America
David Nice
You can usually trust the buzz around rehearsals. From Glyndebourne, five weeks into preparation for La traviata, which opens tomorrow, one of the team working on Tom Cairns’ new production declared in an e-mail conversation that newcomer soprano Venera Gimadieva was possibly the most definitive Violetta yet. And when I was havering over whether to interview American tenor Michael Fabiano, not by then having watched a wealth of stupendous videos on his website, the response was “you absolutely must”.I soon saw why Fabiano at 30 is feted in the States as one of the most exciting lirico spinto Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
What makes an exciting “genuine” photographer is fairly simple: what do you see in the photographs? Do they compel you to look at them? How evocative are the images? How interesting are the compositions? These are among the criteria which separate the merely good from the truly great – and who would have expected that there are truly great photographers yet undiscovered, or even some that didn’t want to be discovered? This is the backstory of Finding Vivian Maier, an exceptional and exceptionally compelling documentary co-directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel.It was Maloof’s own Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It's a woman’s world at Park Theatre, where an all-female company tackles three American shorts that place the private feminine experience under a microscope. Jack Thorpe Baker’s casting yields mixed results, emphasising the shrewd analysis of gendered thought in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and Philip Dawkins’s Cast of Characters (both half an hour), though Brooke Allen’s 50-minute study of grief, The Deer, already suffers from character opacity. The Deer is markedly less incisive, providing the evening with a somewhat muted conclusion.Cast of Characters offers dizzying formal experimentation, Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Coming-of-agers, of which we’ve seen an awful lot recently, focus on a turning point in a child’s life: not so much the moment they transition from child to adult as the moment a child is first drawn into the adult world - retreat might be possible but they emerge from the experience changed. Boyhood, from the ever ingenious Richard Linklater, offers a genuinely fresh and truly ambitious twist on this cinematic staple.Like the growth chart we see inked on a door-frame, the film provides yearly updates on a child’s development. It’s a labour of love, shot in 39 days over the course of 12 years Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Movies about the music industry often end up being bombastic or twee or merely idiotic. This one, written and directed by John Carney (who made 2006's not entirely dissimilar Once), picks its way carefully around the pitfalls to tell a story of love, loss and pop songs with sweetness and wit.You wouldn't automatically visualise Keira Knightley as Indie Pop Girl, but she steps up winningly as Greta, a budding songwriter who prizes her music and doesn't want it prostituted on TV talent shows or bastardised to fit marketing strategies. She's in a seemingly idyllic (uh-oh) relationship with Dave Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The fall of super-cyclist Lance Armstrong is a subject fit for Euripides or Shakespeare. It has also worked pretty well for director Alex Holmes, who managed to round up virtually all the key players caught in Armstrong's vortex of deceit for this unflaggingly gripping documentary [****].Though the feats of Bradley Wiggins and this weekend's Tour de Yorkshire have brought a sense of cheery optimism to the British public's view of cycling, Armstrong's story (and the climate of drug-assisted skulduggery in cycling which prompted it to happen) can hardly fail to leave any onlooker nursing a Read more ...
Katie Colombus
For a long time, Kathleen Hanna was ensconced in a world where she cared more about the noise she made onstage than off. Despite being in a band that couldn't really play their instruments, her political message was what mattered.
The Bikini Kill front-woman and outspoken feminist punk idol’s life is explored in this biographical documentary, hinged on the mystery of why she suddenly stopped performing in 2005.
Directed by Sini Anderson in a fanzine style, the film pays homage to a singer that rocked the riot grrrl movement, sparking a sub-culture of female empowerment and launching third Read more ...
Katherine McLaughlin
Director Jim Mickle and writing partner Nick Damici made a big splash on the horror scene back in 2007 with fierce debut Mulberry St. Since then they have impressed with low-key apocalyptic vampire flick, Stake Land, and a reimagining of the well-regarded Mexican cannibal horror, We Are What We Are, which they turned into a story of female empowerment and a slight on organised religion. Cold in July may not be what their ever increasing fan base expected them to do next but that’s exactly what makes it so satisfying. Mickle and Damici’s daring attitude, passion and knowledge of genre, and Read more ...
stephen.walsh
The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s mistier tales, and although it has been turned into opera a few times, there are obvious difficulties. Debussy struggled for a decade to materialise a drama out of its haunting, neurotic atmosphere, and in the end failed, I would argue, because he was unable to distance himself enough from the central characters to construct a stage action about them. He sketched, though, a good deal of fascinating music, and out of this material the musicologist Robert Orledge has put together a performable work that, if not entirely convincing as Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Here at theartsdesk we still receive the occasional missive from readers on several continents incensed at the BBC's axing of Zen in February 2011, a decision taken by then-controller of BBC One Danny Cohen. Zen didn't get a mention in Cohen's article in Wednesday's Times, entitled "Never mind the box-set brigade, let's celebrate British drama", but he managed to plug plenty of more recent BBC drama productions (and a couple from ITV, in a token attempt at even-handedness). It was as if a long list of titles would be enough to demonstrate the truth of his argument that British TV drama is Read more ...
Naima Khan
If you've been rolling your eyes at the rash of articles hailing London's ever-increasing number of dry bars, allow writer-director Ché Walker to convince you of their amatory relevance. In his new musical drama, smooth-talker Klook and hard nut Vinette fall for one another over a long tall glass of carrot juice, with just the right kick of ginger. The Park Theatre's 90-seat studio space here gives us two sexy strangers who meet randomly in the grimy health club where Klook works, only to find that the two are craving a metaphorical detox. Walker, drawn once more into the American noir Read more ...
Simon Munk
A detective ghost story with virtually no violence – Murdered: Soul Suspect is an odd construction. It is part point-and-click adventure game, part interactive fiction and part stealth-adventure – none of which are massively successful elements.While investigating The Bell Killer, a serial killer working his way throughSalem,Massachusetts, your clichéd cop comes off the worse for an encounter. Thrown out of a high window, then shot, you come to as a ghost. Now, in order to be head off into the light, you must find out who your killer is.As a ghost, of course, you no longer have access to guns Read more ...