Film

Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler

8 Jan 2009

I’ve had a poster of Mickey Rourke on my wall for over 20 years now. A black and white blow-up from Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, it pictures Rourke as private detective Harry Angel, freshly demobbed after WWII, his hair back-combed into an untidy quiff…

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…

Slumdog Millionaire

8 Jan 2009

ROMANCE/DRAMA Adapted by Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A this winning story of a Mumbai street urchin (Skins’ Dev Patel) who makes it to the final round of India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? might well be the film that…

Preview 2009 - Film

8 Jan 2009

There are three years to go until the end of the world, according to Mayan prophecies and it seems filmmakers can’t stop looking back to look forward. Let’s start at the beginning of the year when the 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, civil rights…

Lady Godiva

17 Jan 2008

ROMANCE (12A) 95min According to legend, Lady Godiva was the wife of an 11th century nobleman, who rode naked through the streets of Coventry in a successful act of protest against her husband’s taxation of his subjects. Here, in her debut…

Preview 2009 - Danny Boyle

8 Jan 2009

It’s not uncommon for the films that turn out to be the best of any given year to have been released at the beginning of that year. Think of Lust, Caution, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juno and There Will be Blood – all…

Apocalypto

(18) 138min

3 Jan 2007

ACTION/ADVENTURE Welcome to the jungle. A place where pierced savages josh and jest as they rip the flesh of a freshly speared boar. Life is simple, life is good, but trouble is hiding in the undergrowth and young family man Jaguar Paw (Rudy…

Julia

8 Jan 2009

THRILLER/DRAMA What begins as a grim character study of a middle-aged alcoholic becomes a blackly funny crime caper/road movie. Tilda Swinton is in ferocious good form as the titular 40-year-old drunk, a woman whose natural good looks and flamboyant…

Macbeth

6 Sep 2007

There’s nothing particularly new about updating Shakespeare’s medieval Scottish tragedy to a modern criminal underworld setting - see the 1956 American mob movie Joe Macbeth - but Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright nevertheless makes a decent stab at…

Preview 2009 - Local talent

8 Jan 2009

MUSIC: The Phantom Band We’ve been tipping this Glasgow sextet, who make what’s most succinctly described as ‘experimental krautrock’, for greatness for a wee while now. Their debut album Checkmate Savage lands in late January, fresh off the Chemikal…

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…

Seven Pounds

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA Will Smith is the most bankable star in America. Last year the mediocre I Am Legend opened with a whopping $77 million in its first weekend. Hancock rang tills this summer to the tune of $62 million. However, both those films operated in strong…

The Wrestler

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA/SPORT ‘What happened, did the price of tights go up?’ a sneering store-manager taunts Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke) when the impoverished wrestling star comes looking for work. Fighting a losing battle with his own finances, Randy…

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

8 Jan 2009

COMEDY/ADVENTURE The gritty, seedy world of Mexican dog fighting evoked in Amores Perros is (unsurprisingly) entirely missing from this brightly-lit family comedy from Raja Gosnell, the auteur behind Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Beverly…

Also Released - Film

8 Jan 2009

Bride Wars (PG) 90min ••• Bridezilla comedy pitting Anne Hathaway against Kate Hudson from the makers of Ugly Betty and Lipstick Jungle. There’s a few good jokes and set pieces but this is ultimately a girl’s flick that never quite makes it down the…

Hancock

3 Jul 2008

SUPERHERO/COMEDY (12A) 91min The writers and director of Hancock take a hyper-powered leaf out of the Mystery Men and Return of Captain Invincible school of heroism with Hancock. Will Smith plays a nihilistic superhero who has fallen out of favour…

Gaelic film festival announced as part of Celtic Connections

8 Jan 2009

Film companies Craic and MG ALBA have announced details of an all Gaelic film festival to be held between 22–24 Jan at the CCA in Glasgow, presented as part of this year’s Celtic Connections festival. Held over three days, the festival will showcase…

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…

Adulthood

19 Jun 2008

DRAMA (15) 99min Despite a fairly miserable showing at the box office 2006’s Kidulthood has spawned a sequel. Like its predecessor Adulthood’s London-centric depiction of inner-city struggles won’t speak as immediately to a Scottish audience but it’s…

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…

One minute wonder

3 Jan 2007

The American Industrialist and philanthropist John D Rockefeller may have had a point when he wrote that ‘All competition is a sin.’ But let’s face it some competitions are less reprehensible than others and indeed, by that same measure, some…

Wild Child

14 Aug 2008

ROMANCE/COMEDY (12A) 98min ‘What is this, Hogwarts?’ exclaims bratty Californian kid Poppy (Emma Roberts, niece of Julia) on her arrival at a genteel girls boarding school in England, ruled over by tough-but-fair headmistress (Natasha Richardson).

