Mexico
HeliWednesday, 21 May 2014
With 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... |
CD: Rodrigo y Gabriela - 9 Dead AliveSunday, 27 April 2014
The career of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero is an anomaly. It’s heartening that such curveballs occur, with artists taking an alternative, individual route to success. To those with any rock’n’roll romance left, it’s a sign that, even in... Read more... |
El Niño, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 15 December 2013
John Adams’ millennial conflagration of musical poems about childbirth, destruction and the divine made manifest not only served as a seasonal farewell and a transcendent epilogue to the Southbank’s year of 20th-century music The Rest is Noise; it... Read more... |
2 GunsThursday, 15 August 2013
Clocking in at a comparatively lean 102 minutes, 2 Guns is a speedy and rumbustious buddy movie in which Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Stig Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) form a wisecracking, fast-shooting duo forced to abandon their mutual... Read more... |
DVD: Post Tenebras LuxTuesday, 23 July 2013
Post Tenebras Lux is a hard film to love, but it is one which engrosses. Although riveting, its appeal is akin to the fascination exerted by catastrophes and car pile-ups. Fittingly, the taste it leaves is bitter. It’s also hard to digest. Contrary... Read more... |
MexFest: A Weekend of Mexican Film and ArtsFriday, 12 July 2013
Last night saw the launch of the second edition of the enterprising MexFest at Richmix in East London– a celebration of all things Mexican (film, architecture, food and music in particular). The opening film was introduced by Baroness Jane... Read more... |
Mexico: A Revolution in Art 1910-1940, Royal AcademyThursday, 04 July 2013
Artists love a good revolution. The social upheaval, the bubbling up of new ideas and the breaking down of old ones, attracts them like flies to fly paper. The Mexican revolution was no exception. During the years 1910-1940, Mexico attracted large... Read more... |
Extract: Mariachi, Machetes, Meths - Manu Chao in MexicoSunday, 12 May 2013
Lake Chapalá begins just south of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. In case there’s any doubt we’re in Mexico, a mariachi band are propositioning the families who stroll along the waterfront and doing good business in their silver tunics and red... Read more... |
Brass Band Battle: Serbia vs Mexico, BarbicanMonday, 15 April 2013
Remember the Brass Band Battle of a couple years ago? The one that pitted Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia vs Serbia’s Boban & Marko Markovic Orkestar on CD and stage? The concert at London’s Koko was great fun, less a "battle" and more a good... Read more... |
Israel Galván/ Farruquito, Flamenco Festival, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 26 March 2013
The annual Sadler’s Wells Flamenco Festival is a hidden treasure-house of brilliance, too quietly sneaking into London in the unappealing limbo between winter and spring, but surely one of the great global gatherings of the dazzling individualists... Read more... |
Post Tenebras LuxMonday, 18 March 2013
In Post Tenebras Lux (light after darkness, in Latin) Mexican writer-director Carlos Reygadas casts a spell which transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. The human condition is eye-poppingly explored in this ambitious, sometimes puzzling... Read more... |
DVD: Santa SangreFriday, 09 November 2012
Possessed by the spirit of his dead mother, a young man is driven to murder women who excite him sexually. Sound familiar? Director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) acknowledges his debt to Hitchcock by placing the mother in a rocking chair; there’s... Read more... |
