A series of fine performances led by Carolina Sanín highlight the Colombian drama Litigante. Silvia (Sanín) is a single mother of a four-year-old son, Antonio (Antonio Martínez). Life is a constant struggle for her. She has a responsible job, as Deputy Legal Director of a government department. At the same time, she and her sister…
Breathtaking vocals, including soaring solos and perfectly pitched harmonies, outstanding musical accompaniment and a superbly crafted set are hallmarks of Songs for a New World, a musical about journeys through the ages. There is no spoken or linear narrative, rather back-to-back characters’ stories (all sung) about moments of decision in their lives – decisions draw…
France’s nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, Mustang is, not surprisingly, a riveting drama about five beautiful Turkish girls whose lives are turned to hell by age-old practices. It is the start of the summer. In a remote village in the north of Turkey, Lale and her four older sisters come…
A spectacular romp, a cavalcade of fun and a glittering array of talent await those venturing to Her Majesty’s Theatre to see the crack-a-jack, rolled gold hit that is Disney’s Aladdin, the musical. The genie has well and truly been let out of the bottle on this one. It is based upon the 1992 Academy…
It is always exciting to see something new from Joanna Murray-Smith and Switzerland did not disappoint. It is a tight 80-minute two-hander based on the character of American crime writer Patricia Highfield – creator of the cool killer Tom Ripley and author of Strangers on a Train, the novel that Alfred Hitchcock made into a…
What’s in a name? For Jon Dwyer, it doesn’t seem to matter much as his OCS/The Oh Sees/Thee Oh Sees/Oh Sees project continues to morph its 20 year psychedelic garage rock arc and it just keeps getting more interesting. Orc is Oh Sees 19th record and feels as fresh and new as anything the band…
If any setting was just made for Guillermo del Toro, it’s got to be the circus. Colour, spectacle, carnies, creepy clowns, “freaks” – it positively screams for treatment from the modern master of smart horror. But del Toro is mercurial. Just as he turned his hand to big-budget action in Pacific Rim, he pivots in…
In Midnight Family, the audience become front seat passengers riding along with the Ochoa family in Mexico City after dark. Underground private ambulances compete for patients, beg for money and pay police bribes. The government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances in Mexico City for a population of nine million. The documentary explores urgent questions…
Maze Runner: The Death Cure concludes the generic dystopian saga based on the popular series of novels written by James Dashner. And unlike a couple of other YA adaptations, at least here the producers resisted the temptation to split the final film into two parts. We were first introduced to a group of heroes, known as…
The insidious use of power in an unlikely setting is the basis for The Teacher, a wickedly clever black comedy. The film is inspired by the true story of a Communist-era schoolteacher who manipulated her pupils and their families for unprecedented personal gain. Jan Hřebejk (Divided We Fall) directs. It is the early 1980s and the…
