Issue 639

Versus - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Thu 10 Sep

Take three bands, throw ‘em on a stage before a like-minded audience, mix, match, mess and stir things up occasionally with a mid-set special guest or two, then bask in the cut n’paste none-stop, occasionally erotic cabaret that ensues. This, then, is…

Northern light - Dornoch Castle Hotel

‘One thing we’ve noticed this year,’ says Colin Thompson, owner and manager of the Dornoch Castle Hotel in the Highland tourist haven of Dornoch, ‘is that there have been many more young couples and families staying with us.’ It seems the ‘staycation…

DVD box sets roundup - Vera Lynn, Audrey Hepburn, Monty Python

Let’s hear it for the girls. The East Ham-born ‘Forces Sweetheart’ Vera Lynn was not really known for her work in cinema, but such is the power of nostalgia capitalism that here comes The Vera Lynn Collection (Sony) ●● featuring three patriotic wartime…

Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked

(Viking) Never meet your heroes, we are told, they’re bound to be a disappointment. But what happens when you’re going for a run in a dead-end English seaside town and you bump into an ex-girlfriend who introduces you to your all-time, number one icon?

Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s only published novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is tricky to adapt cinematically, requiring a deft balance between its sparkling wit and the Faustian darkness at its core. As the author himself wrote, ‘man sees his own sins in Dorian, what…

The Avengers - Series 1 & 2

(PG) 1520min (Optimum DVD retail) What joy! Every surviving episode from all six series of the marvelous cult British television show The Avengers, originally broadcast between 1961 and 1969, are to be released on DVD over the course of the next…

Away we go

After Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes takes a turn for the worse with this naff impersonation of an independent American comedy road movie written by publisher and memoirist Dave Eggers and his Mrs (Vendela Vida). Expectant parents Burt (John…

The Agent

Four months after submitting the manuscript of his second novel Black, author Stephen Parker (Stephen Kennedy) decides to pay a visit to his literary agent Alexander Joyce (William Beck). It transpires that the latter is not a fan of the new work, which…

Amsterdamned

(18) 105 min, Dick Maas’ 1988 Dutch thriller with elements of gory horror has the great merit of not taking itself too seriously as it bops along, and adds to that an admirable visual inventiveness about its striking locales. In it, a wetsuited…

Yellowbeard

(12) 96min (Optimum DVD retail) On paper, Mel Damski’s 1983 comedy has everything going for it. With a cast that includes four of the Monty Python crew, as well as Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Peter Boyle and a host of other comedy…

Dynamic: 01 - The Best of DavidLynch.com

(15) 116 min (Scanbox DVD retail) Watching these sketches and skits that were first shown on David Lynch’s subscription-based website, we might think he is the Francis Bacon of film. In his features Lynch is the master of the tension between…

Miss March: Generation Penetration

Crude American teen sex comedy (is there any other kind?) about a kid played by burgeoning talent Zach Cregger who awakens from a four-year coma to hear his once virginal high school sweetheart (Raquel Alessi) is now a centerfold in Playboy. So he and…

Whiteout

Antarctica-based US deputy marshal (Kate Beckinsale) must investigate the frozen continent’s first murder before winter begins, but dealings with a UN operative (Gabriel Macht), also investigating the murder, making things complicated. Directed by…

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D

Vivid and likeable animated version of Judi and Ron Barrett’s 1978 children’s book set in the town of Chewandswallow, where the weather comes three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan and Bruce Campbell give…

Three Miles North of Molkom

Serio-comic documentary about the Angsbacka No Mind festival in Sweden, an adult playground of shared consciousness. See feature, page 30. Selected release from Fri 18 Sep.

The Thing

John Carpenter’s excellent 1982 monster flick revived on digital big screen projection. Selected release from Tue 15 Sep. (18) 108min

Easy Ryders - Kasabian interview

It’s taken a while, but Kasabian are finally as big as they always thought they deserved to be. Jonny Ensall chats to singer Tom Meighan and finds out that fame and critical validation have calmed one of the biggest egos in rock

The house that Jaxx built - Basement Jaxx interview

From the home front, Basement Jaxx have been uncharacteristically quiet for the last three years. They’ve kept out of view, retiring into studious production mode and, while they say they never went away, they can’t deny they have, at least, been…

Giant steps - Little Boots interview

Little Boots is mid-fib when her phone signal cuts out. She’s on the motorway, heading towards the Reading Festival, and she is livening up her early morning interview by colouring in a few of her answers. She was just explaining where she got her…

John Hughes - Some kind of wonderful

John Hughes never meant much to me as a kid. Put it down to timing. I was ten when The Breakfast Club came out, the perfect age for Back to the Future, not for a bunch of high school stereotypes hanging out in detention. Sure, I liked Weird Science…

Ocean Size - Twin Atlantic interview

The popular Glasgow rockers Twin Atlantic pack an onstage punch, and have more than enough ambition to follow it up, finds Camilla Pia

What the puck? - Hockey interview

Rob Dabrowski speaks to Hockey, the American new wave renegades ready to ramp up the enthusiasm on indie dancefloors

Hear this! - Upcoming gigs and albums Autumn 2009

SEPTEMBER 14 Sep Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 After ‘retirement’, Glastonbury and gigs converting Coldplay fans to the joys of rap music, his masterful album trilogy is now complete. 14 Sep Muse The Resistance The band’s fifth album, it’s tinged…

Upcoming gigs in Scotland: Autumn 2009

Scotland, as we all know, is a hub of great music, great venues and great live audiences. Which is why so many of the world’s great acts forget about the poor weather and poor diet and play here. Add to that list alt-country sorts, and favourites of…

Sweden's No Mind Festival - Three Miles North of Molkom

It’s 5pm on a Monday afternoon and I’m crying. I’m sat on the grass mat floor of a big tent and I’m weeping on the shoulder of Carine, a beautiful Swedish lady I have known for only a few days. She’s crying too and our waterborne grief and guilt is…