Hollywood
Disney 100 - The Concert, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a slick tour of the Magic KingdomFriday, 02 June 2023
There are a few perils to saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as Janette Manrara discovered on this opening night of Disney’s anniversary arena jaunt. Trying to divide the Glasgow crowd into sections to sing the song, Manrara tripped over who... Read more... |
Oscars 2023 - the favourite lives up to its titleMonday, 13 March 2023
Everything Everywhere All at Once lived up to its title Sunday night at the 95th Academy Awards by managing to win nearly everything everywhere almost all at once. The fragmented, seriocomic celluloid head trip won seven of the 11 Oscars for which... Read more... |
Babylon review - sound and fury in silent HollywoodSunday, 22 January 2023
Babylon is sensational, a manic, pounding assault on the senses meant to convey Hollywood’s chaotic birth. Damien Chazelle’s return to La La Land’s showbiz dreams forsakes ineffable intimacy for hysterical thunder, and for much of the time that’s... Read more... |
Prom 27, Dinnerstein, National Youth Orchestra, Gourlay review - colour symphoniesMonday, 08 August 2022
Danny Elfman – the punk rocker-turned-film composer behind Batman, Spider-Man, Edward Scissorhands and The Simpsons – reports that he felt sceptical when first approached to write for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Why? Simply... Read more... |
Bob Rafelson (1933-2022): New Hollywood's raging bullTuesday, 26 July 2022
Bob Rafelson finally exiled himself, unable any longer to countenance the consuming nature of his filmmaking. As director, producer and writer in the Sixties and Seventies, he had helped create both New Hollywood’s fabled moment of auteur freedom... Read more... |
Thor: Love and Thunder review - more like it from MarvelSaturday, 09 July 2022
Twenty-eight films and 19 proliferating TV series in, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was becoming wearisome, testing fans’ faith with grimly effortful new entries, and choking other sorts of film into the margins, like knotweed. But like the mid-20th... Read more... |
Jurassic World Dominion review - extinction eventFriday, 10 June 2022
Franchise burnout continues apace, in this asteroid strike of a finale. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness showed the previously agile and humane Marvel machine weighed down by plot mechanics and fan service, and this Jurassic Park/World... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Escape from LATuesday, 03 May 2022
Fifteen years after John Carpenter scored a massive box-office hit with his ingenious low-budget sci-fi thriller Escape from New York (1981), he was given a free rein to make Escape from LA. Unfortunately, unlimited access to extras... Read more... |
Chivalry, Channel 4 review - Steve Coogan and Sarah Solemani's sharp Hollywood satireFriday, 29 April 2022
It was inevitable that someone would soon tackle the question of how does Hollywood start behaving in the post-MeToo world, but few would have put money on a comedy drama starring Steve Coogan, the creator of Alan Partridge. But here it is, a whip-... Read more... |
Ennio review - sprawling biog of the maestro of movie musicThursday, 21 April 2022
Ennio Morricone’s collaboration with director Giuseppe Tornatore on 1988’s Cinema Paradiso was one of the countless highlights of his career, and it’s Tornatore who has masterminded this sprawling documentary tribute to the composer, who died in... Read more... |
William Hurt, great Hollywood contrarian, has died at 71Sunday, 13 March 2022
No actor had a classier time of it in the Eighties than William Hurt, who has died at the age of 71. Ramrod tall, blue-eyed and aquiline, with a high forehead swept clear of thin fair hair, he was a brash decade's intelligent male lead. Those years... Read more... |
Ava: The Secret Conversations, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith review - about Ava Gardner's effingThursday, 27 January 2022
“The penis. Have you or have you not discussed the penis?” The question that haunts every journalist commissioned to ghost the memoirs of a Hollywood legend (female). Get the dirt on the boyfriend and forget the childhood stuff.To be sure, we all... Read more... |
