Of the four films that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together, Dark Passage is undoubtedly the most outlandish, in…
Presence
There are no cum shots in Black Oni. There are long builds, ecstatic crescendi, contemplative soundfields, thunderous riffs, all the…
Fate has a car crash
In Alex Garland’s recent science fiction-series Devs (which is in my opinion as good a piece of SF as has…
Scenes and scenesters
Watching a film like The Big Sleep in 2020 it’s almost impossible to see past its mythology. This was a…
Being themselves
I reviewed this album in 2013 when it came out, but I didn’t spend a huge amount of time with…
Unnecessary translation
I guess no-one hits the target every time, creatively speaking: I certainly know I don’t. But after our project to…
No contest
Having recently watched the Coen Brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty, a film whose production is apparently predicated on a chemistry between the…
Staying true
There’s a sense that musicians (and other artists) are supposed to keep innovating, to follow an endless quest for the…
Heavy with meaning
You don’t have to like the protagonist of a story to identify with them, or to buy into their charisma.…
A***holes looking pretty
It’s an interesting proposition, a romantic comedy starring Hollywood ‘A’-listers, written and directed by the Coen Brothers. What would these…
A body speaks its truth
Having trained as an instrumentalist, and associated with other instrumentalists over many years, I’ve often found myself having to argue…
Perfectly lonely
This spectacular and lavish volume from Chris Ware is the second of his beautiful large books that I’ve read. Rusty…
Surprisingly coherent contempt
Public Image Limited was the band that John Lydon actually wanted to be in. I have no idea whether he…
Homeric depths
‘Here’s looking at you, kid’. ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks…
