Gangster saga hits right note March 22, 2012 Film WILD BILL Cert: 15 **** THIS isn’t your average East End gangster saga. Wild Bill is an impressively subtle, no-nonsense debut from first-time director Dexter Fletcher, centring around Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles), a troubled guy coming out of prison, trying to live the good life while still tangled up in his murky past. It [...]
Navy SEAL film plays like a bad recruitment video. These guys may deserve a great movie but this ain’t it March 22, 2012 Film ACT OF VALOUR Cert: 12A * Starring active duty US Navy SEALs alongside a smattering of actors, this fictionalised version of real operations follows the Bandito Platoon on a straightforward mission that leads to a terrorist conspiracy of unimaginable proportions. Following extensive interviews with the troops, directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh took five [...]
Iranian director shows what can be done with one man and his iPhone in this poignant study March 22, 2012 Film THIS IS NOT A FILM Cert: U **** There aren’t many films made partially on an iPhone and smuggled into the Cannes Film Festival in a cake. Banned for 20 years from film-making and sentenced to 6 years in prison after supporting the opposition during the Iranian elections in 2009, this documentary follows renowned [...]
iPad, I saw, I conquered March 21, 2012 1080P HD VIDEO The new iPad’s camera is capable of shooting quality high definition video. If you’re filming in good light, the results can be pretty astonishing. It has an image stabiliser to reduce “wobble”. The new screen also makes video playback noticeably better “THAT” SCREEN The new iPad’s biggest selling point is its retina [...]
Don’t blame Twitter for the awfulness of human beings March 21, 2012 Social media generally means you can get away with seeing less of people, which is great, because most people are unbearably awful. It also means you can carefully vet the people you interact with and block them at will, on a whim, just for the hell of it. You can pretend to be erudite and [...]
THREE OF THE BEST HD APPS FOR YOUR NEW IPAD March 21, 2012 BAREFOOT WORLD ATLAS (£5.49) This app is ostensibly an educational tool for children, although it’s so much fun it’s probably wasted on them. It features a 3D globe you can scroll around, discovering cities, historical sights and interesting facts about the world. It makes great use of the retina screen, with crisp, vivid colours as [...]
Prime London house prices up March 20, 2012 TOP CENTRAL London property prices rose 1.1 per cent in March, estate agent Knight Frank revealed today. Prices rose 11.3 per cent over the past 12 months, as demand continues to outstrip supply. “Our research highlights the status of London property as a unique global asset class, which has gained the confidence of investors looking [...]
Refined, luxurious, even green. We try to find what the catch is March 20, 2012 When you’re looking at buying a car as large and luxurious as the Mercedes-Benz E220 CDI, the last thing you’re expecting it to offer is exceptional fuel-efficiency. A comfortable ride, yes, an interior that you can lounge in, probably, and a decent amount of high-tech bells and whistles, surely. But fuel-economy that will rival a [...]
CAR TALK March 20, 2012 CITROEN REDUCES COST OF EVS Driving EVs is gradually becoming more affordable. Citroen and Peugeot have slashed the prices of their C-Zero and iOn models so that each car now has an on-the-road price of £26,216 (down from £33,155). The government’s £5,000 plug-in car grant reduces the price to just £21,216. Contract hire rental rates [...]
London boost for Berkeley March 19, 2012 HOUSEBUILDER Berkeley says it has hit over £1bn in forward sales, up from £813m last May, driven by strong demand for residential property in London and the south east. The firm used a trading update to announce that it had acquired seven sites for a total of £80m since November, including a former Royal Mail [...]