Spectre film review: a hollow ghost of a Bond movie October 22, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★☆☆☆ There’s an old episode of The Simpsons where a Bond parody escapes death using an improbable device. It’s funny because we recognise its ridiculousness, having seen it played out countless times in the classic pre-scowly Daniel Craig days. It’s less funny when it happens in director Sam Mendes’ Spectre; one scene [...]
Teddy Ferrara review: a tangled play exploring homophobia, bullying and hate in the wake of tragedy October 15, 2015 Teddy Ferrara is a play that manages to say a very small amount about a great many things. It’s set around an American campus on which a dizzyingly comprehensive catalogue of LGBT issues are being tackled in the wake of a student suicide. To unpack, Christopher Shinn’s play explores homophobia in both its standard and [...]
Peeple, the controversial human-reviewing app, has the right idea. Let’s start rating one another constantly October 15, 2015 Peeple, the controversial new rating app that’s been dubbed “Yelp for people”, launches this week amid concerns that giving star ratings to fellow human beings is unethical, creepy and will render us all vulnerable to a horrifying new realm of online abuse the likes of which the internet has never seen. Which is all well [...]
Cultures collide on the Jersey shore: The enduring UK weekend getaway October 9, 2015 I got into a taxi in Jersey and asked the driver to take me to The Horizon hotel. “You what?” he said. The Horizon hotel? “Don’t you mean l’oreezon, love?” he replied, breaking into a French patois, mid-sentence. It was then I realised I wasn’t in Blighty anymore. Things are different here; you can’t just [...]
The best iPhone 6S alternatives: The latest range of Android phones are worth ditching Apple for October 9, 2015 Fingerprint scanners belong on the back of the phone. That’s the loud and clear message from the latest slew of Android hardware to hit the shelves. Google’s own Nexus 5X and 6P have shifted the ‘print-sensor round the rear, as has the latest Huawei phone, the Honor 7. And it makes a whole lot of [...]
Goya: The Portraits explores the legendarily dark artist’s less nightmarish output October 8, 2015 GOYA: THE PORTRAITS NATIONAL GALLERY RATING ★★★★☆ Goya is perhaps best known for his scary painting of a giant naked fella munching down on a little man, voraciously chomping his arm and head off with the wide-eyed expression of somebody who’s just remembered he left the patio door unlocked. It’s spooky business round Goya’s house, [...]
Sicario movie review: Emily Blunt is embroiled in a brutally violent cartel drug war in this cloak and dagger thriller October 8, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Benicio Del Toro rocks some seriously distracting camel-toe in one harrowing scene, but that’s only the third or fourth most visceral image in Sicario. It’s a violent drug cartel thriller in which Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a steely FBI door-kicker who finds herself drafted into a highly secretive, off-the-books government [...]
Coffee psychology: how everything from the colour of the cup to the sounds of the café can affect how your coffee tastes October 6, 2015 Want a better tasting coffee? Just whip the lid off, stick your beak in and have a smell. Because whether you’re drinking in Costa Rica or in Costa Coffee, you’re tasting your coffee long before it ever touches your lips. Everything from smells, colours, shapes and sounds can affect how you perceive what’s sloshing around [...]
The Walk movie review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt flies high in this vertigo-inducing IMAX 3D spectacle October 2, 2015 Cert PG | ★★★★☆ Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts on a wig and smiles enigmatically in this film about Phillipe Petit, the Frenchman who stunned onlookers and the world by walking a wire between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974. Director Robert Zemeckis tells the story of Petit’s training, and the plan that saw him and a [...]
The Birds theatre review: Avoid this play like you would avian flu October 1, 2015 The Birds Leicester Square Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ The first thought that goes through one's head before a stage version of The Birds is: I wonder how they're going to make the birds happen. Notoriously difficult to work with, birds – all beak and feathers and malevolent intent. Wicked little pseudo dinosaurs. But after sitting through this painfully [...]
