I actually wrestled with reviewing this when I went to see the show in London last year, but after much thought, I decided that my critical qualifications are stretched to their limits enough when I cover films, and extending it to potentially annoy the theatre world too might just be pushing my luck too far;…
I may have let slip before that I’m a big fan of Les Misérables. I really enjoyed the film when that came around (Russell Crowe and his odd singing notwithstanding), I’ve had and watched every concert version released, went to the West End to see it, I was even in a version several years ago.…
There’s always a risk when returning to a long-dormant franchise of tainting the originals legacy. Yet it seems fashionable now to revisit series thought long-dead in the hopes of attaching a pair of jump leads to its corpse and wringing a few more million dollars from it. It probably sounds from that opening paragraph that…
Why is Ryan Gosling so good at everything? Remember a few years ago, when this film was doing the rounds? Remember the hype around this film that had somehow come out of nowhere and made movie musicals fresh and new again? Remember when Warren Beatty called it out by accident as that year’s Best Picture?…
There might not be a more highly-regarded composer and songwriter in modern Hollywood than Alan Menken. For many people my age, his songs in Disney films were the soundtrack to our childhoods, and the late-80’s revival of Disney’s fortunes owes a lot of its success to Menken’s songwriting. Of course, he didn’t do this alone,…
Well, this is a doozy to kick off a new era isn’t it? Long-time readers of my site will know that I love musicals, I’ve been a part of the theatre since I was a child, and remaining part of it is one of my great life joys; so it will come as a shock…
With the release of this and Joker this week, I think it’s fair to say that we are entering the early stages of “awards season”. Both had a lot of hype coming out of the tail end of the festival season and with the wide release it’s fair to say that the awards train has…
I may have said this before, but in my opinion the high-point of the Disney ‘live-action’ remakes has so far been The Jungle Book. It updated and refreshed a film that was long enough ago to warrant a fresh coat of paint with a stellar cast and a lovely new visual style. So, when the…
In terms of artistic output and continuing popularity, no group really comes close to The Beatles. Even though they were only recording artists for ten years, they produced thirteen albums of quality material, among which are some of the greatest albums ever released, so I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a film containing their…
As I’ve stated many times before, some things are hard to review. As I’ve also said on a few occasions, optimism is over-rated. I really hope that doesn’t give my opinions away too soon on Rocketman, in many ways, I’m still building a full picture of it, but on others I feel like I have…
