America
James Saynor
The Coen brothers’ output has been so broad-ranging, and the duo so self-deprecating, that critics have long had difficulty getting their arms around them. Telling stories of distemper in the American heartland, with the occasional drive-by hit on Old Hollywood, they defined indie cinema for a generation and then perhaps single-handedly released it from its ghetto and merged it into the mainstream. After an extended run of successes from Blood Simple (1984) up to but excluding Intolerable Cruelty (2003), intermittent irritation has greeted some of their 21st century offerings, a few Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Americana rocker Josh Ritter can write a beautiful song. He’s one of America’s premier wordsmiths of the form. He’s also written two novels, which is no surprise; many of his best songs have narrative edge. He’s equally capable at the music, which he calls “cosmic country”. At his best, it has qualities that elevate the human spirit.On his latest, his 13th album in a quarter-century career, the music is variable, but the lyricism seldom flags. The album is titled for his muse, which he calls “my honeydew” (yes, overly cutesy), and the songs are in honour of that. Be that as it may, the 10 Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Fans of the US version of The Office may wonder what happened to the assorted oddballs of Dunder Mifflin, proud creators of paper products in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They will be none the wiser after watching the pilot episode of The Paper, though they will certainly want to stick around for this very welcome spinoff. Its format is much the same as before (one of its writers, Greg Daniels, wrote the original US Office): a film crew is stalking workers in a sleepy office, who regularly talk to the camera, betraying their feelings and their colleagues. Here the business is a moribund Read more ...
John Carvill
Can a film’s classic status expire, or be rescinded? If it can, I’d say The Graduate is a potential candidate.Yes, it was formally groundbreaking (within the context of American cinema), and is often read as a metaphor for the clash of generations, the burgeoning freedoms and battles for equality being waged as the 60s reacted against the grey flannel stultification of the 50s. But try watching it back to back with, say, Bonnie and Clyde, and some aspects come across today as surprisingly staid, almost atavistic. Roger Ebert labelled Dustin Hoffman’s Ben Braddock an “insufferable creep Read more ...
Gary Naylor
$8.2B. That’s what can happen when you re-imagine Hamlet.I doubt that writer, James Ijames, had The Lion King’s box office in mind when he set out to create a Deep South, black and contemporary version of Shakespeare’s drama of familial dysfunction, but he’s got a Pulitzer on the mantelpiece at home and now a run at the RSC. I suspect he’d have settled for that.We open on a barbecue to celebrate the marriage of Juicy’s mother, Tedra, to her husband’s brother, Rev, after the murder, in prison, of Juicy’s father, Pap. Juicy’s friend, Tio, is larking about, but sees the ghost of Pap and, soon, Read more ...
David Kettle
Refuse, Assembly George Square Studios ★★★★Maks works as a bin man in a small Ukrainian town. His little son might get picked on at school and told he’s smelly because of his dad’s occupation, but Maks is content with his lot, his soulmate of a wife Valentyna, his sense of connection with the community and its colourful characters, and also the feeling that he’s actually contributing something to their lives. Even to that of flirty, lonely Yelena, whose isolated house sits at the very end of his run.There are moments early on when writer Lucy McIlgorm’s touching drama looks like it’s heading Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
“I have a baby in me,” says Lydie (Naomi Ackie; Mickey 17). “What? Right now?” says her friend Agnes (Eva Victor), who may not be entirely thrilled at the news. “Are you going to name it Agnes?”Eva Victor (Rian in Billions) stars in, writes and directs their debut feature, which was produced by Barry Jenkins’s production house, Pastel. It’s divided into five sections, beginning and ending with The Year with the Baby. Its silly humour can be irritating, as can the dialogue, and it’s not as incisive as Girls, Fleabag or I May Destroy You, with which it has some themes in common.But it addresses Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or more out there than the Texan psychedelic punks – and even Ice-T was then prepared to step back and acknowledge their place in the pantheon of musical barbarians.Despite a recent avalanche of album re-issues, a new live disc and a forthcoming documentary film, the Butthole Surfers effectively came to an end 25 years ago. However, not being one to settle down and integrate into mainstream society, Haynes is presently back on the road with a group of Read more ...
Justine Elias
Before Freakier Friday there were the two film versions of Freaky Friday based on Mary Rodgers’s lively, perceptive 1972 Young Adult novel, the foremother of all body-swap movie comedies (including Big).In Rodgers’s story, a feuding mother and daughter magically switch bodies for a day. The author was absolutely aware of this ingenious setup’s queasy-comic possibilities. Her 13-year-old narrator seethes at not being allowed to attend boy-girl parties that feature “kissing games”, and struggles when her child-mind is cast into her mother’s adult body and is forced to deal with responsibilities Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Weapons’ enigmatic title, as with Zach Cregger’s previous film Barbarian, reveals little of what follows. The smalltown Pied Piper premise is sufficiently alluring: at 2.17 am, all bar one of a primary school class leave their beds and sprint through night streets, arms flung back like fighter jets, before vanishing utterly.This mystery at first seems secondary to its effect on six protagonists, whose points of view provide pieces of the puzzle. Alongside artfully creepy imagery and gorehound excess, Cregger relies on structure and characters to reel you in, till the central enigma is Read more ...
Tom Carr
For a band who started by entirely self-producing their own records and performing in basements, it has ended up being a long and storied career so far for The Black Keys. The blues-rock group, consisting of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, began their career with their first five albums, from 2001 debut The Big Come Up through to 2008’s Thickfreakness, all playing in a modern blues rock wheelhouse.Distorted, heavily fuzzed guitar lines and Auerbach’s soulful warm vocals played over Carney’s frenetic, energetic drums; the duo quickly garnered a passionate following and renowned for their live Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Molly Tuttle is a star of the US bluegrass scene whose last couple of albums have broadened her appeal. On them she wandered into country, folk, and rock. She featured the likes of Gillian Welch, Dave Matthews and Old Crow Medicine Show, intimating, perhaps, a desired trajectory.Her latest album, her fifth solo, tones down these tendencies in favour, much of the time, of a gentler, smoother direction. While it doesn’t imitate Taylor Swift, there’s something of that superstar’s pop-country style and relationship lyricism.“Mistakes, bad dates, man, I’ve had a few/Cheap thrills, bitter pills, I Read more ...