Issue 661

Edinburgh Fringe 2010 comedy highlights for a fiver

The best comedy shows doing cheap previews

27 Jul 2010

A Betrayal of Penguins The two young Irish jokers return with more sketchy nonsense in a show entitled Don’t Run with Scissors? Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4-6 Aug, 2.45pm. Adam Riches The man behind Rogues Males is back in the saddle as he…

South of the Border - Tariq Ali interview

The historian and commentator on making movies with Oliver Stone

23 Jul 2010

The appearance of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez alongside Oliver Stone at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of documentary South of the Border was one of the most surreal moments on any red carpet in recent memory. In the background making…

Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque)

23 Jul 2010

(15) 121min Great songs, beautiful girls, lovely costumes and an artist in a constant state of flux are emphasised in Joann Sfar’s imaginative, beautiful and suitably bizarre musing on the life of Serge Gainsbourg. Starting off in conventional…

Toro Y Moi brings warped pop to Glasgow

Chaz Bundick brings chillwave to Captains Rest

23 Jul 2010

Almost as enjoyable as the sound of a man tripping out in Yosemite Park at the sight of a double rainbow, (that viral YouTube hit of unbridled ecstasy has been causing no end of delight at The List) is the blissed-out, woozy, warm fuzz of Chaz Bundick’s…

Villa Amalia

Spare existential drama achieves memorably depiction

23 Jul 2010

(PG) 94min The latest collaboration between Isabelle Huppert and director Benoit Jacquot is this spare existential drama, which begins with concert pianist and composer Anne Hidden (Huppert) discovering an infidelity committed by her partner of 15…

South of the Border

23 Jul 2010

(15) 77min When Oliver Stone made a documentary for HBO about Fidel Castro, his American paymasters accused him of going too soft on the Cuban President and ordered him to go and try again. This time Stone stands firm, doesn’t even entertain the idea…

Folding Clouds And Hoovering Hills - interactive artworks for kids

Children's show brings music and installations to Glasgow Tramway

23 Jul 2010

Given the amount of inclement weather Scotland ‘enjoys’, there are often times when we wish the great outdoors could be magically transported inside. Wandering through the new installation in Glasgow’s Tramway, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had…

Guiseppe Tornatore's Baaria is a flawed spectacular

Epic historical melodrama from director of Cinema Paradiso

23 Jul 2010

(15) 150min Whereas Fellini had his hometown of Rimini from which to draw inspiration in the likes of Amarcord and I Vitelloni, Sicilian film-maker Guiseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) has his birthplace of Baaria, near Palermo. (Baaria incidentally…

Five Great Serge Gainsbourg film soundtracks

A round-up of great film work by the French singer-songwriter

23 Jul 2010

L’eau à la bouche Gainsbourg’s first work as a composer for cinema was on this minor New Wave romantic comedy of familial dysfunction, contested wills and lecherous intent. Gainsbourg’s languorous, yet risqué score, which includes the title track, set…

The A-Team

23 Jul 2010

(12A) 118min ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ opines cigar-chewing black-ops manager Col John ‘Hannibal’ Smith (Liam Neeson) several times in Joe Smokin’ Aces Carnahan’s revamp of the 1980’s action series. Unfortunately Carnahan’s plan, which…

Beautiful Kate

Assured directorial debut from British actress Rachel Ward

23 Jul 2010

(15) 101min The directorial debut of British actress Rachel Ward, Beautiful Kate is an assured adaptation of a novel by American writer Newton Thornburg, which was originally set in 1970s Idaho. The film-maker has transplanted the story to…

London River

23 Jul 2010

(12A) 88min The 7/7 bombings serve as the backdrop to this clash of cultures tale. Guernsey-based Falklands War widow Elisabeth (Brenda Blethyn) is first seen listening to a church sermon about loving your neighbour. In Africa, Muslim Ousmane…

The Karate Kid

23 Jul 2010

(PG) 139min Rocky director John G Avildsen’s 1984 hit The Karate Kid was no masterpiece, so the prospect of a two hour plus remake directed by Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks, The Pink Panther 2) and featuring Will Smith’s son Jaden promises as much…

