Miles Fielder

Joost Swarte: Is That All There Is?

Compendium of the Dutch cartoonist’s satirical alternative comics

3 Feb 2012

Apparently so. Or almost so. Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of the Dutch cartoonist’s alternative comics from way back in 1972 to the present day, translates them into English and assembles them, under Swarte’s own supervision, in this…

Glasgow Film Festival: Why I love Gene Kelly

Miles Fielder makes a song and dance about the charismatic movie star

3 Feb 2012

For a film lover who hates musicals (this writer), the GFF’s Gene Kelly retrospective ought to be a hard sell. Telling stories through song and dance, Kelly’s forte (the latter of which endeavours earned him a special Oscar in 1951), is anathema to this…

GFF 2012 - 85A presents: Jan Svankmajer

Judd Brucke of 85A discusses the art collective's tribute to the Czech filmmaker

2 Feb 2012

‘One of our comrades was approached by the GFF to do something with the festival,’ says Judd Brucke, a member of the collective of Glasgow-based multi-disciplinary artists that stage weird and wonderful live events under the banner 85A. That something…

Geoff Dyer - Zona

The multi-talented humourist turns his able hand to film criticism

27 Jan 2012

(Canongate) Having previously mashed-up fiction, journalism, essay, biography and travel writing, polymath and humourist Geoff Dyer once more defies genre with a book that’s one part film criticism, one part autobiography and several parts random…

Lambchop - Mr M

Reassembled band present lovely low-key set recalling Sinatra, Bacharach and crooners

23 Jan 2012

(City Slang) Having taken a break from the long-lasting alt.country outfit (to collaborate with singer Cortney Tidwell on 2010’s KORT project), Lambchop founder and frontman Kurt Wagner has reassembled the Nashville-based band to make its 11th…

Preview of 2012 - Millennium Trilogy comics

Scottish crime author Denise Mina adapts Stieg Larsson’s bestselling classics

6 Jan 2012

There’s not a lot left to say about Stieg Larsson. The three homegrown film adaptations of the late Swedish author’s novels – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – along with David…

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Area 52

Orchestral backing and lots of special guests leads to a fun if over-wrought latin-funk-rock record

6 Jan 2012

(Rubyworks) For their fifth studio album the Mexican acoustic rock duo have teamed up with 13-piece orchestra C.U.B.A. to rework nine previous compositions. The radically increased personnel (which is also augmented by several guests including Cuban…

Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows - Neonomicon

Moore takes some liberties with Lovecraft's stories, but as ever, does a grand job of it

5 Jan 2012

(Avatar) While we wait impatiently for the final instalment of the latest The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century (see our review of part two), we have this new graphic novella from the grand magi of comics to be going on with. Neonomicon is…

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester

Dreamily insubstantial album that's very, very Lynch

5 Jan 2012

(Double Six) Rightly or wrongly, a lot of bands find themselves being likened to the soundtrack of a David Lynch film. In the case of Trailer Trash Tracys’ debut the comparison is, in fact, justified. Mixing dark and disturbing soundscapes…

Dan Sartain – Too Tough To Live

Old School punk album from the raw rock'n'roller

5 Jan 2012

(One Little Indian) The handsome Alabama rocker’s throwback blues and rockabilly sound has always been fuelled by a raw power reminiscent of punk. For his sixth album, the greasy-quiffed one has embraced the punk rock style as well as its spirit with…

Interview: Michelle Yeoh on filming The Lady

Luc Besson biopic of iconic pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi

21 Dec 2011

Former Malaysian beauty queen Michelle Yeoh started her acting career co-starring with Jackie Chan in the likes of Supercop. She made her English-language debut opposite Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies before returning to China to…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

The Phantom of the Opera

Unmissable HD restoration of 1925 Rupert Julian version starring horror icon Lon Chaney

12 Dec 2011

(PG) 77/114min There have been several adaptations of novelist Gaston Leroux’s classic macabre horror romance, among them the original 1916 silent German version, the 1943 Hollywood version with Claude Rains, the racier 1962 Hammer offering, Brian…

Metaphrog - Louis: Red Letter Day

Reissue of the Glasgow-based graphic novel duo's 2000 Louis debut

12 Dec 2011

(Metaphrog) A year after the publication of the fifth Louis book, Night Salad, the Glasgow-based writer-illustrator partnership Metaphrog celebrates a decade of their series of graphic novels for kids and adults. To mark the event, Scot John Chalmers…

