Stage: A mi manera

Copla: A Spanish Cabaret
writer-performer Alejandro Postigo
musicians Violeta Valladares, Jack Elsdon
director Sergio Maggiolo
video design Ricardo Ferreira
The Other Palace, London • 14-26.Jan.25 ★★★★

Entertaining on several layers, this terrific show explores a specific strain of Spanish music that evokes big emotions, provoking audiences for over a century with implications that subvert what's considered traditional morality. It's performed by Alejandro Postigo with charm, wit and a sharp political undercurrent that continually elicits laughter even as he makes important points about sexuality and immigration. And while it sometimes feels like a Ted Talk as it uses a large video screen to teach us about copla, the show is also strikingly personal, which makes it deeply moving for anyone who feels at odds with the status quo. And the music is simply gorgeous.

In The Other Palace's studio space, the stage looks like a dressing room, with hats, shawls, fans and dresses on the wall plus some glittery flourishes, all of which come into play. Violinist Violeta Valladares and keyboardist Jack Elsdon serenade us as we enter, and then Postigo arrives with a conspiratorial grin, explaining his qualifications before launching into a bracingly enjoyable tour through copla's history in Spain and Latin America. Strong resonance emerges everywhere, such as the tracing of an early copla classic written in French as Mon Homme, performed in Spain and then popularised as My Man by a string of divas from Fanny Brice to Billy Holiday, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Whitney Houston.

Copla is distinguished by its big drama, telling stories of love outside what is considered proper, so it has always appealed to outsiders, most notably drag artists. In between gorgeous performance numbers in which he cleverly mixes Spanish and English lyrics, Postigo speaks intimately about how this music captured his attention as a child, then became more important to him as he discovered his queer identity. So the way the music was censored in the Franco era becomes a running theme, and it's driven home beautifully in clips of Postigo interacting with his lively 101-year-old grandmother.

Over the course of this hour-long show, Postigo reveals himself as he explores the universal impact of copla, which crosses cultures and subcultures powerfully revealing a deeper identity and a sense of belonging. Postigo's performance involves several evocative visual gender shifts, mixing masculinity with femininity both in his ever-changing outfits and his soaring voice, climaxing with a show-stopping performance of My Way before a joyous karaoke-style singalong. It's a cheeky, informative and hugely entertaining show that carries a lovely emotional kick.

For information, THE COPLA >

photos by Jake Bush & John Kentish • 17.Jan.25

 

Critical Week: I feel pretty

While all eyes continue to be on Los Angeles as the extent of the fire damage becomes even more horrifically clear, the film industry here in London continues relatively as normal. Bafta announced their film awards nominations on Wednesday, the usual expected lists with idiosyncratic touches here and there. And among screenings this week, Michelle Yeoh popped in (on great form) for a lively Q&A at a press screening for Star Trek: Section 31, which spins her Discovery character Philippa Georgiou off for her own action-comedy mayhem. It will be interesting to see how franchise fans take on the film's riotous tone.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
I'm Still Here • The Writer
A Complete Unknown
ALL REVIEWS >

There was also a late screening of Leigh Whannell's latest reworking of a monster classic: Wolf Man. Stars Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner make the most of the emotional angles in the somewhat thin script, and the grisly suspense will keep fans entertained. Tom Hanks and Robin Wright reunite with Robert Zemeckis for Here, a gimmicky experimental film that places a camera in one place for millions of years. The effects and imagery is impressive, but the mini-melodramas feel arch. From Lithuania, the New York-set drama The Writer features just two actors as they talk over the course of one afternoon, and it's properly gripping stuff, taking on big issues and quietly intimate emotion. Finally there was Charlie Shackleton's Zodiac Killer Project, documenting the film he never got to make. It's witty and inventive, and premieres at Sundance.

This coming week, among the films I'll be watching are Steven Soderbergh's Presence, the Irish drama Four Mothers, the musician doc Luther: Never Too Much and a restored screening of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, which I've never seen projected.

