France
Lee review - shaky biopic of an iconic photographerFriday, 13 September 2024
Anyone who has seen Lee Miller’s photographs – those taken of her in the 1920s when she was a dazzling American beauty, those she took as a World War Two photojournalist – and read about her extraordinary life will have thought: this will make... Read more... |
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paintSaturday, 14 September 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the National Gallery has devoted to this much loved artist. Focusing mainly on paintings and drawings made in the two years he... Read more... |
Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime, BBC Four review - satisfying novelistic retelling of a French true crime sagaTuesday, 10 September 2024
Like the BBC’s documentary series The Yorkshire Ripper Files before it, the French six-part drama Sambre on BBC Four is more than a grim rerun of an extended crime spree. On trial, too, are the forces that allowed the crimes to continue – here, for... Read more... |
Album: Juniore - Trois, Deux, UnMonday, 09 September 2024
Although it takes seconds to discern that Juniore are French, a core inspiration appears to be the echoing surf-pop instrumentals of Californian studio band The Marketts, whose 1963 single "Out of Limits" became their most well-known track. Add in... Read more... |
Widow Clicquot review - Haley Bennett stars as the First Lady of champagneFriday, 23 August 2024
The book by Tilar Mazzeo on which Thomas Napper's film is based is subtitled “The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled it”, though one suspects that the life of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin was a little less Mills & Boon-ish than the... Read more... |
The Years, Almeida Theatre review - matchless acting quintet makes for a must-seeThursday, 08 August 2024
The title sounds as if we ought to be in for an evening of Virginia Woolf, and, indeed, one of the astonishing women on view (Deborah Findlay) was in fact a co-star of the recent West End version of Orlando. In fact, this late-summer offering is a... Read more... |
Prom 24, The Fairy Queen, Les Arts Florissants/Le Jardin des Voix, Agnew review - hip-hop hornpipesWednesday, 07 August 2024
“One charming night gives more delight than a hundred lucky days”. So claims one of the gorgeous (and, in this case, risqué) numbers that stud Purcell’s “semi-opera” The Fairy Queen like sequins on a flamboyant party gown.Directed by tenor-turned-... Read more... |
Album: Kevin Fowley - À Feu DouxMonday, 22 July 2024
“Ne pleure pas, Jeannette” is a version of the 15th-century French song "La pernette se lève." It tells the story of Jeannette, whose parents want her to marry into the gentry or royalty. She, however, is in love with Pierre. He is in prison. She... Read more... |
The Baker's Wife, Menier Chocolate Factory review - loving reappraisal doesn't entirely, well, riseFriday, 19 July 2024
The Baker's Wife closed on the way to Broadway in 1976, since which time Stephen Schwartz's stubbornly resistent if sweetly scored musical has been revived and reworked all over the map, not least by Gordon Greenberg. The American director has... Read more... |
Heart of an Oak review - an adventure film starring a tree and its inhabitantsFriday, 05 July 2024
On one level, Heart of an Oak is the most spectacular nature film you are ever likely to see. The camera glides over a forest before honing in on a magnificent, 210 year old oak tree. It travels up the gnarled surface of the ancient trunk, which... Read more... |
Rose review - a long way from homeFriday, 28 June 2024
Rose has taken a while to get a release in the UK; this Danish comedy-drama opened in Scandinavia back in the autumn of 2022 and won positive reviews in the US last Christmas. Releasing a movie just as the sun finally appears to make spending... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Army of ShadowsTuesday, 25 June 2024
One of those rare films that leaves you speechless after the closing credits, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (L'Armée des ombres) sounds on paper as if it shouldn’t work.Melville’s penultimate film (it was released in 1969), this World War 2... Read more... |
- 1 of 54
- ››
