FictionReviewA group portrait of Japanese 'picture brides' in America"Some of us on the boat were from Kyoto and were delicate and fair, and had lived our entire lives in darkened rooms at the back of the house. Some of us were from Nara, and prayed to our ancestors three times a day, and swore we could still hear the temple bells ringing. Some of us were farmers' daughters from Yamaguchi with thick wrists and broad shoulders who had never gone to bed after nine.
Lost in showbizKim KardashianEntertainment's first family spent $250,000 on their sledgehammer-subtle festive greeting. But how does it compare with the mighty dynasty's previous efforts?PAGING RICK DECKARD … And so to the latest Kardashian Khristmas Kard, which really ought to be captioned Nine Replicants in Search of a Blade Runner. Set in post-apocalyptic contemporary culture, the image of reality TV's ultimate nuclear family was shot on a $250,000 budget by tedious artiste David LaChappelle, a man who has about as much to say as a photographer as Guy Ritchie does as a film director.
A public princess Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email A fashionable, demure Diana fit perfectly into her role as the most public of princesses. While outwardly they endeavoured to present the picture-perfect couple to the world, by the mid-80s cracks were starting to appear in the chalk-and-cheese relationship of Charles and Diana Thu 30 Aug 2007 10.06 BST First published on Thu 30 Aug 2007 10.
BullfightingCape fear Bullfighter turns tail and runs'I decided that was it. Let somebody else who has the ability and the courage take the opportunity,' said Christian HernandezA young bullfighter in Mexico City leapt head first out of the ring at the beginning of a fight after seeing the bull charge - and was arrested for it APChristian Hernandez had fantasised about becoming a celebrated bullfighter since he was a child. Now the 22-year-old has gone down in bullfighting history not for his elegant moves, but for running away from the bull in Mexico's most famous arena.
‘More than just a monster’: Godzilla arrives in postwar Tokyo.‘More than just a monster’: Godzilla arrives in postwar Tokyo.Wendy Ide's film of the weekGodzillaReviewA failed kamikaze pilot, one furious radioactive lizard and a Japan devastated by war collide in Takashi Yamazaki’s unashamedly redemptive action thriller
Ever since he first lumbered on to the big screen in Ishiro Honda’s 1954 original film, Godzilla has been more than just a monster. The city-crunching prehistoric mega-reptile has been cast as a metaphor for the nuclear threat, American military might and environmental abuses.
Autobiography and memoirReviewFrom Franz Kafka to Anne Tyler, literature amplifies the author’s moving insights into living with agoraphobia and the remedies that have helped him
The term is treacherous and sometimes unkind; Graham Caveney imagines taking revenge on it by writing “agoraphobia” in the middle of a page, surrounded by scary white space. In Greek, agora means marketplace and phobos means fear. But the condition is thought of as modern, or as a terror of modern amplitude.
PsychologyAt 90, the psychoanalyst Hanna Segal has spent decades probing the murkiest corners of the human psyche. She talks to Jon Henley about her search for truth, the healing power of art and what her years in practice have taught her about lifeHanna Segal opens the door at the second ring. She turned 90 two days previously and is small, creased and walnut-brown, with a crop of startling white hair and a pair of eyes that look suitably gimlet-like but are, she observes dispassionately, not much use to anyone these days.
The black woman - with white parentsSandra Laing was born black, but to white parents. It would have been strange anywhere - but in apartheid South Africa it was disastrous. Rory Carroll reports from JohannesburgLong before science learned to meddle with genes, there was Sandra Laing. She entered the world in 1955, a beautiful baby by all accounts, who could be expected to grow up in a close-knit family amid mines of gold and forests of pine.
FilmGeoffrey Macnab on the return of Jean Simmons in Shadows in the SunWhenever Jean Simmons returns to Britain, she is invariably drawn back to London. Simmons was born in Crouch End and moved to Cricklewood when she was two years old. It was here that she grew up. If she is visiting relatives, she likes to go back to "take a peek" at the haunts of her childhood. Even now, at 79, Simmons is still startled at the freakishly easy way she became a movie star.
Melbourne Theatre Company, Sumner theatre
The cast are uniformly excellent as raucous, vulnerable teens in Matthew Whittet’s play, which grapples with the mystifying allure and trap of memory Published: 9:28 PM ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKuklrSme9OhnJqsopp4tbvNnmarnaaesri%2F