Film and Comedy

Kung Fu Panda

3 Jul 2008

COMEDY/ANIMATION (PG) 91min In the words of Carl Douglas’ 1974 disco hit: ‘Everybody is kung fu fighting.’ Everybody, that is, apart from overweight panda Po (voiced by Jack Black). He dreams about joining his heroes, the Fierce Five, in butt-kicking…

Anchorman 2: 5 things we’d like to see

In honour of the sequel's new teaser trailers, we speculate on what should be in the final film

24 May 2012

1 Champ’s struggle with his sexuality Sports presenter Champ Kind (David Koechner) obviously had a thing for Ron (Will Ferrell) in the first film – he broke down when Ron started spending more time with Veronica than the news team, and was visibly…

Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Hugely satisfying and inventive celebration of cinema from Leos Carax

28 May 2012

Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is picked up by his driver Celine (Edith Scob) for a day’s work - 9 appointments that will take him across Paris and into the paths of an array of characters. If that sounds vague, it’s deliberate - to say anymore would…

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Crispian Mills' directorial debut starts well but quickly loses pace

11 May 2012

A film by the former lead singer of Kula Shaker might not sound an appetising prospect. But before dismissing A Fantastic Fear of Everything, we should remember that Crispian Mills’ film pedigree is pretty spot-on. He is, after all, the son of Hayley…

Iron Sky

Finland's so-so sci-fi comedy could actually benefit from an American remake

19 Mar 2012

Six years in the making, Iron Sky arrives in a blaze of pre-release publicity. Finland’s first blockbuster, partly funded by fans, you certainly can’t quibble with its killer pitch: Nazis on the moon. It’s just a pity that director Timo Vuorensola’s…

Crispian Mills on A Fantastic Fear of Everything - interview

The ex-Kula Shaker frontman has directed a black comedy starring Simon Pegg

22 May 2012

Fearless The frontman of Kula Shaker directing a film? Given Crispian Mills’ family heritage it’s not such a surprise after all, discovers Paul Gallagher. Received wisdom might suggest that rock stars who try their hands at filmmaking are essentially…

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson's latest echoes his earlier triumphs, but breaks no new ground

17 May 2012

Wes Anderson’s seventh film feels like a Greatest Hits package. Which if you’re a Wes fan will make you very happy. Set on a New England island in the summer of 1965, the opening sequence of Moonrise Kingdom, with its incessant camera-pans around the…

Dark Shadows

A fun, if forgettable vampire movie, starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer

10 May 2012

Like a kid who turns up late to a Halloween party, Tim Burton arrives with his latest, vampire movie Dark Shadows. After Twilight, 30 Days of Night and Let The Right One In, not to mention TV’s True Blood…aren’t fangs, dusty coffins and dissolving in…

My Best Friend’s Girl

13 Nov 2008

(15) 99min From Howard Deutch, the auteur behind the seminal teen movie Pretty in Pink starring Molly Ringwald, My Best Friend’s Girl is a 1980s throwback rom-com, updated with scatological language. Dane Cook, so disagreeable in last year’s Good…

Passenger Side is a witty road movie about sibling rivalries

Matt Bissonnette's comedy stars Joel Bissonnette and Adam Scott

28 Mar 2011

(12A) 85min Before the road movie was carjacked by the American gross-out comedy, Easy Rider and its offspring helped establish a genre of American outsider cinema, with its portraits of the big country beyond the confines of the Hollywood system.

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Interview: Sally Phillips - writer of The Decoy Bride

Ex-Smack the Pony performer on fish pie, Narnia and Rear of the Year

17 Feb 2012

First record you ever bought ‘A New England’ by Kirsty MacColl. Last extravagant purchase you made A much larger than necessary Mac desktop. First film you saw that really moved you The Decoy Bride. Last lie you told See above. First…

Outside Bet

Low-budget British horse-racing comedy falls at the first hurdle

18 Apr 2012

(12A) 101mins The cinematic equivalent of the clumps of horse dung that characters repeatedly step into for the cheapest of laughs, Outside Bet is strictly a non-runner in terms of light entertainment. In this painfully naïve British comedy, Bob…

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

By-the-numbers old age comedy drama

10 Feb 2012

Early in this by-the-numbers comedy drama, a young salesperson eagerly enthuses to retiring couple Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) that 'the grey pound is very strong at the moment'. We’re quite clearly supposed to see this…

Scotland The Great - We are good

22 Jan 2009

Bin the shortbread tin! Trash those Runrig albums! Here are, in The List’s humble opinion, some real reasons why Scotland is worth shouting about

Igor

16 Oct 2008

ANIMATION/COMEDY It’s a tough life for hunchbacked assistants of mad scientists. Igor (voiced by John Cusack) ekes out his precarious existence as humble servant to the sinister Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese), an evil genius set on winning the annual…

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

A witless and bland work based on the pregnancy self-help book

23 May 2012

‘You don’t know what love is until you’ve wiped someone’s ass,’ offers one of the many baby-boomers in Kirk (Waking Ned, Everybody’s Fine) Jones’ multi-stranded adaptation of the bestselling self-help book about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy.

