Recent Entries

• Everyone’s sisters: whether book, film or opera, Little Women s

  by caruk guruk July 27, 2022
  “The Greta Gerwig Little Women was perfection, although I don’t understand why they missed out the lime scene.” “Maya Hawke in the PBS series is my favourite Jo.” “Timothée Chalamet is a great actor but he’s not the Laurie I imagined.” Such d...

• Proms composers on their extraordinary new music

  by caruk guruk July 26, 2022
  ‘Apocalyptic nightmares fuel my music’ Mark-Anthony TurnageTell us about your Proms piece … I wrote Time Flies three years ago, in what seems a more innocent era. It was a reaction to getting older. Having grown up in the 1960s, I have, like many people, a nuclear anxiety, which ...

• Anything’s Possible review – Billy Porter’s sweet but uneven tr

  by caruk guruk July 25, 2022
  Representation can be a double-edged sword. There’s undeniable power in seeing oneself reflected on screen, in normalizing marginalized identities, but an emphasis on visibility alone can reduce complex characters to one identity, one presentation, a checkbox on a list. This is the fine line w...

• Don’t Make Me Go review – mediocre family weepie with a cheap t

  by caruk guruk July 19, 2022
  At the beginning of Amazon’s cutesy father-daughter tale Don’t Make Me Go, a voiceover tell us: “You’re not gonna like the way this story ends, but I think you’re gonna like this story.” Almost two hours later and the prophecy was only half-correct. For the way th...

• ET the Extra-Terrestrial at 40: Spielberg’s sci-fi smash remain

  by caruk guruk July 16, 2022
  There’s a crucial domestic scene early in ET the Extra-Terrestrial where 10-year-old Elliott (Henry Thomas) is trying desperately to convince his mother (Dee Wallace), his older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and his little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) that he’s found an alien in...