Step Brothers

21 Aug 2008

COMEDY ‘Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream’ is the George W Bush quotation which opens new Will Ferrell comedy Step Brothers. Such crude expression sets the tone for a sporadically funny but generally gross comedy in…

Paris Blues

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA The late Paul Newman is jazz performer Ram Bowen in this laidback drama of left bank insouciance from 1964, directed by Martin Hud Ritt. Ram hangs out in Paris with fellow American musician Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier). They meet a couple of…

Fighters •••• & Real Money •••

8 Jan 2009

SPORT/BOX SET Ron Peck’s 1991 documentary on boxing is a romantic, idealised, even sentimental portrayal of a sport often denounced as brutal and barbaric. Die-hard lovers of boisterous fight night atmosphere may be baffled: any action in the ring…

Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Arta Dobroshi

8 Jan 2009

So what’s their secret? In film after film Belgian filmmakers the Dardenne brothers have cast unknown actors and elicited powerfully naturalistic performances from them: think of Jérémie Renier in La Promesse, Emilie Dequenne in Rosetta, Morgan Marinne…

DVD Round-Up

8 Jan 2009

It’s January and the party is over. Months of belt-tightening and couch surfing lay ahead for those of us bankrupted by seasonal (or more international financial) excess. But let’s keep in mind Jean-Paul Sartre’s eulogy that ‘to read a poem in January…

Tall Headlines

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA Good show Odeon Entertainment for premiering on DVD a series of forgotten British films from the post-war period. They’re not exactly lost classics, but as the 1952 melodrama Tall Headlines illustrates, these films are certainly decent enough…

Defiance

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA/WAR The suggestion in Knocked Up that Steven Spielberg’s Munich was ‘Rambo for Jews’ seems to have inspired Edward Zwick’s latest project. After military epics Glory and The Last Samurai, Zwick arrives at the remarkable true story of the…

The Man From London

8 Jan 2009

DRAMA/MYSTERY Given Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s penchant for prolonged gloomy probings into the nature of human existence (see his 450-minute Satan’s Tango), this adaptation of a lesser-known novel by Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon would…

Charlize Theron

25 Jul 2006

Model, actress, animal lover and now producer, Charlize Theron is heading for Edinburgh to spill the beans on two new films she is currently producing. Is this the beginning of something even more beautiful, asks Paul Dale. The rise of Charlize…

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…

Sakuran

8 Jan 2009

MANGA ADAPTATION A bit like Edinburgh’s number 30 bus, Mika Ninagawa’s adaptation of this noted Manga comic series by Moyoco Anno travels an epic, seemingly endless journey, but goes nowhere interesting on the way. The scenery is better though, with…

Donkey Punch

17 Jul 2008

THRILLER (18) 99min The first fruit of the UK Film Council’s collaboration with Shane Meadows’ regular producers Warp X, Donkey Punch is a misguided attempt by Brits to muscle in on the already hackneyed torture-porn genre. Tammi (Nichola Burley…

Man on Wire - James Marsh interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

Philippe Petit was the man who dared to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers. Director James Marsh tells Kaleem Aftab how he made a film of this incredible feat

American Gangster

15 Nov 2007

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster opens with callous urban cruelty as a man is tied to a chair, doused with petrol and set on fire. But the reasons behind this violent act are less to do with anarchy than with good business, or at least that’s the lesson…

Michelle Monaghan

4 Oct 2007

Background Monaghan studied journalism for three years at Columbia College in Chicago. To earn pocket money she worked as a model and ditched the typewriter to work as a fashion model when she quit her studies. What’s she up to now? Having…

