Issue 573

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…

French Flm Festival Round-up

11 Apr 2007

It’s that time of year again when the great and the good who coordinate the national French Film festival unleash their wares on those Francophiles among us. Taking in four Scottish cities (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen) this three week…

DVD - Round-up

DVD Round-up

11 Apr 2007

‘When April winds/Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush’ - (that’s American poet William Cullen Bryant in case you wondered) - our thoughts turn to female space warriors. Well, just one really, the one they call Ripley. The proto feminist hammerhead…

Bollywood Round-up

11 Apr 2007

Set in Mauritius Ajay Chandok’s Nehlle Pe Dehlla (12A) 125min (1 Star) is a reworking of the 1989 US comedy hit Weekend at Bernie’s. Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt mark time amongst the slow motion shots of lycra clad Bollywood babes, practising aerobics…

Also Released

11 Apr 2007

Perfect Stranger (15) 108min (3 Stars) Investigative reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) thinks that her friend’s murder might be connected to powerful ad executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) and so goes undercover with the help of Miles Hailey…

Playlist

11 Apr 2007

The effectiveness of ‘intertainment depends on fast streaming times and high-bandwidths that allow the onscreen action to flow, and animation lends itself particularly well to the technical limitations of casual net viewing. Among all the endless animé…

Curse Of The Golden Flower

(15) 114min

11 Apr 2007

EPIC DRAMA/WAR Zhang Yimou’s third martial arthouse adventure is less action oriented than the co-writer and director’s last, House of Flying Daggers, but even more ravishing in visual terms than his first stab at the genre, Hero. At heart Curse of…

DVD - Spike Lee Box Set

Spike Lee Box Set

11 Apr 2007

DIRECTOR COLLECTION Spike Lee was 50 on March 20 and this nine disc box set has been released to celebrate the occasion. It is an odd collection that reeks of commercialism with the films - School Daze, Do The Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle…

Pathfinder

(15) 100min

11 Apr 2007

A remake of the excellent 1987 Norwegian outdoors adventure about a lone boy’s efforts to save his tribe from a band of marauding killers in frozen Lapland 1000 years ago, Pathfinder relocates the action to America centuries before Columbus discovered…

The Lives Of Others

(12A) 138 mins

11 Apr 2007

The masterful debut feature of writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others is the first major German film to examine the activities of the Stasi in the former East Germany. Where the likes of Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye Lenin!

Reign Over Me

11 Apr 2007

It’s interesting to note that the more serious the role Adam Sandler plays the more he looks like Bob Dylan. Last time he wiped the smile off his own face was in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love but that was only an aperitif for this turn as a…

Shooter

(15) 125min

11 Apr 2007

ACTION/THRILLER More adventures for Mark Wahlberg at the frontline of flawed American foreign policy. Here he swaps the Iraqi desert of Three Kings for the African coast. When a mission ends with the death of his best mate and spotter (the human…

Alpha Dog

11 Apr 2007

Justin Timberlake’s inauspicious lead role in straight to-landfill clunker Edison proved once again that global pop stardom doesn’t necessarily equate with matinee idol status. Yet the trouser snake acquits himself surprisingly well in Alpha Dog, a…

Unknown

(15) 85min

11 Apr 2007

THRILLER Five guys (Barry Pepper, Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano and Jeremy Sisko) wake up in an abandoned warehouse. It’s obvious that some of them hate each other as one of them is handcuffed and another bound. Unfortunately they’re…

The Reaping

(15) 96min

11 Apr 2007

HORROR What the hell is Hilary Swank playing at? This glossy, but in all other ways substandard supernatural chiller is the kind of by-the-numbers chick horror flick that Sandra Bullock churns out periodically, not what you’d expect a two-time Oscar…

DVD - Bridging The Gap: Lies

Bridging The Gap: Lies

11 Apr 2007

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS This collection of short documentaries from the all too often undervalued and under funded Scottish Documentary Institute serves as a welcome taster for the excellent work executed by this organisation. The best of the films here…

Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise Of The Black Panther

11 Apr 2007

Taking its cues from Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, Marvel returns to the animated world with the second part of their Ultimate Avengers series. The alien menace has now reached Africa and is threatening the small but technically advanced nation of…

DVD - Romeo, Juliet and Darkness

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness

11 Apr 2007

ROMANCE Jirí Weiss’ fine 1960 film is a tale of moral ambivalence and youthful idealism. Set in 1942 Czechoslovakia at a time when the Nazis were occupying the country and the Jews were hounded out of it. Pavel (Ivan Mistrík) falls in love with…

