Issue 562

Photo blogging

24 hour photo

31 Oct 2006

YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Flickr . . . you can’t take a stroll around the interweb without bumping into one of the giant, sprawling sites for user-created content. It’s the true essence of the net; you can put music, pictures, videos, writing or…

Alasdair Roberts, Pumajaw and My Kappa Boots

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Thu 26 Oct

30 Oct 2006

FOLK Among a particular breed of Scots folkie, Alasdair Roberts holds somewhat legendary status. His music is more precisely traditional than the updated styles of the Fence Collective-affiliated alt.folkers, yet - under his own name and as the…

Alice Bell

Tron, Glasgow, Thu 2-Sat 4 Nov

30 Oct 2006

NEW WORK Hope seems to be a commodity that much of our theatre is short of these days, particularly when there are political subtexts to be located in the work concerned. It’s gratifying then that the English company, Lone Twin, should venture into…

Be With Me

(12A) 93min

30 Oct 2006

ROMANCE Dominated by static shots, and sparse in dialogue, Singaporean director Eric Khoo’s third feature follows a frustrating arc which is resolved unevenly in the last half hour. Ostensibly it’s three intercut stories - Meant to Be, where an old…

Borat - interview

The cultural ambassador

30 Oct 2006

Borat Sagdiyev strides into the room, leans down and kisses me on both cheeks. His suit is unwashed and has been since he left his job as a spermatozoa extractor of camel. And it smells like it too.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

30 Oct 2006

COMEDY (15) 83min The poorly executed Ali G Indahouse seemed to stymie Sacha Baron Cohen’s big screen ambitions, yet Borat appears set to make him Hollywood’s new Peter Sellers. Forget that unsatisfying turn as Talladega Nights’ Gallic gay…

Breaking and Entering

(15) 120min

30 Oct 2006

DRAMA Urban alienation among disillusioned middle-class thirtysomethings is a popular theme in film these days. In Anthony Minghella’s largely refreshing take on the subject, a number of disconnected individuals are connected or re-connected by a…

Comic recovering after attack

30 Oct 2006

We at The List are relieved to hear that popular stand-up and regular host at Edinburgh’s The Stand, Bruce Devlin, is making a speedy recovery following a brutal, unprovoked attack by a group of teenagers. Devlin, who has won countless admirers as…

David Shrigley

Scrawl right

30 Oct 2006

It’s hard not to love the work of David Shrigley. Maybe it’s just the impatient scrawling, or his ability to capture the grotesque with stark monochrome. Or maybe it’s the fact that they can make you smile and feel sad at the same time.

Deborah Francois - profile

Profile

30 Oct 2006

Name Deborah François Born Liege, Belgium, 1987 Background As a 16-year-old schoolgirl, François attended an open casting for the Dardenne Brothers film The Child in her Belgian hometown. Ahead of 150 other hopefuls, she was given the role of…

Domino dancing in the streets

30 Oct 2006

Pet Shop Boys and Paolo Nutini to headline capital hogmanay celebrations. Words: Allan Radcliffe

Eros

(15) 105min

30 Oct 2006

TRIPTYCH On paper the prospect of three internationally feted directors each contributing to a trilogy of half hour films about erotic love might seem an enticing prospect, but this portmanteau project veers from the sublime to the…

Face to face

Alexander Kennedy is touched, terrified and tormented by a major new study of the face in contemporary photography.

30 Oct 2006

A face is a mask, is a lie. The face acts as a permeable membrane, a negotiated zone between the subject and the object, outside and in. In William A Ewing’s book Face: The New Photographic Portrait, we are presented with evidence of this postmodern…

Frozen

North Edinburgh Arts Centre, then touring until Sat 11 Dec

30 Oct 2006

SCOTTISH PREMEIRE From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s seriously scary child catchers, who genuinely haunted you as a child, to tragic real life news stories like that of Sarah Payne, which disturb you throughout adulthood, the subject of the suffering of…

Grapevine

Plucking fruits from the cultural bush

30 Oct 2006

A busy boy is old Brad Pitt these days. Among his many ongoing projects are a movie about Richard Nixon entitled Dirty Tricks in which he is joined by Sharon Stone, Jim Broadben t and Gwyneth Paltrow while Mr Jolie is also set to star in a movie version…

Hitlist

30 Oct 2006

The best rock, pop, jazz and folk CSS, 1990s and The Rogers Sisters Wild, electro-charged Brazilians. ABC, Glasgow, Tue 7 Nov. (Rock & Pop) Read feature The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band The great unsung 60s comic-pop madrigals return led by urban…

Hitlist

The best theatre and dance

30 Oct 2006

Frozen Michael Emans’ production for Rapture tells the story of a woman understandably obsessed with the loss of her child, and the serial killer who murdered her. Bryoney Laverey’s play examines the human side, perhaps surprisingly, of both characters.

Hitlist

The best books, comics and events

30 Oct 2006

Rupert Everett The louche chap has been attacking Hollywood and Starbucks lately and is now swooping on our cities to chat about the business of show. Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Thu 9 Nov; Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, Mon 13 Nov.

Hitlist

The best film and DVD releases

30 Oct 2006

Man Push Cart Ramin Bahrani’s precious US indie about a Pakistani coffee vendor in post 9/11 New York finally gets a Scottish release. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 10-Mon 13 Nov only.

Krisana (Fallen)

Krisana (Fallen)

30 Oct 2006

DRAMA Shot on digital video in high-contrast black-and-white, this uncompromising existential parable from German auteur Fred Kelemen (Frost, Abendland) concerns a lonely Latvian archivist Matiss (Egons Dombrovskis), who is consumed by guilt at…

Kristana - interview

Digital existential

30 Oct 2006

‘The starting point for Krisana was the atmosphere of the city of Riga. I’d spent time there in the past when I was teaching at the Latvian film academy. For me it was a place full of cinematographic images and very attractive, even if it was quite…

Laura Hird

Mum's the word

30 Oct 2006

The image of the self-obsessed author hammering away at their keyboard in pursuit of their own fame and fortune is not one which Laura Hird would readily recognise. While she may not have produced a book since Born Free in 1999, the Edinburgh writer has…

Leech

Sucking the blood of popular entertainment

30 Oct 2006

It’s been said of Glasgow recently, that ‘when the sun goes down, the feral boys come out’. And the Leech, for one, welcomes our new nocturnal rodent overlords. Readership of this column among Non-Educated Delinquents has ensured fewer List employees…

Man Push Cart

(15) 86min

30 Oct 2006

PORTRAIT/DRAMA If, as legendary CBS sportscaster Heywood Hale Broun (who, incidentally, died six days before 9/11) once proclaimed, ‘sweat is the cologne of accomplishment’, then Ahmad positively pongs. Between the New York refreshment cart, bootleg…

Mary Gauthier

30 Oct 2006

That her name is pronounced Go-Shay is only the first of many things wonderfully peculiar about this Louisana-born country singer. She was the definition of late starter in some senses, only recorded her first album at 35 but by then she had collected…