America
Blu-ray: Anatomy of a MurderTuesday, 28 April 2020
Justice and the truth run on parallel lines in Anatomy of a Murder. If they converge at all, which is debatable, it's not because the moral order demands it, but because the workings of the law allow for that possibility. The outcome of Otto... Read more... |
Album: Ezra Furman - Sex Education OSTThursday, 23 April 2020
Netflix’s sweet but slightly strange drama Sex Education is already two series into its tale of teenage awkwardness in the face of growing up, with a third planned for when the Covid-19 plague is over. Yet it is only now that the soundtrack is being... Read more... |
Album: Lucinda Williams - Good Souls Better AngelsWednesday, 22 April 2020
Few singers can channel bitterness, anger and pain as well as Lucinda Williams: she moves with ease from a fierce snarl to a sensual drawl, and from a naked show of vulnerability to a rocker’s raunch. As with Tom Waits, with whom she has sometimes... Read more... |
Selah and the Spades, Amazon Prime review - boarding-school cliques go gangsterSaturday, 18 April 2020
“They always try to break you down when you’re 17,” says queen bee Selah (Lovie Simone) in Tayarisha Poe’s impressive directorial debut. As leader of the Spades, one of the five Mafia-style ruling factions in the exclusive Haldwell boarding-school... Read more... |
Cuck review - tediously nihilisticFriday, 17 April 2020
Deep from the heart of Trumpland comes Cuck, a deeply unpleasant film about a totally repellent character. Directed and co-written by Rob Lambert, the film opened simultaneously last autumn in the States with Joker, with which it shares an... Read more... |
Run, Sky Comedy review - vicarious thrills for the self-isolation eraWednesday, 15 April 2020
Watching Run, HBO’s newest seven-part series, feels like off-the-rails escapism: it’s a fast-paced thriller about dropping everything, chasing intimacy and courting danger. It’s a vicarious adventure centred on a woman who has spent too long stuck... Read more... |
ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band From Texas, Netflix review - riffs, drugs and rodeosThursday, 09 April 2020
ZZ Top always seemed like a Texan version of Status Quo. It turns out, from watching this entertaining but hardly revelatory documentary, that is kind of what they are. Directed by Canadian Sam Dunn, best known for his 2005 documentary, Metal: A... Read more... |
Album: Nels Andrews - Pigeon and The CrowThursday, 09 April 2020
This is the perfect album for these dark and dislocating times, a delicious slice of folk-Americana, 10 beautifully crafted songs (plus a bonus online) that envelop you in the gentle winds and fogs of California’s Monterey peninsula, and the waves... Read more... |
Ozark, Series 3 review, Netflix - money-laundering saga hits new heightsMonday, 06 April 2020
While not the most headline-catching show on Netflix, Ozark has been steadily accruing critical accolades (including a couple of Emmys) and a devoted audience. Perhaps this superb third series will mark the tipping point where Ozark crosses over... Read more... |
Album: Pokey LaFarge - Rock Bottom RhapsodySaturday, 04 April 2020
Talk about a great big melting pot! The eighth studio album by the man born 36 ago as Andrew Heissler in Bloomington, Indiana, and known to the world as Pokey LaFarge digs deep into the bubbling cauldron of Americana, in its very broadest sense. He... Read more... |
ReMastered: Tricky Dicky and the Man in Black, Netflix review - dynamic saga of music and politicsFriday, 03 April 2020
Netflix’s ReMastered series is one of the streaming channel’s undersung gems. Launching in 2018, when Tricky Dick and the Man in Black first aired, it has proved to be a solidly well-made set of music documentaries. Some of its subjects have... Read more... |
Pen15, Sky Comedy review - the horror of adolescent schooldays revisitedWednesday, 01 April 2020
The cringe-making horror of adolescent schooldays is vividly re-lived in this US import (on Sky Comedy), but with a cunning twist. Its supposedly confused and hormonal leads are played by 30-somethings Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who blend... Read more... |
