An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
New talent: Kierston Wareing as Angie in It's a Free World
Overlong: Lust Caution is a spy thriller
It's a Free World
****
Lust Caution
***
Sala Grande, Venice Film Festival
It isn't often that the leading character in a Ken Loach film is an exploiter rather than one of the exploited. In It's a Free World, Angie (Kierston Wareing) is a single mother sacked from her job finding workers in Poland for low-paid employment in the UK who sets up her own company with the help of her friend Rose (Juliet Ellis).
They run the business out of their flat and find themselves overwhelmed with migrant workers looking for jobs. At first Angie turns away anyone without the necessary work permits but is soon persuaded to bend the rules.
The girls also calculate the profit they can make from housing workers in cheap accommodation and deducting rent from their pay. Thus a shrewd but not obviously amoral working-class young woman is sucked into a society that repays ruthless entrepreneurs, and the devil take the hindmost.
The polemic, as usual with Loach, depends for its effect on characterisation and acting as much as the argument. And here he has found in Wareing a considerable new talent. We may be shocked at Angie's conduct but she still retains our sympathy.
Some of the best moments come when her father, a union man, doubts what she is doing and when Angie herself is accused of neglecting her son.There are also touching, even horrifying scenes where she is dealing with desperate migrant workers.
Two years after the Golden Lion he won for the daring Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee has returned to Venice with Lust,Caution, an erotic (heterosexual) story set in Forties Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. Overlong it certainly is at 156 minutes but the quality of film-making is such that even its slightly turgid if frank sex scenes can be forgiven.
It concerns a shy young actress (Tang Wei) who agrees to help assassinate a high-profile collaborator (Tony Leung). She is to make friends with his wife and then become his lover. It's a spy thriller with a myriad of twists, beautifully shot and directed but hardly likely to achieve the resonance of Brokeback Mountain.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Morning:
11°c
