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Crawlers review – killer-spiders movie offers giant-arachnid action alongside anticapitalist commentary
entertainment

Crawlers review – killer-spiders movie offers giant-arachnid action alongside anticapitalist commentary

A witty creature feature set in a multi-occupancy building in Los Angeles that takes aim at unscrupulous landlords and finance bros For starters, there is a very contemporary anticapitalist undertow: it all takes place in a single multi-occupancy building (supposedly in Los Angeles, though the whole film was filmed in Portugal) owned by a slimy landlord (William Miller), who rails against the city’s “socialist” local council making it harder for him to rip off his tenants.

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‘A true icon of the hair industry’: Celebrity hairstylist John Frieda dies aged 75
entertainment

‘A true icon of the hair industry’: Celebrity hairstylist John Frieda dies aged 75

Businessman styled stars such as Twiggy, Madonna and Joanna Lumley and created popular hair care line Frizz Ease John Frieda, the celebrity hairstylist who launched his own bestselling hair product range, has died aged 75, it has been announced. In an Instagram post, his salon wrote: “It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that our dear John passed away peacefully … surrounded by his family.

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Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint review – Dickensian festive Britpic decorated by selection box of familiar faces
entertainment

Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint review – Dickensian festive Britpic decorated by selection box of familiar faces

A cast including Richard E Grant, Celia Imrie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Nigel Planer warm up a formulaic narrative about a imperilled retirement community The annual drive to expand the festive film canon begins unseasonably early with a modest, sentimentally inclined Britpic that opens like a penny-pinching John Lewis ad; thankfully, it improves from there. The titular Mr Flint (John Bradley) is a Napoleonic history buff whose animus towards late December dates from seeing his (French) mother drop dead amid the Christmas decorations; now he spends the holidays cavilling at carollers and…

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Amazing Grace review – blazing Hannah Walters struggles to save a lonely caller at the end of his tether
entertainment

Amazing Grace review – blazing Hannah Walters struggles to save a lonely caller at the end of his tether

Daniel P Lewis stars in his own script as an isolated man beset by trauma as a helpline counsellor Walters tries to heal his pain While working for a helpline one night, counsellor Grace (a terrific Hannah Walters) gets a call from Walter (Daniel P Lewis, also the film’s screenwriter), an isolated working-class man beset by trauma and loneliness who is contemplating killing himself. For a start, confining the action to Grace and Walter’s conversations and then observing how he reacts increasingly self-destructively after each talk means we follow a repetitive cycle of confession-reaction…

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Peter Medak’s work with Dory Previn was one of his career’s more unusual chapters
entertainment

Peter Medak’s work with Dory Previn was one of his career’s more unusual chapters

Nick Lowe on the director’s unusual collaboration with the singer-songwriter Dory Previn Peter Medak’s long career was a book of many chapters (Peter Medak, veteran director of The Krays and The Changeling, dies aged 88, 28 October), but one of the more unusual ones was his collaboration with the singer-songwriter Dory Previn, with whom he developed several projects during his short-lived first Hollywood phase after The Ruling Class and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg had made him hot property. Previn’s semi-autobiographical screenplay, The Third Girl from the Left, became Medak’s first US…

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‘A trailblazer in the truest sense’: poet Grace Nichols wins £10,000 Pioneer prize
entertainment

‘A trailblazer in the truest sense’: poet Grace Nichols wins £10,000 Pioneer prize

The Guyana-born, British-based writer takes home the Royal Society of Literature prize honouring women writers over 60 who have broken barriers The poet Grace Nichols has been named the winner of the 2026 Royal Society of Literature Pioneer prize, a £10,000 award that recognises women writers over 60 who broke through at a time when the literary world was less open to them. Nichols, 76, who was born in Guyana and moved to the UK in 1977, made her name with I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, which took the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1983, and The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, a collection published the…

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