Issue 592

Rihanna

13 Dec 2007

Girls Aloud know it, Leona Lewis knows it, and even Franz Ferdinand know it – great pop is hard to beat. America’s most recent answer to our successful crop has to be Rihanna, whose infectious ‘Umbrella’ dominated the UK charts and playlists for months…

Extras

13 Dec 2007

For all his faults (and his stand-up and radio work make them plentiful), Ricky Gervais at least knows when a TV comedy should bow out. Having clocked off at The Office with 12 episodes and a Christmas special, he has opted for the same strategy with…

Hogmanay in Glasgow and Edinburgh 2008

13 Dec 2007

Kirstin Innes looks at the options for celebrating Hogmanay in Glasgow this year while Allan Radcliffe discovers the traditional meeting the contemporary in a diverse programme of events for the capital’s Hogmanay.

Hot 100 - 2007's hottest talent

13 Dec 2007

Scottish culture has shone in 2007, and so have Scottish stars. Throughout the year we have been working tirelessly to spot the hottest talent out there. We also invited you to nominate the people, places and events you think have made the greatest…

I'm Not There - interview with Todd Haynes

13 Dec 2007

Todd Haynes is an artist who knows about shedding skins. The director originally came to prominence as part of the New Queer Cinema movement, a group that reacted to the arrival of AIDS by making films that investigated its impact on gay America. Now…

Review of the year - music

13 Dec 2007

The year kicked off in vitriolic style with The Hold Steady at the Cathouse. Now the paunchy book and vinyl nerds have a god to worship. Bow down people, here’s Craig Finn. Similar idolatry occurred at Barrowland for LCD Soundsystem ’s umpteenth show in…

Review of the year - clubs

13 Dec 2007

We can’t look back on 2007 without mentioning two of the biggest (but very different) clubs in Scotland reaching their tenth birthday. Optimo (pictured) have continued to plough their own furrow of weird goodness as Twitch and Wilkes forge ahead with…

Review of the year - songs

13 Dec 2007

The List’s crack team of music critics pick the songs that floated their boat in 2007 Ida Maria ‘Oh My God’ Iggy Pop meets Björk meets Janis Joplin from this feisty Norwegian. The Horrors ‘ Little Victories’ Inspired, bellowing from under the…

It's a Wonderful Life

(U) 130min

13 Dec 2007

You know Christmas has arrived when Frank Capra’s perennial festive season favourite receives its annual reissue. The 1947 classic is one of the most inspirational films of all time, as well as being a fine romance, a terrific comedy and genuine…

Les Chansons d’Amour - review

Musical/comedy

13 Dec 2007

MUSICAL/ROMANCE LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR (LOVE SONGS) (15) 100min In Les Chansons d’amour Christophe Honoré uses the great French filmmaker Jacques Demy’s 1964 film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as a template, splitting his musical romance into three…

Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim

13 Dec 2007

ROCK (EMI) Released to loosely accompany the Icelandic outfit’s superb recent film, Heima, this two-CD album is a revelation. The Hvarf half contains outtakes and rarities from 12 years of full-band studio sessions and is full of the sumptuous epic…

The Kite Runner

(12A) 127min

13 Dec 2007

This adaptation of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini’s popular novel arrives in cinemas trailed by the news that its two young stars have been evacuated out of Afghanistan by the film’s producers, for fear of reprisals from still active Sunni…

Glasvegas - preview

13 Dec 2007

Alan McGee calls these boys and girls: ‘the best Glasgow band since The Jesus and Mary Chain.’ and he should know given his track record. The retrophiles released their debut single ‘Daddy’s Gone’ last month so time for a bit of a celebration at regular…

Review of the year - comedy

13 Dec 2007

Stewart Lee Becoming a father should be a big enough deal in anyone’s year, but British comedy’s bossman also scooped the number 41 slot in Channel 4’s stand-up comic poll. And boy, did he make hay from that, conjuring the Fringe’s comedy highlight in…

Princesses (Princesas)

(18) 113min

13 Dec 2007

Madrid-born and bred filmmaker Fernando León Aranoa confirms himself as Spain’s answer to Ken Loach with this affecting but unsentimental, gritty but humorous drama about a pair of prostitutes eking out a living in the Spanish capital. Just as Aranoa’s…

Stockholm and Reykjavik

13 Dec 2007

Let there be light As the largest metropolis in the biggest of the Nordic countries Stockholm proudly lays claim to be the capital of Scandinavia. Yet, the city – essentially a collection of small islands which collide at the point where the Baltic in…

