Film

Poetry

A deeply moving portrayal of an elderly woman's struggles in rural South Korea

21 Jul 2011

(12A) 139min The quest to write a single poem becomes a heroic act in Poetry, a poignant, intricately plotted melodrama from Secret Sunshine director Lee Chang-dong. Poetry won the Best Screenplay at Cannes but it is the central performance from…

World War Z to be filmed in Glasgow with locally-sourced zombies

Brad Pitt star in Max Brooks zombie adaptation

19 Jul 2011

The streets of Glasgow will no doubt be a little quieter with the onset of the Edinburgh Festival this August. All that is about to change this year with parts of the city centre undergoing a transformation into a post-apocalyptic 'zombie land' for the…

The highs and lows of Harry Potter’s outrageous fortunes

An evaluation of each of the films from the Harry Potter series

28 Jun 2011

Having earned £6 billion worldwide, Harry Potter is the highest grossing film franchise of all time. And while the critical reception hasn’t always matched the commercial one (no Academy Awards yet), the films have been as successful as JK Rowling’s…

Weekender - Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Jack O’Connell interview

Film charting 1990s British rave scene

25 Jun 2011

“We’re a bit like a double-act”, quips Jack O’Connell, referring to himself and his co-star Henry Lloyd-Hughes, and it proves true as they talk to me. They’re ostensibly discussing Weekender, which has it’s World Premiere at this year’s Festival, but…

War correspondent Martin Bell to give Oliver Stone another chance

Martin Bell will be introducing Oliver Stone's Salvador at the EIFF

24 Jun 2011

‘I tend to walk out of films about wars that I reported on. I walked out of Oliver Stone’s Salvador when I first saw it in 1986 that’s why it will be interesting to present it and revisit it in Edinburgh. I remember he satirised a female reporter I know…

Turin Horse - Béla Tarr interview

Hungarian director's final film takes Nietzsche's madness as starting point

23 Jun 2011

Iconic Hungarian director Béla Tarr was in Edinburgh to present his latest and reportedly final film, Turin Horse. The film is inspired by an event often reported as the beginning of Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental breakdown. The philosopher is said to…

A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin)

Award-winning Iranian film is skilfully crafted, intelligent and considered

21 Jun 2011

(PG) 122min A Separation begins with the event of its title: Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) sit in front of a local judge debating their decision to get a divorce. Simin wants to move abroad, where she feels their daughter, Termeh…

Perfect Sense an ambitious film that demands a lot from audience

David Mackenzie’s feature thought-provoking and quietly moving

20 Jun 2011

The weekend saw one of the biggest events of this year’s EIFF programme, as the massive Festival Theatre played host to the European premiere of David Mackenzie’s new film, the Glasgow-set sci-fi romance Perfect Sense, on Saturday night. I interviewed…

The Last Circus

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

20 Jun 2011

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, discusses her new film Meet Monica Velour

Indie comedy about an aging porn star is set to screen at the EIFF

27 May 2011

‘To have a role like this in your fifties is quite extraordinary,’ says Kim Cattrall, who is 53 and has made a virtue of playing sexy older women in a business that refuses to equate the one with the other. ‘When Meet Monica Velour showed at the Tribeca…

Bare Behind Bars, Sea Purple, Here Come the Girls 3 and Dare

LGBT DVD Roundup

27 May 2011

If it’s a quiet night on the sofa you’re after, beware Bare Behind Bars (Arrow Video ●●●●). Described as a ‘chicks in chains grindhouse explosion’, we’re given sadistic lesbian guards, a permanently aroused screwball nurse and convicts with cabin fever…

Profile: Sue Bourne - director of Irish dance documentary Jig

Director's cinema debut profiles World Irish Dancing Championships

26 May 2011

Born London, then moved to Ayr, Scotland at one year old. Background Bourne is an award-winning documentary maker who has made her name producing and directing work that sheds new light on familiar subject matter. Her films include My Street…

The Big Picture

Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama

23 May 2011

(tbc) 114min This adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel relocates the setting from New York and Montana to Paris and the Adriatic Coast. Its plot involves murder, identity theft and abandonment but this is not so much a thriller as an investigation…

Point Blank (A Bout Portant)

