Citadel, Review: When James meets, Jane it’s a Bond Two franchises have set the benchmark as far as spy thrillers go. No marks for guessing that these are James Bond and Mission Impossible. It’s been a mind-boggling 61 years since the first James Bond film was released. Ethan Hunt, of Mission Impossible, first appeared on screen in 1996, 27 years ago. And neither seems to have called it a day. Both have a male protagonist, who performs mind-boggling stunts and survives against al...

Final Portrait is an artist’s studio tour and you’re on the invite list. The artist is Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman and printmaker Alberto Giacometti, and the studio, as writer Jean Genet put it, is “a milky swamp, a seething dump, a genuine ditch.” Plaster busts and bony figures haunt the space amidst a mess of tools and splatters. It’d be downright spooky were it not for the creative spirit infusing the ruins. That legendary Montparnasse hovel is w...

Transformers-The Last Knight, Review by Siraj Syed: Michael’s Bay Watch A lot of words related to media get either entirely new meanings or stretch their known meanings to the limit and beyond, once you have watched Michael Bay’s Transformers. It is far too tempting to let the last Knight remain as it is, without getting punny. I saw the film last Night (Wednesday late afternoon, to be precise), and I often felt that last Night was never going to end. It eventually did, and exiti...

Siraj Syed reviews Beauty and the Beast: A veritable feast Beauty and the Beast is a treat for young and old alike, with generous doses of humour and an enchanting musical score to go with it. It is not often that you see a kettle, a tea-cup and saucer, a dressing stool, a wardrobe, a piano, an antique clock, a floating, curvaceous  plumage and a candelabra (no, that’s definitely not a typo)  share screen space with the titular duo, that happen to be Beauty and Beast in this c...

  Wild Card, Review: Raw Deal Based on the novel Heat, by William Goldman (now 84, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Dreamcatcher), who also wrote the screenplay, Wild Card is a lukewarm  a remake of the 1986 movie, starring Burt Reynolds. Las Vegas bodyguard Nick Wild (Jason Statham), who insists on being called a “chaperone”, has a gambling problem, drinks a lot and wants badly to get away for a long holiday. He figures he...

By Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent   What do John Updike and Fran Lebowitz have in common? They both discovered James Thurber, American humorist, at age 10. You will find this out by watching James Thurber: The Life and Hard Times, directed by Adam Van Doren, released June 17 on iTunes (also for sale as DVDs) from First Run Features. This visual non-guilty pleasure is teamed with co-incident releases, Top Hat & Tales: Harold Ross and the Making of The New Yorker (also ...

    By Kimberly DeislerMy husband is annoyed with me. Not for the usual reasons husbands get upset with wives, like spending too much money or the house being messy. He’s upset with me because I keep updating that clause in our marriage. You know the one, the NCIHBIIDCC or the No Chance In Hell But If It Did Celebrity Clause where upon you’re not allowed to cheat on your spouse with anyone other than a celebrity and that celebrity has to be on the list, a list of only five na...