New York
Adam Sweeting
This movie has a couple of key advantages - it doesn't have any serial killers or zombies in it. It also pays the audience the compliment of assuming that it has a certain amount of intelligence, enough at least to appreciate being bamboozled by its relentless cleverness and convoluted trickery.It's a strange beast, though. I thoroughly enjoyed about 70 per cent of it as it took off on a whirling thrill-ride which seemed to defy the laws of physics and probability. But perhaps inevitably, all those spinning plates came crashing back to earth as director Louis Leterrier struggled to tie Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“We’re Chelsea Light Moving, we’re from London.” Coming from Thurston Moore during the first UK outing of his post-Sonic Youth combo, that’s amusing. Not only are the rest of the quartet American, Moore himself remains the definition of New York cool. And Chelsea Light Moving sound as American as apple pie with his trademark slash-and-dive guitar and conversational vocals. “It’s Sonic Youth,” declared a voice to my left.With Sonic Youth on hiatus after the break-up of his marriage to band and life partner Kim Gordon, Moore’s new band adds another string to his already hard-working bow. Solo Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Sir Anthony Caro, OM, is wowing them in Venice with his masterly retrospective, but for those of us who can’t get there, there is a generous helping of his characteristic late work in his first show in Gagosian’s airy large gallery. Late Caro (he’s 89, a titan of sculpture) is a revelation in the irresistible vitality with which he imaginatively and consistently finds new things to say using one of his favourite materials: rusted mild steel.There is a palpable communication of the artist’s own enjoyment, his intelligence and his delightThe 10 constructions are massive and once were envisioned Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
You can only marvel at the family intrigues that virtually closed down the legacy of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld in the years following his death in 1969. "Destroy, destruct, separate, divide,” was the emphatic double-phrased imperative with which one of his granddaughters described the “family legacy” in The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women, the BBC Four documentary that’s itself the work of another descendant, grandson Remy Blumenfeld, who wrote and produced this film by Nick Watson.It’s astonishing that it’s the first such screen tribute to a figure of Blumenfeld’s stature: the efforts of Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It is no hyperbole to say that The National have made some of my favourite albums of all time. In every case, it has never been a decision I have reached lightly, or quickly. Those first few listens, you’re merely aware that your heart beats a little faster when the band expertly hit certain emotional pressure points. It could be six months later before you realise why.2010’s High Violet marked a progression in the music of a band whose arrangements have always been the most remarkable thing about their work. Trouble Will Find Me is album number six and the music here is richer still, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Just like Vietnam in 1970s, the so-called War on Terror has been a boon to filmmakers. It has allowed Hollywood to send another generation of buff leading males off to the front and, as the ordnance explodes, bravely question why it is that they are there. However, there’s not been a lot of mainstream filmmaking which puts the Muslim point of view. The Reluctant Fundamentalist – in which a Wall Street highflyer from Pakistan heads home after 9/11 to be among his own troubled people - redresses an imbalance.Indian director Mira Nair caught sight of the slender novel by Mohsin Hamid before it Read more ...
Nick Hasted
It’s the sort of New York summer week where the sidewalk melts. But in writer-director Adam Leon’s SXSW Grand Jury prize-winning cool breeze of a debut, the mood stays amiably balmy. It’s the tale of teenage Bronx graffiti artists Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) who, disrespected at every turn by a tougher graffiti gang, decide to tag a legendarily impregnable, daffy holy grail: the sign that pops up at Mets baseball games when a home run’s scored. All that stands between them and graffiti immortality, Malcolm is convinced, is the $500 his contact inside the stadium Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In a way, falling prey to hype-inspired backlash as early in your musical career as Vampire Weekend did has its benefits - assuming, of course, you have the long-term determination and songwriting prowess to back it up. When “Diane Young”, the first single from Modern Vampires of the City, emerged it was a bit of a shock: a high energy power-pop jam, complete with speed-it-up slow-it-down Elvis-inspired “baby baby babies”, it’s one of the best things the band has ever done.Nearly two years in the making, MOVTC (as it was cryptically known before the band announced the full title by way of a Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
A renaissance man from Texas? Hell yeah. Loosely pegged as "country singer" when he struck out for Nashville in the late Seventies, where he survived on a series of odd jobs before landing himself a songwriting job with a music publisher, the mature Steve Earle has blossomed creatively in all directions. Were he to use business cards, which I can't imagine somehow, he could justifiably bill himself as singer, songwriter, actor, playwright, novelist and political activist.He made a brilliant start with his first full-length album Guitar Town (1986), a scintillating mix of rockabilly, country, Read more ...
Joe Muggs
On hearing the opening track of this album, a friend said “I didn't expect to be listening to new albums of the YYYs 10 years on!” And this is kind of understandable: of all the new rock bands of the early 2000s – The Strokes, The Vines, The Hives, The White Stripes – they had the most air of hipsterism, their kooky demeanour and New York clubbability making it understandable that some could think they were a trend-driven flash-in-the-pan sensation.In fact it was their NYC compatriots The Strokes who all but collapsed under the weight of their own archness, while in contrast what drove the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Some bands pootle along in the background for album after album without anyone but their devoted fans appreciating their wares. Such outfits spend years in the shadows of majority culture, but very slowly, through friend sharing with friend, they can occasionally, eventually gather enough momentum to drift into popular consciousness. From Modest Mouse to Biffy Clyro to Flaming Lips, these artists are enjoyably unlikely rock stars for our Facebook eye-food age. Mice Parade have not yet reached such a tipping point (and possibly never will) but if their profile is ever to rise, Read more ...
graeme.thomson
It was one of those entirely unverifiable "facts" that music documentaries increasingly prefer over genuine insight: early on in this serviceable but routine overview of a truly stellar talent, we were told that Nile Rodgers’s guitar has “played on two billion dollars' worth of hits”. Who really knows? Who actually cares? You don’t measure the sheer joy of Chic’s “Good Times” or Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” by counting the cash or doing the math. You simply use your ears.As Johnny Marr pointed out, Rodgers is responsible for countless records “you’d have to be made out of stone not to be Read more ...