The Art of Joe Kubert

Wonderful collection of comics art from one of the legends of the medium

21 Nov 2011

Edited by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics) Alongside the ongoing and consistently groundbreaking efforts of Fantagraphics Books Inc to publish the work of new and cutting edge cartoonists (beginning with Los Bros Hernandez's Love & Rockets in the late…

Black Pond

Smartly observed and cleverly constructed British comedy drama is something special

15 Nov 2011

(15) 83min This low budget British comedy drama is something special. Smartly observed and cleverly constructed, it’s at once funny and tragic and lyrical, and the deadpan humour is perfectly pitched with nicely underplayed performances from the…

You’ve Been Trumped

Controversial doc on Donald Trump's Scottish golf course plan a triumph

22 Sep 2011

(12) 95min Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand for the past few years, you’ll no doubt be aware of American tycoon Donald Trump’s controversial plans to build a golf course and hotel complex in an area of outstanding natural beauty and…

Life and Debt

Heartbreaking and pertinent documentary about Jamaica's economic misfortunes

22 Sep 2011

(12) 80min Made the year after the launch of the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt at the beginning of the new millennium, Stephanie Black’s agitprop documentary looks at the case of Jamaica. In 1977, fifteen years after achieving…

You've Been Trumped - Anthony Baxter interview

Director of Donald Trump doc on being shunned by Scottish film bodies

22 Sep 2011

‘I live in Montrose and it’s 40 miles south of the Menie Estate, where Donald Trump was planning to build his golf course resort. I read the newspapers every day and I was surprised that the coverage was so one-sided. The other side of the story, as I…

Wilko Johnson - The Caves, Edinburgh, Thu 15 Sep 2011

A winner set from the ex Blockheads guitarist turned bluesman

22 Sep 2011

Canvey Island rocking bluesman Wilko Johnson kicked off his nationwide tour from the other end of the UK with a stonking set that compared favourably to the Essex man’s glory days as lead guitarist for Dr Feelgood in the 1970s and Ian Dury and the…

Perfect Sense

Dark yet sentimental romance set in an apocalyptic world

14 Sep 2011

(15) 92min David Mackenzie’s seventh feature is, superficially, his most disturbing yet. That’s saying something given the Scottish filmmaker introduced himself and his penchant for dark psychosexual drama with his grim and gritty adaptation of…

Interview: David Mackenzie on Perfect Sense and You Instead

Director returns from Hollywood to Glasgow to make two films back-to-back

24 Aug 2011

Having made his Hollywood debut with his last film, Spread, a gorgeously sun-drenched but beguilingly bleak sex romp-cum-romance starring Ashton Kutcher that comes across like a modern-day American Gigolo, Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie was set to…

Will Self

The author on his upcoming reading of Fleck with Alasdair Gray

19 Aug 2011

I’ve known Alasdair Gray for a long time now, nearly 20 years. We had the same publisher in England and he came to one of my events in Glasgow, probably in about 1982 or ‘83. We did some other events together around that time and struck up a…

Chuck Palahniuk - Damned

Religion-targetting novel fresh and funny yet also more of the same

19 Aug 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Like the preceding 11, Chuck Palahniuk’s latest novel is a black comedy that satirises a taboo subject, features a protagonist with a malleable identity who is indoctrinated into a bizarre cult and is structured around repetition…

Jus’ Like That!

Recreates Tommy Cooper's final performance

16 Aug 2011

Eschewing a biographical narrative, this show about stage magician and comedian Tommy Cooper simply recreates his final performance in all its balmy, cheeky glory. It’s a crowd-pleasing celebration of the utterly unique variety show talent, and Clive…

The Wright Brothers

Conquest of flight given lively treatment

16 Aug 2011

An interesting subject is given lively treatment in this show about American bicycle manufacturers-turned-amateur aviators Wilbur and Orville Wright’s conquest of the skies. The story of their protracted attempts to construct a powered flying machine…

Danny Pensive’s Map of Britain

Wonderfully odd character comedy

15 Aug 2011

This character comedy is so assured, odd and sweet, that you can easily see the self-styled Sunderland simpleton becoming the next score keeper on Shooting Stars. During his whistle-stop recollection of a three-year trip around Britain, Pensive…

