Just For Lookin' Thru

Fabulous cinematography creates a moving painting; colours and images stay in the mind long after the film has ended. Intense darkness, golden lighting and lustrous colour bring the Old Masters to life. Costume designer Sandy Powell used old works of art for research, so costuming is lavish and rich while the camera lingers on fabric, skin and hair to produce an acutely sensory experience. Scarlett Johanssen plays the loyal and affectionate younger sister, Mary, used as a honey trap to charm the king and gain power for her family. Reluctant at first, she seems cast as unwilling whore but this fictional representation portrays Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn as tender lovers. Henry (Eric Bana) is shown to be capricious and easily bewitched by Anne although her power appears fleeting. Natalie Portman plays the scheming Anne, maturing from cocky, arch young girl to challenging temptress, before she loses her hold over him, and her descent into terrified desperation is effective an...

Tommy Lee Jones plays Hank, a retired military policeman, father to two soldiers. Mike, the youngest, goes missing shortly after his return to base from Iraq, and Hank sets out to find him. He comes up against Charlize Theron playing a desensitized female detective working amongst misogynistic officers. Hardened to human suffering, this woman in a man’s world is impatient with Hank when he asks for her help. However, the nature of the murder intrigues and touches her, and they form an uneasy alliance in the search for Mike’s killers. Theron is convincing as the isolated single mother; fallible, human but also determined. Lee Jones is on good form as the disciplined, methodical military man, who loses control just once, his emotions only for him to know. Susan Sarandon, as the bereaved mother, conveys the loneliness of grief and deep, internalized suffering. Handled with restraint throughout - dialogue, performances and cinematography, writer and director P...

Dodgy Clutch Theatre Co in assoc with The Market Theatre, Johannesburg UK Tour, March - April 2008 A bewitching production providing a great evening’s entertainment, with story, dance, music and song. The elephants of the title are stunningly beautiful, enormous puppets that are both awe inspiring and enchanting. Dancers and singers from Johannesburg and the UK combine to perform Elephant, a cautionary tale about forgiveness and humanity. This is Chief Zanenvula’s story: refused entry to heaven, he has to look back over his life to discover his mistakes. Accompanied by a manipulative new ‘friend,’ who has something of Alexei Sayle about him, the Chief revisits key scenes in his childhood, adolescence and maturity. He gradually understands how he has offended the spirit of Africa and learns how to redeem himself. This an energetic production: the dancing is varied, athletic and graceful; songs are soulful and lively, the text touching and comic. Staging and lighting recreates the warmth...

Pitch perfect. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play a brother and sister (Wendy and Jon) with some distance between them. Both writers, he is a college professor specializing in Brecht, she is an aspiring playwright. Both are uneasy about their childhood and have put it behind them, until a crisis recalls them to their estranged father. They have to care for him when he had never cared much for them. Seen from Wendy's viewpoint, she reacts emotionally, tries to do the right thing and feels guilty, while Jon takes a practical line, refusing to make a fuss about any of it, which she misinterprets as a callous attitude. It reveals an interesting difference in approaches to the elderly, and his calm, reasoned approach seems the more effective. When Wendy agonizes about how to ask their father what they should do in the event of his unconsciousness or 'possible' death, their father shouts 'Pull the plug! Bury me!' as though they are idiots. Now and a...