America
Every Body review - heartfelt American documentaryFriday, 15 December 2023
This fascinating American documentary tackles the societal and medical treatment of the 1.7% of people born with intersex traits that leave them with sex characteristics (chromosome patterns, genitals, gonads) that aren’t obviously male or female.... Read more... |
Please Don't Destroy: Treasure of Foggy Mountain review - Dude, where's our map?Saturday, 09 December 2023
Despite an ominous title, there’s always fair weather in the debut comic adventure film featuring Please Don’t Destroy, a NYC sketch comedy trio that’s hit it big with viral videos and on the long-running NBC series Saturday Night Live. (So long... Read more... |
Monica review - sombre American dramaFriday, 08 December 2023
There’s a rich seam of folk stories about changelings, infants snatched from home and replaced with a substitute child, to the horror and bewilderment of their parents. The myth taps into parental anxieties that rear up when their offspring doesn’t... Read more... |
Eileen review - a dank fairytale film noirSaturday, 02 December 2023
As the title character in Eileen, set in a miserable Massachusetts backwater in the days before Christmas 1964, Thomasin McKenzie plays a depressed hybrid of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty who’s awakened by a patently fake Princess Charming-cum-... Read more... |
Mark Rothko, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris review - a show well worth the trip across the ChannelTuesday, 28 November 2023
The vast and various spaces of Frank Gehry’s monumental Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris suit the needs of the thrilling Mark Rothko exhibition now inhabiting its labyrinthine multi-storey suite of galleries.Some of the 115 works on display require... Read more... |
Greta Van Fleet, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - all rock and very little rollWednesday, 22 November 2023
If nothing else, you couldn’t accuse Greta Van Fleet of short-changing fans when it came to costumes or pyro. It felt like every few minutes the Michigan throwback rockers frontman Josh Kiszka was disappearing offstage, only to reappear in a variety... Read more... |
May December review - a queasy take on sexual exploitationSaturday, 18 November 2023
There’s much to admire here – May December features impressive performances from Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, and director Todd Haynes shows his mastery of classic Sirkian style. But disappointingly, this comes across as a... Read more... |
Is There Anybody Out There? review - autobiographical documentary on disabilitySaturday, 18 November 2023
Ella Glendining has made an impressive documentary debut with the autobiographical essay, Is There Anybody Out There? Born without hip joints and very short thigh bones, we first encounter her as a perky, confident little girl walking in the... Read more... |
Album: Rockstar - Dolly PartonFriday, 17 November 2023
When Dolly Parton was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she requested that her name be withdrawn.She was "flattered and grateful" for the honour but "I don't feel I have earned that right," she wrote. "It kind of would... Read more... |
Rustin review - a doubly liberated American lifeSunday, 05 November 2023
This is a tribute to a forgotten hero, gay black Quaker Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington, the vast peaceful protest that sanctified Martin Luther King as his oratory seemed to lift black America... Read more... |
Fellow Travellers, Paramount+ review - four-decade saga of power, politics and gay loveSaturday, 28 October 2023
Derived from the similarly-titled novel by Thomas Mallon and directed by Ron Nyswaner, Fellow Travellers tracks the course of its protagonists through several decades of 20th Century American history. It’s also an account of changing attitudes to... Read more... |
Clyde's, Donmar Warehouse review - high-octane comedy with a soft-centreThursday, 26 October 2023
Lynn Nottage’s second London opening this year, the Donmar premiere of Clyde’s, is a comedy about a sandwich, the perfect sandwich. With just a little more punch to the plotting it would be another masterwork from this award-winning American... Read more... |
