Film: Seven Psycopaths

Director Martin McDonagh takes the small cast/constrained setting of his Oscar-nominated predecessor (In Bruges), in which two hitmen hide out in the beautiful town waiting for a job gone wrong to blow over, and expands, with more characters and the wacky world of the movies as their backdrop.

Farrell is Marty, a boozy screenwriter struggling to write his script Seven Psychopaths.

His slightly untethered pal Billy (Rockwell) then kidnaps the dog of a gangster (Harrelson), plunging them into a crazy, convoluted world of the title’s mad men, movie cliches and overcoming writer’s block.

It’s a part post-modern, part meta-textual crime-dramedy-action-satire, if you follow, as McDonagh toys with what’s real, what’s fictional and what is lodged somewhere in the blurred boundary between these two.

Starring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson | 15 | 109mins

Good for: Seeing the rule book torn up and thrown out the window

 

Film: Celeste and Jesse Forever

Samberg and Jones are the titular couple who keep hanging around with each other even after they’ve got divorced, such is their bond.

This is an oddball rom-com-drama and a refreshing exploration of relationships, why they work and when to move on when they don’t.

Starring: Andy Samberg, Rashida Jones, Elijah Wood | 15 | 15mins

On general release December 7

 

Film: The Oranges

Comedy drama set in the titular New Jersey suburb with an all-star cast – Hugh Laurie, Leighton Meester, Catherine Keener, Alison Janney – about a father who begins a relationship with the daughter of a family friend, with disruptive results.

Awkwardness and passive aggressiveness abound as the families try to figure out whether age really matters. 

 On general release December 7

 

Exhibition: Bronze

It’s the last week of this outstanding exhibition at the Royal Academy, which uses bronze artworks as the launchpad for a display of myriad styles, approaches, times and textures spanning no less than 5000 years of cultural expression.

Include ancient Greek, Roman, Medieval and Renaissance. No sign on Man United’s Fergie, though.

Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House, W1J 0BD. Until Dec 9. £14
Tube | Piccadilly Circus 
royalacademy.org.uk

 

Comedy: Trevor Noah – The Racist

The hit sensation South African stand-up comes to London for the first time with his critically lauded show The Racist, which sold out at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and damn near snapped up all the five-star reviews going.

He’ll be one of the biggest performers out there soon enough so get in first and see him now.

Soho Theatre
W1D 3NE. Dec 5-Jan 12. £12.50+
Tube | Tottenham Court Road 
sohotheatre.com

 

Theatre: Straight

Based on Lynn Shelton’s 2009 mumblecore movie Humpday, DC Moore’s adap explores male bonding with hilarious results as happily married Lewis and best bud Waldorf agree to a drunken dare involving sex, a camcorder and lots of lube.

Hilarious especially when negotiating art, pornography and friendships overlap.

Bush Theatre
Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ.
Until Dec 22. £15+
Tube | Shepherd’s Bush 
bushtheatre.co.uk

 

Theatre: A Clockwork Orange

Nothing can quite compete with Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film version of Anthony Burgess’s futuristic 1962 novella.

But Alexandra Spencer-Jones’ visceral all-male production exudes a sweaty, atavistic menace as teenage Alex and his gang of Droogs indulge their adolescent sprees of senseless, testosterone-fuelled violence.

Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE. Until Jan 5. £15+
Tube | Tottenham Court Road 
sohotheatre.com

 

Photos: Simon Kane