Rubadub records celebrate 18th birthday with Jeff Mills at the Sub Club

Pivotal Glasgow record shop brings Detroit techno legend to Sub Club

23 Jul 2010

‘In any city that has an important musical movement happening, there’s always a hub, like a really influential record shop or club or something like that,’ says Jack Revill. ‘As far as shops go, Berlin’s got Hardwax, Detroit has Submerge and Glasgow’s…

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2010 - Curtis Stigers interview

The 'jazz warbler' on sex, lies and ballet recitals

23 Jul 2010

In Edinburgh for the Jazz & Blues Festival, Curtis Stigers talks to The List about sex, lies and ballet recitals First record you ever bought ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, by Elton John. First film you saw that really moved you I remember…

City Island: Dominik Garcia-Lorido profile

New York-set family comedy drama family

23 Jul 2010

Name: Dominik Garcia-Lorido Born: 16 August 1983 Birthplace: Los Angeles, America Background: The daughter of the actor Andy Garcia, Dominik grew up in LA and appeared as an extra in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III, when she was…

Fabio heads up dance acts at Wickerman 2010

Dr Huxtable and Big Toe’s HiFi also set for Dumfries and Galloway festival

23 Jul 2010

While the likes of The Charlatans, Tony Christie and The Futureheads will be playing across the weekend, the Wickerman Festival has a very strong dance presence with the Axis Sound System Reggae Tent (featuring the likes of Dr Huxtable and Big Toe’s…

The Men Who Jump off Buildings - Base jumping

Channel Hopper

23 Jul 2010

‘I think I might die, every time’. When base jumper Dan Witchalls tells his Danish girlfriend how he feels before launching himself from one of London’s many landmark buildings, it looks like she might knock him out flat. ‘Is it worth it?’ she scowls.

Liquid Liquid headline the Electric Frog Street Carnival

New York post-punk top bill at Glasgow electronic festival

23 Jul 2010

The ‘end of Optimo’ we called it when DJs and promoters JD Twitch and JG Wilkes finished their Sunday night Sub Club residency in April this year. And yet here they are, curating one of the line-ups of the year for the Optimo (Espacio) marquee stage at…

And the Land Lay Still - James Robertson

23 Jul 2010

‘I’ve always had it in mind that I wanted to write a big, sprawling novel about Scottish politics and culture in the second half of the 20th century,’ explains James Robertson. ‘When I sat down to write my last book, The Testament of Gideon Mack, I…

Phobia and His Name Was Jason release on DVD

Horror DVD round-up

23 Jul 2010

For this issue’s delve into the world of summer horror we’re taking a trip around the globe. Starting in the US with one for real horror aficionados, His Name Was Jason (Stax) ●●●● is an exhaustive look at the history of everyone’s favourite…

London River - Rachid Bouchareb profile

Director of film set in aftermath of 7/7 London bombings

23 Jul 2010

Name Rachid Bouchareb Born September 1st 1959 Background Born near Paris, Rachid Bouchareb started his career working as an assistant director for French TV. In 1985 he made his debut feature Baton Rouge. In 1995 he received an Academy…

Susan Calman, Stephen K Amos and Bette/Cavett at Fringe 2010

LGBT Edinburgh Fringe Highlights

23 Jul 2010

The List’s LGBT section is about to take a well-earned break (returning in September, folks), but before we head off on our holidays, there’s just time to let you know about some of the gay-friendly stuff that’s appearing at a Fringe Festival near you…

Toy Story 3

Pixar's third instalment reaches satisfying resolution

23 Jul 2010

(U) 108min Sooner or later, everyone grows out of their toys. It’s been over a decade since the world fell for Pixar’s much loved Toy Story and the superior Toy Story 2, so a third instalment, arriving long after its audience has grown up, seems, at…

Lizzard Lounge back for Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival 2010

