EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
Film round-up: June 9, 2022
The Star's critic Maria Duarte reviews Swan Song, Leave No Traces, All My Friends Hate Me and Jurassic World: Dominion
Udo Kier in Swan Song
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
Swan Song (12A)
Directed by Todd Stephens
★★★★
LEGENDARY actor Udo Kier gives the performance of a lifetime in this touching and bittersweet drama which writer-director Todd Stephens has described as his love letter to disappearing gay culture in the United States.
Kier stars as “Mister Pat” Pitsenbarger, a renowned and flamboyant former hairdresser who comes out of retirement, as well as his nursing home in Sandusky, Ohio, to fulfil his greatest client’s dying wish to style her final hairdo. The character was inspired by a legendary figure in Stephens’s hometown in this, his third film about Sandusky.
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MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
KEVIN DONNELLY and MARIA DUARTE review Shoot the People, The Last One For The Road, Rosebush Pruning, and Moana
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club