Business Review

Baneasa Shopping City
North Bucharest is home to the first greenfield mall development in Bucharest, with special attention paid to the architecture and the landscape. Baneasa Shopping City offers a unique blend of shopping through more than 200 stores and refreshments units, with areas devoted to entertainment and leisure. The Grand Cinema Digiplex – the largest in Romania, with 13 large screens suitable for 3D projection, perfect angles of vision and an ultra-comfortable 2,600 seats – is one of the city’s newest attractions, offering a wide range of cinematic experiences under one roof.

Ken Loach’s filmography has seen decent-hearted working-class types, among other fates, left homeless, have their children taken away, descend into prostitution/crime/alcoholism/drug addiction, bullied, beaten, have their pets murdered and hang themselves. To this cheery list we may now add: get blown to bits in Iraq. Such is the lot of Frankie (John Bishop), a former soldier turned security contractor.

Debbie Stowe

American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers will play for the first time in Romania, which has been confirmed by the band on their official website.
Otilia Haraga

Romanian director Alexandru Tocilescu passed away at the age of 65. Tocilescu died at the Floreasca emergency hospital due to taking an overdose of medication that was prescribed to him for heart problems, according to Mediafax newswire, which quotes medical sources.
Otilia Haraga

While the euro zone seems to be falling apart, here is proof that a more perfect union is possible. The music-video DVD 24/24 unites the artistry of three ‘master blasters’ from different time zones – a Romanian virtuoso violinist, Alexandru Tomescu; an Italian heritage composer, Niccolo Paganini; and a Grammy-winning German recording engineer, Jakob Handel.

Andrea Ovanezian

To anyone who saw Donatella Versace in a primetime TV commercial on Romanian channels, telling viewers, “My home, my rules, my pleasure” or the huge posters adorning the National Theater in Universitatii Square, the message was clear: Versace sells in Bucharest.

Dana Niculescu

Just in case USD 2.5 billion was not enough, more money is being wrung out of the Shrek franchise with this “spin-off prequel”. The film terms franchise, spin-off and prequel tend to evoke despair, and this project, based on a minor character, smacks somewhat of cynicism. Happily, though, the movie will soon have dispelled any doubts and won you over with its exciting 3D sequences and mischievous humor.

Debbie Stowe

The Ice Hotel near Balea lake will reopen this year as well, this time under a new concept called Icy Sounds. The hotel will be built similarly in shape to the ones from previous years and will have ten rooms, a large-size central hall and a bar. Each room will be named after a musical genre, and the entire décor of the place will be based on ice-sculpted musical elements (music notes, various music instruments).

Not many movies are set in banks. This is because, unless they are being held up at gun point, banks have been largely boring places. However, at some point the staid gents of old were replaced by reckless City boys playing Russian roulette with our jobs and homes, thus rendering banks of rather more dramatic interest.

Contemporary art gallery AnnArt hosts an exhibition by sculptor Mircea Roman, whose work has been acclaimed all over the world, from Osaka to London.