| | | | | Adam McKay: 'Leo sees Meryl as film royalty – he didn't like seeing her with a lower back tattoo' | | by Steve Rose Dec 13, 2021 | | After politics in Vice and finance in The Big Short, director McKay is taking on the climate crisis in his star-studded ‘freakout’ satire Don’t Look Up Adam McKay calls it his “freakout trilogy”. Having tackled the 2008 financial crash and warmongering US vice president Dick Cheney in his previous two movies, The Big Short and Vice, McKay goes even bigger and bleaker with his latest, Don’t Look Up, in which two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a giant comet headed for Earth, but struggle to get anyone to listen. It is an absurd but depressingly plausible disaster satire, somewhere between Dr Strangelove, Network, Deep Impact and Idiocracy, with an unbelievably stellar cast; also on board are Meryl Streep (as the US president), Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill and Ariana Grande. It has been quite the career trajectory for McKay, who started out in live improv and writing for Saturday Night Live, followed by a run of hit Will Ferrell comedies such as Anchorman, Step Brothers and The Other Guys. “The goal was to capture this moment,” says McKay of Don’t Look Up. “And this moment is a lot.” Was there a particular event that inspired Don’t Look Up?
Somewhere in between The Big Short and Vice, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] panel and a bunch of other studies came out that just were so stark and so terrifying that I realised: “I have to do something addressing this.” So I wrote five different premises for movies, trying to find the best one. I had one that was a big, epic, kind of dystopian drama. I had another one that was a Twilight Zone/M Night [Shyamalan] sort of twisty thriller. I had a small character piece. And I was just trying to find a way into: how do we communicate how insane this moment is? So finally, I was having a conversation with my friend [journalist and Bernie Sanders adviser] David Sirota, and he offhandedly said something to the effect of: “It’s like the comet’s coming and no one cares.” And I thought: “Oh. I think that’s it.” I loved how simple it was. It’s not some layered, tricky Gordian knot of a premise. It’s a nice, big, wide open door we can all relate to. Continue reading... | | | | | The 50 best films of 2021 in the UK, No 5: Nomadland | | by Benjamin Lee Dec 13, 2021 | | Frances McDormand is on Oscar-winning, career-defining form in Chloé Zhao’s soulful docu-fiction on America’s dispossessed The big story of the start of the year was Nomadland, Chloé Zhao’s soulful follow-up to 2017 breakout The Rider. That film received a belated UK release in May, a month after Nomadland swept the board at the Oscars, taking best picture, director and actress. Both films see the Chinese director immersing herself in a rural American subculture so seamlessly that one would assume she’s always been there, an outsider who chooses to listen first with patience and grace. A loose adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book, it follows Fern (played by Frances McDormand), a widow whose home town has died, one of the many industrial fatalities of the 2008 recession. She’s been displaced (her town’s zip code was discontinued in 2011) and so decides to pack up, take her most important belongings with her in a van and go on the road. Continue reading... | | | | | Lang Lang review – Bach's Goldbergs are smothered with love | | by Martin Kettle Dec 13, 2021 | | Barbican, London
This was a performance full of idiosyncrasies, of which some brought unexpected delights, but others felt perverse and mannered Lang Lang comes as a package deal. Even after a lay-off due to an arm problem he still has his wondrous piano technique. He always offers himself as a wholly serious musician. He is certainly an important one – an inspiration to millions. But he is also one of the most mannered maulers of the repertoire you are ever likely to encounter. This Barbican recital showcased all of it. No pianist playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations – they were prefaced by Schumann’s Op 18 Arabesque – is trying to take the public’s money for old rope. One or two tiptoed exits during the Goldbergs suggested some were not getting what they had expected. Be clear, too, that there were moments of dazzlingly appropriate Bach playing, as in the lightning fast skips and shadings of the 14th variation, where Lang’s quicksilver touch was a delight. Continue reading... | | | | | The 50 best albums of 2021, No 5: Tyler, the Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost | | by Tara Joshi Dec 13, 2021 | | The former hellraiser’s sixth album saw him reflecting, after turning 30, on his early stardom and showing off his soft side in regretful love songs as well as rap fireworks In 2010, Tyler, the Creator tweeted that he wanted a Gangsta Grillz tape, the prolific DJ Drama mixtape series which informed much of the best hip-hop of the 2000s. Tyler has lived out a lot of his dreams in the intervening years. After his collective Odd Future changed the game in the early 2010s, their hellraising gave way to radical art from members Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt, Syd and Tyler, who became one of the most respected rappers and producers around. He’s collaborated with many of the artists he obsessed over back then. He’s written music scores and scripted TV shows; he won a Grammy; he runs a revered fashion line and a successful festival. His sixth album, Call Me If You Get Lost, finds the artist reaching 30 and reflecting on his life so far: the joys and luxuries (“It’s opulence, baby!”), his growth from the shock-rap days in the context of contemporary social media “activism” (“Internet bringin’ old lyrics up like I hide the shit”), and the sacrifices along the way (“Everyone I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows”). Between tracks, DJ Drama “hosts” the record, offering wry tags and playful stories from their global travels (like how in Switzerland, “a young lady just fed me French vanilla ice-cream!”). Gangsta Grillz tapes have fallen off the mainstream radar in recent years: for Tyler to breathe new life into the format in 2021 is a testament not only to his ambition and vision, but his ability to fulfil them. Continue reading... | | | | | L'Enfance du Christ review – characterful and vivid Berlioz | | by Erica Jeal Dec 13, 2021 | | St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
The Christmas oratorio about the holy family’s flight into Egypt was beautifully performed by John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and a top-flight cast of soloists A stone’s throw from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in the National Gallery, you can see what the old Flemish painters made of the story of the holy family’s flight into Egypt, Here, with John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique giving their first concert in their new home venue, you could hear Berlioz’s take on it. The forces had already performed it in Zurich and in Ely Cathedral, and have a single date in Barcelona this week, which presumably counts as a European tour post-Brexit. L’Enfance du Christ is full of Berlioz’s characteristic mood swings and grand, colourful gestures: it’s an oratorio that sounds as though it desperately wants to be an opera, perfect for the characterful period winds and brass of Gardiner’s orchestra and for the top-flight cast of soloists he had assembled here. Michael Spyres’s glowing Narrator, Ann Hallenberg’s beatific Mary and Lionel Lhote’s desperate yet noble Joseph – it would have been good to hear more of all three, but Berlioz doesn’t put the spotlight squarely on any one soloist. The smaller roles were taken by singers from the choir; Alexander Ashworth made especially vivid work of the Ishmaelite who takes the family in. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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