Porn in the movies

13 Nov 2008

Platonic friends Zack and Miri one day decide that in the current economic climate the only way to diminish their respective personal debts is to make a pornographic film together, but the world of amateur porno filmmaking is not as easy as it seems. So…

Inglorious Bastards

14 Feb 2008

WAR (15) 87min (Optimum DVD rental/retail) ‘War’ as the French statesman, physician and journalist Georges Clemenceau remarked ‘is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.’ But then again he never met this raggle-taggle bunch of escaped…

Ratatouille

4 Oct 2007

(U) 110min COMEDY/ANIMATION Writer/director Brad Bird’s animated version of The Iron Giant made him the obvious candidate to follow on from John Lasseter’s innovative groundwork at Pixar, where he scored an immediate hit with The Incredibles. So even…

New film & DVD releases

4 Sep 2008

Witness the fitness of this autumn's movie schedule.

Big time - Metro Ecosse film competition

13 Nov 2008

It’s been too long, but you know how it is – one thing leads to another and then it’s Christmas time again. Anyway, the time has come to check up on the progress of the second film competition. To recap – back in December 2006, The List launched Metro’s…

The Serpent - interview with Olga Kurylenko

6 Sep 2007

The most striking thing about the slick French thriller The Serpent is Olga Kurylenko, the beautiful 27-year-old Ukrainian model-turned-actress who plays the film’s femme fatale-cum-crime victim, Sofia. Kurylenko’s character only makes it as far as the…

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

24 Apr 2008

ROMANCE/COMEDY (15) 110min The Judd Apatow movie production line shows no signs of abating as Forgetting Sarah Marshall follows the template of Knocked Up to deliver some laughs, banal moralising and side characters that outshine the lead. Writer and…

Space Chimps

31 Jul 2008

ANIMATION/COMEDY (U) 80min Crowded out in the summer schedules by WALL-E and Kung Fu Panda, Space Chimps is the latest effort from Vanguard Animations destined to suffer the also-ran status of Valiant and Happily N’Ever After. On the whim of a…

Close Up

27 Nov 2008

PHOTOGRAPHY/FILM ‘Why has not man a microscopic eye? For the plain reason man is not a fly.’ The early 18th century poet Alexander Pope’s wrote that, perhaps in a moment of peevishness. Between Pope’s witticism and writer and critic William Hazlitt’s…

Big screen - Upcoming film releases

15 Sep 2008

Same, same but different is a pretty accurate way to describe the coming year in cinema. There's the annual mix of blockbusters, prestige Oscar-bait and offbeat cult movies, but, of course, you haven't seen the new crop of films yet. There are franchise…

WALL-E

17 Jul 2008

ANIMATION (U) 103min Can Pixar do no wrong? On the evidence of the CG animation studio’s ninth feature film, the answer is a resounding no. Once again Pixar pushes the envelope in the field it’s been trailblazing since the early 1980s, delivering…

Donkey Punch

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

(Oliver Blackburn, UK) 99min New British director Oliver Blackburn marks himself out as a name to watch in this misogynistic horror set in Marbella. When three lasses from Leeds (Sian Breckin, Jaime Winstone and Nichola Burley) decide to board a yacht…

Joy Division

24 Apr 2008

DOCUMENTARY (15) 96mins After last year’s Control, Anton Corbijn’s considered and stylish dramatisation of Ian Curtis’ life, it would be easy to think that everything you need to know about the legend and legacy of English post-punk outfit Joy…

Of Mice and Men

4 Oct 2007

(PG) 106min (Arrow/ DVD Retail) DRAMA Made only a couple of years after the John Steinbeck novel was published, this respectful 1939 adaptation by Lewis Milestone tells the now famous story of the wily and slight George (Burgess Meredith) and his…

One Last Dance

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/CRIME/ROMANCE (18) 110min (Tartan DVD retail/rental) Straight-to-DVD premieres no longer herald generally third-rate titles, as this off-beat Asian crime film proves. Written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Max Makowski, and financed and…

