Los Angeles
The Bling RingMonday, 01 July 2013
Sofia Coppola has become known for lovingly sketching out the tribulations of the rich and famous, and reviews of her 2010 Chateau Marmont-set angst fest Somewhere made it clear that critics’ patience with that particular seam had waned. But it has... Read more... |
DVD: The Long GoodbyeFriday, 03 May 2013
Robert Altman’s 1973 deconstruction of the private eye movie freely adapts and updates Raymond Chandler’s final completed novel from 1952. With Leigh Brackett (the remarkable female screenwriter who worked on Howard Hawks’s Chandler classic The Big... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Stephen StillsSunday, 24 March 2013
Stephen Stills: Carry OnSprawling across these four discs is the curious saga of the megastar who fell to earth. From early 1967, when Stephen Stills's song "For What It's Worth" became a Top 10 hit for LA folk-rockers Buffalo Springfield, to... Read more... |
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican HallMonday, 18 March 2013
Zipangu. What a name for a piece of music. Such a strange and suggestive collection of vowels and consonants. Such a musical string of sounds. A fascinating name. The name, in fact, the programme told me, for Japan during the time of Marco Polo. The... Read more... |
The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dudamel, Barbican HallSunday, 17 March 2013
“I do not believe in miracles,” scoffs Herodias in Oscar Wilde’s - and Richard Strauss’s - Salome. “I have seen too many.” I know how she feels. So it was a bit of a shock to find the highest-kicking of today’s composers, John Adams, and his... Read more... |
Pereira, LA Phil New Music Group, Dudamel, Adams, Barbican HallFriday, 15 March 2013
For finding new popes as much as for hunting down new music, looking to the ends of the earth seems a fruitful route to take. Last night saw the start of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Barbican residency with their principal conductor, Gustavo... Read more... |
Oscars 2013: Day-Lewis 3, Skyfall 1½, MacFarlane 0Monday, 25 February 2013
Emmanuelle Riva travelled all the way to Los Angeles for that? I doubt I’m the only one whose heart went out to the radiant French actress, newly turned 86, as the 85th annual Academy Awards drew to a long and lumbering close well into its fourth... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Hawkwind, Dual Form, The Children’s Hour, Buddy GuySunday, 20 January 2013
Hawkwind: Space RitualAlthough it was released 40 years ago, Space Ritual sounds contemporary. Hawkwind’s repetition, simplicity and single-minded focus effectively created trance-inducing mantras. Now, they cast a shadow over Six Organs of... Read more... |
10 Questions for Director Bernard RoseFriday, 04 January 2013
Who ever said making a movie was a glamorous business? Shooting the climactic scene of his most recent film Boxing Day, British-born director Bernard Rose (pictured below right) found himself in the freezing Colorado mountains - so cold you couldn’t... Read more... |
Boxing DayTuesday, 18 December 2012
You don’t need to know that Bernard Rose’s Boxing Day is an adaptation of the Tolstoy story Master and Man, but it does help - somewhat. You may well know it anyway, given that it’s the third film in a loose series that Rose started just more than a... Read more... |
SmashedMonday, 10 December 2012
“Cringed” is the adjective you want to invent to describe Kate, the dipso heroine of James Ponsoldt’s Smashed who's played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. If there’s one thing that Ponsoldt's script, co-written with Susan Burke, captures - actually,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Blue Nile, The Seeds, Dan Penn, Frankie Goes to HollywoodSunday, 04 November 2012
The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops, HatsGraeme ThomsonThe Blue Nile occupy a unique spot in the musical landscape. Formed in 1980 by Glasgow University graduates Paul Buchanan, Paul Joseph Moore and Robert Bell, four albums in 30 years... Read more... |
