America
Toy Story 4 review - fabulous return to the big screenThursday, 20 June 2019
Making it to the fourth film in a series and maintaining quality is a feat pulled off by very few franchises, (see last week’s dreary Men in Black: International). But Pixar has done it with Toy Story 4. It might not have quite as many nifty... Read more... |
Napoli, Brooklyn, Park Theatre review - lacking substanceTuesday, 18 June 2019
According to their mother, Luda (played by Madeleine Worrall, pictured below), each of the three sisters (pictured top) in Napoli, Brooklyn, bears one of their father’s admirable traits. Tina (Mona Goodwin), the oldest, who left school early to... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Dazed and ConfusedTuesday, 18 June 2019
I’m sure there’s an anthropologist out there writing a thesis on American teenagers’ coming-of-age rituals as performed in movies, from American Graffiti to this year’s Booksmart. Such a study would be rich with observations about how... Read more... |
CD: Mark Ronson - Late Night FeelingsMonday, 17 June 2019
Producer extraordinaire Mark Ronson has set his sights on soundtracking the summer once again, with his latest collaborative collection of pop gems. It's a seductive album, packed with enough hooks to conquer the charts for the next few months.The... Read more... |
CD: Willie Nelson – Ride Me Back HomeSunday, 16 June 2019
Willie’s new album opens with the singer calling out to all the tired old horses saved from the knackers and put out to pasture. It’s not just something he does in song, but in life. It’s co-written with Sonny Throckmorton, an old mucker of the Zen... Read more... |
Sweat, Gielgud Theatre review - searing drama of working lifeThursday, 13 June 2019
There’s a joke early on in Sweat, Lynn Nottage's superlative drama about American working lives, in which a lively bar-room conversation turns to the seemingly unlikely subject of NAFTA. It’s 2000, the Bush presidency just around the corner, and the... Read more... |
What's My Name: Muhammad Ali, Sky Atlantic review - why they called him The GreatestWednesday, 12 June 2019
As Anthony Joshua’s shock defeat by the unfancied Andy Ruiz Jr suggests, heavyweight boxers ain’t what they used to be. Antoine Fuqua’s sprawling HBO documentary (this was the first of two parts) bangs the point home with its vivid examination of... Read more... |
We the Animals review - lyrical story of brotherly love and family traumaWednesday, 12 June 2019
“When we were brothers we wanted more: more volume, more muscles, us three, us kings.” So begins documentary-maker Jeremiah Zagar’s faithful but watered-down adaptation of Justin Torres’s autobiographical coming-out novel, set in the 1990s.Zagar's... Read more... |
First Person: Matt Henry on fulfilling 'a dream come true' to play the legendary singer Sam CookeTuesday, 11 June 2019
When I first read One Night in Miami, I instantly felt a strong connection to the piece and its story. The fact that Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, Cassius Clay and Jim Brown, four iconic black men at the top of their game in 1964, actually... Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, NetflixTuesday, 11 June 2019
Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on from the release last week of the latest Bootleg Series boxed set, 14 CDs covering five full concerts... Read more... |
Bob Dylan Special - theartsdesk Q&A: Scarlet RiveraTuesday, 11 June 2019
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the official Bootleg Series, theartsdesk talks exclusively to Scarlet Rivera, the violinist on Desire and the... Read more... |
Bronx Gothic, Young Vic review - fervid intensityMonday, 10 June 2019
It’s hard, and finally fruitless to attempt to describe Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic in conventional terms of genre: combining elements of dance and theatre, this visceral solo performance transcends both. It engages with frantic movement at the... Read more... |