Calling all List readers

The Richard Attenborough Film Awards

5 Jan 2009

Before we look forward to 2009, we want List readers to look back to their favourite films of yesteryear, well 2008 anyway. The List has joined the prestigious Richard Attenborough Film Awards (RAFAs) to create an all new readers poll for the best Film…

Boyle tipped for Oscar win for Slumdog Millionaire

11 Dec 2008

Adopted as one of our local heroes, Danny Boyle helped put Scotland on the Cool Britannia map with his witty, stark portrayal of heroin addicts in 1996 film, Trainspotting. Now, with such well-received silver screen successes as The Beach and 28 Days…

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

13 Nov 2008

Forget the salacious sounding title, Zack and Miri is a Kevin Smith movie so it was never going to be a Ron Jeremy skin flick. Indeed, it’s an archetypical Smith movie – an over-sentimental tale in which boy knows girl, boy and girl have relationship…

Lars and the Real Doll - interview with Emily Mortimer

Glasgow Film Festival

14 Feb 2008

Emily Mortimer is laughing. ‘Bianca’s a very subtle actress and incredibly modest. She sits quietly, she waits. She doesn’t pace around, throw hissy fits or demand things. And her performance is incredibly low key.’ Bianca is Mortimer’s Danish/Brazilian…

Wristcutters: A Love Story

15 Nov 2007

There’s a thick-blooded vein of Slavic humour running through Croatian writer-director Goran Dukic’s absurdist purgatorial romantic comedy. Adapted from Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s short story, Kneller’s Happy Campers, Dukic’s feature debut boasts a…

Shutter

19 Jun 2007

HORROR In lieu of a forthcoming US remake, this half arsed 2004 Thai ghost story is getting an overdue and limited release. Driving home after getting drunk with a few of his old friends, photographer Tun (Ananda Everingham) and his girlfriend…

Planet B-boy

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jul 2007

Think breakdancing died out in the 80s? Think again, says Mark Edmundson as he talks to Benson Lee, the writer-director of Planet B-boy which charts its epic resurgence

Priceless

5 Jun 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 104min The best things in life are free, but all seasoned Riviera gold digger Irène (Audrey Tautou) wants is her own credit card from an ageing sugar daddy. Meanwhile, luckless, impoverished bar tender and dog walker Jean (Gad…

Winners announced for List Scottish film scriptwriting competition

30 Apr 2008

The List and Metro Ecosse have uncovered a diverse group of winning scriptwriters for their 2008 short film competition in which contestants were challenged to think big on a small budget.

Comics - NEVERWHERE (DVD)

18 Jun 2007

FANTASY Elephant and Castle, Knightsbridge and The Angel, Islington: to non-Londoners and small children alike the names of the city’s landmarks conjure a sense of the bizarre which Neil Gaiman, much-loved writer of novels, comics, films and…

Che: Part One

11 Dec 2008

(15) 126min At Cannes, Steven Soderbergh’s diptych of films about Che Guevara were shown consecutively, but British audiences are being asked to spend a month pondering The Argentine (original title) before we see Guerrilla (part two) – a wise move…

Film - Also Released

11 Dec 2008

White Christmas (U) 120min New digital print of this Christmas staple. GFT, Glasgow and Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 12-Wed 24 Dec. North Face (12A) 121min Exciting historical adventure recounting the dangerous ascent of the Eiger in 1936 by two…

New venue brings downtown New York to Edinburgh

19 Nov 2008

Edinburgh’s art scene has another new addition. The Bowery on Roxburgh Place in the Southside, opened last Saturday and takes its name from one of the famous city's hippest streets. The venue aims to replicate the quirky and semi mod attitude of the…

Choke

13 Nov 2008

(18) 92min Unrepentant sex addict Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) has always believed that life is about making other people do stuff for you. By day he does as little work as he can at a historical theme park and by night he cons money in restaurants…

Physical graffiti as The Wackness comes to Edinburgh International Film Festival

23 Jun 2008

Friday 20th June 2008 saw Festival Square, Edinburgh transformed into an enormous technicolor homage to graffiti, breakdancing and hip hop culture to mark the UK premiere of film The Wackness at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Production starts on Red Road sequel

13 Mar 2008

Sigma Films has begun pre-production on the sequel to hit Glasgow-based film Red Road. Rounding up Donkeys stars James Cosmo, Kate Dickie and Martin Compston and is to be filmed on a similarly small budget to its predecessor.