Critical Week: Troubled teens

After a very nice break, screenings have started up in London again, and I've had a couple this week. It's been a gentle start to a new year, with the usual offbeat January releases alongside awards-season gems that are being released this month. My first screening was the comedy-horror Get Away, written by and starring Nick Frost (Sebastian Croft and Maisie Ayres, pictured, play his kids). It's nutty and gleefully grisly enough to keep fans happy, but is a bit undercooked. Claes Bang stars in a big-scale account of the Swiss legend of William Tell. The settings are gorgeous and the starry cast is terrific, even if it's never hugely involving.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Hard Truths • A Real Pain
The Girl With the Needle
Babygirl • Maria
ALL REVIEWS >

From France, the always enjoyable Laure Calamy stars in It's Raining Men, a comedy about a middle-aged woman who tries to spice up her marriage by hooking up with other men. It feels a little simplistic, but is likeable enough. A UK production filmed in India, filmmaker Sandhya Suri's Santosh is a riveting if slightly underpowered procedural thriller with very strong character beats. And the meta-comedy Extremely Unique Dynamic his hilariously packed with layers of gags as it highlights the friendship between filmmakers Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung.

This coming week, among the films I'll be watching are Michelle Yeoh in Star Trek: Section 31, Julia Garner in Wolf Man, Tom Hanks in Here and the documentaries Changing the Game and Zodiac Killer Project.

Critical Week: Happy holidays

It's been a nice week, hanging out with friends, celebrating the new year and watching very few films. I had a couple more to watch before finalising my lists of the best and worst of 2024, but I didn't go crazy trying to see everything. I'll be catching up on more over the coming weeks, and they'll enter the fray for 2025. The starriest one I watched this week was Joshua Oppenheimer's epic musical The End, with Tilda Swinton, George MacKay and Michael Shannon. It's about a family living underground two decades after society collapsed, and it has a lot to say about several massive topics. Although over two and a half hours it becomes a little numbing. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Nickel Boys • Nosferatu
We Live in Time
2073 • What I Am Not
ALL REVIEWS >

Meanwhile, Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge was a very nice surprise. Despite the blunt title, the film is a nuanced, thoughtful dramatic thriller about a guy whose specialty is de-escalating violence. Aaron Pierre is terrific in the lead role, as is Don Johnson as the backwoods Louisiana police chief running a very dodgy operation. Well worth a look even if the plot is a bit swampy. There were also two acclaimed documentaries: the shattering Sugarcane uses personal stories to skilfully recount stories of child abuse in Catholic schools for indigenous children in Canada. And Grand Theft Hamlet is an inventive, enjoyable film tracing the attempt to stage Shakespeare's play within the murderous virtual world of Grand Theft Auto.

This coming week press screenings will start up again with Claes Bang in William Tell, Nick Frost in Get Away, Laura Calamy in It's Raining Men and the Lithuanian drama The Writer.

A Year in Shadows: Vol 40

And so the 40th year of Shadows on the Wall wraps as another 51 covers have been published over the past year, featuring these films in order: Good Grief, Poor Things, The Holdovers, All of Us Strangers, American Fiction, The Iron Claw, Bob Marley: One Love, Wicked Little Letters, Dune: Part Two, Drive-Away Dolls, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Mothers' Instinct, Io Capitano, Back to Black, The Book of Clarence, Challengers, The Fall Guy, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, IF, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Young Woman and the Sea, The Dead Don't Hurt, Inside Out 2, The Bikeriders, Kinds of Kindness, Unicorns, Fly Me to the Moon, Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Kneecap, Borderlands, Alien: Romulus, The Substance, Black Dog, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Critic, Transformers One, Megalopolos, Joker: Folie à Deux, We Live in Time, The Wild Robot, Emilia Pérez, Anora, Paddington in Peru, Wicked: Part I, Maria, Nightbitch, Kraven the Hunter, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Better Man, plus the Oscar cover. Of course, full-sized versions of these covers have been posted here on the blog throughout the year.

Trivia alert!

Appearing on multiple covers this year were Aaron Taylor-Johnson (one solo and one shared), Olivia Colman (2 shared), Ryan Reynolds (2 shared) and Zendaya (2 shared). Two others appeared once as themselves and once as an animated character they voice:  Emily Blunt (unicorn) and Scarlett Johansson (robot).

Getting a cover all to themselves:  Marisa Abela, Amy Adams, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Karla Sofía Gascón, Angelina Jolie, Mikey Madison,Ian McKellan,Jason Patel, Jesse Plemons, Daisy Ridley, Seydou Sarr, LaKeith Stanfield, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jeffrey Wright and Demi Moore, who shares her cover with herself. 

