sat 02/08/2025

America

The Naked Gun review - farce, slapstick and crass stupidity

The original Naked Gun series (spun off from the Police Squad! TV show) brought reliable belly-laughs to the Eighties and Nineties and starred the incomparable Leslie Nielsen as the preposterous detective Frank Drebin, but for this regenerated...

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Album: Reneé Rapp - Bite Me

The stage musical update of Mean Girls, and the film adaptation, pushed Reneé Rapp into the public eye. She played queen bitch Regina George. She’s become well-known for her forthright public persona, especially since coming out as a lesbian last...

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The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n'roll

You wouldn’t really want to belong to the Buckley family, a star-crossed dynasty who run their fishing business out of Havenport, North Carolina. As Bree Buckley (daughter of Harlan and Belle) tells recently-discovered family member Shawn, “I wouldn...

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The Fantastic Four: First Steps review - innocence regained

Marvel goes back to its origins, gulping the fresh air of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s first hit comic The Fantastic Four in 1961. Ignoring recent flop film versions, it revels in a self-contained, space-age world as yet uncluttered with other costumed...

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Album: Indigo de Souza - Precipice

Indigo de Souza, a singer from North Carolina, has established some reputation, mostly in the States, for combining indie, pop and emotionally open lyrical heft. This is her fourth album, but her first on a larger label, Loma Vista (she was...

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A Moon for the Misbegotten, Almeida Theatre review - Michael Shannon sears the night sky

Michael Shannon's long legs reach to the stars – or perhaps one should say the moon – in the Almeida's hypnotic revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten, the late Eugene O'Neill play that hasn't been seen in London since Kevin Spacey and Eve...

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Ballard, Prime Video review - there's something rotten in the LAPD

Following the success of its screen version of Michael Connelly’s veteran detective Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver, Prime Video aims to make lightning strike twice by televising Connelly’s series of Renée Ballard books. Like Bosch,...

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Superman review - America's ultimate immigrant

A three-century-spanning countdown rapidly ticks to a version of now, and a beaten Superman (David Corenswet) ploughing into Arctic snow. His super-whistle fetches Superdog Krypto to excavate him like a favourite bone, and drag him to crystalline...

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Girl From The North Country, Old Vic review - Dylan's songs fail to lift the mood

Well, I wasn’t expecting a Dylanesque take on "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" as an opening number and I was right. But The Zim, Nobel Prize ‘n all, has always favoured The Grim American Songbook over The Great American Songbook and writer/director...

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The Road to Patagonia review - journey to the end of the world

The journey not the destination matters in The Road to Patagonia, an epic pilgrimage of 30,000 miles that, unexpectedly, turns into a love story. Surfer boy and ecologist Matty Hannon grew up in Australia but after reading a book at university about...

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Live Aid at 40: When Rock'n'Roll Took on the World, BBC Two review - how Bob Geldof led pop's battle against Ethiopian famine

“Bob’s not the kind of guy you can say no to,” said Sting, reminiscing about the origins of 1984’s Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. “He’s persistent.”He spoke, of course, of Bob Geldof, then best known as the singer with...

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Abstract Erotic, Courtauld Gallery review - sculpture that is sensuous, funny and subversive

The Courtauld Gallery’s Abstract Erotic is a delight for two reasons – because an institution that has often seemed locked in the past is now embracing change and also because the sculptures on show are clever, suggestive and subversively funny.For...

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