News

Reviews round-up—True Detective, Toro y Moi album and more

The latest series of HBO’s True Detective rests on a strong performance by Mahershala Ali.

Stan and Ollie delivers dash of slapstick and tenderness

A strong cast of actors fill the shoes of Laurel, Hardy and the people around them in John S Baird’s account of the duo’s twilight years, writes?Pat Carmody

Revolutionary France brought to life in BBC’s Les Miserables

A new adaptation of the lengthy literary classic revives forgotten characters and eschews music in favour of narrative thrust, writes?Dave Sewell

The 12th Man - a tale of defiance with a touch too much nationalism

The 12th Man is a tale of violence and pain against a picturesque backdrop.

Honest and all-too-possible story of abusive relationship

An Impossible Love is a challenging and believable portrayal of a woman’s life torn apart in slow motion by an abusive partner, writes?Sadie Robinson

Von Trier gives gore-filled middle finger to his haters

Be prepared for an utterly nightmarish descent with director Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built.

A vision focused on ordinary people

This is the first major retrospective of the work of Martin Jenkinson. He built his career on documenting the lives of ordinary people.

Let’s get medieval—Ribera and the Art of Violence

Jusepe De Ribera has a grisly reputation but, argues?Ben Windsor, a new exhibition shows he did more than just glorify the violence around him

Lost in a labyrinth of social and political catastrophes

A profound sense of injustice and chaos grips visitors to a new exhibition about identity at Manchester’s Castlefield Gallery, writes?Molly Docherty

Philippines political travel book is a punishing read

Is Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte—“The Punisher”—part of the global rise of the racist right? Or is his rule a distinct, grotesque weirdness all of its own?

Captivating film exposes the complexity of ‘mundane’ life

A story based around a writing group in a small French town reflects on a radical history of struggle and the threat of racism, says Sadie Robinson

Exhibition shines a light on the art of the ‘dark ages’

The artefacts of six hundred years of Anglo-Saxon rule on display at the British Library provide a unique insight into history, writes Camilla Royle

Birds of Passage is a refreshing tale of gangs, family and the system

Birds of passage is a visually stunning account of the lives of the Wayuu clan who live in northern Colombia.

Reviews round-up—All We Wanted Was Everything

I’m Not Running

Plays about the plight of the Labour Party must be in vogue.

Explosive war caper lords it over zombies and Nazis

As a cult subgenre, Nazi zombie films have their own conventions and cliches to follow. Producer JJ Abram’s Overlord works because it does them so well.

Widows is a heist film that pushes at the genre’s limits

Steve McQueen’s new film couldn’t be more different to his past work. It’s strength is in nuanced, powerful points about US society, says?Julia Ryder

The workers who sabotaged Pinochet’s murder machine

A new film tells how engineers in East Kilbride refused to work on the Chilean regime’s jet engines. Dave Sherry spoke to one of those workers, John Keenan