Round-up

5 Travel Books

17 Jul 2008

Ellie Nielsen Our Own Piece of Paris Subtitled ‘How We Fell in Love with the City of Light’, this follows one woman’s quest to find an apartment that oozes Parisian chic. Atlantic. Kapka Kassabova Street Without a Name Subtitled ‘Childhood and Other…

Edinburgh Fringe - LGBT Highlights

17 Jul 2008

Allan Radcliffe selects the best the Fringe has to offer in comedy, theatre and music

Film - List picks

17 Jul 2008

The Dark Knight Unavailable for review at press time, Christopher Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins, featuring the late Heath Ledger as The Joker, is among the most eagerly anticipated blockbusters of the summer. See feature, page 24, and review next…

Film Books Round-up

17 Jul 2008

In terms of wealth of research and weightiness of tome Richard Brody’s biography of Jean-Luc Godard, Everything is Cinema (Faber) ••••, should be a masterpiece. Yet for all its detail Godard remains an enigma, and this seems neither for want of research…

DVD Round-Up

3 Jul 2008

The time has come to celebrate British cinema. Not the British cinema of Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger, David Lean or Robin The Wicker Man Hardy, but the cinema of subsidies and struggle, the results of which have barely seen the inside of a cinema…

LGBT TV Special

8 May 2008

Televised gay kisses may have come a long way since Beth Jordache on Brookside but mainstream programming still lacks fair representation (for the supposed 10% of us) with only the occasional out and proud offering, mainly The L Word and Queer as Folk.

DVD Round-Up

8 May 2008

Not only does Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950 (BFI) •••• provide fascinating insights into a bygone age, this four-disc collection of 40 films totalling 13 hours of viewing also showcases the groundbreaking talent of the…

DVD Round-Up

24 Apr 2008

Horror has to be one of the most prolific genres, particularly on the direct to DVD market, so as per usual there’s plenty to get through this issue. For the true aficionado Mother of Tears (Optimum) ••• (pictured) is the sequel you’ve been waiting 28…

Triptych - Eight Ball

10 Apr 2008

Chris ‘Beans’ Geddes DJ, and one seventh of Belle & Sebastian Candi Staton played Renfrew Ferry and ended a triumphant show by passing the mic into the audience as her band played endless choruses of ‘Young Hearts Run Free’. It gets passed between…

Film Books Round-Up

10 Apr 2008

The debate about US cinema from the late 1960s continues with Yale graduate Mark Harris’ Scenes from a Revolution (Canongate ••••). It starts with the fairly flaky premise that the 1967 Academy Award ceremony was the night that the new Hollywood was…

Film Season - Marcello Mastroianni

10 Apr 2008

The son of a carpenter, Mastroianni trained as a draughtsman and served time in a Nazi labour camp during the war. Upon his release, he became involved in amateur dramatics. He made his film début in Riccardo Fredda’s I Miserabili (1948) and, at around…

DVD Round-Up

28 Feb 2008

March waddles into sight with a couple of movie behemoths. First up there’s the Stanley Kubrick Special Edition Box Set (Warner Home Video ••••), which includes special editions of 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining…

DVD Round-Up

14 Feb 2008

It’s that time of year when everything goes a little bit box set crazy. If you go on the right website (I suggest www.moviemail-online.co.uk) you can pick up newly released The Complete Coen Collection 1984-2004 (Spirit ••••) for around the £50. With…

Playlist

14 Feb 2008

The huge, mildly nauseating US box office returns of the new Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D concert film put PlayList in mind of some of cinema’s greatest ersatz bands and non-existent singers. So, let this faux guide help you differentiate between your…

Also Published - 5 Unit Shifters

17 Jan 2008

Cathy Kelly - Lessons in Heartbreak Izzie has broken her own rules about having affairs with married men while her ageing aunt has just discovered her husband’s infidelity. HarperCollins . Monty Don - Around the World in 80 Gardens The presenter…

DVD Round-Up

17 Jan 2008

Lovely late January. It’s dark, cold and you’re broke. Illness and recovery have become your best friends. Not to worry, there’s always the N oel Coward Collection (Second Entertainment •••) to get through. This is a star-studded collection of BBC…

DVD Round-Up

4 Jan 2008

As Carly Simon sang, ‘we’re coming around again’. As this column marks its one-year anniversary, there are some great standalone DVDs hitting the shelves. 2008 is going to be a great year to rediscover the brilliance of the McCarthy-blacklisted US…

Christmas Clubbing

13 Dec 2007

Various venues, Glasgow and Edinburgh ROUND-UP It’s a sad and oft-remarked fact that the original meaning of Christmas is often eschewed in favour of rampant consumerism and institutionalised gluttony. We at The List feel it’s time to redress…

Also Published - 5 US Crime Dramas

29 Nov 2007

Otto Penzler (ed) Dead Man’s Hand A collection of newly written poker-based tales from crime writers such as Jeffrey Deaver, Michael Connelly and Walter Mosley. Quercus. James Lee Burke The Tin Roof Blowdown A cache of stolen diamonds has floated…

Cinema’s most unconventional families

The ties that bind

15 Nov 2007

Wes Anderson has made much of the dynamism of the dysfunctional family in his films. Mark Robertson presents some of cinema’s other most unconventional families The Griswolds from National Lampoon’s Vacation The farcical events of the National…

Music DVD Round-Up

15 Nov 2007

Oasis show their capacity to entertain remains undiminished on Lord Don’t Slow Me Down (Sony) ••• which follows Noel and Co round the world on the tour to support Don’t Believe the Truth. More accurately it shows the relentlessness and tedium of touring…

Also Published - 5 Unit Shifters

18 Oct 2007

• Jackie Collins Drop Dead Beautiful A psycho on the internet stalks Lucky Santangelo after she opens a flashy hotel complex in Las Vegas. Simon & Schuster. • Patricia Cornwell Book of the Dead Kay Scarpetta opens a private forensic pathology…

DVD Round-Up

18 Oct 2007

Hallowe’en is almost upon us so let’s delve into the DVD dungeon. We have to start with Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (Starz) •••••. Much imitated but rarely bettered, John Carpenter set the groundwork for every slasher film that followed and this…

Film Round-up

18 Oct 2007

Gay screen Sandra Marron casts an eye over Glasgay!’s film programme Glasgay!’s film programme is a much smaller affair this year. Specialist releases have been replaced by a handful of more mainstream movies. This is due to low audience figures and…

DVD Round-Up

20 Sep 2007

On hearing of Marilyn Monroe’s death, the filmmaker and actor John Huston said: ‘It’s a terrible pity that so much beauty has been lost to us.’ Forty-five years on, the first of two definitive DVD collections dedicated to her are coming out. Marilyn…