Weekend Combo

Brad Pitt on a train, Gorillaz in East London and video game art
19 August 2022
Above:

Study of Perspective by Roc Herms / exhibiting at ‘How to Win at Photography: Image-Making as Play’ at The Photographer’s Gallery

This article is part of Weekend Combo – What to do this weekend

Get your culture on – here’s what’s good in London this weekend. 

Film

High-speed killin’
Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King and Bad Bunny are all professional killers speeding over 300mph on a Shinkansen (a Japanese bullet train). That’s the general plotline for David Leitch’s lively new action-comedy Bullet Train (get the double meaning? It’s not the most subtle, granted). The perfect anecdote to the constant bad news cycle and governmental leadershit, strap yourself in for this wild and silly-fun ride that has one honest aim: to entertain.

“Originally [Bullet Train] was quite a dark, R-rated, vicious action piece, but we hammed it up and made it fun,” Aaron Taylor-Johnson told Andrew Garfield in his HERO 27 cover interview. “I don’t know what happened, but it became a comedy! [both laugh] I think it’s because the atmosphere was just surrounded by a cloud of fear [Covid] and ultimately Brian and I felt it was our job to bring light and laughter to set, so if we made the crew laugh it was a good day.”

Bullet Train is in cinemas now.

Festival

If you need us, we’ll be in Victoria park for six nights straight
All Points East returns with a line-up of serious big-hitters. Spread across six days, each day boats its own festival-worthy bill of A-star acts.

This weekend it kicks off with a bang as Gorillaz headline Friday night supported by the likes of Idles, Pusha T and Yves Tumor, while the following day sees The Chemical Brothers and Kraftwerk 3D take on joint headline duties, with dance icons Peggy Gou, Carl Craig and Moodymann getting everyone in the mood prior. And if you just can’t get enough, the following week sees Tame Impala, The National, Disclosure and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds all lead their own curated days. Get in touch if you’re doing all six days – you’ve earned yourself a sticker, and a long, lie down.

View the full line-up and more info here

Exhibition

Art is not a game! Or maybe it is…
As the digital and artistic worlds continue to merge, The Photographer’s Gallery is exploring the role of video games in this relationship. Cue Cory Arcangel removing everything bar the clouds from the OG Super Mario Bros and everything bar the road from F1 Race to create serene moving images that mirror our own world in 8-bit. Elsewhere, Justin Berry exhibits exquisite screenshots of mountain vistas and beautiful landscapes taken on otherwise violent games such as Metal Gear Solid, and Lorna Ruth Galloway replicates Ed Ruscha’s iconic photographs of gas stations, only as charcoal screen prints of gas stations found in GTA V.

How to Win at Photography: Image-Making as Play runs at the Photographer’s Gallery until September 25th, more info here.

‘Selfie #10’ by Aneta Grzeszykowska, 2014

Installation

Time to get dotty…
If you remember the scramble to get your hands on a ticket for Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms at the Tate Modern then you’ll be pleased to hear her latest installation, The Obliteration Room is a free, come as you please pop-up. The immersive installation created in partnership with Uniqlo is housed in the Tate’s Turbine Hall, where each visitor is given a sheet of multicoloured stickers and told to stick them wherever they like. It may sound like a kid’s daydream, and an adult’s nightmare, to have free rein over a white wall, but the underlying theme of spontaneous creativity exposes the ever-present playfulness of Kusama’s artistic practice. There’s only one week left, so head down and get sticking.

The Obliteration Room runs at the Tate Modern until August 29th, more info here

‘The Obliteration Room’ by Yayoi Kusama, 2022

Food + Drink

[sings] These are a few of our favourite things
Bit niche, but ever wished you could sit in a record store eating incredible pizza? Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t either way, we all know it’s a great concept. Is this dream a reality? We hear you say. You bet your ass it is. Head west to Shepherd’s Bush and into Next Door Records, take a seat surrounded by lovely, lovely vinyl and order your favourite Neapolitan style pizza or panuozzo of choice courtesy of Cowboys Pizza. Good tunes, good food, goodbye – we’re on our way now…

Cowboys Pizza are at Next Door Records on Thursday and Friday 18:00 – 20:00, Saturday 12:00 – 22:00.

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