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: PJ Hogan.
Cast: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristin Scott Thomas, Leslie Bibb, Krysten Ritter
Description: Rebecca Bloomwood is a journalist in New York City with a singular dream: to work for fashion bible Alette and its ultra-stylish French editor. Unfortunately, the job she wants is nabbed by bitchy staffer Alicia Billington so Rebecca decides to climb the corporate ladder by landing a job instead at Successful Saving magazine, now under the direction of charismatic, new editor, Luke Brandon. Rebecca's quirky interpretation of financial journalism in a column is a breath of fresh air and the magazine's stagnant sales sky rocket, propelling Rebecca and Luke into the media spotlight. However, there is a dark secret, which Rebecca is keeping from Luke, her readers and even her parents: she is a shopaholic and has run up thousands of dollars on her credit cards.
Country: US. 2009. 104mins
Spend, spend, spend: Isla Fisher plays an airhead who runs up huge credit-card bills
The problem with making films specifically for our times is that by the time they come out it’s likely they are actually for someone else’s. Do
we really want to know about shopaholics at a time when no one has money to buy anything?
PJ Hogan’s bright and sparky but terminally silly adaptation of English author Madeleine Wickham’s books (written under the name of Sophie Kinsella) has Isla Fisher as Rebecca, a ditzy shopper who has run up huge credit-card bills and can’t pay them.
This makes her decide to get a job and, when the fashion magazine she works on goes bust, she gets another one on a financial weekly where editor Luke (Hugh Dancy) likes her plain-speaking prose. She becomes a celebrity since the readers like it, too. But the credit-card bruisers are still after her and everything looks like falling into the abyss despite the fact that Luke loves her.
The whole thing is a piece of romantic codswallop that relies on the ordinary but feisty charm of Fisher and the dashing good looks of Dancy, a Hugh Grant clone if ever I saw one. And it sort of works provided you don’t remember the depressing time we’re actually living in now.
It’s a fantasy pure and simple, given the gloss of unreality that Hollywood uses to disguise the fact that it can’t see reality inches away from its eyes. The best moments come when Rebecca attends a Shopaholics Anonymous meeting where she explains the delights of her obsession so well that everyone goes straight out to plunder Saks.
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Isla Fisher's one of those ethereal young actors you are never quite sure about. Does she have it or doesn't she...talent, charisma, what it takes to be someone. I would say she is ideally cast here, based on the aforementioned. It is a Hollywood sugary comedy that might just take you out of the doom and gloom surrounding the dreaded bleakness of the economy. I think the Producers knew what they were doing when they made it. And got the timing spot on. So, yes, I give it my vote! I hear it's even big in the US!
- Roger Goldsmith, Southsea, Hants
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