Reviews, Issue 649

Errors - Come Down With Me

(Rock Action) It’s been a while since a bunch of arty boys from Glasgow made one of the records of the year. But with their second offering Come Down With Me (a title in homage to the Channel 4 dining bitchfest), Errors have done exactly that.

Central Office of Information and Agnes Varda among DVD highlights

DVD boxsets roundup

(15) 116min Director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye, Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) returns to the scene of one of his early successes with this feature film adaptation of the 1985 BBC television series that helped make his name. Mel Gibson (in his…

Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution

Warmly welcomed into the exhibition space by Shane Waltener and Cheryl McChesney Jones’ colourful ‘Stepping and Stitching’ you might feel comfortable enough to take a seat and knit or knot a contributory piece to this collaboration between an artist and…

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

(Matador) Texan indie outfit Shearwater don’t lack ambition, or for that matter, pretension. This album is the final instalment of a triptych of records about ‘environmental and personal decay and humans’ impact on nature’, apparently. How much it…

Food, Inc.

(PG) 93min Robert Kenner’s Oscar-nominated documentary seeks to lift the veil surrounding the food industry in America, and to reveal, in the director’s own words, ‘the truth about what we are eating’ – cheap food, it transpires, comes with some…

Invictus

(12A) 133min ‘Rugby is’ as Oscar Wilde noted on behalf of the sane and humane ‘a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the centre of the city.’ Clint Eastwood’s new film Invictus not only invites the bullies back within the city walls but…

Youth in Revolt

(15) 90min Alongside Adventureland star Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera has cornered the market over the last few years when it comes to playing the thoughtful, mildly nerdish boy-next-door. Be it in juvenile comedy (Superbad), adolescent angst-drama…

Magne F: Alpha Beta

While many people will remember Magne Furuholmen as the keyboardist in 1980s Norwegian band A-ha, few will realise that he has had a concurrent career as an artist, having first exhibited in 1989. This dual vocation has been a large part of his life…

A Single Man

(12A) 99min Tom Ford, the fashion industry’s Dorian Gray, adapts Christopher Isherwood’s spare, lyrical study of alienation and loss for his film debut (as director and screenwriter). A Single Man traces a day in the life of George Falconer…

Toby Paterson: Consensus and Collapse

The fear of knocking over an exhibit – along with mistaking an artwork for a bench or a light switch for a sculpture – is a point of comic reference frequently bandied around in relation to the physical experience of contemporary art galleries. This…

Way To Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake

Nick Drake’s popularity has only increased in the years following his death in 1976, and this concert, curated by Drake’s producer Joe Boyd for Celtic Connections, was one of the most anticipated of the festival programme. The main appeal was…

The 3 Craws

The Caves, Fri 22 Jan 2010

The 3 Craws are what might in certain circles, those more given to overblown rhetoric posturing perhaps, be termed a supergroup: the three lynchpins of the Fife-based Fence Collective – Kenny Anderson, alias King Creosote, Johnny Lynch, otherwise known…

Real Estate

Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Thu 28 Jan 2010

‘What you want is just outside your reach,’ runs the opening line of Real Estate’s best song, ‘Beach Comber’. The crowd may skip along to its cantering beat, but the pensive guitar part and Martin Courtney’s lyrics pull the song towards melancholy. In…

In The Electric Mist

(15) 117min (High Fliers) The real mystery surrounding this adaptation of James Lee Burke’s bestselling crime novel In the Electric Mist With the Confederate Dead is why a perfectly respectable Hollywood movie boasting such an impressive cast and…

Taking Chance

(PG) 78min (HBO) There’s something to be said about a movie which doesn’t take the knee-jerk sensationalist route to making its point. And with a sensitive subject, such as the war in Iraq, you can see why Taking Chance would opt not to ramp up the…

The Fox Family

(15) 102min (Terracotta) Manic Korean tale about a family of shape-shifting ‘kumiho’ (literally a nine-tailed fox) spirits hiding out with a circus troupe as they prepare to become human beings permanently. The chance occurs only once every thousand…

Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk - Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State

(Marvel UK) It’s a shame to see Paul Cornell’s rebirth of Captain Britain come to a close so quickly (the final six issues and the 2009 annual are collected here), but such is the fickle world of mainstream comics. At least it goes out with an…

Mary, Queen of Scots

(PG) 126min (Second Sight) Charles Jarrott’s 1971 historical melodrama chronicling the tiaras, tantrums and Machiavellian spite traded between Tudor royal cousins Mary and Elizabeth re-emerges on DVD as something of a surprise. For Mary, Queen of…

Died Young, Stayed Pretty

(E) 95min (ICA) Eileen Yaghoobian’s film delves into the underground poster culture in North America. In detailing the motivations and examining the creative spirit of these independent graphic designers, Yaghoobian uncovers a whole stratum of…

Paul Vickers & The Leg - Itchy Grumble

(SL Records) A sophomore album project for ex-Dawn of the Replicants frontman Paul Vickers and former Khaya/Desc buddies Dan Mutch, Pete Harvey and Alun Thomas; the latter part of the Leg alumni also a former ballboy and St Jude’s Infirmary…

Kailash Kher & Kailasa - Yatna (Nomadic Souls)

(Cumbancha) Cumbancha are an intrepid label who have brought a host of brilliant musicians to the world, including the late Brazilian artist Andy Palacios. Now they capture the infectious sounds of Kailash Kher, a household name in India for singing…

Henning Mankell - The Man From Beijing

(Harvill Secker) As all Wallander fans will testify, Henning Mankell does a good line in legal professionals. His long-running series about the flawed but eminently likeable detective has sold millions worldwide, not to mention spawned TV adaptations…

Glassjaw

QMU, Glasgow, Tue 26 Jan 2010

After several false starts Glasgow has finally been given a chance to experience Glassjaw (the band cancelled a slew of gigs in 2003 due to frontman Daryl Palumbo’s Crohn’s Disease, then went on ‘indefinite hiatus’ from 2004 to pursue other projects).

Battle For Terra 3D

(PG) 78min Having festered on the shelf since its April 2009 US release, Battle For Terra 3D arrives in our cinemas to cash in on the current wave of enthusiasm for three-dimensional cinema, and specifically Avatar, although Canadian director…

Natasha Walter - Living Dolls

(Virago) When Natasha Walter published The New Feminism in 1998, it was with a triumphant air that she declared sexism to be in permanent decline. As New Labour women such as Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam and Clare Short achieved high office, the signs…