Comedy DVDs

13 Dec 2007

DVD Marcus Brigstocke: Planet Corduroy The Show The erudite satirist rails against the injustices of the world in London’s Shaw Theatre, analysing how tough it must be to live life as a corduroy-loving middle-class white chap. The Extras A stirring…

Review of the year - visual art

13 Dec 2007

In a year that’s brought the best work by Picasso and Warhol to our doors, this has otherwise been a relatively quiet one for Scottish visual art. Everybody got on with what they did best. In the capital the first Edinburgh Art Festival took place under…

Review of the year - TV

13 Dec 2007

The Sopranos David Chase’s cryptic diner finale wasn’t to all tastes, but the doubters were, obviously, just plain wrong. TV won’t ever be the same with Tony’s passing. Life on Mars Seems that some weren’t that keen on how the curtain was brought…

Big Country - 5 reasons to go see

13 Dec 2007

1 It’s been a long time since they rock’n’rolled In actual fact, it’s been seven years since the band hit a stage, and a full 25 years since the Dunfermline outfit formed from the ashes of The Skids. Based around singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, the…

Wedgwood the Restaurant - review

13 Dec 2007

Edinburgh is a tourist city, and for restaurants that’s both a blessing and a curse. Tourists are hundreds of thousands of extra diners appearing at their collective door each year; look too closely to them, however, and you’ll be disparaged for…

Review of the year - video games

13 Dec 2007

What promised to be a rather mundane year in gaming turned out to be a surprising 12 months. Two lessons were learned in 2007: firstly, discount Nintendo’s infectious innovation at your peril. And secondly, punters can’t get enough of imaginative…

Elaine C Smith - 5 things you might not know about her

13 Dec 2007

1 In 1987, the Baillieston-born actress appeared in the kids show Dramarama in an episode entitled ‘My Mum’s a Courgette.’ 2 Her most recent Beeb appearance was in Jennifer Saunders’ ill-fated Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. Fortunately, Smith…

Christmas turkeys

13 Dec 2007

Jamie at Home Christmas Special He may be trying to save us from rearing a nation of porkers, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to keep plaguing our screens. Out Oliver! Channel 4, Fri 21 Dec, 9pm. Parkinson It’s the final show ever! What took him…

Alex Smoke

13 Dec 2007

The master of intelligent techno and diverse electronica Alex Smoke is putting in a live set as he joins forces with Jim Hutchinson (putting in a DJ set) to launch their Hum + Haw record label. Smoke’s monster techno beast ‘Vaporub’ will be the…

Jazzanova

13 Dec 2007

By now, German production sextet Jazzanova and their wider banner and label Sonar Kollektiv surely need little introduction as sophisticated producer-remixers extraordinaire and exponents of top draw pan-genre releases. But where exactly does Jazzanova…

David Starkey’s Monarchy: The Windsors

13 Dec 2007

With a ‘measured voice of the historian’ and the occasional surreal hand gesture, Dr David Starkey gives us a potted dissection of 130 years of the British regal profession. Scantily digging over the landmarks, quarrels and scandals of UK monarchy from…

Weirding and the Uncanny

13 Dec 2007

Curated by Glasgow School of Art MFA student Levi Haines, and featuring contributors from GSA, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh’s Embassy Gallery and Haines’ native Portland, Oregon, the show is tightly-packed and busy. It’s impossible to retain some…

Sleeping Beauty (King's Theatre, Glasgow)

13 Dec 2007

The pitch It’s time for Princess Beauty to put away childish things, say goodbye to her childhood friend Chester the Jester (aaawwww!) and get ready for some right royal action. Carrion the witch and Norval her son (or is he?) have other ideas, however…

Weird Websites - book review

John Blake

13 Dec 2007

WEB GUIDE JESSICA ASHBY Weird Websites (John Blake) A good few years back, when the web was in its infancy there were tons of books, magazines and guides to the internet. But these seem to have slipped into the shadows of late. Split into topics…

Remote Control: Documentary Reviews

13 Dec 2007

Brian Donaldson uncovers some fine documentaries about daredevils, dancers and daggers There’s a special poignancy about Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel (BBC2, Sun 23 Dec, 9pm) now that we know the subject of the show has since died. The Top Gear…

Alternative Christmas

13 Dec 2007

With both Edinburgh and Glasgow running dedicated Christmas festivals this year, tapping into the festive spirit has never been so easy. The city centres are hoaching with fake snow-capped German market stalls punting mulled wine, and suddenly there’s a…

Derrick Carter - profile

13 Dec 2007

Name: Derrick Carter Occupation Original innovator from the late 80s Chicago House era, still going strong two decades later. Where did it all begin? At the age of nine, so the story goes, at family parties. It was there that Carter would spin…