The Brothers Solomon

1 Nov 2007

COMEDY (15) 92min Comedians Will Forte and Will Arnet dumb down their already dumb strain of Saturday Night Live humour to exhausting effect in this lowbrow comedy. When their father (Lee Majors) lapses into a coma, the understandably single Solomon…

Lady Chatterley

(18) 168min

23 Aug 2007

An understated yet compelling French adaptation of Lawrence’s once scandalous novel. Eschewing melodrama the director Pascale Ferran focuses on how the sexual relationship transforms the lives of the lovers. Marina Hans and Jean-Louis Coullo’ch do…

Rupert Everett

Film Special

17 Jul 2007

FILM SPECIAL A man of many faces Innocent, plotter, maniac or queen? Rupert Everett claims to be all of the above but Kaleem Aftab finds the actor in sanguine form Rupert Everett just gets better and better. The actor and now producer of…

Far North

11 Dec 2008

(15) 89min After an auspicious debut with The Warrior, writer-director Asif Kapadia went to Hollywood with disastrous results in the form of super-lame Sarah Michelle Gellar horror flick The Return. Adapted from the short story True North by Sara…

Role Models

11 Dec 2008

(15) 91min 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…

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa

27 Nov 2008

COMEDY/ANIMATION When Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) escaped from their Manhattan zoo in 2005 hit Madagascar, they were leaders of…

The Baader-Meinhof Complex

13 Nov 2008

(18) 149min Based on the non-fiction book by Der Spiegel editor and journalist Stefan Aust, The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a compelling and engrossing attempt to explain the trajectory and political position of arguably the most incoherent post-war…

Beyond a Joke - Dark Knight

17 Jul 2008

As the latest Batman adaptation arrives on the silver screen, Alan Bissett explores the colourful history and enduring appeal of the caped crusader’s arch nemesis, the Joker

The Oxford Murders

24 Apr 2008

CRIME/THRILLER (15) 104min Having graduated from the kitsch sci-fi satire of Acción mutante and the heavy metal horror of The Day of the Beast to the Hitchcockian black comedies Common Wealth and Ferpect Crime, Bilbao-born filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia…

Tales from Earthsea

1 Aug 2007

The familiar Studio Ghibli look is there, but Tales From Earthsea, based on the books by writer of speculative fiction Ursula K Le Guin, is directed not by the great Hayao Miyazaki, but by his son Goro.

DVD - The Ultimate Film Noir Collection

The Ultimate Film Noir Collection

26 Mar 2007

THRILLER Although his fiction made a huge contribution to post-war American cinema via others’ screenplay adaptations, Raymond Chandler only wrote two films himself: The Blue Dahlia and (with Billy Wilder) Double Indemnity. Both feature in this…

Preview of the year 2007

2007 is about the future. And about the past. It’

3 Jan 2007

THE FUTURE Cyberspace invaders We may not be flying around in hover cars or wearing spangly all-silver outfits, but thanks to the internet the future has truly arrived. And the revolution will continue apace in 2007, argues Suzanne Black. A…

The Reader

11 Dec 2008

(15) 123min In a West German town at the end of the 1950s, 15-year-old Michael (David Kross) starts a passionate affair with Hanna (Kate Winslet), a tram conductor more than twice his age. The relationship is sweet as well as sexually charged…

All the world’s a stage

15 Sep 2008

Merchant City Festival (25-28 Sep) www.merchantcityfestival.com Located in the heart of old Glasgow, this event locates a programme of film, theatre, comedy, visual arts, street theatre, live music, food and fashion within an area of real…

Tildafest!

17 Jul 2008

Hollywood actress Tilda Swinton is to set up a small film festival in her hometown of Nairn in north-east Scotland. Bereft of the usual razzmatazz, Swinton and co-organiser Mark Cousins are keen to strip back the look [and cost] of festivals, such as…

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…

Girls Aloud to broadcast concert live to UK cinemas

8 May 2008

Girls Aloud are to broadcast their London concert to 50 Vue cinemas across the UK.

