Los Angeles
Album: Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, DripSaturday, 27 June 2020
Apparently a freaky, brilliant novelty in 1974, Sparks have proved eternally invincible: the synthpop duo template, glam and disco avatars, chasing the pop grail across the globe as their latest mode hit the local chart mark. Lightly worn resilience... Read more... |
Perry Mason, Sky Atlantic review - low life and hard times in Depression-era LATuesday, 23 June 2020
Rather like David Suchet’s Poirot, the world will always think of Raymond Burr as the doughty defence lawyer Perry Mason, whom he played in nine TV series and 26 TV movies between 1957 and 1993. But Burr’s Mason existed before the age of the prequel... Read more... |
Echo in the Canyon review – California droopin'Saturday, 13 June 2020
Echo in the Canyon is a lamentably thin documentary about the vibrant folk-rock music scene that flourished in the bohemian Los Angeles neighbourhood of Laurel Canyon from 1965 to 1967. Though it features priceless vintage footage of the Beach Boys... Read more... |
Banana Split review - likable if essentially timid romcomTuesday, 09 June 2020
Is friendship mightier and more durable than sex? That's the proposition put forward by the engaging if ultimately cautious Banana Split, the Los Angeles-set romcom in which two teenagers become friends unbeknownst to the long-haired himbo boyfriend... Read more... |
Album: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of TransformationThursday, 14 May 2020
A singer-songwriter of somewhat mystical bent, originally from a forested island in the US Pacific Northwest, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith really came into her own when she discovered vintage synthesizers. In particular, her masterpiece, 2016's EARS,... Read more... |
Album: Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt CuttersThursday, 16 April 2020
Fiona Apple simmered in the LA sun for eight years to make this record, mostly holed up at home since her beloved dog died and she stopped drinking. Rather than polish the result to a sleek gleam, this is an album of trailing threads and percussive... Read more... |
Album: Thundercat - It Is What It IsWednesday, 01 April 2020
Alongside the man he calls “the other half of my brain”, Flying Lotus, Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner sits near the heart of Los Angeles’ fertile, genre-busting scene, helping to link Kendrick Lamar’s righteous rebel rap, Kamasi Washington’s spiritual... Read more... |
Album: The Weeknd - After HoursFriday, 20 March 2020
Let’s talk about “Blinding Lights”. What a sleek single, like an escapee from the acclaimed soundtrack to the film Drive, a polished riff on mid-Eighties synth-pop, ripe for 21st century dancefloors, one of the songs of the year so far, all topped... Read more... |
Pretty Woman: The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre review - not so pretty, actuallyTuesday, 03 March 2020
It’s not so much that Pretty Woman: The Musical isn’t much good, which it isn’t. More to the point is that this West End replica of the recent Broadway musical of the 1990 film feels utterly superfluous: a gloss on a popular romcom that... Read more... |
Oscars 2020: a 'Parasite' love-in caps a night of firstsMonday, 10 February 2020
The 92nd Academy Awards saved its surprises for a final stretch that saw Parasite make history as the first foreign language film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture, pipping to the post the presumptive favourite, the World War One drama 1917 (... Read more... |
The L Word: Generation Q, Sky Atlantic review - is the new Word as good as the old Word?Wednesday, 05 February 2020
The L Word originally ran for six seasons between 2004 and 2009, and its then-revolutionary depiction of the lives of a group of lesbians in Los Angeles won it both a fanatical audience and acclaim for its game-changing content, exploring such... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Black AngelTuesday, 04 February 2020
Waking at a pivotal moment in Black Angel, alcoholic songwriter-pianist Marty Blair (Dan Duryea) momentarily mistakes his new professional partner Catherine Bennett (June Vincent) for his estranged wife Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling). Each is a... Read more... |
