Working Lunch review: Does Obica’s mozzarella bar have what it takes to storm the City? March 23, 2016 Obica St Pauls | 4 Limeburner Lane, EC4M WHAT? The latest of five restaurants bringing the Italian “mozzarella bar” to London. The St Pauls flagship opened last week, quite literally catering for casual walk-ins, business dinners, deli lunches, takeaway pizzas and cocktail fiends. WHERE? In a quiet street just off Ludgate Hill in a 120-seat, copper and stainless [...]
The seven most cracking luxury Easter eggs for the weekend March 23, 2016 Every year, a secret cabal of City A.M.'s top egg enthusiasts come together to judge the year's greatest hollow chocolate treats. This year is no exception. Here, we present our pick of the seven top eggs of 2016. 1. Divine Raspberry Dark Chocolate Egg – £5, divinechocolate.com Made by a Fair Trade co-operative of farmers in [...]
Why Batman V Superman is nowhere near as bad as everybody says March 22, 2016 Batman v Superman (12A) | Dir. Zack Snyder★★★★☆ Batman v Superman may contain two of the most bankable super heroes in existence, but don’t let that fool you: this is a huge bet by Warner Bros and DC Films. If this movie flops, it heaps an unbelievable amount of pressure on this summer’s upcoming villain-caper Suicide Squad. [...]
Disorder review: A suspenseful and paranoia-tinged thriller that pulls a few punches March 22, 2016 Disorder (12A) | Dir. Alice Winocour ★★★☆☆ Chunky hunk-man Matthias Schoenaerts is no stranger to punch-centric roles, having risen to fame for his part in Bullhead (a film about a man who injects himself with all manner of illegal punch-hormones) and Rust and Bone (a film about a man who could punch a fridge into [...]
Porsche 911 Turbo S review: At last, the people’s supercar has arrived and it’s just as practical as it is potent March 21, 2016 Porsche 911 Turbo S Price | £145,773 0-62mph | 2.9 secs Top speed | 205mph CO2 g/km | 212g/km Mpg combined | 31.0mpg The verdict Design | ★★★☆☆ Performance | ★★★★★ Practicality | ★★★★ Value for money | ★★☆☆☆ Remember when Porsches were known for being widowmakers? In the 80s, people feared they’d spin into a hedge backwards if they [...]
Miss Atomic Bomb is an explosive night out that will make the audience fallout of the theatre in a glow March 17, 2016 St James Theatre | ★★★☆☆ Miss Atomic Bomb has suffered from theatre critics’ love of mean-spirited puns, with some suggesting it failed to detonate and others, less inventively, just saying it bombed. These assessments are overly harsh; though nobody would call it a blast, there’s a critical mass of enjoyable material here, such that after it [...]
Jane Horrocks’ love letter to post punk and new wave is a brilliant vanity project March 17, 2016 Young Vic | ★★★★☆ Jane Horrocks’ If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me is the kind of midlife crisis I hope I have one day. The star of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Absolutely Fabulous has been recording music with producer Kipper, because why the hell not? And why not perform it at [...]
Tom Hiddleston shines in High Rise, a stylish adaptation of JG Ballard’s architectural dystopia March 17, 2016 Dir. Ben Wheatley | ★★★★☆ "Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.” The opening sentence of JG Ballard’s High Rise is up there with the English literary canon’s very best. It’s all [...]
10 Cloverfield Lane review: a pared-back, genre-hopping success March 17, 2016 Cloverfield was a lurching, visceral monster movie that played on our post-911 fears of sudden, inexplicable horror occurring in our cities, its grainy hand-held footage recalling the language of 24-hour news channels. Eight years later its follow-up – “stable-mate” might be a better term – is every bit as skin-crawling, but for very different reasons. [...]
Bill Murray’s film Rock the Kasbah is ill-conceived, poorly-executed March 17, 2016 In Rock the Kasbah’s universe, all we need to do to end the troubles in the Middle East is send Bill Murray out there to tell them all what’s what. Murray essentially plays himself playing a struggling talent manager, whose paltry existence on the periphery of the industry is propped up by hustling X-Factor wannabes. [...]