Chris Coxen’s Space Clone Audition

Accomplished character-based comedy show

14 Aug 2011

Framing his sketch show as a competition in which the audience decides which of Coxen’s four characters will be cloned to populate outer space seems unnecessary. This US comic’s creations - sleazy lounge lizard, deluded motivational speaker, shy weather…

You Once Said Yes

Exhilarating interactive experience

12 Aug 2011

This one-on-one interactive show is initially – and purposefully – disconcerting, but it swiftly becomes utterly thrilling, mysterious, funny and finally really quite sweet. It begins at Underbelly Cowgate, where single audience members are equipped for…

Jenny Erpenbeck set for 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Revisiting Germany’s troubled past

9 Aug 2011

‘An extraordinarily strong book by a major German author, ingeniously translated, produced with love by an idealistic publisher intent on doing something about the shamefully small proportion of foreign literature whose existence our country…

2401 Objects

Remarkable neuroscience story

8 Aug 2011

This piece of devised theatre tells the story of the man with the most famous brain in the world, Henry Molaison, or patient HM as he became known to the international medical community that studied him for decades before he died. Molaison was born in…

Wondrous Flitting

Absurdist parable that doesn’t quite work

8 Aug 2011

Inspired by Edinburgh College of Art teacher Ed Hollis’ book The Secret Lives of Buildings, Lyceum artistic director Mark Thomson’s first play for the Fringe since his much lauded Moving Objects is an absurdist-realist parable that doesn’t quite work.

One Night Stan

Excellent one-man show based on life of Stan Laurel

8 Aug 2011

This excellent one-man show written and performed by Miles Gallant dramatises the life of Stanley Jefferson aka Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame. With his partner taken ill on the penultimate week of their 1954 UK tour, Stan looks back on his…

One Under

Energetic piece of devised theatre based on London Underground

8 Aug 2011

Inspired by interviews conducted on the London Underground, this energetic piece of devised theatre looks beneath the sweat and stress of the cramped carriages to unearth the inner lives of people travelling on the tube. Their stories are variously…

Hal Sparks - Evolution Overdrive

Impressive delivery with theme of humankind’s ongoing evolution

8 Aug 2011

Humankind’s ongoing evolution from apes is the buff American stand-up’s central thesis. En route to his conclusion that only the reintroduction of dinosaurs into the food chain will save us, Sparks blasts the crowd with a string of more commonplace…

Pete Firman: Jiggery Pokery

Magic routines with an enjoyable line in potty-mouthed sarcasm

8 Aug 2011

This comic magician takes his tricks seriously. From the opening escape out of a locked box through various sleight-of-hand illusions to the climactic guillotining of an audience member, Firman proves himself to be a very capable conjurer. But he also…

Bridget Christie

Slapdash slapstick sloppy stand-up

7 Aug 2011

The wife, mum and stand-up is back at the Fringe with a new show based on her Catholic upbringing. The fact that Bridget Christie is not at all sure doing an hour about religion is a good idea is completely in keeping with her happily shambolic…

Captain America: The First Avenger

Despite a clumsy second half, the Cap sets the stage well for 2012's Avengers

4 Aug 2011

(12A) 124 min Captain America might be subtitled The First Avenger, but he is, in fact, the last of the Marvel Comics superheroes to receive blockbuster movie treatment before he assembles alongside Hulk, Iron Man and Thor in next year’s superhero…

Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century – 1969

Groovy, psychedelic second entry into the League's Century series

3 Aug 2011

(Top Shelf/Knockabout) Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill take their science fiction and fantasy literature homage/parody into previously uncharted realms with their most contemporaneous jaunt yet. Part two of the Century trilogy takes the heroes into…

Adrian Howells bring May I Have the Pleasure to 2011 Edinburgh Festival

Adrian Howells creates exchange between performer and audience

27 Jul 2011

Glasgow-based performer and the Arches artist-in-residence Adrian Howells has two shows debuting at the Fringe this year: May I Have the Pleasure...? and The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding. In the first, Howells muses upon the irony of…

Edinburgh show Snails and Ketchup keeps focus on storytelling

Darkly comic story told through aerial choreography

27 Jul 2011

‘For me the narrative and the characters are crucial,’ says Glasgow-based Singaporean physical theatre performer Ramesh Meyyappan. ‘I’ve got to be able to see how their journeys would work in a theatrical setting.’ Meyyappan’s set himself quite a…

Joe Simon: My Life in Comics

Interesting autobiography from one of the pioneers of superhero comics

21 Jul 2011

(Titan) This autobiography written by one of the founding fathers of the American comic books hits the bookshelves a fortnight ahead of the release of the latest Hollywood blockbuster adaptation of a superhero strip, Captain America, which…