Karas

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD From the opening battle sequence, the action scenes in Karas are a retina-searing blend of CGI and slick animation with dazzling sci-fi imagery and videogame aesthetics. Edited at a dizzyingly fast pace, it’s just a shame that when the action…

Golgo 13: The Professional

11 Apr 2007

DVD A kind of nascent animé James Bond, the re-release of this 1983 action film was based on the long-running Manga comic of the same name. When taciturn, Asian super-assassin Golgo 13 is hired to bump off a Mafia boss, the job leads him up an alley…

Hellboy

Comics

11 Apr 2007

DVD The first of three feature length television cartoons adapted from Mike Mignola’s marvellous comic book series, Sword of Storms takes Hellboy and his Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence colleagues east to Japan where they duke it out with a…

DVD - Twelve and Holding

Twelve and Holding

11 Apr 2007

COMING OF AGE DRAMA When a prank goes horribly wrong with one boy being burned alive in a tree house, his closest allies cope with the loss in their own ways. The dead lad’s brother Jacob, born with a massive birthmark, goes on a mission to make the…

Property - House rules

House rules

10 Apr 2007

With property prices continuing to soar and half of UK buyers reportedly being forced out of the market, buying a home has never been costlier or more nerve-wracking. But take heart, The List’s reporters have scoured the country and consulted the…

Triptych - The Originals

The Originals

10 Apr 2007

Triptych festival returns for five days of mind-expanding music, DJing and film. As always, the weighty bill is sprinkled with some of the visionaries of modern music. Here we highlight five of the pioneers performing and reveal just how much worse off…

Life & Style - Travel

A passage to India

10 Apr 2007

I’m sitting enjoying the shade of the imposing Lakshmana temple on a hot and dry day in Khajuraho when a party of Japanese tourists interrupts my peace. The small group stands bunched around one corner of the intricately adorned building, giggling into…

Burlesque

Hello Kittie

10 Apr 2007

Frequently hailed as ‘the Queen of British Burlesque’, 25-year-old Kittie Klaw is at the forefront of the international burlesque renaissance. She is a founder of the Ministry of Burlesque which this month presents High Tease in Glasgow. She tells her…

Life & Style - Eating & Drinking Guide sneak preview

A taste of things to come

10 Apr 2007

The 14th edition of our annual Eating & Drinking Guide will be given away free with the next issue of The List. Here we offer a small sample of what to expect from more than 800 completely revised entries, excerpting reviews of some of the most…

Art Attack

News

10 Apr 2007

Four of the world’s leading graffiti artists from Brazil are teaming up with Scottish talent to decorate the walls and turrets of the south side of Kelburn Castle, on the west coast, 35 miles from Glasgow, in a project aimed at challenging the public’s…

Life & Style - Play - Alien nation

Alien nation

10 Apr 2007

So it’s finally here, after a four month delay, a barrage of negative press, and spiralling development costs, but was the PS3 worth the wait? Initial sales figures suggest so. Sony managed to sell 600,000 units across Europe in the first week alone and…

News - One Minute Wonder

Wild things

10 Apr 2007

Words: Allan Radcliffe Five finalists have been selected for One Minute Wonder, The List and Metro Ecosse’s competition to track down the best new film writing talent. Back in January, aspiring writers with a passion for film were asked to submit a…

Indian Summer Programme Announced

News

10 Apr 2007

The organisers of Indian Summer, one of the highlights of last year’s Scottish musical calendar, have unveiled the first wave of their 2007 programme. The Flaming Lips (pictured), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Rapture and Annuals are among the bands…

Life & Style - Excess Baggage

Excess Baggage

10 Apr 2007

Watch out for a rocky few months in the shrink-wrapped world of the package holiday. The proliferation of cheap flight websites turning consumers into armchair travel agents has hit the ‘big four’ travel agents rather hard of late. Thomas Cook and…

Life & Style - Play - Formula One Championship Edition

Formula One Championship Edition (Sony)

10 Apr 2007

PS3 Unless you’re blessed with the cat-like dexterity of everyone’s favourite square-jawed Scot, chances are you’ll appreciate the help that Sony are trying to give in their latest racer. Unlike Mr Coulthard, most of us were born with fat chipolatas…

Life & Style - Play - Motorstorm

Motorstorm (Evolution Studios)

10 Apr 2007

PS3 Mud. That’s apparently what next-gen is all about. Granted, this may not be the most ringing endorsement for drawing £425 from your bank account, but bear with us. You see, this isn’t just any old mud, oh no. It’s gloriously unpredictable…

Life & Style - Play - Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic The Hedgehog (Sega)

