Darkest Hour is a kind of backgrounder on Winston Churchill’s “never surrender” speech. It also touches on the flotilla dispatched to fetch the British troops from the beach at Dunkirk (as to which, see Dunkirk). But this showy biopic has too much emphasis on levity. Joe Wright (Atonement) directs from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten (The…
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature is the sequel to 2014’s original animation. It begins with Surly Squirrel (voiced by Will Arnett), his pug friend Precious (Maya Rudolph) and his best friend Buddy the rat living it up in a recently closed nut shop. Food is abundant and life is good … until the shop…
One of the challenges when your band’s the second highest grossing touring band of the year, is “Getting Out of Your Own Way.” Of course, that’s a problem most working bands would love to have, but Irish rockers U2 have been such a big deal for so long, that nearly everyone on the planet has…
Into the World by Stephanie Parkyn is historical fiction that’s both rich in fiction and character, delivering a memorable story of a woman named Marie-Louise, who dresses as a man and finds herself on a dangerous expedition around the world. This is the blurb: 1791. In the midst of the French Revolution, unwed mother Marie-Louise Girardin…
All the Money in the World is prolific filmmaker Ridley Scott’s dramatization of the real life kidnapping of J Paul Getty III. He was the 16-year-old grandson of oil magnate J Paul Getty, the richest man in the world (Christopher Plummer). In 1973, the teenage Getty (Charlie Plummer, no relation to Christopher) was living in…
The Alan Ayckbourn play Taking Steps, written in 1979, is the 24th opus from his ‘genius’. He’s now completed some 79 plays, the last one – so far – called Roundelay, in 2014. Taking Steps is part of a faithful commitment by The Ensemble Theatre to his work and underlines the entertainment value that he inevitably…
Most of the time you don’t know when something will be your last time. When I took my son to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers last May, I didn’t know we’d never get another chance to see that band. There have been rare exceptions – like Warren Zevon, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen. They all…
Here we go again… More than ten years later and Mamma Mia! the Musical is still delighting fans. Despite the fact that many audiences members were born well after ABBA’s heyday, the pop anthems interwoven with a sweet story of love and family still generate smiles, whoops and applause after every performance. If you’re not…
Irish playwright turned filmmaker Martin McDonagh has a great track record. His films including the black comedies In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. And now he gives us what is close to his best film yet, with the evocatively titled Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This acerbic and blackly funny drama tackles revenge, justice, family and the secrets…
Now graduated from college, the Bellas are out in the real world in Pitch Perfect 3. They soon find it takes more than a cappella to get by. This is the final in the lightweight Pitch Perfect series that has already taken more than half a billion dollars at the global box office. After the highs of…
