Issue 704

An inside look at The Arches' revival of Alien War

The Arches revival of the infamous terror experience from a first-person perspective

For as long as I can remember ghost trains have been a part of my life. The first time I went on one I filled my long socks with urine. The second time I jumped from the train and had to be led out by an employee with a white sheet draped around his…

Exposure: Josephine Foster

How to describe Miss Foster’s warbling psych-folk voice... Swooning. Vibrating? With rollercoaster peaks and dips? Or ‘Morriconean’ as one reviewer put it. Josephine chats to The List before her Glasgow date, touring with a live band including Trembling…

Crate Digging - Optimo Hallowe'en playlist

Twitch and Wilkes’ playlist of horror, including Sunn O))), Current 93 and The Birthday Party

At last, the Optimo boys come to Crate Digging just as their revered Halloween party and fancy dress armageddon Optimo (Espookio) makes its return. Time for Twitch and Wilkes’ playlist of ultimate horror... JG Wilkes: Sunn O))) ‘Black Wedding…

Donald Judd: Drawings 1963-93

It’s hard to decide how this display of work by the late American sculptor Donald Judd should be approached. As an insight into the working practice of one of the most celebrated minimalist designers of the 20th century, an artist whose hard-edged and…

Chvrches - Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Fri 28 Sep

Electro-pop gems in an artistic setting

In an unexpected development, the Scottish National Galleries’ Friday evening ‘Picasso By Night’ event played host to one of the most talked-about bands to come out of Scotland in recent years. While art lovers upstairs listened to curator’s talks and…

Dexter Sinister: Identity

A highly polished video installation lecture on the rise of corporate identities

Identity is a new three-screened video installation at Tramway by a design duo known as Dexter Sinister. The audio-video installation is a highly polished lecture on the rise of corporate identities, and, specifically, their use by arts organisations.

Central Station: Kathryn Ho

Kathryn Ho is an artist and designer from Edinburgh who is currently expanding her horizons in London. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee with a BA (Hons) in Illustration. Her current work focuses on the order and patterns…

Eat, Sleep and Breathe: Channy Leaneagh of POLIÇA

What time is breakfast? It’s a few hours after I wake up. Tea or coffee? Tea. Smoking or non-smoking? Non, for two weeks. Sweet or savoury snacks? Both. What food do you miss when you tour? Food that tastes good. Who’s the best…

Ava Vidal talks sex, champagne and Sarafina

First record you ever bought Tone Loc: 'Funky Cold Medina'. Last extravagant purchase you made Nothing. I have teenage children. First film you saw that really moved you The Color Purple. Last lie you told Can't tell you that. First…

Room 237

Compelling documentary about the hidden meanings in Kubrick's The Shining

This frighteningly engrossing documentary presents a series of (supposedly) hidden meanings to be found imbedded in Stanley Kubrick’s modern horror classic The Shining. The various readings of the film, which range from quite plausible to utterly balmy…

The Knot

Distasteful wedding comedy written by and starring Noel Clarke with Matthew McNulty

Noel Clarke emerged during the last decade as a British actor and filmmaker with distinct promise, but in recent years his prolific output has fallen far short of that potential. This wedding comedy, starring and co-written by Clarke, is surely his…

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sincere and witty coming of age drama staring Ezra Miller, Emma Watson and Logan Lerman

Were space aliens to seek an insight into Earth society via the portal of American pop culture, they might be forgiven for coming away with the impression that boy adolescents bear the upper hand in most things. Blame The Catcher in the Rye, perhaps…

Keep the Lights On

A thoughtful, tender film that recalls Douglas Sirk and Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Keep the Lights On is personal in a way that harks backs to American independent cinema of an earlier era. Director Ira Sachs has transformed moments from his own life into a thoughtful, tender film that brings to mind the melodramas of Douglas Sirk and…

The Sapphires

Wayward plotting lets down this story of a 1960s soul quartet

It’s no surprise that Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires was based on a stage play. Scripted by playwright Tony Briggs, adapting his 2004 work (which played to full houses across Australia and starred Blair), this tale of four Aboriginal girls in the late…

Argo

Ben Affleck directs this oddball mix of political thriller and showbiz satire, based on a true story

There are times when Ben Affleck’s Argo feels like it’s ready to career violently off the rails. That it doesn’t is arguably down to the film’s unswerving belief in its ‘truth-is-stranger-than-fiction’ story. His third film as director, following Gone…

Rust and Bone

Thought-provoking drama from the director of A Prophet, starring Marion Cotillard

Expectations are high when it comes to a new Jacques Audiard film, for the simple reason that on the building evidence of his last three films Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, he might be the best writer/director currently…

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

The third in the animation trilogy offers superb entertainment

The naughty animals from Central Park Zoo return in this new animation from Dreamworks, and the third time proves lucky for Alex the lion and his chums, with Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted offering superb entertainment. After the lacklustre…

Beasts of the Southern Wild

A bracingly original and utterly beguiling magical/social-realist fable

Benh Zeitlin's extraordinary debut offers a heady mix of social realism and magic realism as it charts survival at the extreme margins of society. Based on a play called Juicy And Delicious, it unfolds in the Louisiana backwater of The Bathtub where six…

Theme of Pictures in Motion at 2012 Berwick-upon-Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival

Overview of the final day of the up-and-coming film and art festival

A dispatch from the final day of the up-and-coming film and art festival. Berwick-upon-Tweed is a town of ramparts, canons, thick stone walls and lookout posts, remnants of its turbulent history located on the border between England and Scotland. But…

Thaandavam

Overlong masala movie starring Vikram, Amy Jackson and Santhanam

Kenny Thomas (Tamil superstar Vikram) is a blind man leading a double existence: by day he plays the organ at a rural Kentish church; by night he uses echolocation to assassinate targets in London. His life becomes more complicated with the intrusion of…

Sinister

Skilful horror staring Ethan Hawke

The opening of Scott Derrickson’s horror certainly lives up to the title: Super 8 ‘snuff’ footage captures a family-of-four hanged until dead from a tree, its branch acting as a lever to pull at the nooses and raise them off the ground. It’s an…

You Are God

Bleak Polish drama about hip hop group Paktofonika

You Are God follows the career trajectory of Magik, Fokus and Rahim, aka Polish hip hop group Paktofonika. Trudging through their various dead-end existences in the bleak region of Silesia, the trio banded together to create something representative of…

The Cone Gatherers

Uneven adaptation of classic Scottish novel is distinguished by strong performances

Robin Jenkins' most famous novel has long enjoyed a prominent place on the Scottish curriculum as a set text. Yet, for all its familiarity, the tale's lyrical depiction of class conflict, obsession and petty fascism, set in a Scotland thrown into flux…

Azealia Banks – O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sat 29 Sep 2012

High energy performance from the Harlem hip hop artist

Before Yung Rapunxel takes to the stage tonight, the crowd are put through a thorough preparation session. The gimp-mask-and-leather-shirted support act Zebra Katz lets everyone know this is not a family show, and Banks’ own DJ Cosmo performs a half…

The Guid Sisters

Entertaining and energetic revival of Scots version of Michel Tremblay's classic Les Belles-soeurs

Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay's Scots translation of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-soeurs burst onto Scottish stages in the late 1980s in the wake of that other hugely popular comedy-drama based around a community of women, The Steamie. But The Guid…