Director Fred Cavayé's French thriller is engaging and well-paced

23 May 2011

(15) 84 min Fashion photographer turned filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything For Her) would have thrived in the old Hollywood studio system. His films operate with the speed and single-mindedness of a runaway locomotive. Give him a high concept premise…

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011 programme announced

Includes The Guard, Meet Monica Velour and Jack Goes Boating

17 May 2011

The programme for the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival was announced today, featuring a wide range of exciting new work from around the world. The film chosen for the Festival's Opening Gala was John Michael McDonagh's The Guard, starring…

Love Like Poison

Tender coming-of-age film starring Clara Augarde, Michel Galabru and Lio

20 Apr 2011

(15) 85min You’d be hard pushed to find a more honest and tender portrayal of early adolescence than first time director Katell Quillévéré’s coming of age film Love Like Poison. Anna (Clara Augarde) has come home from boarding school for the…

The Messenger

Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson film begins well but let down by unfocussed second half

18 Apr 2011

(15) 105min The Messenger is the perfect example of a film of two halves. The first segment is breathtaking, as injured US Army Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is reassigned to the Casualty Notification Team. Partnered with career soldier…

Tindersticks: Claire Denis Scores 1996–2009

Excellent anthology of film scores from the French filmmaker and regular collaborator Stuart Staples

21 Mar 2011

(Constellation) This five-disc boxset containing six film scores are testament to the remarkable collaboration between French filmmaker Claire Denis, arguably the most intellectually fertile auteur working today, and Tindersticks bandleader Stuart A…

The Resident – Film review

Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Christopher Lee star in the latest thriller from Hammer studio

16 Mar 2011

It’s certainly fantastic seeing the legend ‘Hammer Film Productions’ on the big screen again (especially when it’s followed by the name ‘Christopher Lee’) however this thriller goes more for the chills of The Nanny or Fear in the Night than the Draculas…

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen's London-set comedy lacks vitality

10 Mar 2011

(12A) 98min Sally (Naomi Watts) is frustrated with her marriage to failed writer Roy (Josh Brolin) and is struggling to understand her mother Helena (Gemma Jones) who has turned to a fortune teller to guide her through her break up with husband Alfie…

Rango is a pleasingly oddball return to form for Johnny Depp

Animated ode to the western from Pirates director Gore Verbinski

9 Mar 2011

(PG) 107min Rango (Johnny Depp) is a domesticated chameleon who, through extreme mishap, finds himself alone in the harsh Mojave Desert. He soon stumbles across the town of Dirt, which just so happens to be in need of a new sheriff to help it through…

The search for truth: Paul Laverty on Route Irish

The screenwriter discusss his latest Ken Loach-directed project, an Iraq-based drama

2 Mar 2011

Waterboarding. A barbaric act of intolerable cruelty that should have stayed in the middle ages or a justifiable military tool in extricating information from the sworn enemy? Given what we now know of western forces’ sometimes inhumane tactics in Iraq…

Chalet Girl - Crowd-pleasing film marks arrival of Felicity Jones

Watchable despite sitcom-style humour and stereotypical characters

2 Mar 2011

(12A) 96min Felicity Jones is hitherto best known as the voice of Emma Carter on The Archers but by the end of 2011 she could well be regarded as one of Britain's most talented young movie stars. A winner at Sundance for indie drama Like Crazy…

GFF blog: Danny O’Connor on documentary Upside Down: The Creation Records Story

New film stars McGee, Noel Gallacher and other Creation alumni

22 Feb 2011

When I talk to Danny O’Connor on the phone, he manages to answer my first question (‘Tell me a little bit about yourself’) with an extensive 16-minute history, covering his radio roots on the BBC’s Evening Sessions and Lamacq Live, to his television…

GFF blog: Simpsons and Spinal Tap star Harry Shearer on documentary The Big Uneasy

Explores human error that exacerbated effects of Hurricane Katrina

22 Feb 2011

‘I’ve just come from Dallas, where, by sheer good luck, the film was screening at the same theatre where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured. I got to sit in his seat. They don’t have a plaque on it or anything, but you know, my ass is part of history now.…