Fred Wesley and Rumba Caliente Afro Latin Soul Orchestra head up club's return

23 Jul 2010

Toby Shippey, the founder of the Lizzard Lounge club night and later Scots fusion group Salsa Celtica, is waxing nostalgic about the good old days. ‘We used to bring bands over from Cuba and New York,’ he tells, ‘and they would say: “This is the best…

Improvised comedy group Q-Fusion playing the long game

August gigs at Laughing Horse Free Festival

23 Jul 2010

You may not have heard of Q-Fusion. They have avoided the crusty tracks undertaken by most comedy troupes and, rather than crawl through grotty backroom venues, they had their debut gig in a solo show at Glasgow’s Highlight. It’s unconventional to…

Splice

23 Jul 2010

(15) 103min James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein comes face to face with one of David Cronenberg’s body horrors by way of John Milton’s angels in director Vincenzo Cube Natali’s latest immersion into the world of scientific paranoia.

Edinburgh gallery opens new space in Leith

Axolotl gallery to open sister space OXO in Leith

23 Jul 2010

As any self respecting Leither will tell you, the area’s renaissance continues. First the decent bars and restaurants took root, then the ever burgeoning Leith festival. This fortnight its cultural kudos gets another boost with the addition of a new…

5 Things you might not know about.. Roy 'Chubby' Brown

23 Jul 2010

1. OK, this is one you’ll probably all know, but it’s a good one so it’s going in. Born Royston Vasey in 1945, the moniker was used by the League of Gentlemen as the name for their fictional location where all the grotesques come out (or stay in) to…

Glasgow trio Nalle deal in otherworldly psych-folk

23 Jul 2010

Glasgow trio Nalle (Finnish for ‘teddy bear’) are touring a new album of otherworldly psych-folk. The List caught up with Hanna Tuulikki – whose keening soprano has been compared to Joanna Newsom and Björk – to discuss music and myth. How did Nalle…

Ned Beauman - Boxer Beetle

23 Jul 2010

(Sceptre) Not one for the easily shocked, young scribe Ned Beauman subjects the reader to a parade of ghoulish events and ghastly theories throughout his dazzling first novel Boxer Beetle. Admittedly it’s hard work at first, as we’re introduced to a…

City Island

Indie comedy charts city family life

23 Jul 2010

(12a) 103min Everyone has their secrets in the Italian-American Rizzo family, who live in the titular seaside community on the outskirts of New York. Dad Vince (Andy Garcia) is a corrections officer, who yearns to be the next Brando and secretly…

No One Knows About Persian Cats

23 Jul 2010

(12) 106min (Network) Gifted and celebrated Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles Can Fly) threw caution to the wind and hung his reputation on the line in the making of this freewheeling semi-documentary about…

In The Pit

Documentary explores lives of Mexico City labourers

23 Jul 2010

(E) 84min (Network) Exploring the thoughts, feelings and labour activity of workers in Mexico City who are employed in building a new second-deck motorway around the capital, Juan Carlos Rulfo’s film manages to give individuality to a handful of…

Five history books

23 Jul 2010

1. Catherine Arnold - City of Sin Subtitled ‘London and its Vices’, this is the concluding part of a trilogy that has investigated the English capital’s seamier side, peeking at the bathhouses of Roman Londinium to the sexual underground of the 20th…

Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes deliver the goods, even without the hits

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Fri 2 Jul

23 Jul 2010

It’s only after two hours and three encores that you start to appreciate the scale and import of Elvis Costello’s body of work. Despite an extended, Americana-nuanced set that embraced many of his best-loved songs – the dapper vitriol of ‘Oliver’s…

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Wed 14 Jul

23 Jul 2010

It’s a homecoming of sorts for the Geneva-based Afrodelic agit-skronk surrealist sextet, who now feature Wilf Plum, formerly of Edinburgh’s blartiest avant-punk combo Dog Faced Hermans, on drums. With Liz Moscarola’s urgent vocals fronting a reckless…

The Shock Doctrine

Second adaptation of Naomi Klein’s capitalism analysis

23 Jul 2010

(E) 79min (Dogwoof) Not to be confused with Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s 2007 short, this second adaptation of Naomi Klein’s chilling book about the evils of modern capitalism is the full-length 2009 documentary co-directed by Michael…

