Category Archives: Reviews

When Gillian Anderson hit a home run onstage

Posted on June 14, 2022 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – At the Royal Court Theatre in April 2004, a tiny, waif-like creature strolls silently onto a wide, spare stage with the audience still settling and chattering and then suddenly becoming quiet. There is a window … Continue reading →

Posted in Memory Lane, Recalling ..., Reviews, Theatre | Tagged 'The Sweetest Swing in Baseball', Daryl Strawberry, Demetri Goritsas, Gillian Anderson, Ian Rickson, John Sharian, Kate Harper, Nancy Crane, Rebecca Gilman, Royal Court Theatre | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’

Posted on December 27, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett Martin Scorsese’s puerile veneration of low-life thugs and violent sociopaths reaches its apotheosis in his leadenly dull crime picture ‘The Irishman’, available now on Netflix. Over nearly three-and-a-half tedious hours, he takes a hoodlum named Frank Sheeran … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews | Tagged 'The Irishman', Al Pacino, Anna Paquin, Joe Pesci, Martin Scorsese, Stephen Zallian; Robert De Niro | Comments Off

TIFF FILM REVIEW: Chinonye Chukwu’s ‘Clemency’

Posted on September 16, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett TORONTO – Alfre Woodard gives a profound and memorable performance in writer-director Chinonye Chukwu’s ‘Clemency’, a moving examination of the personal tolls exacted by the death penalty. Most such stories focus on the victim and the condemned … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival | Tagged 'Clemency', Aldiss Hodge, Alfre Woodard, Chinonye Chukwu, Eric Branco, Kathryn Bostic, Richard Schiff, Toronto International Film Festival | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Natalie Portman in ‘Vox Lux’

Posted on May 3, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett TORONTO – Just as in ‘Jackie’ two years ago, Natalie Portman gives a scintillating performance of a driven and complicated woman in a not very successful picture. Director and screenwriter Brady Corbet’s ‘Vox Lux’, which opens today … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Music, Reviews, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival | Tagged 'Vox Lux', Brady Corbet, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Raffey Cassidy, Scott Walker, Sia, Stacy Martin, Toronto International Film Festival | Comments Off

Cheers to our Will, not sorry old George

Posted on April 23, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett Today is St. George’s Day named for the patron saint of several places such as Aragon, Catalonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal and Russia. Oh, and England. We English, of course, don’t mark April 23 in … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged Ben Whishaw, Chichester Festival, Donmar Warehouse, Imogen Stubbs, Kate Fleetwood, Kelly Reilly, Matthew McFadyen, Michael Gambon, Michael Grandage, National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, Patrick Stewart, Peter Hall, Rebecca Hall, Rupert Goold, Simon Russell Beale, St. George, Tom Hiddleston, Trevor Nunn, William Shakespeare, Zoe Wanamaker | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Cruz and Bardem in ‘Everybody Knows’

Posted on March 8, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Married Spanish Oscar-winners Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have become a reliable partnership onscreen and their latest feature together, ‘Everybody Knows’, is a bright addition to their canon. It opens today in the United Kingdom.

Posted in Film, Reviews, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival | Tagged 'Asghar Farhadi, 'Everybody Knows', Javier Bardem, Javier Limón, José Luis Alcaine, Penelope Cruz, Toronto International Film Festival | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Adam McKay’s ‘Vice’

Posted on January 27, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – American writer-director Adam McKay’s political satire ‘Vice’ does for Washington what his 2015 film ‘The Big Short’ did for Wall Street with the same mix of techniques that includes sharp humour, characters speaking to camera, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Josie Rourke’s ‘Mary Queen of Scots’

Posted on January 14, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Josie Rourke’s pedestrian costume saga ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ offers a revisionist and modernist view of the would-be monarch who threatened Elizabeth I’s reign and was executed aged 44 in 1587 but it fails to … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Mary Queen of Scots', Guy Pearce, Josie Rourke, Margot Robbie, Max Richter, Saiorse Ronan | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Jon S. Baird’s ‘Stan & Ollie’

Posted on January 11, 2019 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Jon S. Baird’s ‘Stan & Ollie’ appears well intended but it has two central problems. One is the decision to portray the great silent comics Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as sad clowns and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Stan & Ollie', John C. Reilly, Jon S. Baird, Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Steve Coogan | Comments Off

FILM REVIEW: Yorkos Lanthimos’s ‘The Favourite’

Posted on November 23, 2018 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Fasten your corsets, it’s going to be a bumpy night. Yorkos Lanthimos’s costume romp ‘The Favourite’ is a cartoonish depiction of the fiery relationships between 18th century Queen Anne, her best friend and senior courtier … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Reviews | Tagged 'The Favourite', Deborah Davis, Emma Stone, Nicholas Hoult, Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Tony McNamara, Yorkos Lanthimos | Comments Off