A thriller that’s a dream to behold
Film
INCEPTION
Cert: 12A
Timothy Barber
AFTER a few years spent making Batman films, British director Christopher Nolan has returned with such an audacious mixing of sci-fi, film noir and heist movie elements that one easily puts aside the fact that its premise is utterly, completely nuts.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a specialist at invading people’s dreams via a technical gizmo the film mercifully doesn’t waste time trying to explain. It turns out that invading the dreamworlds is a great way of stealing secrets and carrying out corporate espionage, at which Leo excels. He assembles a crack team, including Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page, to pull off the ultimate heist, but will sinister events in his past destroy them all?
The impossible-made-real dream environments give Nolan the opportunity to mess about with physics and special effects like a kid in a sandpit. It’s possibly the best and most intelligent use of CGI yet, as whole cities rear up in weird dimensions and fights take place inside tumbling buildings. Most importantly, like all good heist films, the tension builds brilliantly throughout, and it’s all tremendously stylish. An instant action classic.
TOY STORY 3
Cert: PG
Rhys Griffiths
IT’S FIFTEEN years on from the original and best CGI animated film and Andy, the kid, has grown up. By mistake his familiar toys get donated to a day care centre instead of stored in the attic as intended. On first appearances it’s a veritable utopia, with a bunch of welcoming toys and kids who want to play with them. Of course, things quickly turn sour and Woody, Buzz and co are forced to plan a Great Escape-style exit.
There are some amusing new toy faces – best among them is Ken, who’s in a “difficult” relationship with Barbie. However Toy Story 3 succeeds because, rather than being a mere cash-cow sequel, it’s an essential final chapter that leaves a lump in the throat for every burst of laughter and excitement.
Theatre and Dance
THE PRISONER OF 2ND AVENUE
The Old Vic
Benjamin Street
THIS production of Neil Simon’s 1971 play will appeal to fans of Woody Allen or Larry David. Yes, it’s one of those plays: lots of wisecracking dialogue hung on a skimpy plot about urban malaise in, where else, New York – and, yes, it’s a bit meandering.
But it would be churlish not to be swept up in the comic brio of Jeff Goldblum (right), playing insomniac Mel Edison, cowed by the corporate rat-race and in constant fear of unemployment (timely, you see) and Mercedes Ruehl, as his loyal but acid-tongued wife Edna. Goldblum zips and twists across the stage like Wile E Coyote in a dressing gown, and Ruehl’s performance is the very definition of bone-dry comic delivery. The sheer delight of seeing two masters of their craft firing razor-sharp one-liners at each other is hard to beat.
GHOST STORIES
Duke of York’s Theatre
Timothy Barber
YOU only need to look at the popularity of horror films to know what pure, visceral entertainment can be generated from shock and terror. If you ever doubted whether such thrills could be successfully transferred to stage, Ghost Stories will prove you wrong.
Written by League of Gentlemen scribe Jeremy Dyson and Derren Brown collaborator Andy Nyman, it displays the pedigree of both – the creepy, twisted humour of the League, and the trickery, double-crossing and finale-building brilliance of Brown’s live shows. But the heart-pounding scares are all of the show’s own making, and a whole lot of fiendish fun.
Nyman is parasycologist and supernatural debunker Prof Goodman, who introduces a trio of spine-chilling stories that get played out. To reveal more would be to spoil, but suffice to say there’s rather more than that going on.
Thanks to ingenious effects and pitch-perfect direction, the shocks when they come – and they come regularly – are superb. Some audience members were gasping with dread, others revelling in the demented fun of a show that’s a supremely entertaining thrill-ride.
POLITICAL MOTHER
Sadler’s Wells
by Zoe Strimpel
A man in anonymous Medieval-style armour kneels as classical opera blares, before driving a dagger through his heart. He moans, and collapses. So begins the terrifyingly intense new show from Israeli choreographer Hofesh Schecter.
Men in shabby shirts and braces dance in fevered, jerky groups, gesturing towards the heavens, reminding us of Hasidic Jewish dancing. Then people in military scrubs emerge, towering men with electric guitars and drums strike up an ear-splitting riff that recurs until you can’t take it any more, and the action becomes a stunning rendering of what appears to be a cycle of mass electrocution, bewilderment, slow death, sex, and rebirth.
What is the “political mother” and what does it do to us? Your brain can’t stop working throughout, and your eyes and ears are overwhelmed. A thrilling show.
