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Spectator
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
A startling inversion of the original opera: The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor in Aix en Provence reviewed
On the continent this summer, new operas from two of Britain's most important composers. Oliver Leith likes guns, animals and dissolving sickly sweet sounds in acid baths of microtonality. In one recent orchestral work, the conductor becomes a pistol-wielding madman; his next, Garland, a vast pageant premiering on 18 September at Bold Tendencies, Peckham, sees a horse become a musician. He's 35 and already has a school. Listen out for it – in the London new-music scene you can't move for Leithians. The telltale sign is the sound of twisting metal: shiny pitches that warp and bend until brittle. He's English but in an outsidery way – jokey, gentle, sad, eccentric. The opposite of arch, insidery Benjamin Britten. But opposites attract and Aix's artistic director Pierre Audi – in one of his last creative decisions before his death in May – made a smart move to commission Leith to adapt Britten's seafaring epic Billy Budd. What we get is a startling inversion of the original opera. Where Britten goes XXL, giving himself the biggest canvas he can (70-strong cast, 70-odd-piece orchestra), Leith restricts himself to a postage stamp of sonic possibility (six singers, four musicians all playing keyboards or percussion). Where Britten ushers in gale-force threat, Leith is still and withdrawn, like a tide that's suddenly gone out. Where Britten is precise, Leith is carefully careless. (Some of the most striking musical drama blooms from simple walls of ill-behaved whistling or the subtle chaos of a thundersheet, slowly stroked.) In other words where Britten offers a proper operatic man-of-war – oaky, brutish, immaculately rigged – Leith presents a wispy ghost ship, almost digital in its evanescence, a 16-bit HMS Indomitable, pixelated and threadbare, bobbing along in dense mist, its harmonic sails in tatters. Out go the thick slashes of darkness; in come pure neons. Every tinkly, glisteny metal thing a percussionist could possibly get their hands on is here. It's the kind of palette you might put together if you were scoring the Teletubbies, not a Napoleonic-era tragedy of the high seas. It should be stupid as hell. It somehow isn't. There's a hallucinatory quality to the bright chimes and cloudy throbbing synths that speaks beautifully to the confused morals and heightened desires of this delirious, unhappy crew. Like Leith, director Ted Huffman takes the opera to places Britten never dared. Though it was in effect Britten's coming-out opera – Beecham had nicknamed it 'Twilight of the Sods' – the gay element was sublimated in a way that could offer the composer plausible deniability. Huffman cuts to the chase and makes it explicit. It's a sign of how right the move is that when a kiss comes between Budd and the sailor who will soon betray him it feels inevitable, swept up as it is in a moment of real musical ecstasy. A master of old-school ensemble theatre in the Peter Brook mould, Huffman moves things along economically and expertly. (He's also shaved 45 minutes off the original and you barely notice.) The cast are excellent (Joshua Bloom's hypnotic Claggart, the standout), the musicians heroic in juggling bits of acting and singing with their multifarious musical demands. More characters all at sea in Rebecca Saunders's first opera Lash – Acts of Love. And at the Deutsche Oper Berlin première, conducted by Saunders's partner Enno Poppe, you could really feel it. We open in freefall: vast liquid glissandi behaving like monstrous water chutes sliding the music straight into strange electronic static. K (and N, S, A – they're all one person) is on the threshold of death. She struggles to speak, then vomits up a parade of putrefied memories about hair and skin and sex. The words, derived from an original text by artist and author Ed Atkins, are a plotless tour de force, 'violent, emetic, immoderate, improper, impure', as Jonathan Meades wrote of Atkins's extraordinary novel Old Food. In Act Two body parts and love and longing are each addressed in a messed up memento mori. Transcendence sweeps in, through rapturous, convulsive duets, trios and quartets that entangle the four selves. It's Bosch-like, a danse macabre, funny and vulgar, and the directors at Dead Centre might have had far more fun with it had Saunders – in a rare misstep – not dictated so much of what happens on stage, including instructions for live videography. (Theatres, I beg you: put your cameras away.) No matter. Saunders's music is so full of expressive force, the text can afford to forgo story, the stage all visual interest. As in so many great operas, the score contains the drama. And here Saunders proves that she is not only the great genius of dramatic momentum, of subduction and eruption – her soundworld sits on thrillingly volatile faultlines – but also an intuitively lyrical composer. She even gives the four corpses a ravishing final a capella. If you don't like to be swallowed up or spat out, it may not be the opera for you. But for the rest of us, what an auspicious operatic debut this was.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
28 Years Later Viewers Are Still In Shock From That Teletubbies Callback In The Wild Final Scene
