Youth captures some of the mixed magnificence of life

 

One of the few statements you can make about life as a whole is that it’s much of a muchness— and that it ends.

The counter-intuitively titled Youth sees two older gentlemen, a retired composer and Stravinsky pupil, Frank (Michael Caine), and still-working director (Harvey Keitel), Mick, both coming to terms with this while on holiday at a Swiss spa; a spa inhabited by red-robed Buddhist monks, a Middle Eastern woman in a hijab, a morbidly obese celebrity with a Karl Marx back tattoo and Maradona hair.…

The Butler is content to carry water

 

2013 has been a year for many things.

Hostage crises in Algeria and North Korean nuclear tests, 3D printers and a meteor explosion over Russia. Meanwhile, the NSA’s been spying on everyone and Justin Bieber has been taking up the headlines in “Teenage-Boy-With-Unlimited-Power-Behaves-Like-Dickhead Shock”.