Open

13 Dec 2007

Inviting 35 international MFA students from Edinburgh College of Art to contribute to this group show, on the proviso that their work is no more than 30cm in width by 200cm in height might be more to do with the limited space available in the Corn…

Letters to eBay - book review

Hodder

13 Dec 2007

Subtitled ‘antics of a virtual prankster’, Letters to eBay is a prime example of a man with way too much time on his hands and ‘obsessive-compulsive tendencies’. A school teacher by day and internet time waster Art Farkas by night, the author scours…

Eeting Beauty

13 Dec 2007

The pitch In the self-referential world of the Pantosphere, baby Bess is the daughter and niece of a celebrated Ugly Sisters double act, while her mother has been asleep for 100 years. Set to suffer the same fate on her own 18th birthday, she is cursed…

Middleton makes moves on Christmas number 1 spot

13 Dec 2007

In a chart awash with X Factor pap and Cliff Richard cast offs, a small unassuming ginger chap from Falkirk has given us a reason to watch Top of the Pops on Christmas Day again. Malcolm Middleton’s festive musical foray, the senstively titled ‘We’re…

Thomas Houseago, A Million Miles Away

13 Dec 2007

It's always suspect to examine the forgotten ‘primitive’ memory of the figurative in Modernism – to return to Modernism's repressed, barely formed ‘wild urges’. When such an attempt is filtered through an ironic, neo-expressionist approach, it’s even…

DJ Funk

13 Dec 2007

Following his riotous performance at the Sub Club in June, Numbers, Monox and Kaput! have invited booty bass bampot DJ Funk back to Glasgow to headline their Hogmanay party. For the uninitiated, Numbers has been operating since 2003 under the mantra…

Old Town Adventure Pack

13 Dec 2007

HISTORIC TRAIL With the Castle at one end and Holyrood Palace at the other, Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is one of the most famous streets in the world. But although the entire Old Town is steeped in history, knowing what to look for inbetween those two…

The Wizard of Oz

13 Dec 2007

The Pitch If we aren’t in Kansas, Toto, Edinburgh makes for a pretty convincing substitute. Dorothy (Denise Hoey) moves from twister to twisted into the surreal world of Oz, where that absolute shoeligan the Wicked Witch of the West (Julie Austin) is…

Cinderella (Pavilion Theatre)

13 Dec 2007

The pitch Poor Cinders: Her life sucks — for one thing, her old boy has married the worst thing since C Difficile. Can she break away from her domestic bondage? Only with help from her friend Buttons and some heathen magic from her fairy godmother. Will…

Riverside development gets underway in Glasgow

13 Dec 2007

The first blocks will be put in place for Glasgow’s much anticipated Riverside Museum this month. The new £74m Museum of Transport on the Clyde will be designed by internationally-renowned architect Zaha Hadid to house the city’s transport and…

Edge presents: The 100 Best Videogames - book review

13 Dec 2007

If you really appreciate the art of videogames there’s only one magazine that matters: Edge, the serious gamer’s magazine that takes a genuinely adult and considered look at gaming culture. So when they produce a top 100 you know it’s likely to be an…

Moves

13 Dec 2007

This exhibition by the New York-based Openended Group, whose members are Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser, explores the moving image. It includes three major works: ‘Pedestrian’, a five screen premiere of ‘Forest’ and new commission from…

Carol Rhodes

13 Dec 2007

The largest survey of Rhodes’ paintings to date, this exhibition covers the past 15 years of her career, exploring the artist’s distinctive approach to landscape and intense investigation into her medium. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art…

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

13 Dec 2007

Much as there’s grumbling about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals across the theatre world, it’s hard to deny their bankability. As the years pass, there might also be a certain nostalgia for such monolithic star vehicles as Joseph and the Amazing…

SL Records Christmas Shindig

13 Dec 2007

Except for booze, baked beans and the occasional book, can you remember what you spent your student loan on? Probably not. Ed Pybus is hardly likely to forget however: his spirited indie label SL Records was launched using funds from a student loan…

Remote Control: Drama & Comedy Reviews

13 Dec 2007

There’s a moment in the Extras finale when Andy Millman shows his disgust that George Michael is appearing in a certain other Christmas comedy. It initially sounds like a joke for its own sake, but you’ll discover it’s based on hard fact when you tune…

Clubbing on Christmas and Boxing Day

13 Dec 2007

Recents discussions here at List Towers brought forth the interesting fact that there isn’t enough hangar space to ground every commercial flight in the world at once, so a certain amount of planes have to keep flying around the clock, even over the…