Jason and Fabien Vehlmann - Isle of 100,000 Graves

Daft and deadpan humour make for hilarious read

20 Jul 2011

(Fantagraphics) Norway-born, South of France-based cartoonist Jason’s absurdist mix of daft and deadpan humour (a Nordic speciality perhaps) once again makes for hilarious reading in this tale of skulduggery in the South Seas. The discovery of a…

Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden & Ben Stenbeck - Baltimore: The Plague Ships

Disappointing supernatural horror from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola

20 Jul 2011

(Dark Horse) Hellboy creator Mike Mignola continues to expand his universe of supernatural horror inspired by 19th and 20th century pulp fictions with this his latest creation, Lord Henry Baltimore, vampire hunter. This first story arc, the first…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

The boy-wizard franchise goes out on a high

18 Jul 2011

(12A) 130min It gives this critic great pleasure to confirm that the final film in the franchise adapted from JK Rowling’s boy wizard publishing phenomenon is among the top three of the eight-part series. Since the series hit the ground running ten…

Trombone Shorty profile - Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2011

Youthful jazz pioneer and composer set for Edinburgh date

8 Jul 2011

'Oooooh! Trombone Shorty! My man!' This is how the 25-year-old jazz musician from New Orleans is greeted by fellow (and fictitious) horn player Antoine Batiste in David Simon's new HBO television show, Treme. Simon's follow-up to his hard-hitting cop…

Green Lantern

Intergalactic special effects spectacle

1 Jul 2011

(12A) 114min So many adaptations of superhero comic books have received the blockbuster treatment it’s now safe to say we have seen the best of them. And its questionable what more or different there is that can be done with the super-powered…

Julia's Eyes

A very well made chiller in the stalk ‘n’ slash tradition

1 Jul 2011

(15) 112min In addition to directing visionary adult horror-fantasies (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) and outstanding Hollywood blockbusters (Hellboy and its sequel), Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is also carving a second career for…

X-Men: First Class

Latest in franchise makes clever use of Cold War-era setting

30 Jun 2011

(12A) 132min The novelty of the Hollywood franchise reboot has worn thin, but this re-launch of the initially excellent adaptations of the Marvel comic book benefits from a canny central concept that takes the mutant superhero team back to their…

Outside The Law (Hors La Loi)

Forceful thriller about 1950s Algerian freedom fighters

29 Jun 2011

(15) 138min Franco-Algerian writer-director Rachid Bouchareb follows his hard-hitting Palme d’Or nominated WWII adventure Days of Glory with this similarly forceful thriller about Algerian freedom fighters in the 1950s. Like its predecessor, this…

The highs and lows of Harry Potter’s outrageous fortunes

An evaluation of each of the films from the Harry Potter series

28 Jun 2011

Having earned £6 billion worldwide, Harry Potter is the highest grossing film franchise of all time. And while the critical reception hasn’t always matched the commercial one (no Academy Awards yet), the films have been as successful as JK Rowling’s…

Senna

Fast-paced documentary on life and death of Formula One racing driver

28 Jun 2011

(12A) 106min This fast-paced documentary about the life and death of the legendary Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna plays more like a dramatic biopic than a feature-length doc. Taking his lead from and building upon dramatic documentaries such…

Hobo With A Shotgun

Rutger Hauer stars in second feature spawned from Grindhouse homage

21 Jun 2011

(18) 82min This blood-splattered Canadian shlocker is, following Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, the second film to be expanded from one of the handful of tantalising fake trailers inspired by Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s exploitation movie homage…

Joe Simon & Jack Kirby - Fighting American

Classic 50s action with satirical edge from famed writer and artist team

31 May 2011

(Titan) Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the greatest writer-artist team of the Golden Age of comics, created, among other colourful costumed crime-fighters, the star-spangled superhero Captain America. Conceived as the ultimate patriot in response to…

Mario & Gilbert Hernandez - Citizen Rex

Science fiction satire from the creators of Love & Rockets

31 May 2011

(Dark Horse) Co-creator Mario opens this hardcover collection of the six-issue comic originally published in 2009 with an amusing anecdote about meeting a geek at a science fiction convention who had the cheek to write off Los Bros Hernandez…

Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, discusses her new film Meet Monica Velour