Stewart Lee - How I Escaped My Certain Fate

23 Jul 2010

(Faber) Like Ezra Pound’s notes on The Waste Land if they’d been more cutting, self-critical and in awe of Johnny Vegas, Stewart Lee here transcribes and annotates the three stand-up shows that brought him back from disillusioned retirement in 2001…

Gilbert Shelton - Not Quite Dead: Last Gig in Shnagrlig

23 Jul 2010

(Knockabout) Gilbert Shelton will always be most famous for his irreverent take on hippie culture as beloved by stoners across the world in his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strips and its off-shoot, Fat Freddy’s Cat. And among his other achievements…

Maile Chapman - Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto

23 Jul 2010

(Jonathan Cape) Crackling with a fitful nervous energy, Maile Chapman’s novel is the arrestingly titled Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto. It concerns a convalescent hospital set among Finnish pinewoods in the 1920s, harbouring women with…

Newsmakers

Siege thriller keeps action and outrage flowing

23 Jul 2010

(18) 105min (Showbox) Based on Johnnie To’s 2004 Hong Kong action thriller, this Russian remake (from Swedish director Anders Banke) is an admirable effort. As a bunch of ruthless gangsters go on the rampage across the country, Russian law…

Simon Rich - Elliot Allagash

23 Jul 2010

(Serpent’s Tail) As the debut novel from Saturday Night Live’s youngest ever writer, Elliot Allagash fulfils expectations. A hilariously satiric novel peppered with innovative anecdotes, the narrative may be simple but the comedy is fast-paced and…

The Island

Well-told Russian fable of spirituality and guilt

23 Jul 2010

(PG) 150min (Artificial Eye) The spirit of Andrei Tarkovsky hovers over Russian cinema maybe more than any other director, perhaps quite aptly for one so given to the spiritual himself. The Island opens with a horrible moment of human weakness.

Calvin Johnson and Muscles of Joy

One of Seattle's more prolific underground artist performs in both Glasgow and Edinburgh

23 Jul 2010

An inspiration to unpaid music interns everywhere, Calvin Johnson began his musical career by volunteering at a local radio station in his hometown of Olympia, Washington when he was fifteen. KAOS-FM’s policy of playing underground artists, as opposed…

Nalle - Wilder Shores of Love

23 Jul 2010

(alt.vinyl) Inspired by the Greek myth of doomed lovers Hero and Leander, and named after a Cy Twombly painting, the third album by vocalist Hanna Tuulikki, viola player Aby Vulliamy and multi-instrumentalist Chris Hladowski fuses ancient and modern…

The Surge Grande Parade: Conflux Maximus

23 Jul 2010

Something strange has been happening in Glasgow’s performance spaces recently, and it’s about to burst all over Buchanan Street. Conflux Maximus is a gigantic parade of performance art, and possibly some Roman-style decadence, to celebrate the launch of…

Grupo Fantasma - El Existential

23 Jul 2010

(Nat Geo Music) Riotous energy pulses through this exuberant set from Grupo Fantasma, who put a 21st-century twist into salsa and Latin sounds. Underpinned by heavy rock grooves and percussive layers, arrangements fizz with funky trumpet and trombone…

Raices en Viaje by Proyecto Evocacion is full of surprises

The Festival del Caribe gives birth to five-piece set.

23 Jul 2010

World Proyecto Evocación Raíces en Viaje – Roots en Route (Spherical Records) Just occasionally an unexpected recording captures a magical moment. So it happened when ex-Happy End trumpeter Loz Speyer got into a basement home-studio in Santiago de…

Fringe performers: How to bribe your way to success in Edinburgh 2010

Bizarre promotional merchandise (or nice food) ensures coverage

23 Jul 2010

Chances are you’ll do just about anything to publicise your show. Luckily for you, The List isn’t interested in sexual favours or cash incentives (non-sequential bills in an unmarked envelope, ta). Instead, we’re jonesing for some bizarre promotional…