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READ, WATCH, LISTEN Reviews, profiles and celebrity insider goss. 1 READ King Rich, Joe Bennett. A love story – of sorts – prolific penman Joe Bennett’s first novel, set amid the physical and emotional devastation of a post-quake Christchurch (relate much?), tells the haunting story of two people linked by disaster and a desire for the truth. While Richard hides, with a lost dog (c’mon, you knew there’d be one – it’s Joe Bennett!), in an abandoned hotel creating another, more glamorous world, Annie returns home to an earthquake-jacked city looking for her lost father. Add Vince, reliving the most emotional experience of his life, to the mix and enjoy the musings of a superb writer at the top of his game. RRP $36.99.
2 WATCH Jisoe Review by Nick Paris, Alice in Videoland. Centred around the troubled life of Melbourne graffiti artist, Justin Hughes, aka Jisoe, this provocatively candid documentary explores an ignored underground sub-culture making its mark on Australian suburbs. Exposing the notion of a growing and disillusioned underclass and forging an intimate connection with a highly secretive and paranoid youth culture, this is honest social commentary at its most compelling. Through a haze of bongs, bombing trains with graff and the birth of a child, Jisoe’s snow globe is a wake-up and shake-up call for any compassionate viewer.
3 LISTEN Coming Home, Leon Bridges Review by Garry Knight, Pennylane Records. If you’re a fan of classic R&B male vocalists like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye, then you need to hear Leon Bridges’ stunning debut. Smooth, soulful and packed full with doo-wop, ballads and gospel backing singers, standout tracks include radio-friendly ‘Coming Home’, ‘Lisa Sawyer’ a beautiful ballad dedicated to his mother, and up tempo entries like ‘Smooth Sailin’ and ‘Flower’. Closing with ‘River’, an acoustic tambourineflavoured gospel ballad with haunting vocals is the perfect finale, but you’ll want more. Could be album of the year!
4 CINEPHILES Bond Bombshells Donning the suave tux of international superspy James Bond for the fourth time, Daniel Craig’s foray into the murky world of global criminal agency SPECTRE is set to be the most expensive James Bond movie ever made, with a US$350 million budget. But that’s not the only first in the 24-film franchise: at 50, Italian stunner Monica Bellucci (Irreversible) will be the oldest actor cast as a Bond girl, while playing up to the martini-swilling player’s penchant for international babes, smokin’ hottie Stephanie Sigman (Miss Bala) will become the first Mexican Bond girl when the movie hits the screens in mid-November.
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TIES Hollywood heart-throb and method actor extraordinaire Jake Gyllenhaal famously backed up a 13.5kg weight loss to play a creeped-out sociopathic cameraman in Nightcrawler by packing on 7kg of muscle to become totally unrecognisable in Southpaw (pictured); he is also Hollywood royalty. The Oscarnominated actor’s whole family is in showbiz: dad Stephen is a director, mum Naomi is a producer and screen writer, and thespian sister Maggie is also an Oscar-nominated actor. Add god parents Jamie Lee Curtis and the late Paul Newman, who also taught him to drive, and you’ve got a career written in, or by, the stars. www.cityscape-christchurch.co.nz
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