Issue 596

Savage Grace - interview with Julianne Moore

Glasgow Film Festival

Since coming to the public’s attention in Robert Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts, Julianne Moore has built a career on playing roles other starlets would run a mile from. Who else would have the guts to go from playing a porn star in Boogie Nights (a role…

Zurich

On my first visit to Zurich, my Swiss boyfriend dragged me along to the city’s annual Street Parade. I went along expecting a paler version of Berlin’s famous Love Parade and was bowled over by some 800,000 people partying frantically through the city…

Hot Chip

ELECTRO-POP Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 26 Feb ‘I guess we’ve always been outsiders,’ says Felix Martin, one fifth of geeky electro-pop outfit Hot Chip. ‘I think that comes across in our music. We seem to be unique, we’ve never felt closely related to…

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - interview with Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy

Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has spawned countless adaptations since its publication in 1885. The stage play ran for 20 years and there have been numerous film versions, with stars as diverse as Fredric March, Spencer Tracy and…

Woody Allen - Cassandra's Dream

Glasgow Film Festival

With those thick-rimmed glasses, that wisp of brown hair and the deeply cut grooves in his forehead, Woody Allen owns one of the most iconic faces in American cinema. These days, at 72, it’s a little more wizened and walnut-like – presumably from all…

Restaurants in Edinburgh’s Old Town

There have always been bars with ideas above their station when it comes to food, and there have always been restaurants with the notion that their bar area can be both a bit on the side and the hippest hangout in town. It’s not often that both are…

Dillinger Escape Plan

Most bands have their share of bad luck. Dillinger Escape Plan have their share and others’ too. The New Jersey noisecore troupe’s misfortunes include: five years between debut and sophomore albums, approximately seven line-up changes (songwriter and…

Daniel Jackson

The smell of burnt toast and old carpet, the familiar Sunday re-runs of popular television shows glinting from the screen in the corner, the dreich weather outside... there’s something about the home people shared with parents in the earliest years of…

Fairtrade Fortnight

Hey! You there! Traipsing about in your fashionable budget high street coat, sipping at your chainstore coffee! This is your conscience calling! Since 1996, the ever-expanding, UK-wide Fairtrade Fortnight has been nagging Scotland’s consumers to put…

There Will be Blood

EPIC/DRAMA (15) 158min As the American industrialist Jean Paul Getty noted, ‘Oil is like a wild animal. Whoever finds it keeps it.’ It’s a notion that lone silver prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) soon discovers when he finds black gold…

Star Gazers

Blow the budget Celeb spotting? How very 90s. For seriously cool star-gazing, you need to head south, to the Pic Du Midi. This mountain in the Pyrenees is famous for its observatory; among its collection of telescopes is a 106-cm whopper which was…

Crazy Love - interview with Don Klores

Glasgow Film Festival

Crazy Love isn’t your everyday romantic comedy: boy meets girl, boy loses girl and arranges for hoods to throw acid in her face, boy goes to jail, then re-emerges to marry the very same girl. Arguably the darkest date movie ever, Dan Klores’ new film…

DJ Format

Three years since the last album and having apparently denounced hip hop while throwing himself headlong into DJing and re-editing duties you might be surprised to find that DJ Format, aka Southampton-born Brightonian Matt Ford, has been quietly…

Mark Millar

Despite being one of the most successful writers of comics ever, Mark Millar still resides in Coatbridge. Like most UK writers he earned his stripes on 2000AD. ‘The older guys like Grant Morrison, Pete Milligan, Alan Grant and John Wagner had all…

Chinese New Year

It’s the Year of the Rat, and Scotland is celebrating. See page 9 for other events in the nationwide China Now project, or just mosey on down to Kelvingrove Museum for a day of music dance and craft. Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow, Tue 19…

Retro technology

In some ways Jack Black and Mos Def’s new film Be Kind Rewind (see our review on page 46) highlights the end of an era for old technology such as the VHS. Today it’s hard to imagine DVD disappearing completely and being replaced by Blu-Ray and HD DVDs…

Nick Evans and Tony Swain

It seems Paul Nesbit can do no wrong at Inverleith House in the Botanic Gardens. The curator has a back catalogue of excellent exhibitions under his belt, having shown work by some of the most respected national and international artists. Following a…

Taste Test - Hot breakfast sarnies

Sausage & egg sandwich, £4 Always Sunday, 170 High Street, Edinburgh, 0131 622 0667 While Always Sunday’s statuesque, custom-made breakfast sandwich is evidently quality produce, the £4 price tag, and impracticality when it comes to trying to keep…

Baby Bible Bashers

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4, Thu 14 Feb, 9pm; repeated Tue 19 Feb, 11.05pm It never fails to chill the blood to see people who claim to be working on behalf of the little baby Jesus with banners denouncing everyone from liars to homosexuals and adulterers…

Burlescapades! Valentine Venetian Masked Ball

BURLESQUE The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Fri 15 Feb ‘Some of the acts will have a Valentine’s theme, some a Venetian, and others a bit of both. We even have a pillow fight,’ laughs burlesque performer and Burlescapades! organiser Lily White. ‘It’s not…

Retro websites

www.aquarterof.com From Anglo Bubbly and Wham! bars to foiled chocolate cups and Space Dust, this website is a joy to behold for those of us nostalgic for long-forgotten treats. Oh, to return to the days when a two pence Highland toffee was the size…

Jo Caulfield

STAND-UP The Stand, Glasgow, Thu 14–Sat 16 Feb Jo Caulfield knows that it’s good to let off some steam now and again. On her website, she allows her fans to rant on her Angry and Annoyed page. Among the more recent complaints was the woman who gets…

Camilla Low: Straight Letters

SCULPTURE DCA, Dundee, until Sun 30 Mar Despite receiving her education at Glasgow School of Art, this is the first major solo exhibition in the UK by Norwegian sculptor Camilla Low. With this in mind it’s fortunate that a venue the size of the DCA is…

Glasgow Film Festival - LGBT

LGBT CINEMA Various venues and times, Thu 14–Sun 24 Feb From early, openly queer flicks such as Victim, through the work of landmark filmmakers Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant, to the recent mainstream success of Ang Lee’s Brokeback…

Food For Thought

I love to start the day with a breakfast of a greasy fry-up from a local café in Holloway where I live. I’m spending a lot of time on the road just now, so lunch is usually a cheeseburger from McDonalds. I’d love to say I eat healthy sandwiches with…