P2 - An interview with Wes Bentley

24 Apr 2008

Wes Bentley was just 21 when he played Ricky Fitts in American Beauty. It turned him into an overnight star. He was nominated for a BAFTA and fêted as the heir to Tom Cruise. The world was his oyster. Plastic bags could have been named after him. Then…

Mike Leigh - Happy-Go-Lucky

10 Apr 2008

At 65 years of age, it’s good to see that Mike Leigh has learned nothing about handling the press. By turns blustery, crabby, contrary, humourless, paranoid and evasive, Leigh belongs to that generation of no nonsense, taciturn northern men epitomised…

Playlist - free online horror movies

27 Mar 2008

Do you like scary movies? Fancy watching one on the internet? Beware! The shaky camcorder techniques of video pirates can make the latest Hollywood blockbuster look as scrambled as Cloverfield. So, rather than pick a fight with the copyright-lawman, why…

Daniel Radcliffe smokes 20-a-day

27 Mar 2008

JK Rowling may have just been added to the Forbes Celebrity Billionaires list, but the star of the Harry Potter adaptations is having less luck. Daniel Radcliffe’s co-stars are currently trying to wean him off his 20-a-day cigarette habit…

Shrooms

15 Nov 2007

(18) 84min Paddy I Went Down Breathnach’s ‘kids in the woods’ horror movie digs the rich genre furrow that runs from Evil Dead through Blair Witch Project to Wrong Turn. But here’s the twist – everyone’s off their faces, tripping on magic…

Death at a Funeral

1 Nov 2007

DRAMA/COMEDY (15) 90min Having reportedly had his hands burned by the studios, who demanded re-shoots and re-cuts to what turned out to be a risible remake of The Stepford Wives, director Frank Oz (Mr Muppets to you and me) turns his not untalented…

Clubland

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 107min Brenda Blethyn is on Little Voice form in this touching, bittersweet Australian comedy. She plays Jean, an ageing stand-up comedienne whose best days are behind her. She’s also a control freak who refuses to accept that her…

Irezumi

(15) 85min (Yume Pictures/DVD retail)

23 Aug 2007

Based on the legendary decadent Japanese writer Junichirô Tanizaki’s short story, Yasuzo Masumura’s 1966 film is a tale of love’s labour lost to prostitution and murder after a woman, Otsuya (Ayako Wakao) from a superior background embarks on an affair…

The Hamiltons

(18) 84min

16 Aug 2007

HORROR When you realise that The Hamiltons is helmed by directorial duo The Butcher Brothers (aka Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) you realise you’re in for a gruesome treat. They’ve given the serial a subtle twist that turns it on its head, and for…

Evan Almighty

1 Aug 2007

That the most expensive comedy ever made should be a sequel to a disposable Jim Carrey timewaster, with Carrey not even featuring in the cast, suggests an error of biblical proportions in the judgement of Universal executives...

Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling interview

Faculty high

11 Apr 2007

The versatile, chameleon-like Canadian actor Ryan Gosling has consistently been drawn to dark, emotionally troubling roles. He has played a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer, a teenage killer who flirts with the investigating policewoman in Murder by…

Fountain, The

The Fountain

15 Jan 2007

ROMANCE/DRAMA/SCI-FI Plagued with production problems - most infamously star Brad Pitt exiting over creative differences, causing the film to close down - Darren Aronofsky’s labour of love has been a long time coming. Before rewriting the script and…

Red Road - feature

Red or dead

2 Oct 2006

In these lean times for Scottish film it is women who are at the vanguard of quality, truth and all that should be right in cinema. Think of Lynne Ramsay, who made Morvern Callar, or Shona Auerbach, who was responsible for Dear Frankie, or Alison…

Arabian Nights

Middle East International Film Festival

15 Dec 2008

What follows is a short blog by Zainab Al Hassani who went to this year's Middle East International Film Festival, which took place between 10-19 October 2008 in Abu Dhabi.

Twilight

11 Dec 2008

(12A) 121min ‘I hope you enjoy disappointment,’ murmurs surly vampire-next door Edward (Robert Pattinson) in Catherine Thirteen Hardwicke’s adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s vampire-romance novel, but Twilight is likely to be a matter of extreme…