All in Good Time

Sweet-natured culture clash comedy starring Amara Karan and Meera Syal

17 Apr 2012

(12A) 93min Originally a 1965 play and subsequently a film by Irish writer Bill Naughton, this sweet-natured comedy became a theatre hit again in 2007 when East is East writer Ayub Khan-Din adapted it into a present-day British-Asian setting. The…

Project X

Major league mayhem with a dark, twisted edge

1 Mar 2012

(18) 88mins Animal House meets The Blair Witch Project, only this time the horror is very real in a movie that will undoubtedly give all parents nightmares. No, this is not a film about paranormal activity, but a high school party that gets…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

Cult Fiction Movies shop opens in Edinburgh

6 Aug 2009

To a certain type of movie fan, Newington’s newly-opened Cult Fiction Movies is a magical store where a litany of grindhouse double features, BFI Classics and films from America’s Criterion Collection which remain currently unavailable on this side of…

Lesbian Vampire Killers

19 Mar 2009

HORROR/COMEDY Overexposure can shoot down even the most promising career. And while Mathew Horne and James Corden aren’t quite there yet, they need to be careful. A double act since their award-winning Gavin & Stacey, for their first big screen…

27 Dresses

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 110min During an interview to promote Knocked Up, actress Katherine Heigl said of the Judd Apatow comedy that brought her worldwide fame (after her years lighting up Grey’s Anatomy): ‘It paints women as shrews, as humourless and…

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Crisp restoration of the 1940s satire by Powell and Pressburger

18 May 2012

Spry and delightful nearly 70 years on, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of many masterpieces from filmmaking virtuosos Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collectively known as The Archers. Their fifth collaboration, from 1943, is an…

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest has moments of solid satire but still feels stale

11 May 2012

From the naked scrotum-in-the-face wrestling of Borat to the manifold outrages of Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen is not a man overly acquainted with subtlety. His latest, The Dictator, drops the improvisational feel of those earlier films, but doesn’t lower…

This Means War

Unsuccessful mash-up of the rom-com and spy action genres

1 Mar 2012

(12A) 97min McG attempts to satisfy both sexes in This Means War – a testosterone-driven action meets girl-pleasing rom-com, that ends up not being good in either genre, despite featuring two of the hottest young actors around (Tom Hardy and Chris…

Film You Instead shot at music festival - David Mackenzie interview

Hallam Foe and Young Adam director on making a film at T in the Park

18 Feb 2011

David Mackenzie, director of Hallam Foe and Young Adam, discusses his new movie You Instead, a rock'n'roll romcom that aims to capture the excitement of T in the Park.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Inspired take on the Dahl classic

16 Oct 2009

Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s much loved book is no straightforward children’s film. Wee ones might enjoy it to a degree, but they won’t get much of the typically arch humour and wanton eccentricities the filmmaker once again…

The Ugly Truth

30 Jul 2009

This by-the-numbers romantic comedy from director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Monster in Law) pairs Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up, 27 Dresses) with alpha male Gerard Butler (300, PS I Love You) for a mindless run through of familiar genre…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

PS I Love You

4 Jan 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 126min As the well-connected daughter of the current Taoiseach, author Cecilia Ahern could surely have pulled a few strings to ensure her novel PS I Love You avoided the abhorrent adaptation offered here by…

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

Casa de mi Padre

Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously

11 May 2012

Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…

New trailer for Danish comedy Klown

Filthy, funny antics that diverge from Scandinavia's current reputation for serious TV drama

10 May 2012

Every now and then, something comes along that makes you laugh, wince and sneeze coffee through your nostrils, in that order. Today, that experience comes courtesy of the trailer for Danish comedy Klown. The film follows Frank (Frank Hvam) and Casper…

Simon Pegg stars in new trailer for A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Pegg plays a hyper-phobic children's author in the new comedy

