Handling Pooh with kid gloves
Christopher Robin reviewed
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
August 21, 2018
Where did all the Chippendales go?
Time to buy brown
August 20, 2018
Life ‘n’ Arts podcast: celebrating American audacity with William Giraldi
William Giraldi, author of the novels Busy Monsters and Hold the Dark ahead of publishing his first collection of essays,
The backlash against Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman leads towards a divided America
David Duke would be proud of Boots Riley ’s argument
August 17, 2018
The poetry of Tommy Robinson
They said politics couldn’t get verse, but now it has…
August 14, 2018
Azealia Banks is telling the truth
Online life is no life at all
August 9, 2018
Thank God for the return of the generation gap in pop
In June, a 20-year-old man called Jahseh Onfroy was murdered after leaving a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy was a rapper, who recorded under the name XXXTentacion, and he had become extraordinarily successful — his two albums had reached No. 2 and No. 1 in the US, despite moderate sales, because of the
August 2, 2018
Did Ed Balls mean to make a documentary on the joys of Trump’s America?
The former British Shadow Chancellor’s new documentary is more favourable of Trumpsters than anyone at the BBC could have ever imagined.
The artist who breathes Technicolor life into historic photographs
There is something of The Wizard of Oz about Marina Amaral’s photographs. She whisks us from black-and-white Kansas to shimmering Technicolor Oz. When Howard Carter leans over Tutankhamun’s open sarcophagus (1922), he does so in the glare of pharaonic gold. A photograph of fallen American soldiers on the Gettysburg battlefield (1863) shocks the more when
July 31, 2018
The Black Arrows come for Zadie Smith
The furore around the Teeth author’s latest short story shows the risk of keeping your politics slightly to yourself.
July 29, 2018
Ben Brantley isn’t transphobic – he’s pitiful
The New York Times critic has nothing to apologise for. Yet he has apologised.
July 26, 2018
A plot not so much paper-thin as soggy and smeary like used toilet paper
Mission Impossible: Fallout reviewed.
Westering
In which our correspondent strikes out for the territory.
Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny – especially when he’s mocking the powerless
Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby. Nor was his rubbish 2012 film The Dictator. Nor, let’s be honest, were his classic original characters Borat, Brüno or even Ali G. Obviously, they had their moments: the ‘mankini’ — that bizarre, electric
July 21, 2018
Film review: Netflix’s The Skin of the Wolf
Paws for thought
July 19, 2018
Paul Simon says farewell with a daring and inventive show
Early in 1987, a middle-aged woman approached me on the record counter of the Slough branch of Boots. ‘What do you have by Ladysmith Black Mambazo?’ she demanded. Nothing. Boots in Slough wasn’t big on South African isicathamiya choral music. ‘Well,’ she suggested, ‘you really ought to get their records in. They’re going to be
Channel 4 doesn’t do ‘news’ in any meaningful sense of the word – it’s pure propaganda
When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I imagine a lot of British viewers thought —as Theresa May clearly did — that he was being graceless, capricious and anti-freedom of speech. But I think we’re in danger of underestimating the extent to which
July 18, 2018
Drake’s soft centre makes him a new type of hip-hop role model
The Canadian rapper’s response to Pusha-T on his new album is nimble and reasonable.
July 17, 2018
The real reason Scarlett Johansson abandoned her ‘trans role’
There is so much euphemistic reporting about Scarlett Johansson’s decision to drop out of a film in which she would have portrayed a trans man. Ms Johansson ‘quits role’, headlines tell us. She has ‘stepped away’ from ‘trans role’, we are informed. It all makes it sound like she had a simple change of heart, or
July 16, 2018
Meet Michiko Kakutani, the conservative
The former New York Times reviewer’s study of truth reveals how she’s been driven to outrage by the erosion of cultural and critical values.
July 13, 2018
My chat with Harvey Weinstein
The disgraced movie producer reached out to Taki with a ‘world exclusive’ about Rose McGowan and Asia Argento
July 10, 2018
Donald Trump’s fixation on celebrity is what makes him so…American
It’s almost impossible to imagine the President praising a book or a person or an idea, or really anything, that hasn’t been approved by a lot of people.
July 5, 2018
Ignore Lily Allen’s sub-adolescent politics – her new album is brilliant
Grade: B+ Here we go again, then, I thought — another gobbet of self-referential, breast-beating respec’ me bro sputum against a backdrop of the usual overproduced r&b pop schlock. What used to be called ‘indie’ singer-songwriters are always moaning about how utterly useless they are, taking Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ as a kind of self-flagellating worldview. Chart
The virtuoso virtue-signallers of classical music
All my life I’ve wanted to compose music, and now I’ve done it. I’ve written a sonata for solo flute that boasts two highly original features; it’s five hours long and must be performed by a badger. Though it took me only five minutes to write, my opus one is guaranteed to get through to
July 3, 2018
Sure, Donald Trump is uncultured – but is that such a bad thing?
The president may be averse to the arts, but he’s hardly shaking the republic to its core.
July 1, 2018
Freaky Friday for the sex wars: Netflix’s I Am Not an Easy Man reviewed
You know the feeling. One minute, you’re an oversexed adman, strolling the streets of Paris and propositioning every woman you pass. The next, you’ve walked into a lamp post, and knocked yourself unconscious. You wake up in the same Paris, but now the sex roles are reversed, and the hierarchies of power and values too. … Read more
June 29, 2018
The obscenity of the art world
You’ve probably heard that we’re in a boom time for the art business, breaking sales records as fast as we can make them. This might seem strange, in a time of such political uncertainty, but look closer: the art world is a fascinating canary in our cultural/social/economic coal mine, an odd liminal zone where profound … Read more
June 26, 2018
David Lynch and the new Trumpian counter culture
The director recognises Trump’s startling originality and willingness to look beyond the taken-for-granted modus operandi of the Washington Establishment.
June 24, 2018
Film review: Westwood – Punk, Icon, Activist
This is a golden age for documentaries, if you have time to view them. Digital film and editing have reduced the cost of making a documentary, and online streaming has resolved the problem of distribution. The result is a glut of documentaries, generally well-made, and generally too long. Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist comes … Read more