Indie comedy about an aging porn star is set to screen at the EIFF

27 May 2011

‘To have a role like this in your fifties is quite extraordinary,’ says Kim Cattrall, who is 53 and has made a virtue of playing sexy older women in a business that refuses to equate the one with the other. ‘When Meet Monica Velour showed at the Tribeca…

Incendies

Franco-Canadian drama is a deserving award-winner

23 May 2011

(15) 130min This commendable and impressive Franco-Canadian drama arrives fresh from scooping of seven Genies (Canada’s Oscars). Set in the Middle East and dramatising an endless cycle of violence and retribution, it’s an unashamedly didactic piece…

White Denim - D

Further wildly adventurous tracks held together by old school psychedelic country vibe

20 May 2011

(Downtown) The Austin, Texas outfit’s previous album, the fittingly titled Fits, was a brilliantly balmy rock-out that proved to be even more dazzlingly unpredictable than their debut. And when they played material from it on tour in Scotland, they…

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Not as bad as the second two, but still not a touch on the first

18 May 2011

(12A) tbc mins The fourth instalment of the supernatural swashbuckler originally based on a Disney fairground ride gets underway with a new storyline that throws overboard the sprawling plot of the previous two bloated sequels. It also ditches many…

Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano - Liar's Kiss

Unpredictable crime noir graphic novel from new writer and artist team

12 May 2011

Top Shelf Comix. Featuring a real loser of a protagonist and devolving around a series of misunderstandings and bad coincidences, this stylish, noirish hard-boiled crime graphic novel recalls, among other things, certain films of the Coen brothers. In…

Winshluss - Pinocchio

3 May 2011

Winshluss, the multitalented French cartoonist, filmmaker and musician whose real name is Vincent Parronnaud, is best known for the Oscar-nominated animated feature film he made with Iranian author and illustrator Marjane Satrapi based on her memoir…

EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

Slow-burning alt.rock from the former Gowns and Amps for Christ noise-folker

25 Apr 2011

(Souterrain Transmissions) Erika M Anderson (EMA), formerly of the folk-noise outfits Amps for Christ and Gowns, makes her solo debut with this ethereal collection of lo-fi grunge ballads. Hushed vocals set to low-key guitar strumming that builds to…

My Dog Tulip is a witty alternative to the generally mawkish Hollywood 'animal movies'

20 Apr 2011

(PG) 82min In complete contrast to Marley and Me, that miserable master-and-mutt movie which managed to be both cutesy and mawkish and yet still picture life with a pooch as utterly abhorrent, this animated feature is witty, wistful, honest and…

Sucker Punch holds together pretty well under its own crazy internal logic

300 director babes with blades fantasy is a guilty pleasure

29 Mar 2011

(12A) 109min At first glance Sucker Punch might be Zack Snyder’s female-focused flipside of his swords and sandals testosterone workout, 300. The co-writer and director has suggested as much, and, indeed, this babes-with-blades (and higher-tech…

Bo’ness Festival of Silent Cinema - Neil Brand interview

Screening highlights include films by Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd

6 Mar 2011

One imagines the two women who dreamed up The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema must have kept quiet about it until they launched it. Scotland’s first silent film festival in Scotland’s first purpose-built cinema? That idea’s so good it’s a wonder no…

Edinburgh International Film Festival curators revealed

Sara Driver, Jim Jarmusch, Clint Mansell and more are confirmed - but what will they do at EIFF?

2 Mar 2011

The EIFF hopes to screen You Are Not I, the film Sara Driver made the year after she began working on partner Jim Jarmusch’s films in 1980. Given the cool aesthetic of their collaborations, less is more might inform their curatorial choices. A new one…

The Insatiable Moon

New Zealand romance with mental illness themes can't quite reach the Cuckoo's Nest

2 Mar 2011

(15) 100min It’s no surprise that this uplifting comic drama from New Zealand, which is set in a home for the mentally ill, features a charismatic but unstable protagonist and mixes social realism with religious parable, has been proclaimed One Flew…

Josh T Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen

Lift to Experience frontman's sparse, pared-down solo effort

1 Mar 2011

(Mute) Aside from a handful of low-key, off-the-map gigs, this Texas troubadour hasn’t been heard since releasing his one and only album as frontman to Lift to Experience ten years ago. The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads has since been elevated to cult…