Inside Job examines 2008 financial crisis - Charles Ferguson interview

Matt Damon-narrated documentary suggest crash was avoidable

18 Feb 2011

An interview with Charles Ferguson, director of the Matt Damon-narrated Inside Job, an examination of the 2008 financial crisis

The best of Frightfest at Glasgow Film Festival 2011

Founder and co-director of the horror film festival within GFF

18 Feb 2011

Paul McEvoy, founder and co-director of the horror film festival within a festival, picks the best of the line-up ‘We always have a snapshot of exactly where the genre is at the moment, so we’re only as strong as the films that are being produced. I…

James Franco stars in Ginsberg biopic Howl - interview

We speak to the multi-disciplined actor about what he wants from life

17 Feb 2011

Author, filmmaker, Oscars host and star of 127 Hours, Howl and Spiderman James Franco discusses his work.

Brighton Rock remake actress Andrea Riseborough - Profile

From Made in Dagenham to starring opposite Guy Pearce

17 Feb 2011

Name Andrea Riseborough Born 27 October 1981, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Background She was Sally Hawkins’ mate in Happy-Go-Lucky, Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley, English Civil War-era crumpet in The Devil’s Whore and busty Brenda…

DVD: The Flying Scotsman

1929 Romantic comedy thriller is silent film with dialogue added

17 Feb 2011

Classic 1929 action-romance set on the titular train, with amazing stunts and future Oscar-winner Ray Milland.

DVD: Pelican Blood

Suicide and competitive bird-watching meet in dark drama from Irish director

17 Feb 2011

(15) 94min (Icon) Irish indie director Karl Golden ’s second feature is more raw and vicious than his 2003 debut The Honeymooners. Harry Treadaway (Fish Tank, Control) plays Nikko, a suicidal young man whose low-key daily routine of bird watching…

Brian Reynolds' Glasgow Music and Film Festival highlights

Music programmer for The Arches picks out the music events highlights

16 Feb 2011

‘As someone with indie Glasgow sensibilities, Mondo Morricone ’s the event I’m most excited about. I first saw it ten years ago at Stirling’s Cowane Centre as a penniless student. Eugene Kelly and Isobel Campbell played with Duglas [T Stewart, of BMX…

Ed Helms says The Hangover is a 'mystery'

Music Gossip

14 Feb 2011

Ed Helms thinks 'The Hangover' is a "mystery movie". The actor - who will reprise his role as dentist Stu Price for the film's sequel - understands why fans can't wait to see what happens in 'The Hangover 2' because he thinks it is more than just a…

Faust screened with new score by Alex Smoke

1926 silent film's new score performed by The Scottish Ensemble

11 Feb 2011

At 85 years old, director FW Murnau’s Faust remains one of the most visually arresting films in the history of world cinema. Murnau’s last German production divided contemporary audiences and lost a lot of studio money with its retelling of the…

The Fighter stars Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg as boxing half-brothers

Comparisons with The Wrestler are inevitable and not unfair

2 Feb 2011

(15) 115min All the best boxing movies are as much about what goes on outside the ring as what happens inside the ropes. Despite this biopic, scripted by Scott Silver (8 Mile) and five other writers, being based on the lives of not one but two…

Brighton Rock resurrects religious theme of Graham Greene’s source novel

2011 film adaptation also highlights grubby sexual and violent content

2 Feb 2011

(15) 111min Remaking a seminal British crime film might seem like madness, but then writer-director Rowan Joffe has ignored the 1947 original and instead gone back to Graham Greene’s source novel. And having done that, he’s ditched its 1938 setting…

2011 Glasgow Short Film Festival showcases Japanese auteur Naomi Kawase

Festival dedication to imprisoned Iranian director Jafar Panahi

2 Feb 2011

Returning for its fourth year, the Glasgow Short Film Festival presents a packed weekend of local and international films, workshops, panel discussions and parties with a special emphasis on bringing undiscovered and rare work to the fore. New York’s…

Gnomeo & Juliet's British cast add charm despite pop culture references

Shrek 2 director's animation big on visual jokes but lacks standout sequence

2 Feb 2011

(U) 84min The idea of turning William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into an animated movie featuring gnomes sounds like a tragedy in its own right, but thanks to a star studded British voice cast and some fun visual jokes, Gnomeo & Juliet almost…