Sharing a cover with costars: Freya Allen, Antonio Banderas, Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, Hugh Bonneville, Jesse Buckley, Austin Butler, Timothée Chalamet, Jessica Chastain, Jodie Comer, Carrie Coon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Harris Dickinson, Adam Driver, Winston Duke, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Zac Efron, Nathalie Emmanuel, Cynthia Erivo, Mike Faist, Cailey Fleming, Lady Gaga, Andrew Garfield, Paul Giamatti, Ryan Gosling, Mckenna Grace, Ariana Grande, Ariana Greenblatt, Madeleine Harris, Kevin Hart, Anne Hathaway, Chris Hemsworth, Lachy Hulme, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel Joslin, Michael Keaton, Logan Kim, Vicky Krieps, Dan Levy, Paul Mescal, Viggo Mortensen, Emily Mortimer, Florian Munteanu, Ruth Negga, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Celeste O'Connor, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Jenna Ortega, Eddie Peng, Himesh Patel, Glen Powell, Florence Pugh, Margaret Qualley, Anthony Ramos, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Archie Renaux, Ryan Reynolds, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Winona Ryder, Andrew Scott, Dominic Sessa, Stanley Simons, Cailee Spaeny, Emma Stone, Channing Tatum, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Geraldine Viswanathan, Hannah Waddingham, Julie Walters, Jeremy Allen White, Finn Wolfhard and Zendaya.

Appearing as an animated character they voiced: Lewis Black (emotion), Emily Blunt (unicorn), Steve Carrell (furball), Kit Connor (goose), Ayo Edebiri (emotion), Adèle Exarchopoulos (emotion), Tony Hale (emotion), Paul Walter Hauser (emotion), Maya Hawke (emotion), Scarlett Johansson (robot), Keegan-Michael Key (robot), Liza Lapira (emotion), Lupita Nyong'o (robot), Pedro Pascal (fox), Amy Poehler (emotion), Reece Shearsmith (gnome), Phyllis Smith (emotion), Owen Teague (ape), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (doll), Ben Whishaw (bear), Ben Whitehead (inventor), Robbie Williams (monkey).

The most crowded covers: Paddington in Peru and Inside Out 2 with 9 each.

And finally, here are three outtake covers that were designed but never used: Kung Fu Panda (which was bumped by the Oscar cover), Broken Bird (which opened FrightFest but was bumped for closing film The Substance) and My Old Ass (bumped by Megalopolis).

The Best of 2024: 44th Shadows Awards

As usual, here's a preview of my annual year-end lists - there is much, perhaps too much more on the site. It's just too hard to draw that line at 10. I saw fewer films in 2024 than in the previous several years, a conscious effort to slow down a bit while still aiming to catch all of the serious contenders. As always, I love movies that catch me off guard and demonstrate the power of cinema...

FAVOURITE FILM

1. 
   Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt)
2. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)
3. A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)
4. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)
5. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor)
6. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
7. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
8. Anora (Sean Baker)
9. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
10. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)

DIRECTOR

1. 
   Luca Guadagnino - Challengers, Queer
2. RaMell Ross - Nickel Boys
3. Coralie Fargeat - The Substance
4. Alice Rohrwacher - La Chimera
5. Brady Corbet - The Brutalist
6. Sean Baker - Anora
7. Payal Kapadia - All We Imagine as Light
8. Halina Reijn - Babygirl
9. Denis Villeneuve - Dune: Part Two
10. Rose Glass - Love Lies Bleeding

SCREENWRITER

1. 
   Chris Sanders - The Wild Robot
2. Payal Kapadia - All We Imagine as Light
3. Megan Park - My Old Ass
4. Alice Rohrwacher - La Chimera
5. Rich Peppiatt - Kneecap
6. Levan Akin - Crossing
7. Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold - The Brutalist
8. James Mangold, Jay Cocks - A Complete Unknown
9. Sean Baker - Anora
10. Justin Kuritzkes - Challengers, Queer

ACTRESS

1. 
   Karla Sofía Gascón - Emilia Pérez
2. Demi Moore -The Substance
3. Mikey Madison - Anora
4. Mzia Arabuli - Crossing
5. Marianne Jean-Baptiste - Hard Truths
6. Soheila Golestani - The Seed of the Sacred Fig
7. Amy Adams - Nightbitch
8. Florence Pugh - We Live in Time, Dune: Part Two
9. Nykiya Adams - Bird
10. Fernanda Torres - I'm Still Here

