New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Oliver Stone.
Cast: Michael Pena, Jay Hernandez, Nicolas Cage
Description: Dumb, reactionary, crassly self-important take on 9/11, restaging the true story of two cops buried in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Country: US. 2006. 129mins
Terror: Nicolas Cage plays fireman John McLoughlin
You wouldn't guess that this film was made by Oliver Stone. Certainly not the Stone of the coruscating Platoon or the banal Alexander. It bears no marks of a conspiracy theory and its politics are shrouded in a conventional disaster movie.
It will, of course, be more painful for New Yorkers to watch than for the rest of us, since the shock of 9/11 was greater for them. But, while the more conservative voice of America might have cried "too soon" to make a movie of the real-life rescue of two Port Authority policeman, among the last of 20 to be pulled alive from the rubble of the Twin Towers, we are at liberty to ask, is it too late?
Haven't we just seen Paul Greengrass's excellent United 93 on the screen and a good few 9/11 recreations on television? Do we really want much more?
What Stone does is orthodox Hollywood story-telling - but that's not meant as an insult. It begins with Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) and Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage), his boss, each making their way to work as they did on any other morning.
After the first plane strikes, McLoughlin leads a team to midtown Manhattan and five volunteers, including Jimeno and McLoughlin, bravely enter one of the buildings.
They go swiftly from storeroom to storeroom collecting up equipment, and are ready to begin work when their tower collapses. Only the two central characters survive, buried beneath tons of concrete and twisted metal.
They keep each other from falling unconcious by talking about their families and their work, until a maverick rescuer, an ex-Marine from Connecticut called Karnes (Michael Shannon), locates them and calls for help.
All this is accomplished without too much melodrama or false heroics, moving back and forth with practised ease from the trapped men to their anxious families at home. A certain cynicism sets in, however, when you see who are playing the wives.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is the pregnant Allison Jimeno and Maria Bello is Donna McLoughlin. While both are good actresses, they're too beautiful and well groomed to ring entirely true. Casting lesser-known faces, with less immaculate hairdos, might have spared one the feeling that this is a movie capable of exploiting its story rather than simply telling it well.
There are other moments when doubts set in. One is when Stone illustrates far too literally the trapped and choking Jimeno's conviction that he saw Jesus holding out a bottle of water to him. Another occurs, once the two are saved, when the marine says that America will need good men to revenge the attack.
His little speech sends a shiver down the spine at the thought of what eventually transpired in Afghanistan and Iraq, good men or no.
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