Film, Issue 635

The Meerkats

There’s something about meerkats. Maybe it’s their little beady eyes, or their curiously stiff, upright posture that makes them appear to be striving to be human. Whatever that quality is, the camera clearly loves them, making the humble meerkat an…

Cult Fiction Movies shop opens in Edinburgh

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…

Alastair Sim season calls at Filmhouse

A season of films celebrating the Scottish actor

The films of (arguably) Scotland’s greatest stage and screen actor (sorry Sir Sean) are celebrated in this superb season. Things kick off with the 1954 adaptation of JB Priestley’s celebrated play An Inspector Calls with Sim masterful in the titular…

Cine Cuba

Fifty years of revolution on film

This season celebrating ‘50 Years of Revolution on Film’ hits its stride with Pavel Giroud’s ageing gangster drama Omertà and the queer politics of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Strawberry and Chocolate. Also showing later in the season are Manuel Pérez’s…

Words and Pictures

David Peace and Garrison Keillor celebrate fiction and adaptation

Writers David Peace and Garrison Keillor will both be making an appearance at this short season celebrating fiction and adaptation. Peace will be talking about The Red Riding Trilogy and Keillor will be talking about A Prairie Home Companion. There…

Am I Black Enough For You?

Philadelphia soul legend Billy Paul in a film by Goran Olsson

Taking its title from his most impassioned and radical tune, the life and formidable times of Philadelphia soul legend Billy Paul are celebrated in Goran Olsson’s engaging, well-researched documentary. GFT, Glasgow from Mon 10-Wed 12 Aug.

Looking For Eric

Ken Loach does love, delusion and footballers

Last chance to catch Ken Loach’s pleasing comedy of love, delusion and platitude-quoting retired footballers on the big screen. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 7-Mon 10 Aug.

Lost World

Cinematic expedition

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s swashbuckling adventure, Lost World is brought to life by The Paper Cinema. Using angle-poise lamps, black-and-white ink illustrations and laptops, a DIY-film takes shape before your eyes. ‘The Paper Cinema is an illustrated…

Plastic Fantastic - GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra

The action figure is now a movie star. But why stop there?

It’s all come a little too late for me. It’s been a long time since I put my armless and legless Action Men (or GI Joes as they were called in America) in a shoebox and sent them back to Palitoy Ltd for repair. You could do that kind of thing in those…

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (l’Instinct de Mort)

Tracing a line from Mesrine’s disillusioning military service during the Algerian war to the beginning of his notoriety in 1972 (when he graduated to murder), the first instalment of this epic crime tale is derivative, energetic and hugely…

The Ugly Truth

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…

Film: Also released

It's not all wizards and misogynistic headtrips - what else is on at the cinema? Orphan (15) 122min Diverting evil child horror from House of Wax director Jaume Collet-Serra. Grieving parents Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) decide to…

Comrades

It’s criminal that the late, great Edinburgh-born filmmaker Bill Douglas’ epic account of the Tolpuddle Martyrs should remain largely unseen two decades after it was released. Perhaps a three-hour long, slow-moving drama that mixed two apparently…

The Red Shoes

Martin Scorsese proclaimed Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s masterpiece ‘truly the most beautiful Technicolor film ever made.’ Marty should know, given he oversaw the restoration of the 1948 classic through his Film Foundation and then premiered…

Parade

Released in 1974, the final film by the great French silent comedian Jacques Tati is a typically playful, though also extremely eloquent ending to his quarter-century film career. On the face of it nothing more than a series of circus acts compered by…