A thriller that’s a dream to behold
Film
INCEPTION
Cert: 12A
Timothy Barber
AFTER a few years spent making Batman films, British director Christopher Nolan has returned with such an audacious mixing of sci-fi, film noir and heist movie elements that one easily puts aside the fact that its premise is utterly, completely nuts.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a specialist at invading people’s dreams via a technical gizmo the film mercifully doesn’t waste time trying to explain. It turns out that invading the dreamworlds is a great way of stealing secrets and carrying out corporate espionage, at which Leo excels. He assembles a crack team, including Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page, to pull off the ultimate heist, but will sinister events in his past destroy them all?
The impossible-made-real dream environments give Nolan the opportunity to mess about with physics and special effects like a kid in a sandpit. It’s possibly the best and most intelligent use of CGI yet, as whole cities rear up in weird dimensions and fights take place inside tumbling buildings. Most importantly, like all good heist films, the tension builds brilliantly throughout, and it’s all tremendously stylish. An instant action classic.
TOY STORY 3
Cert: PG
Rhys Griffiths
IT’S FIFTEEN years on from the original and best CGI animated film and Andy, the kid, has grown up. By mistake his familiar toys get donated to a day care centre instead of stored in the attic as intended. On first appearances it’s a veritable utopia, with a bunch of welcoming toys and kids who want to play with them. Of course, things quickly turn sour and Woody, Buzz and co are forced to plan a Great Escape-style exit.
There are some amusing new toy faces – best among them is Ken, who’s in a “difficult” relationship with Barbie. However Toy Story 3 succeeds because, rather than being a mere cash-cow sequel, it’s an essential final chapter that leaves a lump in the throat for every burst of laughter and excitement.
Theatre and Dance
THE PRISONER OF 2ND AVENUE
The Old Vic
Benjamin Street
THIS production of Neil Simon’s 1971 play will appeal to fans of Woody Allen or Larry David. Yes, it’s one of those plays: lots of wisecracking dialogue hung on a skimpy plot about urban malaise in, where else, New York – and, yes, it’s a bit meandering.
But it would be churlish not to be swept up in the comic brio of Jeff Goldblum (right), playing insomniac Mel Edison, cowed by the corporate rat-race and in constant fear of unemployment (timely, you see) and Mercedes Ruehl, as his loyal but acid-tongued wife Edna. Goldblum zips and twists across the stage like Wile E Coyote in a dressing gown, and Ruehl’s performance is the very definition of bone-dry comic delivery. The sheer delight of seeing two masters of their craft firing razor-sharp one-liners at each other is hard to beat.
GHOST STORIES
Duke of York’s Theatre
Timothy Barber
YOU only need to look at the popularity of horror films to know what pure, visceral entertainment can be generated from shock and terror. If you ever doubted whether such thrills could be successfully transferred to stage, Ghost Stories will prove you wrong.
Written by League of Gentlemen scribe Jeremy Dyson and Derren Brown collaborator Andy Nyman, it displays the pedigree of both – the creepy, twisted humour of the League, and the trickery, double-crossing and finale-building brilliance of Brown’s live shows. But the heart-pounding scares are all of the show’s own making, and a whole lot of fiendish fun.
Nyman is parasycologist and supernatural debunker Prof Goodman, who introduces a trio of spine-chilling stories that get played out. To reveal more would be to spoil, but suffice to say there’s rather more than that going on.
Thanks to ingenious effects and pitch-perfect direction, the shocks when they come – and they come regularly – are superb. Some audience members were gasping with dread, others revelling in the demented fun of a show that’s a supremely entertaining thrill-ride.
POLITICAL MOTHER
Sadler’s Wells
by Zoe Strimpel
A man in anonymous Medieval-style armour kneels as classical opera blares, before driving a dagger through his heart. He moans, and collapses. So begins the terrifyingly intense new show from Israeli choreographer Hofesh Schecter.
Men in shabby shirts and braces dance in fevered, jerky groups, gesturing towards the heavens, reminding us of Hasidic Jewish dancing. Then people in military scrubs emerge, towering men with electric guitars and drums strike up an ear-splitting riff that recurs until you can’t take it any more, and the action becomes a stunning rendering of what appears to be a cycle of mass electrocution, bewilderment, slow death, sex, and rebirth.
What is the “political mother” and what does it do to us? Your brain can’t stop working throughout, and your eyes and ears are overwhelmed. A thrilling show.