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: Errol Morris.
Description: Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris conducts an expose of the soldiers involved in the shocking pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, which changed perceptions of American servicemen and -women fighting in Iraq. Attempting to understand the motivation behind the images, Morris interviews US forces who took and appeared in the photographs, examining whether these headline-grabbing snapshots in time are really evidence of physical and mental abuse, or have been twisted out of context to fit sensationalist headlines.
Country: US. 2008. 115mins
Notorious: detainees at the prison, where inmates were tortured and humiliated
Errol Morris's minutely researched film about the appalling treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and the notorious photographs that came to light in 2004, was made long enough ago to seem slightly secondhand by now. It says nothing that the more modestly produced Taxi to the Dark Side - which was about torturing prisoners in Afghanistan - didn't say in spades.
Added to that, this fine documentarist's attempt to tart up his film so that it gets a wider release is not entirely successful. There's an overweaning score from Danny Elfman, much swishing camerawork from robert Chappell and robert richardson, and a sense that Morris himself stares rather too long at the American GIs who produced those awful snaps.
In particular, he stares, without comment, at lynndie England, the private first class who is seen grinning inanely at the piled-up Iraqi bodies, and at Staff Sergeant Charles Granier, who ordered the fatal photos and with whom she was in love. If these wretched grunts are worth castigating, how much more culpable are those who either ordered such behaviour or did nothing to stop it?
Morris is never unfair, unlike certain other American documentarists, and this is still an important slice of film evidence which will shortly be published as a book. But this is not his best film. It's too polished by half.
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