Review: Blue Jasmine September 26, 2013 FILM BLUE JASMINE Cert 12A | By Steve Dinneen Three Stars Every new Woody Allen movie – and they arrive with disquieting regularity – is greeted with the same question: is it a return to form or another of his onanistic “wilderness” projects? The general rule of thumb is that further he strays from his [...]
Brilliant performance art poorly presented September 26, 2013 ART ANA MENDIETA: TRACES Hayward Gallery | By Joseph Funnell Three Stars I REMEMBER the first time I saw a work by Ana Mendieta. It was a film of the performance Chicken Piece, where the artist stood naked holding a recently decapitated chicken that violently flapped as life drained from its wings. It was shocking. [...]
Also out this week September 26, 2013 FILM: AUSTENLAND (Cert 12a) Twilight author Stephanie Meyer’s first foray into film production is sweet but witless. ART: VAN GOGH IN PARIS (Eykyn Maclean Gallery) Van Gogh’s Paris paintings are brighter than most of his more famous works. ART: PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA (David Zwirner) Photographer DiCorcia examines the unease that accompanied the end of the Bush [...]
Restaurant review: Boulestin September 24, 2013 RESTAURANT 5 St James’s Street, SW1A 1EF Tel: 020 7930 2030 FOOD Three Stars VALUE Three Stars ATMOSPHERE One Star Cost for two with drinks: £140 An occupational hazard of being a restaurant critic is that people often ask you where they should go for dinner, or for recommendations of who does the best ostrich [...]
There must be more to life than Sauvignon Bland September 24, 2013 [email protected] AS I PUSHED my supermarket trolley down another aisle of dull whites this weekend, I realised that we all need a little more democracy in our glasses. This is Party Conference season, after all. I am talking, of course, about the Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc duopoly. In the past few years these two grape types have [...]
The new 911: the ultimate geek car September 23, 2013 This tech-heavy, street-legal racer will have petrol-heads panting with anticipation IT’S bonkers fast, isn’t it?”, says my co-driver as we climb out of the latest Porsche 911 Turbo S. We’ve been chasing Alex Riberas, one of Porsche’s junior drivers, around the race track at Bilster Berg, Germany, at appropriately blistering speeds. It’s a tricky circuit, [...]
Not convinced? September 23, 2013 TRY THESE INSTEAD Ferrari 458, £178,526 Ferrari’s most beautiful car in recent years is a step up price-wise (you can easily the spec the car to above £200,000), though you’ll be pleased to hear it comes with carbon ceramic brakes as standard. Powered by a 570bhp 4.5-litre V8 petrol engine, 0-62mph takes just 3.4 seconds [...]
Should we all just stay in bed? September 23, 2013 NASA is paying guinea pigs to work from their bed – but how productive can we be outside of the office? Melissa York investigates the pros and cons of homeworking THIS week, US space agency NASA announced it was looking for regular guys like you and me to join a special project. Hold on before [...]
Accessorise your desk September 23, 2013 Alex Dymoke chooses a selection of stylish and useful gadgets for kitting out your workstation Fellowes 90S Shredder £192.60 amazon.co.uk Time to address that bulging drawer full of confidential documents that you know you can’t just bin. This powerful professional shredder can destroy 18 sheets of paper at a time as well as old credit [...]
A fun but shallow spectacle September 22, 2013 THEATRE A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Noël Coward Theatre | By Xenobe Purvis Three Stars THE Michael Grandage Company turns to Shakespeare with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the fourth in a series of productions. The play, which has suffered a history of hackneyed interpretations, is given a contemporary twist in Grandage’s hands, set in the hedonistic [...]