Film, Issue 650

Punishment Park

(15) 88min 'Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.' Abbie Hoffman (1936 --1989) American political activist and author; co-founder…

Capitalism: A Love Story

(12A) 102min Michael Moore’s credibility has taken something of a dint since the populist, glory days of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, but his new opus sees him going for broke by taking on the whole capitalist system. But without his old pal George…

From Paris With Love

(15) 92min Following on from his surprise action hit for Liam Neeson in Taken, Pierre Morel comes a cropper in his latest venture by teaming Jonathan Rhys Meyers and a shockingly bald John Travolta for the usual run-of-the-mill Parisian…

Solomon Kane

(15) 104min Based on a lesser-known character by Conan The Barbarian creator Robert E Howard, James Purefoy dons Solomon Kane’s Witchfinder General hat and sets out to bloodily revenge the murder of an innocent family who befriended him. Jason…

Freestyle

(12A) 85min Brit director Kolton Lee’s second feature, made under the auspices of Film London’s Microwave scheme, which also produced Shifty, stars Lucy Stanhope as Ondene, a young woman who falls for freestyle basketball player Leon Chambers (Arinze…

The Room

Is Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 horror the worst good bad film ever made? Allegedly screening for the first time ever at a Scottish cinema, you can now judge for yourselves. Late night screening. Cameo, Edinburgh on Sat 20 Feb.

Nosferatu

FW Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror masterpiece gets the live music treatment in this special one off screening. Filmhouse, Edinburgh on Sun 21 Feb.

Glasgow Film Festival hosts UK premiere of The Greatest - Carey Mulligan interview

In just a few years Brit actress Carey Mulligan has gone from guesting in Doctor Who to winning an Oscar nomination for her role in An Education. As her film, The Greatest, hits the Glasgow Film Festival, she tells James Mottram how she’s learning to…

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…

Glasgow Film Festival 2010 highlights

Applause. Powerful Danish drama about an alcoholic actress and mother starring mighty Dogme poster girl Paprika Steen. Cineworld Renfrew Street, 1.15pm, Fri 19 and 6.30pm, Sat 20 Feb. The Girl on the Train Racism and suburban snobbery in modern…

Glasgow Film Festival - Cary Grant's Glasgow

He scaled Mount Rushmore, romanced some of Hollywood’s most revered screen starlets, and was the epitome of suave for over thirty years. The debonair Mr Grant is no longer with us, but if you’re wanting a night out befitting his image, Glasgow can…

Glasgow Film Festival - A guide to Glasgow’s indie culture

Glasgow’s many low-lit corners provide safe haven for the city’s cool crowd. One such place, within range of the CCA and GFT, is Variety (401 Sauchiehall Street), an effortlessly cool and tiny bar which pulls in a wide mix of customers eager to sample…

Glasgow Film Festival - A guide to Glasgow’s music and film culture

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy 421 Sauchiehall Street The aptly named Nice ‘n’ Sleazy is one of the best watering holes in the city centre, and the place to go for a White Russian while perusing the fine list of tunes on the vintage jukebox. MacSorley’s 42…

Legacy brings The Wire's Stringer to the big screen - Idris Elba interview

Miles Fielder checks in with The Wire’s Idris Elba, who closes this year’s festival in Glasgow-produced film Legacy

Crazy Heart, Tender Mercies and country music on film

Crazy Heart is a tale of alcoholism, love, redemption and country music. It has a healthy lineage writes Paul Dale

Glasgow Film Festival - A guide to Glasgow’s FashionArtFilm hotspots

Glasgow has always been a hit with the cutting-edge fashion pack, and the style of the city percolates through into its inhabitants. Not far from Cineworld in the city centre, Che Camille (Argyll Chambers, 34 Buchanan Street) is an inspiring…

The Lovely Bones

(12A) 135min The problems with Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s popular novel run much deeper than the usual stumbling block of having a macabre subject matter. The casting of Mark Wahlberg as the grieving dad is seriously misjudged…

The Last Station

(15) 112min It’s 1910 and the great Russian writer and aristocrat Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) has become a cult dissenting voice in Tsarist Russia. His writings and teachings on non violent resistance, state and property rights, chastity and…

Micmacs (Micmacs a Tire-Larignot)

(12A) 104min The re-evaluation of the golden age of slapstick cinema (cue Paul Merton and sparse piano riff) comes full circle with this slight but enjoyably manic satire from Amélie and Delicatessen director Jean Pierre Jeunet. Left with a bullet…

Crazy Heart

(15) 111min It’s another day in another shit hick town for country and western singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). The music business isn’t what it used to be; his schedule now consists of bowling hall and the back rooms of bars. Between the…

Extraordinary Measures

(PG) 105min Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser add some high-powered star wattage to Tom Vaughan’s otherwise formulaic medical drama about a father’s desperate attempt to save his children from a potentially fatal disease. Inspired by a Wall Street…

Everybody's Fine

(12A) 99min Robert De Niro drags his grumpy old man routine into this well-meaning but utterly dull remake of Giuseppe Cinema Paradiso Tornatore’s Stanno Tutti Bene (1990). De Niro has plenty of reason to put on his over-familiar raised eyebrows and…

Leap Year

(PG) 100min Imagine the classic 1934 Clark Gable/Claudette Colbert road movie romance It Happened One Night with all the wit, spontaneity and charm sucked out of it. That’s Leap Year. Director Anand Tucker (Red Riding: 1983, And When Did You Last See…

Tower of London

(15) 92min (Optimum) This long unavailable (on DVD), deliciously nasty historical horror made in 1939 is all dungeons, manacles, torture and beheadings. But it’s also fairly classy stuff, boasting a fine cast headed by Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff…

An Inspector Calls

(PG) 77min (Optimum) Edinburgh’s famous son Alistair Sim leads the quality cast in this excellent 1954 adaptation of JB Priestly’s celebrated play. Set in small town England in 1912, it opens with the interruption of a dinner party at the home of a…