8 h. ago The Guest review – a gloriously ridiculous thriller that slips down a treat

When a cleaner starts working for a wealthy woman, she gets sucked in by a luxury mansion bursting with secrets. Get the popcorn ready for a preposterous world of locked rooms, creepy gardeners and bodiesThe writer Matthew Barry and director Ashley Way gave us one of the highlights of 2023’s television output in Men Up, a witty, moving, compassionate treat of a drama about the development of the drug that would become known as Viagra and the group of Welshmen who were among its first guinea pigs.Their new offering is a more straightforward one, and if it doesn’t achieve the same success Men Up did, they can hardly be condemned for having set their bar so high. Continue reading...

Politics

10 h. ago The Smashing Machine review – Dwayne Johnson only possible casting for crisis

Former pro wrestler Johnson takes on the role of man-mountain Kerr who goes into meltdown when the unthinkable happens – he losesBenny Safdie has written and directed a solid bro drama for the UFC fanbase and maybe a little way beyond. It is about the central crisis in the life of man-mountain Mark Kerr, America’s pioneering MMA and ultimate fighting champ, who in 1997 found himself in the ring, or maybe the cage, with his demons after the unthinkable humiliation of losing for the first time.This feature is in fact developed from a 2002 documentary about Kerr with the same title. He confronted his substance abuse, relationship anxieties and the question of what the heck life is for if you can’t simply win all the time. Kerr is played by Dwayne Johnson, a colossus of muscle topped off with a head the size of Indiana Jones’s boulder, a body on which the only visible fat is rippling at the nape of his neck. Johnson’s appearance is modified by close-cut frizzy hair and facial prosthetic...

Politics

10 h. ago The Smashing Machine review – Dwayne Johnson only possible casting as crisis

Former pro wrestler Johnson takes on the role of man-mountain Kerr who goes into meltdown when the unthinkable happens – he losesBenny Safdie has written and directed a solid bro drama for the UFC fanbase and maybe a little way beyond. It is about the central crisis in the life of man-mountain Mark Kerr, America’s pioneering MMA and ultimate fighting champ, who in 1997 found himself in the ring, or maybe the cage, with his demons after the unthinkable humiliation of losing for the first time.This feature is in fact developed from a 2002 documentary about Kerr with the same title. He confronted his substance abuse, relationship anxieties and the question of what the heck life is for if you can’t simply win all the time. Kerr is played by Dwayne Johnson, a colossus of muscle topped off with a head the size of Indiana Jones’s boulder, a body on which the only visible fat is rippling at the nape of his neck. Johnson’s appearance is modified by close-cut frizzy hair and facial prosthetic...

Politics

15 h. ago The Testament of Ann Lee review – strikingly strange portrait of radically ecstatic Shaker leader

Venice film festivalAmanda Seyfried plays the 18th-century missionary who took her message to the New World, in Mona Fastvold’s elusive film‘Our ordeal is worth it!” This is the cry of one of the faithful in Mona Fastvold’s movie, co-written with her partner Brady Corbet, with whom she co-wrote The Brutalist. It is a vehement, fervent, striking but sometimes baffling drama about the historical figure of Ann Lee, who endured religious persecution in 18th-century England as leader of the fundamentalist Shaker movement.As the embodiment of Christ’s second coming, Lee took her radical message to the New World and in pre-revolutionary America founded an enduring community of souls, persecuted all over again by the new patriarchy for being a woman and a pacifist. Her Shakers were known among other things for their skill in stylishly elegant and minimalist furniture – although the connection with Christ’s profession is unstressed. Lee is played by Amanda Seyfried, with Lewis Pullman as her...

Politics

17 h. ago Kim Novak’s Vertigo review – the dizzying demands on Hitchcock’s leading lady

Venice film festivalAn intensely personal interview of the 92-year-old Hollywood star delivers showstopping moments for fans of the golden age of moviesAt 92 years old, Hollywood movie star Kim Novak – legendary of course for her doppelganger starring role in Hitchcock’s Vertigo – is a vivid and, in fact, yearningly romantic and demanding presence in this gallant, cinephile documentary-interview filmed by director and Novak superfan Alexandre O Philippe. She is one of the very few golden age stars still with us, and maybe the title of this film is a playful pun: at the very apex of Hollywood history, perhaps Novak feels dizzy looking down from her mythic height.Philippe himself is more than qualified for this kind of intensely personal exegesis, having in the past made intriguing films about David Lynch’s debt to The Wizard of Oz and about the Psycho shower scene. With a touch of mischief and misdirection, he begins his film by simply playing a voice note that Novak has sent him, in...

