America
Album: Calexico - Seasonal ShiftThursday, 10 December 2020![]() Christmas albums are traditionally, pretty cheesy affairs and Seasonal Shift sees Tex-Mex rockers Calexico join in with the spirit of things, invite a disparate group of friends into the studio and lay the Panela on seriously thick. As well as some... Read more... |
The Prom review - merry Meryl in middling musicalWednesday, 09 December 2020![]() Four Broadway denizens resolve to change the world "one lesbian at a time" in the cheerful if often cheesy The Prom, the film adaptation of a recent Broadway musical that continually reminds you of at least a half-dozen similar titles, almost all of... Read more... |
Don DeLillo: The Silence review - when the lights of technology go outTuesday, 08 December 2020![]() Don DeLillo’s latest novella, The Silence, has been marketed with an emphasis on its prescience, describing the shocked lacuna of time around a devastating event whose repercussions are yet to be truly felt. It is a compelling short read, but a... Read more... |
Uncle Frank review - well-acted but painfully contrivedSaturday, 28 November 2020![]() A top-rank cast swims against the tide in Uncle Frank, writer-director Alan Ball's well-intentioned but fatally contrived film that presumably contains more than a trace of the Oscar-winning filmmaker's own past. Telling of a gay southerner called... Read more... |
Hillbilly Elegy review - misery in the heartlandWednesday, 25 November 2020![]() Published in June 2016, J.D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy became a best-seller around the time of that November’s presidential election as people sought to understand why working class whites in the American heartland supported Donald Trump en... Read more... |
Extract: 'On Loneliness' by Fatimah Asghar, from 'The Good Immigrant USA'Tuesday, 24 November 2020![]() The infamous border wall. Prolonged detention. Children in cages. Even as Biden's election promises a sea change in Trump's devastatingly hardline immigration policy, immigrants, both first- and second-generation, face a spectrum of prejudice,... Read more... |
The Seven Deadly Sins, Opera North online review - viscerally thrillingMonday, 23 November 2020![]() Theatres are currently banned from moving scenery and props about on stage and you might expect this to present a major obstacle to a production of The Seven Deadly Sins. How else is the opera’s protagonist to be seen to visit seven American cities... Read more... |
Leap of Faith review – Alexandre O. Philippe examines ‘The Exorcist’Friday, 20 November 2020![]() “Films are about the mystery of fate or the mystery of faith,” proclaims director William Friedkin in Alexandre O. Philippe’s latest documentary, Leap of Faith. At 84 years old, Friedkin proves himself to be a master of storytelling, not only behind... Read more... |
Billie review – new documentary captures the rebelFriday, 13 November 2020![]() Listen to "The Blues are Brewin", "You Better Go Now", or even "I’ll be Seeing You", and you can hear the hurt reverberate in every note Billie Holiday sang. Her voice rang with the wisdom of experience – perhaps too much experience. She lived a... Read more... |
Words on Bathroom Walls review - well-meaning but glibSaturday, 07 November 2020![]() Adam (Charlie Plummer) is being tested for glaucoma at the start of Words on Bathroom Walls, the director Thor Freudenthal's adaptation of Julia Walton's 2017 Young Adult novel. In fact, the indrawn teenager is suffering from schizophrenia and will... Read more... |
The Queen's Gambit, Netflix review - chess prodigy's story makes brilliant televisionFriday, 06 November 2020![]() It’s surprising, perhaps, that the dramatic potential of chess hasn’t been more widely exploited. There was a nail-biting tournament in From Russia with Love, while the knight’s chequerboard struggle with Death was the centrepiece of Ingmar Bergman’... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: US Election SpecialSaturday, 31 October 2020![]() A New Century The Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst (Cleveland Orchestra)Have we reached peak box set? This debut release from the Cleveland Orchestra’s own label ups the stakes considerably, an exquisitely designed and engineered... Read more... |
