For once, being ill-prepared is an advantage; I knew nothing of Simon Stephen’s play Punk Rock before I saw it at the UEA Drama Studio, and was therefore taken for roughly the same ride as the play’s seven main characters. Punk Rock starts out as a cringy teenage drama and ends in tragedy – a…
Arts
Venue reviews: Fun Home
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is a graphic memoir first published in 2006. It traces her life prior to and surrounding her father’s death; featuring her troubled childhood, realising that she’s a lesbian and coming out, and learning that her father was gay and had affairs with – sometimes underage – men. Having encountered the book…
Film
Venue reviews: TAG
For all the superficiality promised by its premise, TAG delivers just the sort of overblown idiocy you might ask of a summer blockbuster. Like The Hangover and other films in the ‘boys gone rogue’ genre, Jeff Tomsic’s action-comedy is an exercise in schoolboy camaraderie and immaturity, which would’ve been charming if it hadn’t been weighed…
Film
Venue reviews: Hereditary
At its strongest, Ari Aster’s debut feature fixates upon neutral, offbeat details to the point of paralysing terror. Like the harmless clocking of one’s tongue against the roof of one’s mouth, the minute and unassuming are slowly weaponised as Hereditary’s dysfunctional family unravels into fits of paranoid suspicion. Aster made his directorial debut with…
Film
Venue reviews: Casa Roshell
Through its series of over-the-shoulder glances and extended reflection shots, Camila José Donoso’s inquisitive camera observes the interior happenings of the real Casa Roshell nightclub in Mexico City. Owned by Roshell Terranova, the club provides an expressive safehouse for the transgender women of Mexico City. It holds regular classes in body language; how to walk,…
Film
Venue reviews: Alex Strangelove
After Love, Simon brought the gay experience so admirably into the mainstream in the form of a fluffy teen comedy, it seems the financial success of recent genre revisions has begun to elicit a shift in contemporary Hollywood toward queer narratives. On its face, Alex Strangelove nods encouragingly in support of this new motion. Set…
Film
Venue reviews: Cargo
Cargo uses the prolific zombie genre as a primer for exploring certain anxieties and inequalities concerning power relations and time. For what it’s worth, the intent is visible and delivered with remarkable understatement by the main cast. Its main issue – as several have already observed – is its tentative relationship with the zombie genre….
Film
Venue reviews: Book club
When picturing Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen taking turns face-pulling at Fifty Shades of Grey, it becomes starkly obvious how much Book Club screams ‘boardroom epiphany’. With only the vaguest tonal resemblance to Nancy Meyers’ films, Bill Holderman’s debut is unavoidably a star vehicle targeted at a certain generation; the club itself…
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