Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

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Images Rex Features, Allstar

Matt Bochenski rounds up the top films, music releases and books heading your way this month

The Princess and the Frog

Directors Ron Clements, John Musker
Voices Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Jennifer Cody, John Goodman

Such has been the success of Disney’s association with (and acquisition of) John Lasseter and the Pixar team that it’s easy to forget that essentially, the company abandoned its roots. After a decade of declining quality and revenues since the 1994 high watermark of The Lion King, Disney decided that the future lay in three dimensions. It was only when Lasseter became chief creative officer of the new Disney/Pixar studio that it returned to hand-drawn animation – and The Princess and the Frog is the result. But far from going all out to please traditionalists, a whiff of radicalism has hung over the project since the announcement that the film’s titular princess, Tiana, was to be the company’s first black heroine, in a film set in the swamps of jazz-age New Orleans.

This film’s real boldness, however, lies in its quirky, Shrek-esque rewriting of a classic fairy tale: Tiana kisses her frog prince only to find that it is she who is transformed . Throw in a couple of classic comic sidekicks, a proper boo-hiss bad guy and a raft of Louis Armstrong-inspired tunes, and The Princess and the Frog will soon have you convinced that 2D is the future after all.

A Single Man

Director Tom Ford
Starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult

The feature film debut of former Gucci creative director Tom Ford, A Single Man follows a day in the life of an English professor, George, whose partner of 16 years has suddenly passed away.

Complicating this scenario is the fact that it’s 1962 and his partner was a man. Despite the stirrings of sexual revolution on George’s Los Angeles campus, he exists in a world of antediluvian academia in which his grief dares not reveal its true nature.

As George seeks solace in professional routine and pills, he begins to question whether his new life is worth living. Vivacious divorcée Charley (Moore), George’s best friend who has succumbed to the hedonistic temptations of LA, offers him an unsteady crutch, while a wide-eyed student (Hoult) sees the truth of his professor’s personal crisis. But it is Firth who carries the film. He offers a master class in quiet devastation, his careful mannerisms opening on to an ocean of grief behind those blue eyes.

Corinne Bailey Rae

The Sea

Timing has been everything for Corinne Bailey Rae. Having appeared on the British music scene just ahead of the deluge of female singer-songwriters, she’s remained removed from the chasing pack ever since, happier in the world of jazz and soul than the boozy pop hedonism of Lily Allen or Adele.

The timing of her second solo album has been defined by more tragic circumstances, however.

Following the death of her husband in 2008, Bailey Rae took a two-year hiatus, waiting for grief to pass over and reach the point of inspiration. It’s no surprise, then, that The Sea is melancholic, and at times mournful, and yet this isn’t an album that wallows in self-pity. Bailey Rae’s voice is too light for that, and as it spills like liquid across the title track it’s clear that she has returned as a more forceful and dedicated artist. The track names tell their own story – from ‘Are You Here?’ to ‘I’d Do It All Again’ – but that doesn’t change the fact that at its best, this is a soaring, soulful tribute to much more than her late husband.

Ringo Starr

Y Not

Surprisingly, the title of Ringo Starr’s latest album isn’t a response to the question that most of us have asked at one point or another: why do you insist on inflicting these awful solo albums on us, Mr Starr?

In fairness, though, the ex-Beatle has surrounded himself with an array of super-talented contributors for this latest effort, which at least ensures that the tiresome peace-and-love moralising of the lyrics serves a decent musical purpose. The likes of Paul McCartney, Van Dyke Parks, Joss Stone and Dave Stewart have cameo roles, injecting a bit of pizzazz into proceedings and making the album go by with some swing.

Produced by Starr himself, this is also his most personal statement to date. Songs like ‘The Other Side of Liverpool’ offer an insight into his early days on Merseyside, while his duet with McCartney, ‘Walk With You’, is a decent little ode to friendship. There certainly aren’t any fireworks, but it’s not a complete washout either.

Book club

This month’s must-reads

Gone Tomorrow
Lee Child

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Lee Child is simply a mechanised thriller machine, pumping out books at the touch of a button, but his latest Jack Reacher novel is another tense and exciting read.

The Reacher character shouldn’t work: an ex-military policeman turned itinerant vigilante, he’s a sort of homeless James Bond, dishevelled rather than debonair. Likewise, Child’s writing style should grate, with his Rain Man-like fixation on numbers, physics and the inconsequential minutiae of Reacher’s life. But when you put the two together, it makes for an explosive combination. Witness the pitch-perfect opening scene of Gone Tomorrow, as Reacher uses his analytical skills to try to decipher whether one of the passengers on his subway train is a terrorist. It’s classic Child/Reacher – dramatic, exciting and just vaguely silly. You wouldn’t have either of them any other way.

Take A Chance On Me
Jill Mansell

Jill Mansell has been a chick lit master for over a decade now, reliably pumping out stories of lovelorn 20-somethings, mysterious hunks and kooky best friends since 1997’s Perfect Timing. Her latest effort sees Cleo Quinn (they’re always called Cleo or Poppy or Tilly) fall for a handsome Mr Right only to have sexy childhood nemesis Johnny LaVenture (seriously) reappear in her life to torment her.

To further complicate matters, Cleo’s sister Abbie is having trouble in her marriage – a devastating secret looms in the distance. Can the two girls live happily ever after? Clue: yes.

Occupying a moral and intellectual grey area somewhere between Glamour magazine and real writing, Mansell’s novel’s are aspirational tales of west London socialites flirting with disaster but ultimately finding redemption and happiness. That should sit uncomfortably in a bleak economic environment, but perhaps everybody needs a warm glow from time to time.

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