Events

18 h. ago My honest opinion on The Lookfantastic beauty advent calendar 2025

The 2025 Lookfantastic Beauty Advent Calendar might just be the best one yet.

Politics

19 h. ago Gorillaz review – after 25 years, Damon Albarn’s cartoon band are still riveting and relevant

Copper Box Arena, LondonDressed like a vicar, Albarn leads his band – joined by a choir, a string quartet, De La Soul and more – in renewing Demon Days’ downbeat dramaGorillaz are 25. In 2000, this cartoon-fronted project seemed like something fun for Damon Albarn to do between Blur albums, hiding behind Jamie Hewlett’s comic-book animations, but they’ve overtaken Blur almost everywhere but Britain. The number of children in the audience testifies to Gorillaz’s powers of self-rejuvenation – an ever-changing vehicle for Albarn’s ceaseless curiosity.Gorillaz are marking the occasion with an immersive exhibition, House of Kong, and four era-specific shows. This second night revives 2005’s Demon Days. Co-produced by Danger Mouse, it remains the most satisfying expression of the Gorillaz concept: focused in both its themes (innocence and violence) and personnel (rappers and the rap-adjacent). Dressed like a hip vicar, Albarn serves double duty as a frontman and a conscientious host, alth...

Politics

19 h. ago Gorillaz review – after 25 years, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s cartoon band are still riveting and relevant

Copper Box Arena, LondonDressed like a vicar, Albarn leads his band – joined by a choir, a string quartet, De La Soul and more – in renewing Demon Days’ downbeat dramaGorillaz are 25. In 2000, this cartoon-fronted project seemed like something fun for Damon Albarn to do between Blur albums, hiding behind Jamie Hewlett’s comic-book animations, but they’ve overtaken Blur almost everywhere but Britain. The number of children in the audience testifies to Gorillaz’s powers of self-rejuvenation – an ever-changing vehicle for Albarn’s ceaseless curiosity.Gorillaz are marking the occasion with an immersive exhibition, House of Kong, and four era-specific shows. This second night revives 2005’s Demon Days. Co-produced by Danger Mouse, it remains the most satisfying expression of the Gorillaz concept: focused in both its themes (innocence and violence) and personnel (rappers and the rap-adjacent). Dressed like a hip vicar, Albarn serves double duty as a frontman and a conscientious host, alth...

Politics

21 h. ago Anhell69 review – an impassioned eulogy for Colombia’s queer renegades

Theo Montoya collages an unfinished phantom horror film, gothic Medellín cityscapes and interviews with lost friends into a transgressive work of cine-protestThe best kind of goth is the Latino goth. That much is clear throughout this documentary lament for the Colombian city of Medellín, for which director Theo Montoya narrates his elegy from within a casket. Luckily, he is still alive – unlike eight of the doomy-looking LGBTQ+ renegades who speak about their lives on camera here, having killed themselves or died of drug overdoses since filming. It is implied they are victims by proxy of a kind of ambient socio-cultural violence that is a hangover from the cartel days.Partly constructed out of audition interviews with actor hopefuls, Anhell69 is the remnant of Montoya’s unfinished movie, of which we see extracts: it takes place in a dystopian Medellín in which the preponderance of the dead and a lack of cemetery space has led to red-eyed phantoms walking the streets. These revenant...

Politics

21 h. ago Vilhelm’s Room by Tove Ditlevsen review – a portrait of catastrophic mental illness

Originally published a year before her death, the Danish author’s final novel is an autofictional suicide noteTove Ditlevsen’s last novel, Vilhelm’s Room, was originally published in Denmark in 1975. As it begins, the protagonist, Lise Mundus, has just been abandoned by Vilhelm, her husband of 20 years. He’s a celebrity newspaper editor; she’s an acclaimed writer with a history of addiction. From a bed in a psychiatric ward, Lise publishes a lonely hearts ad: “Recently escaped a long, unhappy marriage – aged 51, but youthful in spirit – wonderful son, aged 15 – household literary name – summerhouse – large flat in the city centre – temporarily incapacitated by a nervous breakdown – prefers a motorist.”The ad is seized upon by Lise’s malicious upstairs neighbour, Mrs Thomsen, who shows it to her young lodger/lover, Kurt, hoping he can financially exploit Lise. Kurt is duly installed in Lise’s home, but finds himself treated there with total indifference. Lise is wholly cons...

