44 h. ago The Empire Strips Back at Riverside Studios review: this Star Wars parody is hardly titillating stuff

A row of fishnetted derrieres isn’t that erotic when the women involved are also wearing Imperial Stormtrooper masks

Events

5 d. ago A Thai restaurant without rice? This Michelin star hotspot is serving up something entirely unique

Fresh Thai flavours meet fabulous British produce at a central London spot that leaves Tom thrilled

Politics

2 w. ago Disturbing smiling 'meth king' stripped of '£46billion drugs empire'

Alleged meth-billionaire Tse Chi Lop was living the high life after decades of evading multiple police operations when he was unexpectedly arrested at a European airport

Economics

2 w. ago ‘Where is the adult?’: how Leonardo Van Dijl filmed the story of a child tennis star’s abuse

Julie Keeps Quiet casts real-life tennis ace Tessa Van den Broeck as a teenage player facing peril ignored by adults. The director explains how telling the story well required a care the sport itself neglectsLeonardo Van Dijl smiles: “If you told me a year ago that I’d be speaking to the Guardian, I’d have asked: ‘What about?’” Last May, the 34-year-old from Belgium took his debut film Julie Keeps Quiet to Cannes. (Where, he says, everyone was much friendlier after a four-star review in the Guardian.) Ever since, he has been living out of a suitcase, grabbing five or six hours’ sleep. It’s not just media interviews and Q&As keeping him busy: “We are a small movie. I’m the in-house graphic designer. I do the social media ” He stops, looks down at my phone, recording. “But I don’t really want to talk about that. I’m grateful, and it’s not that interesting.”What Van Dijl really does want to talk about is the urgent issue his film raises about safe spaces for children. Julie Keeps Q...

Events

2 w. ago Andor season two review – the excellent Star Wars for grownups is as thrilling as ever (and funnier too)

Comedy spacecraft thefts, passive-aggressive in-laws and a planet being fracked to death – the revolution just got playful, comrades!Comrades! Welcome back to the revolution. Andor is the Star Wars TV show with the sharpest political acumen: yes, like everything in the franchise, it’s about an underdog rebel movement fighting against a totalitarian empire in space, and it has plenty of thrilling battle sequences, but here there are no Jedi mind powers or cute green backwards-talking psychics. Under the hard-nosed stewardship of writer Tony Gilroy, Andor bins the magic and myth and replaces it with the reality of anti-fascist struggle, where the good guys are ready to risk their lives for freedom. It’s the Star Wars spin-off with the strongest claim to being a proper drama – but, in season two’s opening triple bill, it shows it can do sly, wry comedy too.We’re a year on from where we left off, which is four years before the Death Star blows up at the end of the original movie – the p...

Events

4 w. ago Dreamin’ Wild review – Walton Goggins and Casey Affleck star as rediscovered 70s rockers

Goggins and Affleck play Donnie and Joe Emerson, whose album wins acclaim decades after it was made, but it’s rather a mono dramaNewcomer-fans of Walton Goggins, sharing gifs of his stunned expression in The White Lotus, might want a look at this interesting but flawed movie: a heartfelt but frustratingly ponderous true-life story from the music world in which Goggins stars with Casey Affleck. Donnie and Joe Emerson were two brothers from Washington State who self-recorded an album in their teen years in 1978 called Dreamin’ Wild; it bombed, leaving crippling debts for their poor dad (played by Beau Bridges), who’d taken out bank loans to build them a log-cabin recording studio – but the record is then rediscovered 30 years later by vinyl hipster connoisseurs who can hardly believe the Emerson boys’ untutored rock genius.The film insightfully shows how this deferred fame is not all good news; it has come too late for them really to enjoy it and Donnie (Affleck) has grown into a pric...

Politics