K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask

Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials boasts evocative steampunk setting

2 Feb 2011

(12) 137min (Manga Entertainment) Forget about the duff Green Hornet, this Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials – The Shadow, The Rocketeer, The Phantom et al – is far more entertaining. The year is 1949, but it’s an alternate reality in…

Peter Mullan's Neds revisits 1970s Glasgow gang life - interview

The director gives a straight-talking tour of his old city haunts

19 Jan 2011

It’s the first Wednesday of the New Year and I’m driving with Peter Mullan across the Clyde into the Southside of Glasgow. We’re on our way to Cardonald, the predominantly working-class area of Mullan’s home city that serves as the backdrop and…

Life in a Day - Kevin Macdonald's new documentary of user generated content

Scottish filmmaker's public content documentary streams on YouTube

18 Jan 2011

Cultural history suggests a certain link between one day in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp autographed a urinal then exhibited it as Fountain, to another in 2004 when the Beastie Boys doled out camcorders to fans at a concert then constructed a film (Awesome…

Biutiful - Alejandro González Iñárritu interview

The Mexican filmmaker talks about his new film Biutiful, Spain, Javier Bardem and fatherhood

18 Jan 2011

‘The starting point for Biutiful was the character of Uxbal [played by Javier Bardem], who got into my head one day. I had listened to Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and that had given me an idea for a tone and a mood. Then I had this image of Uxbal…

Barney's Version - Comic murder-mystery that strays into tearjerker territory

A rambling, unfocused but still enjoyable comedy-drama

18 Jan 2011

(15) 133min Memory is a tricky thing, and that appears to be the main point of this rambling, unfocused but still enjoyable comedy-drama. Paul Giamatti plays Barney Panofsky, a slightly nastier version of the cynical schlub that’s become his…

Private Road

12 Jan 2011

(15) 89min (BFI) Barney Platts-Mills’ 1971 film is undoubtedly one of the great lost British masterpieces of the 1970s. Platts-Mills was a filmmaker whose previous cult film Bronco Bullfrog had taken a knife to the frothy London set cinema of the…

The best upcoming events in Scotland in 2011

Highlights of the 2011 cultural calandar from Film, Music, Comedy, Theatre and Visual Art

3 Jan 2011

Huge gigs, inspiring theatre productions, comedy legends and two cute little waving bears – just a few of the things coming up in ‘11 that we can barely contain our excitement about

Conviction

Tony Goldwyn's drama features powerful performances but lacks grit, depth or gravity

23 Dec 2010

(15) 107min True life stories can make for compelling cinema experiences, but Conviction, a torn-from-the-headlines tale of a loving sister’s twenty-year struggle to clear her brother of a murder conviction, is far too plainly manipulative to…

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Impressive exploration of mental health doesn’t compromise its indie values

23 Dec 2010

(12A) 101min Having impressed with Half Nelson and Sugar, indie stalwarts Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden complete a commendable hat trick with It’s Kind Of A Funny Story. Based on the novel by Ned Vizzini, the film follows suicidal 16-year-old Craig…

Profile: Nicole Grimaudo of Loose Cannons

Her latest role is in Ferzan Ozpetek’s family-in-crisis comedy, set in Italian city of Lecce

14 Dec 2010

Born 22 April 1980, Caltagirone, Sicily Background As a 15-year-old Grimaudo made her professional acting debut in a Rome production of The Cherry Orchard. In the same year her first screen role came in the children’s’ animated film Sorellina e…

Gulliver's Travels

Jack Black vehicle unfunny and lacking in cohesion

14 Dec 2010

In the ten years since his breakout performance as John Cusack’s slacker workmate in High Fidelity, Jack Black has become a big name movie star, but his CV is surprisingly short of hits. Only Richard Linklater’s family comedy School of Rock has managed…

Down Terrace

Alternately nasty and hilarious UK kitchen sink gangster film

14 Dec 2010

(15) 89min (Metrodome) Not another facking Brit gangster flick?! Well, yes, but this alternately nasty and hilarious little gem is a world away from the mockney posturing of Guy Ritchie and co. Set in the suburban backstreets of Southern England’s…