300 million horny men and women, it was an X-rated affair, briefly banned in its home nation, perhaps best-known for an infamous scene in which [...]
A Complete Unknown review: Timothee Chalamet stars in thrilling biopic January 14, 2025 A Complete Unknown review and star rating: | ★★★★☆ Timothee Chalamet’s career is beginning to feel like a high-wire act. He’s a fabulous actor, but one whose off-screen cult of personality seems forever on the cusp of eclipsing his on-screen talent. I feared taking on Bob Dylan, a man who seems to vanish like a shadow [...]
Babygirl review: Nicole Kidman wows again in sexy drama January 9, 2025 Movies about sex can often be lost in sensational headlines, any message overshadowed by the intrigue of a famous person being naughty on-screen. Babygirl, nominated for Best Picture – Drama at last weekend’s Golden Globes, will be hoping Oscar voters see the story behind the shagging. Nicole Kidman stars as Romy Mathis, a powerful chief [...]
Where to spend New Year’s Eve: London’s very best events December 26, 2024 From boozy dinners to DJs and where to catch the fireworks, Larissa Steel has ten ideas for you this New Year’s Eve New Year’s Eve feels like a far-off thought – but the capital’s best events are booking up ahead of Christmas, so now’s the time to secure tickets. Here are some of the very [...]
Christmas Day TV: why the new Wallace and Gromit is today’s must-watch film December 25, 2024 A British Christmas tradition returns in Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit, the animated duo that have warmed our hearts since their first appearance 35 years ago. There’s been little from the witless inventor and his canine chum ever since 2008’s A Matter of Loaf and Death, but a new deal with Netflix has seen them ride again. [...]
The best books of 2024: From Sally Rooney to Boris Johnson December 12, 2024 Okay, that headline is ever-so-slightly misleading – while many of the entries on this list are indeed among the best books of 2024, others earn their place by virtue of being emblematic of their time (Boris Unleashed), zeitgeist-capturing (Bad Girls of Ancient Greece) or simply so utterly bonkers we felt they earned a spot (The [...]
From Roger Moore With Love: Steve Coogan stars in odd tribute December 11, 2024 Seven years after his passing, the life of the third and most prolific James Bond actor is brought to the screen in From Roger Moore With Love. Steve Coogan plays Roger Moore as if he were narrating his own life, reading from old interviews and memoirs to imagine what the actor would say were he [...]
Queer film review: Daniel Craig shines in Luca Guadagnino drama December 11, 2024 One of the headline acts of this year’s London Film Festival, Queer offers a side to Daniel Craig that you will definitely not have seen before. Adapted from the novella by William S. Burroughs, he plays Lee, an American ex-pat living in 1950s Mexico City, having fled New Orleans due to his drug addiction. Content [...]
Who killed the Gif? How the dancing banana split December 9, 2024 In a 2021 Twitter (now ‘X’) post, US journalist Jenny Zhang wrote, “Any time I see someone use a reaction gif I immediately know they are above the age of 33”. The replies to the post featured a mix of indignation and applause, but Jenny had a point. Once the quick and easy reaction to [...]
‘It’s about confronting death’: The people paying authors to write their life story December 9, 2024 How do you want to be remembered? It’s a question humans have asked since time began, but have you ever paused to think about it – I mean really think about it? Who do you want to be remembered as, which stories do you want your grandchildren to hear? When you’re dead and gone and [...]