Film and Brian Donaldson

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.

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…

Derren Brown: The Specials

13 Nov 2008

(4DVD) 196min Almost five years ago to the week that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were threatened with being burnt at the stake, another witch-hunt was conducted for another man merely seeking to thrill us. In October 2003, Derren Brown asked a…

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…

Quiet Chaos

19 Mar 2009

FAMILY DRAMA When his wife collapses and dies on their lawn surrounded by chopped melon and a traumatised young daughter, Pietro (Nanni Moretti) is saving an ungrateful woman from drowning. It’s just one of several delicious ironies during a movie in…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

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…

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

Video Killed The Radio Star

Nostalgic documentary on pop promo world profiles Russell Mulcahy, David Mallet and Wayne Isha

2 Nov 2010

(IND3D) Did you know that, with the dawn of MTV in the 1980s, the pop promo became almost as important to an artist’s career as their actual songs? Everyone who has studied that period or, worse, lived through it, won’t need telling twice. Well…

Life on Mars

18 May 2010

(12) 710min (Fox) Transplanting a classic British show into a US setting has more often than not borne rotten fruit. The Office and Queer as Folk are two that never quite lived up to the UK original. Remaking Life on Mars proved so tough that the…

US TV boxsets: DVD round-up

Bored to Death, The Killing, Weeds and In Treatment reviewed

16 Sep 2011

If you thought that Ted Danson had delivered career-remoulding performances as ‘himself’ in Curb Your Enthusiasm, you should check out the dazzle he brings to the first series of Bored to Death (Warner Home Video ●●●●). Jonathan Ames’ Brooklyn-set…

The Governor, Being Human and Traffik among DVD highlghts

The old school fares well against newbies in TV drama releases

29 Jun 2011

The Governor ●●●● features a curious performance from Janet McTeer, just four years before her 1999 Oscar nomination for Tumbleweeds. In the first season of Lynda La Plante’s excellent prison drama, she switches between giggling schoolgirl and feisty…

DVD review - Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

Uncompromising, awkward and confrontational style and content cements reputation

28 Jun 2011

(2entertain) The second series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle will do very little to alter the entrenched opinions on both sides of his critical fence. Those detractors will switch off in their droves at the uncompromising, awkward and…

Interview - EIFF 2011 curator Alan Warner on the films of Jerzy Skolimowski

Deep End, The Shout and The Adventures of Gerard to screen at EIFF

27 May 2011

People started throwing around that name ‘curator’, which gave the impression that Isabella Rossellini and I were ensconced together in a hotel in the south of France devising programmes. Of course, the truth was that I met Mark Cousins in an Edinburgh…

Celebrity memoirs: Rob Lowe, Barbara Sinatra, Stacey Solomon, Judy Golding and Bear Grylls to publish books

13 Apr 2011

While Charlie Sheen implodes in front of the world’s eyes, he could take comfort in the salutary tale of his old Brat Pack boozing buddy Rob Lowe. In 1988, grainy video footage of him having a wild time with two women became the first commercially…

Ken Loach's Route Irish doesn't shy away from asking some tough questions

Mark Womack and John Bishop in Paul Laverty-penned Iraq drama

10 Mar 2011

(15) 104min You can almost feel Ken Loach and Paul Laverty bracing themselves for another critical onslaught by the establishment. It happened to the director/screenwriter duo with their Irish civil war drama The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and it’s…

Series 1 of Gary Tank Commander released on DVD

Greg McHugh' slightly dim, highly camp Edinburgher

2 Feb 2011

(15) 180min (2entertain) The idea of a slightly dim, highly camp Edinburgher in the armed services sounds like it has the potential to be either massively offensive or a spot-on critique of military politics. The ultimately affectionate Gary Tank…

Limmy's Show

The series which brought credibility to BBC Scotland comedy roster

22 Nov 2010

(15) 180min (2entertain) A stoned loner notices peculiar inconsistencies on TV adverts at 4am. A bushy-eyebrowed executive plots his excuses before the local constabulary show up at his office. A paranoid ex-junkie takes offence at the most…

Army of the Dead

Character clichés wheeled out in this torpid affair

22 Nov 2010

(18) 89min (Kaleidoscope) Of all the legions of scary monsters and super creeps, walking skeletons have to be the most rubbish. Ray Harryhausen managed to make them pretty threatening in Jason and the Argonauts and the bony ghouls from Pirates of…

31 North 62 East

Ham-fisted and unwise affair

2 Nov 2010

(15) 99min (Kaleidoscope) Would you trust a Prime Minister who is a cross between John Prescott and Boris Yeltsin? This and several other lumpen creations are offered up in a ham-fisted attempt to point the finger at government agencies who…

Jaguar Lives!

22 Sep 2010

(12) 87min (Arrow) Some movies are deemed so bad as to be actually good. Others are simply plain old bad bad. Jaguar Lives! bends the rules, rewrites the book and creates its very own category of god-awful. The Jaguar (Joe Lewis) is a globetrotting…

The Perfect Sleep

24 Aug 2010

(15) 101min (Icon) Had the makers of this movie concentrated more on the main product and less on an amusing viral campaign, The Perfect Sleep might not have wound up such a yawnsome affair. Gary Oldman and Bono were both filmed advising people, in…

Newsmakers

Siege thriller keeps action and outrage flowing

23 Jul 2010

(18) 105min (Showbox) Based on Johnnie To’s 2004 Hong Kong action thriller, this Russian remake (from Swedish director Anders Banke) is an admirable effort. As a bunch of ruthless gangsters go on the rampage across the country, Russian law…

American: The Bill Hicks Story

12 May 2010

(15) 106min When Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in February 1994, he left a void which the American stand-up world has found impossible to fill. The son of Southern Baptists, this comedy preacher succumbed to his addictions at the age of 32…

The Level

28 Apr 2010

(18) 87min (Brightspark) Quentin Tarantino might have an awful lot to answer for, but perhaps even he can’t be blamed for the appalling effort that is The Level. ‘Written’ and ‘directed’ by the Crook Brothers (Josh and Jeff), it contains some of the…