This article contains major spoilers for 28 Years Later. 28 Years Later viewers are still reeling from that shocking ending. Much has already been made of the fact that, in the film's final moments, teen protagonist Spike stumbles upon a renegade cult gang who appear to have modelled their appearance on the disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile, complete with colourful shellsuits and platinum blond wigs. It's worth pointing out that 28 Years Later is set in an alternate world in which the deadly 'rage virus' begins to spread in 2002, completely disrupting society, meaning it's entirely likely that in the timeline seen on screen, the allegations about Savile were never actually made public. However, there's another wild part of the ending that has also stayed with fans. Before we get into that, though, let's quickly flash back to the very beginning of the film. The first scene of 28 Years Later features a group of youngsters who are huddled together to watch a vintage episode of Teletubbies, before all hell breaks loose, and a member of the 'infected' wreaks havoc on the youngsters (the Teletubbies scene was first teased in a 28 Years Later trailer released earlier this year). We learn at the end of the film that cult leader Sir Jimmy Crystal – played by Jack O'Connell – was one of the survivors of this attack, with some also questioning whether or not those colourful tracksuits were also a nod to the Teletubbies, as well as another group of 90s and 2000s kids' TV icons, the Power Rangers. But that's not the only callback to the Teletubbies, though, with the gang's unpredictable fight scene being accompanied by a rock cover of the show's iconic theme tune (which famously topped the UK singles chart back in 1997 with a bit of help from Simon Cowell). Just got back from 28 Years LaterWhat an unsettling and depressing story the is full circled with the god damn Teletubbies…..great film! — Rion (@Rion_A_Lion) June 21, 2025 28 Years Later… standard depressing post apocalyptic zombie horror until the ending which is abrupt and involves screamo teletubbies theme 🧍♀️ huh. — girl_dm_ 🔪 villainess (definitely evil) (@Girl_Dm_) June 25, 2025 . #28YearsLater was a bloody good time! The music, cinematography and Jack O'Connell's character killing to the metal version of the Teletubbies theme. — Alex (@AlexMitchiex13) June 20, 2025 I am being dead serious when I say that 28 Years Later ends with a fucking Ninja Turtles parody, with the Teletubbies theme playing quickly turning into a rock song. I am saying this completely unironically. — Louis (@Moviefandumb345) June 20, 2025 Anyone know where I can listen to that Teletubbies metal song from the end of 28 Years Later? I want to listen to it again. #teletubbies#28yearslater — Alex-Mae (Rattfink's #1 Fan And Wife) (@Dementcia1) June 21, 2025 28 years later goes from horror, to intense thriller, to Erik, to timeless masterpiece and ends with satanic teletubbies — Tango (@TangoThr3) June 19, 2025 seeing surprisingly little online about the Jimmy Saville/Teletubbies kung fu death cult at the end of 28 Years Laterreally thought that would turn more heads — John (@ju4nathan) June 22, 2025 Still Thinking About # — Cinema Tweets (@CinemaTweets1) June 20, 2025 28 Years Later director Danny Boyle has already teased that the gang Spike encounters at the end of the film will form a major part of the film's sequel, which is due for release early next year. He claimed: 'The role of Jack O'Connell's character and his family, which is a replacement, really, for the family he loses at the beginning of the film, is to reintroduce evil into what has become a compassionate environment. 'I asked Alex [Garland, who wrote both films] right at the beginning to just tell me what's the nature of each of the films, and he said that the nature of the first film is about family. The second film is about the nature of evil. And you're about to meet a lot more of them when it'll be more appropriate to talk about them in the second film.' The Trainspotting director previously said that he hopes 28 Years Later and its sequel, subtitled The Bone Temple, will form the first two instalments of a new trilogy, the third of which is not yet greenlit. 28 Years Later 'Alpha' Chi Lewis-Parry Answers Everyone's 1 Big Question About The Film 28 Years Later Director Danny Boyle Reveals Meaning Behind That Truly Wild Twist Ending 28 Years Later Was Actually Filmed Using iPhones – Danny Boyle Explains Why
USA Today
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
The end of 28 Years Later, explained
Crowds are hitting theaters this weekend to once again enter the terrifying world of the rage virus we first met in 2002 with 28 Days Later. Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have reunited to take over the third entry in the series -- they were involved in 28 Weeks Later as executive producers only -- and brought their distinct style back to the screen. WARNING: Spoilers for 28 Years Later ahead! In 28 Years Later, we meet the inhabitants of Holy Island, a small stronghold off the coast of mainland England that has created a little safe haven from the rage virus. A causeway separates the island from the quarantined area, passable by foot only when the tide is low. Jaime (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his son, Spike (Alfie Williams) onto the mainland to fulfill some sort of rite-of-passage zombie hunting for the young 12-year-old. They, of course, run into some trouble -- to include the seemingly much-evolved "alpha" zombies that are stronger, smarter and faster -- but make it back home (after one of the most intense, heart-pounding scenes in the movie). During the post-hunt celebrations, Spike catches his dad cheating on his mom, sending the boy spiraling. The mother, played wonderfully by Jodie Comer, has been suffering migraines and bouts of memory loss episodes. Spike then hatches a plan to sneak his mother out to find the rumored Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and see if he can't help heal her. Along their travels, there are many close calls and a couple new friends. They eventually meet Dr. Kelson, who has dedicated his post-apocalyptic life to trying to memorialize those that have lost their lives. It's a truly remarkable look into life and humanity and grief. Spike eventually lands on a decision to remain on the mainland to try and find himself, but the movie closed with a perplexing sequence that, honestly, ran counter to the vibes and tone of the rest of the story. In the very beginning of the movie, we see a group of children watching Teletubbies as the rage virus starts to spread. One of the boys, Jimmy Crystal, escapes to find his father in the church. Before his dad sacrifices himself to the zombies (he thinks they're sent from the divine), he gives Jimmy his cross and tells him to hide. We don't see Jimmy for the next hour and 45 minutes or so, but he's hinted at through ominous carvings of his name both in an infected and on a wall that Spike passes. It looks like the movie is wrapping up, but a group of infected starts to overwhelm Spike. Suddenly, Jimmy (Jack O'Connell) appears on a ledge with blond hair and a track suit offering to help. His army of track-suited fighters defeat the infected in a wildly tonally different scene from the rest of the movie. The costuming of Jimmy and his henchmen seems to reference the disgraced Jimmy Savile, a once-popular television host in the UK. After Savile's death in 2011, horrifying stories of his abusive and predatory behavior emerged, including the sexual abuse of minors. If you consider the world ended for young Jimmy Crystal in 2002, the vile offenses of his idol Jimmy Savile would have never been revealed. The use of this specific imagery -- the blond wigs and track suits like Savile used to wear -- was intentional by Boyle and Garland. We don't get a lot of information about Jimmy Crystal in this world, it's clear he's not a good guy and someone that should be feared. The idea that even in a world where Savile isn't known for his evil that someone still emerges as evil in his absence is so startlingly dark. A follow up film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is already in post-production. The movie is directed by Nia DaCosta and set to release January 16, 2026. It is supposed to bring back O'Connell, Williams and Fiennes as the story continues.
Times
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
28 Years Later — it's like a zombie movie made by Ken Loach
It can't be — can it — after all this time? Nostalgic pop-culture references to the old Tango adverts and the Teletubbies. Fancy freeze-frames and lickety-split editing. A banging mixtape of ambient house on the soundtrack so that even when the characters are battling for their life against zombies the audience feel like they are tying one on at the Haçienda on a Saturday night with their mates. It has to be … yes, it's a Danny Boyle film. Last seen directing Yesterday in 2019, Boyle returns to screens this week with 28 Years Later, an unusually thoughtful sequel to his 2002 classic 28 Days Later, which shows much has changed since the zombie apocalypse — sorry, Rage Virus — was first loosed on the world. England is now cut off from the rest of Europe and a small group of the uninfected are holed up on an island. It's a community that defends itself with homemade bows and arrows and has returned to the values of the 1950s including waving St George's flags. Boyle splices their defence of the fortified causeway that leads to the mainland with snatches of footage from the Battle of Agincourt in Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V. We seem to be in one of those remote Hebridean communities beloved of old folk-horror films where villagers worship pagan gods, copulate in the fields and cure sore throats with toads. If George A Romero's zombie movies in the Seventies set themselves up as allegories of mass-market consumerism, Boyle's seem to be about the Little Englander belligerence that fuelled Brexit. These zombies don't want to eat our brains, just our unbendy cucumbers. • Danny Boyle: Road rage, Brexit — and why I'm returning to 28 Days Later Tutoring his son, Spike (Alfie Williams), in the ways of the postapocalyptic patriarchy is Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whose sick wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), languishes in the bedroom upstairs. He takes his son on his first trip to the mainland to hunt for zombies, a blood sport-cum-rite of passage for the island's young men. 