Politics

23 h. ago Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy review – brave and absorbing

In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial motherTwelve minutes into an interview with Allen Ginsberg for the BBC’s Face to Face, Jeremy Isaacs asks him about the extraordinary long poem he wrote about his mother: “In Kaddish, you mourn your mother. What was the effect on you of living with a mother who was mad?” Ginsberg’s answer, mildly inflected by a laugh, is: “It gave me a great sort of tolerance for eccentric behaviour.”Arundhati Roy, whose memoir is partly an account of her life with her mother Mary Roy, might recognise this insight. Arguably, all mothers appear to their children as mad: madness here meaning an unbounded force, at odds with what society imagines normal parenting to consist of. The manifestations of this madness are as disparate as those of love, and these two aspects – the abnormal, the overbearing, and the protective, the nurturing – can be, in our mothers, intimately intertwined (“She...

Politics

32 h. ago I Fought the Law review – no one does this kind of drama better than Sheridan Smith

This true crime drama about a woman who forced the government to change the law so her daughter’s killer could be jailed is totally elevated by Smith. Her brilliance turns it into genuinely moving TVIs there any comfort to be had in knowing that police incompetence is not a new phenomenon? Not really, no. But it might be all you can find to cling on to during this harrowing, heartbreaking four-part drama. I Fought the Law is based on the true story of Ann Ming ,the murder of her 22-year-old daughter Julie in 1989 and her 30-year campaign to change the double jeopardy law so Julie’s acquitted killer could be tried again for the crime.I Fought the Law has two great strengths. First, the awareness that although the overturning of a law that had existed since Magna Carta is technically the most astonishing part of Ming’s tale, it is not the most televisual. That, for better or worse, will always be the body blows she withstood, from finding her daughte...

Events

32 h. ago Review: 12 hours of psychedelia at Manchester Psych Festival 2025

"Dyed-in-the-wool, leather-clad punk rockers stand shoulder to shoulder with teenage hipsters"

Politics

33 h. ago My Tennis Maestro review – unforced errors keep Italian coming

Venice film festivalPierfrancesco Favino is a robust lead as a teenage tennis hopeful’s charming yet flawed new coach in a film that’s too long and too indecisive to stand up to recent big hittersWe have had some sparky tennis movies recently, such as Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, and it seemed at first as if this coming-of-age comedy from Italian actor turned director Andrea Di Stefano could be joining them. But despite a very robust lead performance from Pierfrancesco Favino, the enjoyably grizzled alpha male of Italian cinema, this completely runs aground in the third act, quite unable to decide if it should offer the traditional comeback story of an underdog sports movie, or if it should pursue its implied repudiation of the win-at-all-costs ethic. The other issue is whether its young hero should ignore what his dad has to say in favour of an attractive, if flawed, new mentor. The film does in fact appear finally to get off the fence on ...

Politics

33 h. ago Educating Yorkshire review – the joyful return of this school show is just the blast of optimism we need

The comeback of Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall series is perfectly timed. It’s a moving, uplifting look at how children can shine with support. What a tonic for all the bad news stories about education in BritainThe trailer for the new series of Educating Yorkshire is a work of art. Shot in one take and clocking in at more than three minutes, it was written and performed by the children of Thornhill community academy in Dewsbury – in collaboration with Dougal Wilson, the director of Paddington in Peru – and takes in a school band, percussionist dinner ladies and a child seemingly being fired out of a cannon from the roof. It’s sweet and funny, but it’s pointed, too, in style and content.This hasn’t been a great year for the public profile of British secondary schools. The national orgy of hand-wringing prompted by Netflix’s superb Adolescence has led to something approaching despair at the state of education, entrenching the perception that overstretched and under-resourced teachers ac...

Culture

35 h. ago Father Mother Sister Brother review – Blanchett and Rampling pick at family guilt in Jarmusch’s delectable triptych

Venice film festivalJim Jarmusch explores the awkwardness and closeness of parents with their grownup children in three slyly comic panels of drama set in the US, Dublin and ParisJim Jarmusch has made anthology films before: Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1991), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). In fact, he could claim to be the pre-eminent specialist in this now very unfashionable movie form. But with his new one, a deeply pleasing and gently quietist triptych on the subject of family, he is giving us something new and personal.It’s the sense of mortality and the gathering cloud of darkness over our heads as we enter middle age, a perpetual nagging worry about the health and happiness of our elderly parents, with the guilt and sadness of not going to see them, or seeing them only rarely, and the related feeling of closeness – or perhaps the opposite – with your siblings for whom these parents are the number one topic of conversation. Then there’s the feeling of relief mixed with...