10 Apr 2007

PS3 Remember the days when all Sonic had to worry about was running through shiny gold rings and traversing the occasional loop-the-loop? Well now he’s got a lot more to contend with. Other than rescuing his - disturbingly - human girlfriend, Sonic…

Literary Festival

News

10 Apr 2007

Louis De Bernieres, Iain Banks (pictured) and Lionel Shriver, Rhona Cameron and Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble are among the artists appearing at this year’s WORD Festival, which takes place at the University of Aberdeen and venues across the granite…

Life & Style - Play - The Web

Film

10 Apr 2007

One website that really lives up to its name, Bloody-disgusting.com is the one stop shop for all the best in horror movie news, reviews and interviews. From the mainstream to the underground, daily updated news for all the gore fans and horror heads out…

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds that with modern comedy ther

9 Apr 2007

The folk at ITV were not too keen on letting episodes of Get a Grip (STV, Wed 18 Apr, 10pm, 1 Star) find their way into journalists’ hands before the first episode went on air. The reason given was that the show was so darned topical that Ben Elton and…

The Proclaimers

The Sunshine Boys

9 Apr 2007

After 20 years in the entertainment business, The Proclaimers, otherwise known as Craig and Charlie Reid, have a special place in the Scottish psyche. Their songs, from the joyous exuberance of ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)’, to the celebratory yet quietly…

Silicon Scally

Scallywag

9 Apr 2007

Carl Finlow aka Random Factor aka Silicon Scally has worked with all the greats in electronic music. In fact, he is one of the greats himself. Along with Ralph Lawson he was responsible for the highly revered 2020Vision remixes; he’s worked with some of…

Ewan Morrison

Lord of the swings

9 Apr 2007

Early on in Swung, messed-up protagonist David is fired via email from within his own office. This would be bad enough were it not sent in the font which David himself had created to somehow soften the blow for those at the end of a sacking. But surely…

Acoustic Ladyland

Are you experienced?

9 Apr 2007

Acoustic Ladyland may have drawn their inspiration from music that first blasted ears four decades ago, but their scorching aural assault has broadened considerably from the quartet’s initial acerbic fusion of Jimi Hendrix, post-Coltrane free jazz and…

Beltane Fire Festival

Eternal flame

9 Apr 2007

(Photo: © Two Truths) In 1988, a small group of enthusiasts, led by Angus Farquhar of industrial rockers Test Dept, approached the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, for funding. They wanted to stage an outdoor performance…

Nan Hoover and Nina Könnemann

Sex, Art and Videotape

9 Apr 2007

Early experiments in film by artists remind us that the birth of psychoanalysis and cinema happened at almost exactly the same time, with surrealists adding hermetically sealed packages of poetic and suggestive images to narrative cinema.

Fergus Lamont

Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline, Wed 11 Oct, then touri

9 Apr 2007

ADAPTATION The question of what precisely it means to be Scottish, of where and from whom a nation’s sense of itself derives, are bound to be at the forefront of public discourse over the next few months. Gerry Mulgrew’s production for Communicado…

Mission in Action Fashion Fundraiser

Mission In Action Fashion Show

9 Apr 2007

Fashion Fundraiser ‘Living in this country, we’ve just got no concept of how hard it is for people out there,’ says Annalese McDermott, director of Edinburgh modelling agency Stolen, and co-founder of the UK branch of Mission in Action. Mission in…

Records - Singles & Downloads

Singles & Downloads

9 Apr 2007

(Herman Dune) It’s compare and contrast week at List Towers, so first up are a brace of female singers, and there couldn’t be more contrast between Amy Winehouse and Melanie C. The former’s ‘Back to Black’ (Island, 4 Stars) is a gorgeous, melancholic…

Man of La Mancha

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 20 Apr-Sat 18

9 Apr 2007

MUSICAL Recent times might incite us to pray for leaders who believe in nothing. The zealous idealism of our current crop of proselytising free market politicians, and their monomaniac religious opponents might make us hanker sentimentally after the…

Trashed

Cruz, Edinburgh, Sat 21 Apr

9 Apr 2007

CLUB NIGHT (From left: Morgan, Jon Pleased Wimmin, Slim Boy Fat and Lick It) It is handy that Edinburgh’s gay and gay-friendly clubs, bars and general venues of debauchery are clustered around the Leith Walk area. This means that starting the…

Cold War Kids

QMU, Glasgow, Thu 26 Apr

9 Apr 2007

INDIE ROCK While many of us are quite rightly enthralled by the diversity of the current musical climate and all the breathtaking new bands it has to offer, Cold War Kids, despite being very much part of this climate, seemingly couldn’t care less.