America
Defending Jacob, Apple TV+ review - does murder run in the family?Saturday, 23 May 2020
Since it debuted in November last year, Apple TV+ has barely made a dent in a market largely shaped by Netflix, but this eight-part adaptation of William Landay’s bestselling novel is a decisive step in the right direction. It’s a mixture of... Read more... |
Album: Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley - Chapter 1: Snake OilSaturday, 23 May 2020
Word has been out for a while that EDM megastar Diplo has decided to throw a curve ball with his musical career, don a cowboy hat and release a country and western album. If that is truly the case, then there must be another disc in the pipeline... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 6: A prolific playwright, a timeless play, and speeches galoreThursday, 21 May 2020
Can we really be entering a third month in lockdown? Indeed we can, and culture, thank heavens, shows no signs whatsoever of leaving us in the lurch. This week's lineup of highlights offers a typically electic bunch, ranging from two sizable... Read more... |
Arena: The Changin' Times of Ike White, BBC Four review - musical mystery becomes personalTuesday, 19 May 2020
The most obvious comparison for The Changin’ Times of Ike White (BBC Four) is 2012’s Searching for Sugar Man, with its story of a potential star having vanished into thin air at the brink of fame and fortune. The documentary began in the usual way... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Destry Rides AgainTuesday, 19 May 2020
A calculatedly nostalgia-infused town-taming Western, 1939's Destry Rides Again out-sparkled Errol Flynn's contemporaneous light “oaters" and anticipated noir-tinged classics like My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Gunfighter (1950). Because it... Read more... |
The Atom: A Love Affair review - hot fusion and cold heartsThursday, 14 May 2020
It’s fair to say that humanity’s relationship with nuclear energy over the last 50 years has had more highs and lows than a Spanish soap opera. From the Manhattan Project to Hinkley Point, it’s been a controversial technology that has promised both... Read more... |
Little Richard (1932-2020) - sexuality, spirituality and rock'n'roll's gospel rootsWednesday, 13 May 2020
The day that Little Richard’s death was announced, my friend the soul singer PP Arnold wrote on her Instagram feed, of a “sanctified boogie-woogie piano style that was just electric”. She went on, recalling first hearing the man’s undiluted... Read more... |
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend, Netflix review - bold, but only a partial successWednesday, 13 May 2020
Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s hit comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) ended its fourth series in January last year, but this belated interactive special suggested there could be new life in it yet. Summarising Unbreakable… is possible but... Read more... |
Album: Moses Sumney - græWednesday, 13 May 2020
Moses Sumney’s second album is a double, and splits and nuances in gender, sexuality and identity define its fluid nature. A 28-year-old Ghanaian-American who grew up as an outsider in both countries, Sumney is most interested in removing... Read more... |
I Know This Much Is True, Sky Atlantic review - riding a carousel of catastropheTuesday, 12 May 2020
Adapted by writer-director Derek Cianfrance from Wally Lamb’s 1998 novel, this HBO production (on Sky Atlantic) presents a huge canvas for Mark Ruffalo, who plays the twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey. He had a particular interest in I Know... Read more... |
Album: Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit - ReunionsMonday, 11 May 2020
Like his friend the late John Prine, Jason Isbell is a master storyteller. His skill, like Prine’s, is to inhabit the characters he sings about so fully, and with such empathy, that it can be difficult to tell where the songwriter ends and the story... Read more... |
Album: Mark Lanegan - Straight Songs of SorrowMonday, 04 May 2020
There are few albums as relentlessly dark as Mark Lanegan's latest: the raw and intense exploration of a tortured soul. This stuff is a few circles of hell deeper than anything Leonard Cohen ever did, and when the Canadian poet of melancholy "wanted... Read more... |
