Issue 587

Of Mice and Men

(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…

Don Paterson - The Blind Eye

Comic aphorisms

The Blind Eye is another delightful rendering of Dundee Don Paterson’s graceful ability to shift between the high brow and the pop cult with Game Boys and The Simpsons rubbing shoulders up against Orpheus and Auden. Never dull, often flighty, Paterson…

Hitist - the best events, talks and sport

Illuminating Links A day of community activity commemorating the rebirth of Glasgow’s historic canal quarter. As well as kayaking, local bands and boat rides, the day culminates in a parade of spectacular floating lanterns by Scottish artist Graeme…

Michael Harvey - The Chicago Way

Crime drama

Purported by his own press material to do ‘what Elmore Leonard did for Detroit and Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles’, Michael Harvey is unlikely to join that esteemed noir canon any time soon. Yet, with this brisk and engaging debut thriller, he’s…

Nicolas de Crecy - Glacial Period

Graphic novel

Being branded an enfant terrible is too often faint praise for some artists but it poses no problems for Nicolas De Crécy who goes to great pains not to conform to stereotypical comic boy clichés and in doing so has produced a distinct body of work that…

Stan Tracey Orchestra

Jazz

Stan Tracey turned 80 this year, and is still going strong. Everyone does it now, but the pianist was a pioneer in setting up his own record label, Steam, in the 1970s. ReSteamed is dedicated to re-releasing classic but long unavailable recordings…

Daimh - album review

The addition of Lewis-born Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan to their well-established instrumental line-up has added a new dimension to the music of Dàimh, a band with roots in the West Highlands, but a personnel that includes an American (fiddler…

Alice Sebold - The Almost Moon

Suburban tale

‘When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.’ With that opening sentence, Alice Sebold tells you all you need to know about her long-anticipated follow-up to The Lovely Bones. The subject matter – matricide and mental illness – is just as…

Document 5

The International Human Rights Film Festival is now, amazingly, in its fifth year. This year’s programme looks set to keep up the very high standards of previous outings. Opening film The Mother’s House details, in sometimes raw and over powering detail…

Labyrinth of Passion

(18) 94min (Tartan/DVD Retail) SCREWBALL MELODRAMA It was with this, Pedro Almodovar’s second film, made in 1982, that the brand of melodrama which has become known as ‘Almodorama’ – essentially a combination of melodrama and screwball comedy…

Fuyomi Kuono - Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

Historical manga

Set ten years after the US dropped the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb on Hiroshima, decimating the city, these two stories follow the lives of the Hibakusha (‘explosion-affected people’). ‘The first story, ‘Town of Evening Calm’, details the descent into…

Jonathan Trigell - Cham

Mystery Thriller

Snowsports are gnarly and the Romantic poets were rad so why not have them meet on common ground (the ski resort of Chamonix; Shelley’s Mont-Blanc) and add in a serial rapist for good measure? After winning the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2004 with Boy…

Manji

(Yume Pictures) 90min DRAMA As strange as it is sensual, Yasuzo Masumura’s 1964 melodramatic sizzler Manji succeeds in being various things to different people. At its best, it casts a visceral eye upon the codes of a sexual culture which would…

Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson - The Boys

Superhero

Garth Ennis, the bad boy British writer responsible for the controversial series’ Preacher and Transmetropolitan, puts the boot into the iconoclastic superhero strip sub-genre. The first six issues, collected here, introduce the titular CIA-backed…

Max Roach - album review

The recent death of master drummer Max Roach has prompted the re-release of one of his most famous recordings, the epic Freedom Now Suite from 1960. Roach wrote the music in the midst of the civil rights campaign, and if his searing demand for justice…

Win Cowboy Junkies tickets

Rather than contenting themselves with revisiting past glories, Cowboy Junkies, 20 years into their career, decided to return to the church in Toronto, where they recorded their groundbreaking album The Trinity Sessions in 1988, and push things forward.

Karen Dunbar

1 She was a Girl Guide in Glasgow, and remains an Ambassador for the organisation. Other Scottish Ambassadors are Susan Hampshire, Charles Kennedy and David Steel. Can’t quite get my head round that one. 2 ABBA’s ‘Fernando’ is her favourite karaoke…

Future of the Left - album review

Rock

When people refer to bands as ‘underrated’ it mostly means they were often too weird, too unfashionable or too good for the general populace to care about. For Mclusky, who tragically imploded in 2005, it was a case of all three and subsequent output…

Andrew Weatherall - album review

Rockabilly

Stemming from the more natural dancefloor territory of Soma’s Sci-Fi Hi-Fi series, this new brand allows name DJs the opportunity to delve into the more eclectic areas of their collection. First up, then, is Andrew Weatherall’s rockabilly set, and it’s…

Stereophonics - album review

Indie rock

Although rock’s snootiest critics might have it that The Stereophonics are one of the most blasphemous and superannuated crimes ever inflicted on music, it’s hard to underestimate the value of giving a fanbase what they want. Certainly, the band’s…

Jack Peñate - album review

Indie

Despite lazy comparisons to fellow Londoners Lily Allen, Kate Nash and Jamie T, Jack Peñate sounds like nothing like his peers. This Blackheath-born boy has got soul – you can hear it in his heartfelt delivery – and when combined with incredibly…

Edwyn Collins - album review

Soul blues folk

Although recorded prior to his near fatal double cerebral haemorrhage in 2005, Edwyn Collins’ sixth solo long player can’t help but resonate more poignantly in light of everything the ex-Orange Juice frontman has been through. At one stage he looked…

Scots film talent among Venice award-winners

A film which made its premiere at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival has been awarded one of the Venice Film Festival’s most prestigious awards. Dog Altogether, starring Peter Mullan and co-produced by Glasgow’s Sigma films, was awarded…