'The more you kill the easier it gets,' Jamie tells him, but there's a new breed of 'alpha zombie': big, naked brutes who run like the clappers, willies bouncing, who seem to represent all the coarse male energies at large in this postapocalyptic world. The screenwriter Alex Garland has bigger issues in his sights than just zombies. After Spike cottons on to his father's lies and escapes to the mainland with his mother in the hope of finding a cure for what ails her, the film downshifts into an odyssey that owes as much to Garland's Civil War last year as to the original 2002 Boyle film. The mother and son's journey is punctuated by images of societal breakdown — an abandoned Happy Eater roadside café, a rusting train carriage, a compound of human bones ruled by a bald, blood-and-mud-encrusted doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who raves about the 'magic of the placenta' in the crackpot fashion of Colonel Kurtz. • The best films of 2025 so far Garland's copy of Heart of Darkness must be well thumbed. Joseph Conrad's novella provided much of the thematic superstructure of The Beach as well. Do the slim fillets of action justify the weightier themes that are hung on them? He and Boyle are trying to make a wider statement about societal collapse — it's like a zombie movie made by Ken Loach. But what will gamers make of the gentle, ruminative climax? My guess is a slight but unshakeable feeling of bamboozlement. Boyle adds a bloody coda of zombie slaughter, freeze-framing on every arterial spray and brain splatter, just to be on the safe side. ★★★☆☆15, 115min Disney Pixar hits most of its marks, but not all. Elio is about an orphaned 11-year-old, Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab), now in the care of his aunt (Zoe Saldaña), who channels his loneliness and longing into the sky. Sending messages using a ham radio and a colander for aliens to come and beam him up, he is one day granted that wish by a benevolent collective of alien races known as the Communiverse, who are facing down a threat from a warlord called Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), who looks like a crab crossed with a Swiss army knife with plasma cannon for limbs. Anyone recalling the showdowns between Donald Trump and the United Nations would not be far off. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews The film gives kids a framework to understand the world's strong men — beneath his military-grade exoskeleton, Lord Grigon turns out to be a soft, caterpillar-like sweetheart — but suffers from the Pixar blight of too many bright ideas, an excess of benevolence and a story that doesn't know which lane to pick. We're almost 50 minutes into the film before we meet Grigon's pudgy, pacifist son, Glordon, whose friendship with Elio should have been the emotional core of the film. But they have to wait their turn in a plot set on heartwarming reconciliations for everyone — Elio and his aunt, Glordon and his dad, Grigon and the Communiverse. These things were so much simpler in ET's day. In this film, everyone has a heart light. ★★★☆☆PG, 99min Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out moreWhich films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments below and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
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First Post
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- First Post
28 Years Later movie review: Danny Boyle's horror zombie sequel is scary, tender & pulse-pounding
28 Years Later is directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland read more Star cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes Director: Danny Boyle Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland took us on a terrifying ride in 2002 with 28 Days Later, which is still considered one of the best horror movies of the 21st century. The third instalment of the trilogy, titled 28 Years Later, skips the events of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, by taking a dig at British isolationism. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The plot starts with a bunch of small and young kids watching a Teletubbies episode and trying to avoid the noise of adults from another room, who are becoming prey to flash-eating zombies. One of the kids, named Jimmy, who tries to see what's happening through the door, manages to escape after her aunt, who is attacked by one of the zombies, tells him to run. He reaches one of the nearby churches, where Jimmy is revealed to be the son of a preacher man. He passes his crucifix to Jimmy and tells him to always keep it with him before calling the deathly mob to the 'Day of Judgment.' Now, 28 Years Later, we see a land mass off the northeast coast of England, which is separated from the mainland (residence of zombies) by a causeway, which can be accessed only during a low tide. A kid named Spike lives there with his parents, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Isla (Jodie Comer), with the latter suffering from an illness, which gives her pain and lucidity. The land is untouched by modern civilisation and development due to its association with zombies, and hence, there are no doctors who can check up on Isla. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This land is home to a tight-knit community, where people are into designated professions like a farmer, hunter, fisherman, forager, baker and others. Despite being quite young, Spike gets confidence from Jamie to be confident and skilled in archery to get his first kill of the infected on the mainland. As the father-son duo reach there Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars) 28 Years Later is playing in cinemas
