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: Kasi Lemmons.
Cast: Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Martin Sheen
Description: Dewey Hughes works under a conservative boss, E.G. Sonderling, at a popular Washington R&B radio station during the political social upheaval of the mid-'60s. Racial tensions within the local community are evident and Sonderling is wary of inflaming the situation, preferring to play safe with his presenters. Dewey takes a risk and allows one-time jailbird Petey Greene onto the air. His provocative banter and outspoken views send the telephones into meltdown. Propelled into the spotlight, Dewey and Petey struggle to cope with their newfound fame as tragic events alter the course of American history.
Country: US. 2007. 118mins
This should have been a much better film. It is the fictionalised story of Ralph "Petey" Green, an ex-con in the Washington of the Sixties who became a famous radio jock by trying to tell it like it was in tumultuous times, and asking his fellow black Americans to talk back to him.
He did a large amount of charity work for the poor, was credited with calming the city after the assassination of Martin Luther King but was also a drunk and an inveterate womaniser who died of his excesses at the age of 53.
Kasi Lemmons's film has the benefit of fine performances from Don Cheadle as Green and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the executive who gave him his chance and went on to become his manager. But it only occasionally gives us much of an idea as to why Green became so popular, and never looks with sufficient depth into his slightly weird street-cred persona.
The episodic character of the film, which covers some 20 years, doesn't help. What Lemmons leaves out seems likely to be just as important as what he leaves in, and there's a lot of clumsy direction which stops Cheadle and Ejiofor deepening their characterisations.
A stronger screenplay and more sensitive direction would have made this movie into something far more genuinely uplifting than it is.
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