Politics

36 h. ago The Wizard of the Kremlin review – Jude Law is Putin in adaptation of Kremlin spin doctor bestseller

Venice film festival The rise of Vladimir Putin, chillingly played by Law, is portrayed through the eyes of a wily insider, but Paul Dano’s protagonist cuts a one-note figureGiuliano da Empoli’s smash-hit satirical novel The Wizard of the Kremlin, about a Putin spin doctor called Vadim Baranov and based on shadowy Russian politician Vladislav Surkov, has now been converted into an exasperatingly laborious and literal-minded movie, burdened with endless dull voiceover. It has been written for the screen by its estimable director Olivier Assayas, working with the formidable author and reportage journalist Emmanuel Carrère; Carrère in fact has a cameo here, playing a supercilious French figure at a raucous Moscow student party in the early 90s, patronisingly informing the young people present that it was the communism they’ve just rejected that really believed in the arts.The action takes us through the 1990s decline of ailing president Boris Yeltsin and the promotion of FSB chief Vlad...

Politics

42 h. ago Broken English review – Marianne Faithfull’s last glow, as she recounts past lives

Venice film festivalThe charismatic Faithfull is quizzed by a fictional ministry fronted by Tilda Swinton about a confounding career, from 60s It girl to art scene doyenneMarianne Faithfull led different lives and was cast in various roles. Some roles she chose and wrote herself; others were forced upon her, like an ugly hat or an ill-fitting suit. She was the convent girl and the teenage bride, the 60s It girl and the rock star’s girlfriend. She was the pop singer, the folk singer, the tragic addict and the indomitable survivor. Broken English, a flawed but ardent new documentary from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, effectively arranges all of these incarnations like museum exhibits and invites its subject to review each one in turn – and then smash the glass to set them free.Faithfull broke the mould, and so it is fitting that the film of her life should do the same, except that Forsyth and Pollard’s main conceit feels jerry-rigged and overdramatised to the point where it risks obs...

Politics

59 h. ago AG Cook review – the hyperpop auteur delivers a thrilling Brooklyn show

Brooklyn Paramount, New YorkThe super-producer, whose big name collaborators include Charli xcx and Beyoncé, goes maximalist for a euphoric, high-energy Friday-night triumphEveryone is trying to out-scream and out-diva each other at AG Cook’s sold-out Brooklyn Paramount show. Midway through his Friday-night DJ set for his Britpop 25 tour, the producer and moptopped dungeon master of the hyperpop universe has put on his Von Dutch remix, a standout single from last summer’s Brat invasion that brings pop princesses Charli xcx and Addison Rae together for some prima donna repartee atop a distorted, industrial production. When the bridge’s thumping hydraulic bass drops and opens up its warped wormhole of sound, the packed room suddenly fills with skilled (too skilled) impressions of Rae’s piercing six-second shriek. Cook, who has been bopping behind the DJ booth up until now, collapses to his knees at the center of the stage, bowled over by the sheer energy in the room.Such are the deman...

Society

60 h. ago Frankenstein review – Guillermo del Toro reanimates a classic as a monstrously beautiful melodrama

Venice film festivalOscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi star as the freethinking anatomist and his creature as Mary Shelley’s story is reimagined with bombast in the director’s unmistakable visual styleGuillermo del Toro has created a movie about a grotesquely unnatural attempt to make a human being shocking in his physical strangeness but that’s enough about his film version of Pinocchio. Now Del Toro has written and directed a bombastic but watchable new version of Mary Shelley’s great novel and makes of it a stately melodrama, starring Oscar Isaac as the anatomist and passionate freethinker Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his creature: no passé neck-bolts or big fringey forehead, of course, and if you compare him with portrayals by other actors – Boris Karloff, Peter Boyle, Robert De Niro – he is, for all the picturesque prosthetic scars, the nearest this iconic figure has come to being a bit of a hottie.It’s an epic bromance between scientist and monster, both of whom speak wit...

Events