Those Who Wish Me Dead: Angelina Jolie’s back in action thriller May 17, 2021 It’s been an interesting decade for one of the world’s most famous stars. Angelina Jolie has arguably enjoyed a profile higher than most actors this century, but celebrity hasn’t always translated into box office. After being one of the big draws of the 2000s, her live action output in the 2010s has garnered mixed results [...]
What top London chefs really think about Instagram May 14, 2021 Heston Blumenthal is famously exacting about the dining experience. He tries to create “sensory memories”, controlling not only the way his dishes look and taste, but what his diners are listening to while they eat. His The Sound of the Sea, a signature dish at The Fat Duck, came with an iPod Nano playing, well, [...]
The Woman In The Window is a dreadful Hitchcock imitation May 14, 2021 When a film is delayed or undergoes reshoots, the first thing those behind the production will say is that this doesn’t necessarily mean the film is doomed. This can be true – Rogue One, for example, is a film that benefitted from a second pass. However, for every success story there are many more projects [...]
Chris Rock brings weight to worn out Saw franchise with Spiral May 13, 2021 Eyebrows were raised a few years ago when comedian Chris Rock was linked to a revamp of the Saw franchise. The stand-up/actor has made a few films in the past, including the excellent 2015 comedy Top Five, but the torture porn franchise seemed a world away from his performance style. Nevertheless, studio bosses were impressed [...]
Under The Stadium Lights: An achingly familiar high school drama May 12, 2021 Religion and sport have a funny way of crossing paths in cinema. The former has inherent gravitas, the latter excitement, and produced surprise hits such as Oscar winner The Blind Side. Of course, for every box office smash there are numerous failed contenders, boasting familiar faces and vaguely inspirational titles such as When The Game [...]
The Secrets We Keep: Noomi Rapace leads tense drama-thriller May 12, 2021 Noomi Rapace, star of Prometheus and the original adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, leads this tense drama-thriller which keeps you guessing until the end. Set in the suburbs of Post-War America, Rapace plays Maja, a Romanian immigrant happily married to mild mannered doctor Lewis (Chris Messina). Their content existence is shattered when [...]
Members’ clubs in the age of Covid, from Groucho to Boisdale May 12, 2021 Are you clubbable? Some people are, fiercely, while others disdain the whole idea. It is thought men are more clubbable than women, though that may not be supported by facts. In any event, if you are what PG Wodehouse would have called a clubman, you will be eagerly awaiting Monday 17 May and the reopening [...]
Mortal Kombat is the latest video games adaptation to pop May 6, 2021 A few years ago, the accepted wisdom was that video games don’t make good movies. You could point to Street Fighter, Super Movie Bros, Hitman, Need For Speed, Assassin’s Creed, or any number of flops that failed to capture the magic of their pixelated inspiration. In the last few years, however, the code seems to [...]
The United Way is a timely doc on the Manchester football giant May 5, 2021 Depending on your view, this is the best or worst time to release a documentary about Manchester United. It arrives days after fans invaded the Old Trafford pitch, demanding the removal of current owners The Glazer Family as the fallout from the European Super League fiasco continues. With the club in turmoil, it may not [...]
How video games could be the next frontier in the WFH revolution May 5, 2021 By this time last year, most of us were already experiencing Zoom fatigue. A month of working remotely had taken its toll and the endless queue of video meetings seemed to exemplify the creeping malaise of this new way of working. Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s games division Xbox, soon came up with a novel [...]
