drugs
CD: Jessy Lanza - Oh NoThursday, 05 May 2016Canadian singer/producer Jessy Lanza's records – and this one more than ever – can feel like they're mapping an alternative history, one where populist and leftfield electronic music were never separate. Two aspects dominate her sound: her crisp,... Read more... |
SicarioThursday, 08 October 2015"I just wanna know what I'm getting into," states FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), not unreasonably, as she heads blindly down the rabbit hole. She emerges into a lawless land where bad guys rule, police fearfully follow and her own side's... Read more... |
The Gamechangers, BBC Two / Narcos, NetflixWednesday, 16 September 2015Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Sam Houser, who's portrayed as the dominant creative mastermind behind Rockstar Games and its phenomenally successful Grand Theft Auto series, The Gamechangers (**) sought to depict legal battles over GTA's violent... Read more... |
Cartel LandWednesday, 02 September 2015Cartel Land opens with a group of crystal meth cooks at work somewhere in the dead-of-night Mexican wilderness. They boast about the quality of their goods: they have the best production equipment, and were even taught their expertise by a visiting... Read more... |
The Trials of Jimmy Rose, ITVMonday, 31 August 2015“Breezy” isn't a word we associate with Ray Winstone. We’re more used to something like “big slab o’ bastard”, the epithet he got (they were biased Glaswegians, admittedly) most recently for his appearance in Robert Carlyle’s The Legend of Barney... Read more... |
DVD: The Man with the Golden ArmThursday, 02 July 2015When The Man with the Golden Arm was released in British cinemas in January 1956, it was given an “X” certificate by the then British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), which excluded those under 16 from seeing it. Cuts were made to scenes showing the... Read more... |
Trainspotting, King’s Head TheatreSunday, 22 March 2015Hey, it’s the 1990s – yet again. After high-profile revivals of contemporary classics, such as Patrick Marber’s Closer and Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg, here comes, from that edgy decade, a fringe version of the iconic story of Leith heroin... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary ChainSaturday, 21 February 2015With The Jesus & Mary Chain reformed and currently touring their epochal debut album, Psychocandy, theartsdesk reaches into its archives to offer up a rare and very extensive interview with lead singer Jim Reid from 2010.Jim Reid (b 1961) is... Read more... |
HeliWednesday, 21 May 2014With this year's Cannes Film Festival in full swing, the winner of last year's Best Director prize gets a belated UK release. Heli is the third feature from the Spanish-born, Mexican-raised Amat Escalante, following Sangre (2005) and Los Bastardos (... Read more... |
Crystal FairyTuesday, 14 January 2014Crystal Fairy (or to give it its full, original name Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus and 2012) is an endearing curio from odd-couple director and star Sebastián Silva and Michael Cera, who have teamed up for a double-bill of projects: the... Read more... |
CD: Samiyam - Wish You Were HereSaturday, 12 October 2013The hip hop music of California has always been deeply stoned, and the wave of instrumental beats that have emerged from LA in recent years have taken this to quite some extreme. The scene around the Brainfeeder collective and Low End Theory club... Read more... |
FilthThursday, 03 October 2013Not long ago James McAvoy finished a brutal run as Macbeth, and he’s back in Filth as another manic Scotsman hurtling towards self-destruction. The setting is Nineties Edinburgh, and his character, dodgy policeman Bruce Robertson, has a... Read more... |