10 Apr 2012

After high profile action appearances in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and JJ Abrams' rebooted Star Trek (not to mention the forthcoming sequel), it's nice to see Simon Pegg still has time to nurture his comedy roots. While we eagerly await the…

Woody Allen's To Rome with Love - trailer

The director delivers another Europe-set ensemble piece, with Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page and more

4 Apr 2012

Woody Allen looks set to continue his love affair with Europe (following on from Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona) with his latest release, To Rome With Love. The Eternal City forms a backdrop to various intersecting comedic tales…

Profile - Sebastian Koch

German star of coming-of-age Brit comedy Albatross

13 Sep 2011

Name Sebastian Koch Born Karlsruhe, Germany, May 31 1962 Background Koch has worked solidly in European films and TV for over 25 years, but it was his terrific performance in The Lives of Others (2006) that made him recognisable to cinema…

Mammuth

Gerard Depardieu stars in road trip comedy

17 May 2011

(15) 92min Directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern have shown a talent to amuse with politically-incorrect, deadpan delights like Aaltra (2004) and Louise-Michel (still awaiting a Scottish cinema release). Mammuth offers more of the same with…

The Hot 100 2009

18 Dec 2009

Compiled by List staff through a painstaking process of review and debate, the Hot 100 is the comprehensive list of Scottish creative talent, covering both individuals and organisations who’ve made a standout contribution to culture in 2009. This year’s…

Unmade Beds

4 Dec 2009

Written and directed by Argentinean filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos, Unmade Beds unfolds against the backdrop of the East End of London’s modern day bohemian scene. It’s a world of rent-free accommodation in generously equipped warehouse squats, regular…

(500) Days of Summer - Joseph Gordon-Levitt interview

The former sitcom star talks about his movie success

21 Aug 2009

‘You have to make it for yourself. You have to figure it out for yourself, and if it’s real love it’s going to be unlike anyone else has ever felt before’. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, star of the new romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, is getting…

Fired Up!

9 Jul 2009

Two sex-hungry high school jocks, who don’t fancy summer in a baking hot football training camp, decide to infiltrate the girls’ cheerleader training instead. It’s a blatantly misogynist notion for comedy, yet director Will Gluck pulls off a far better…

Christine Jeffs interview

25 Jun 2009

Kiwi filmmaker Christine Jeffs (pictured centre right) wasn’t the obvious choice to direct the American indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Her previous two features, the New Zealand marital breakdown drama Rain and the British dead poet biopic Sylvia…

Sex Drive

8 Jan 2009

COMEDY Determined not to start college a virgin, semi-nerdy teenager Ian (Josh Zuckerman, best known as Young Dr Evil in the Austin Powers sequel Goldmember) drives across country to bed a red-hot babe he met on the internet named Ms Tasty. Fuelled…

Role Models

11 Dec 2008

How adults can benefit from relationships with children has been explored cinematically since before Charlie Chaplin met The Kid. One good recent example of this type of story was The School of Rock where Jack Black’s inner-child was flattered by a…

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

17 Jul 2008

TEEN COMEDY (cert tbc) tbcmin After successfully tackling teenage tomboys in Bend it Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha takes a step into younger territory with this adaptation of two of Louise Rennison’s bestselling books for girls. Looking at life…

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

5 Jun 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (15) 99min Writer/director Alex Holdridge’s dispatch from the frontline of the LA dating scene is exactly what it depicts: a witty, slight affair. Wilson (Scoot McNairy) is a detached single desperate for a date to provide him with a…

Lights in the Dusk

21 May 2007

DRAMA/CRIME/COMEDY The final part of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s ‘Loser Trilogy’ (preceded by Drifting Clouds and The Man Without a Past) concerns itself with lonely night watchman Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen) who has modest hopes of setting…

Little Miss Sunshine directors re-team for Ruby Sparks - trailer

The film features performances from Paul Dano, Elliot Gould and Steve Coogan

26 Apr 2012

Directing partners Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are re-uniting with Little Miss Sunshine star Paul Dano for new movie, Ruby Sparks. In it, Dano plays Calvin, an author who somehow manages to create his latest protagonist in real life. Big name…

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

The Duplass Brothers' slacker comedy bears too much resemblance to its underachieving protagonist

18 Apr 2012

(15) 83mins No one would have believed in the last years of the 20th century that of all the stars to emerge from Judd Apatow’s extraordinary talent nursery Freaks and Geeks, the household name would end up being Jason Segel. He’s not as gorgeous as…