fantasy
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – The True Story, BBC FourThursday, 28 April 2011
“There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…” A wish became a mantra and then became a happy ending, when Dorothy wiggled her ruby-red shoes in the MGM movie version of L Frank Baum’s fairy story. But this... Read more... |
Adèle Blanc-SecSunday, 17 April 2011
BD, pronounced bédé, is short for "bande déssinée", the French equivalent of the comic strip or graphic novel, which has long been accorded a popular affection and cultural standing well beyond that of its anglophone equivalent. Luc Besson says he... Read more... |
2001: A Space Odyssey with live score, Philharmonia, de Ridder, Royal Festival HallThursday, 07 April 2011
Imagine a special two-hour-plus resurrection of that wannabe extravaganza Stars in Their Eyes. "So, young maestro André de Ridder, who are you going to give us?" "Well, in addition to showing my special flair for contemporary music in Ligeti, I'm... Read more... |
DVD: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past LivesMonday, 28 March 2011
The unexpected winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s 2010 Palme d’Or is a triumphant foray into the fantastical. Strange and surprising, yet serenely measured, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s sixth feature tells the story of the final days of Thai farmer... Read more... |
The Wizard of Oz, London PalladiumWednesday, 02 March 2011
If it only had a heart. Animal cruelty, a sadistic green-faced witch, flying monkeys: L Frank Baum’s story, which spawned the MGM movie that made Judy Garland a star, is downright grotesque. And when it’s not unsettling you with its rusty Tin Man,... Read more... |
Penelope, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 17 February 2011
Men. They say these strange creatures never leave the playground. Even when the years have passed, boys stubbornly remain boys, chatting rubbish, competing manfully and finally burning out. In Enda Walsh’s Penelope, which was a hit at the Edinburgh... Read more... |
Opinion: 3D is as revolutionary as the talkieMonday, 07 February 2011
Tainted by its origins and association with the pulp cinema of the 1950s (classics like Bwana Devil, It Came from Outer Space and House of Wax were pioneers of stereoscopic technology), 3D cinema has remained the province of entertainment cinema, a... Read more... |
Get Santa!, Royal CourtMonday, 13 December 2010
Incongruence is always interesting, so the news earlier this year that Anthony Neilson, bad-boy author of adult plays such as Penetrator, The Censor and The Wonderful World of Dissocia, was penning a Christmas play — suitable for kids — at the Royal... Read more... |
The Master Builder, Almeida TheatreSaturday, 20 November 2010
Halvard Solness and Hilde Wangel have stalked each other among the shadow goblins of Henrik Ibsen’s extraordinary symbol-laden drama in two major productions this year. In Chichester, Philip Franks’s staging and David Edgar’s new version of the text... Read more... |
The Thrill of It All, Forced Entertainment, Riverside StudiosTuesday, 26 October 2010
It’s pretty hard to describe a Forced Entertainment show. But let’s try anyway: imagine a stage full of crazy dancers, the men in black wigs, the women in white ones, prancing around, flinging their arms in the air, mistiming their high kicks, and... Read more... |
Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, BBC FourThursday, 21 October 2010
The recurrent image in this somewhat staid documentary is a monochrome photograph of Poe’s moon of a face with its panda-like eye sockets. Occasionally the camera moves in for a close-up on those eyes - perhaps hoping they’ll reveal something that... Read more... |
DVD Release: Black NarcissusSaturday, 31 July 2010
Violet may be the most violent colour in the spectrum, but its emotional equivalent in the cinema of Michael Powell is red, which frequently symbolises overwhelming sexual and artistic desire. Powell fetishised redness - and redheads like Deborah... Read more... |
