money
The Wolf of Wall StreetWednesday, 15 January 2014![]() It was Benjamin Franklin who said "money has never made man happy...the more of it one has the more one wants," and there is no shortage of examples of boundless greed and how an abundance of cash can upturn and empty lives. Based on the memoir of... Read more... |
The Great GatsbyThursday, 16 May 2013![]() The mothership has landed. After a year or so of countless stage adaptations ranging from a recitation of the novel in its entirety to a themed party and (just this week) a dance piece, Baz Luhrmann's celluloid version of The Great Gatsby has... Read more... |
ArbitrageMonday, 25 February 2013![]() Suddenly everyone is noticing that Richard Gere, now 63, is a much better actor than he used to be in his aloof and self-regarding youth. In Arbitrage, written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, Gere plays powerful and privileged Manhattan hedge-fund... Read more... |
The Stepmother, Orange Tree TheatreSunday, 10 February 2013![]() When's the last time you encountered a play with a hissable anti-hero and a young heroine who radiates charity, decency, and all things good? Those polarities are on full-throttle view in The Stepmother, the all-but-unknown Githa Sowerby play... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Thessaloniki: Moving Pictures in the Cradle of AusteritySunday, 11 November 2012![]() Greece is in economic meltdown. Austerity is hitting most of the population very hard. Businesses are closing down. The amount of homeless has increased. There are strikes and huge anti-government demonstrations throughout the country. What better... Read more... |
You Can Still Make a Killing, Southwark PlayhouseMonday, 15 October 2012![]() Banking and the financial world may have gone into free-fall, but there are still killings to be made. Particularly personal ones. Nicholas Pierpan’s You Can Still Make a Killing is a morality tale for our time, a revenge tragedy without corpses,... Read more... |
Bush Bazaar, Bush TheatreTuesday, 07 August 2012![]() The curators encourage you to come to Bush Bazaar with an open mind to explore the value of theatre. But I found this cluttered evening a lesson in the value of saying no. Twenty companies – 100 emerging artists in all – have taken over the building... Read more... |
ContrabandThursday, 15 March 2012![]() I always used to avoid any film that had Mark Wahlberg in it, because he seemed to have the acting skills of a park bench. Then I saw The Departed - because you have to see Marty's movies - and thought he was brilliant as the astonishingly foul... Read more... |
Inside Men, BBC OneFriday, 03 February 2012It certainly started with a bang. The whirlwind opening sequence of the BBC's new four-part drama depicted a cash depot heist by a masked gang unfolding in something close to real time, and thrummed with blood and nervous tension. Security guard... Read more... |
Put your daughter down a mine, Mrs Worthington, say new earnings statsFriday, 20 January 2012![]() Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington, put her down a mine. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics for weekly earnings to 2011 paint a stark earnings picture for those working in the arts and entertainment industry.... Read more... |
Margin CallWednesday, 11 January 2012![]() Margin Call, a smart, taut and brutally frank portrait of the money game, asks a lot of its audience. A movie about traders as, if not quite good guys, then at least rounded guys? It’s not a trick Oliver Stone ever managed to pull off, and he tried... Read more... |
Opinion: Oligarchs and oiligarchs have made art a luxuryWednesday, 28 December 2011![]() For me, 2011 will go down as the year in which the fact that artworks have become luxury goods – playthings for the rich – could no longer be ignored. In response Damien Hirst, one of the first artists to turn himself into a brand, is sprinkling the... Read more... |