ACTOR

1. 
   Sebastian Stan - A Different Man, The Apprentice
2. Colman Domingo - Sing Sing, Drive-Away Dolls
3. Timothée Chalamet - A Complete Unknown, Dune: Part Two
4. Payman Maadi - Opponent
5. Jesse Plemons - Kinds of Kindness, Civil War
6. Josh O'Connor - Challengers, La Chimera
7. Adrien Brody - The Brutalist
8. Nicholas Hoult - Nosferatu, Juror #2, The Order
9. Andrew Garfield - We Live in Time
10. Hugh Grant - Heretic, Paddington in Peru, Unfrosted

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. 
   Zoe Saldaña - Emilia Pérez
2. Isabella Rossellini - Conclave, La Chimera, Problemista
3. Lesley Manville - Queer
4. Isabelle Huppert - The Crime Is Mine, A Traveller's Needs
5. Margaret Qualley - Kinds of Kindness, The Substance, Drive-Away Dolls
6. Monica Barbaro - A Complete Unknown
7. Guslagie Malanda - The Beast
8. Ilça Moreno Zego - Ama Gloria
9. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor - Nickel Boys
10. Divya Prabha - All We Imagine as Light

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. 
   Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain
2. Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown
3. John Magaro - September 5, Day of the Fight
4. Marcel Otete Kabeya - Omen
5. Jonathan Bailey - Wicked: Part I
6. Guy Pearce - The Brutalist
7. Scoot McNairy - Nightbitch, A Complete Unknown, Speak No Evil, The Line
8. Clarence Maclin - Sing Sing
9. Yura Borisov - Anora
10. Fred Hechinger - Thelma, Nickel Boys, Gladiator II, Kraven the Hunter

WORST FILM

1. 
   Borderlands (Eli Roth)
2. The Garfield Movie (Mark Dindal)
3. Reagan (Sean McNamara)
4. The Exorcism (Joshua John Miller)
5. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Adam Wingard)
6. Strictly Confidential (Damian Hurley)
7. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Kenji Kamiyama)
8. Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah)
9. Cellar Door (Vaughn Stein)
10. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (Mark Molloy)

TV SERIES

1. 
   Somebody Somewhere (Max)
2. Hacks 3 (Max)
3. The Bear 3 (FX)
4. Shogun (Hulu)
5. The Sympathizer (Max)
6. Fargo 5 (FX)
7. Disclaimer (Apple)
8. Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show (Max)
9. Ripley (Netflix)
10. Only Murders in the Building 4 (Hulu)

SINGLES

1. 
   APT. - Rosé & Bruno Mars
2. Lose Control - Teddy Swims
3. Beautiful Things - Benson Boone
4. A Bar Sony (Tipsy) - Shaboozey
5. Good Luck, Babe! - Chappell Roan
6. Kiss the Sky - Maren Morris
7. Illusion - Dua Lipa
8. Too Sweet - Hozier
9. Birds of a Feather - Billie Eilish
10. Espresso - Sabrina Carpenter

Critical Week: Almost paradise

It's the final week of the year, and I'm enjoying the relative silence of my email inbox these days. I'm using this time to catch up on missed movies for my year-end best/worst lists (coming very soon!). And I've also been watching some mindless television and eating rather too much, as you're supposed to do at this time of year. Of course, some of these movies are coming out over the holidays, or soon thereafter. This includes Los Frikis, a beautifully made true drama from filmmakers Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson (The Peanut Butter Falcon) about a group of young Cubans in the early 1990s who made audacious choices to survive and created a rock-n-roll paradise in the process.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Complete Unknown
Nosferatu • Better Man
Vengeance Most Fowl • 2073
The Order • Los Frikis
ALL REVIEWS >

Kerry Washington stars in the inspirational true drama The Six Triple Eight, about a platoon of Black women who solved an insurmountable problem during WWII. It's over-egged by filmmaker Tyler Perry, but the story is great. Looney Tunes returns to the big screen with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in The Day the Earth Blew Up, a rather too-silly apocalyptic animated slapstick comedy that only has moments of genuine charm. Asif Kapadia's offbeat documentary 2073 is very pointed, but is packed with urgent reporting about the state of the planet right now. And from Thailand, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a charming, very sentimental comedy about a teen who learns some important lessons while caring for his feisty, dying grandmother.

This coming week I'll be catching up on a few more year-end titles, including the epic musical The End and the acclaimed documentaries Sugarcane and Grand Theft Hamlet. Press screenings won't start up again until 7th January.