In Our Name director Brian Welsh - profile

Film charts female soldier returning home from Iraq to Newcastle

17 Feb 2011

Name? Brian Welsh. Born? Falkirk, 10 August 1981. Background? Having left school with what he describes as ‘pitiful formal qualifications’, Welsh worked variously as a waiter, bartender and gas man while developing ideas for films. His…

Brighton Rock remake actress Andrea Riseborough - Profile

From Made in Dagenham to starring opposite Guy Pearce

17 Feb 2011

Name Andrea Riseborough Born 27 October 1981, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Background She was Sally Hawkins’ mate in Happy-Go-Lucky, Margaret Thatcher in The Long Walk to Finchley, English Civil War-era crumpet in The Devil’s Whore and busty Brenda…

DVD: The Flying Scotsman

1929 Romantic comedy thriller is silent film with dialogue added

17 Feb 2011

Classic 1929 action-romance set on the titular train, with amazing stunts and future Oscar-winner Ray Milland.

Confessions - Dark drama of murder and revenge in the classroom

Japan’s contender for Best Foreign Language Film at 2011 Oscars

11 Feb 2011

(15) 106min Japan’s contender for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards is a real departure for its director, Tetsuya Nakashima, whose candy coloured comedy Kamikaze Girls and musical Memories of Matsuko previously brought him…

SG Browne - Breathers: A Zombie's Lament

Cinematic satirical debut novel already in film development

11 Feb 2011

As openings go, this one is an attention-grabber. Imagine you’ve just woken up to discover your parents’ corpses have been put in the fridge freezer, only to realise that you, their 21-year-old son, stuck them there. And all because you are a newly…

The Fighter stars Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg as boxing half-brothers

Comparisons with The Wrestler are inevitable and not unfair

2 Feb 2011

(15) 115min All the best boxing movies are as much about what goes on outside the ring as what happens inside the ropes. Despite this biopic, scripted by Scott Silver (8 Mile) and five other writers, being based on the lives of not one but two…

Brighton Rock resurrects religious theme of Graham Greene’s source novel

2011 film adaptation also highlights grubby sexual and violent content

2 Feb 2011

(15) 111min Remaking a seminal British crime film might seem like madness, but then writer-director Rowan Joffe has ignored the 1947 original and instead gone back to Graham Greene’s source novel. And having done that, he’s ditched its 1938 setting…

1964 version of The Thin Red Line is a workmanlike war movie

Original film bludgeons home madness of war message of James Jones' novel

2 Feb 2011

(12) 95min (Optimum) The central message of James Jones’ source novel – war is insane and it turns soldiers into mad men – was somewhat lost amid the seemingly endless scenes of marines wading through long grass in Terrence Malick’s quasi-mystical…

K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask

Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials boasts evocative steampunk setting

2 Feb 2011

(12) 137min (Manga Entertainment) Forget about the duff Green Hornet, this Japanese take on vintage crime-fighter serials – The Shadow, The Rocketeer, The Phantom et al – is far more entertaining. The year is 1949, but it’s an alternate reality in…

How American crime novelist Peter Leonard is stepping out from the shadow of his father

Son of Elmore Leonard publishes new book All He Saw Was the Girl

12 Jan 2011

Peter Leonard wants to escape from Detroit. Not literally. The 59-year-old American crime novelist actually resides 30 miles northwest in Birmingham, where he lives very happily with his wife and four kids. Instead, Leonard wants to flee Michigan…

Wetherby

Intriguing and engrossing 1984 mystery drama with to-die-for cast

12 Jan 2011

(15) 99min (Park Circus) National treasure David Hare remains best known for his award-feted plays (Plenty, The Blue Room) and his screenwriting (The Hours, The Reader), but he’s also an assured director, as is evidenced by this intriguing and…

F

British ‘hoody horror’ thriller in which a group of teachers defend themselves from schoolkids

12 Jan 2011

(18) 78min F is the latest in a line of peculiarly British ‘hoody horror’ films that also include Eden Lake and Heartless. English writer/director Johannes Roberts’ effort is the best yet thanks to his smart script, crisp direction and a fine…

Freakonomics

‘Blockbuster documentary’ adapting bestselling book on human nature not quite substantial enough

12 Jan 2011

(12) 90min (Optimum) This ‘blockbuster documentary’, which pools the talents of six well-established doc directors to adapt the bestselling book by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner that examined various aspects of human nature, doesn’t quite add…

Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti)

Enjoyable gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek

14 Dec 2010

(12A) 112min This gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek is as enjoyable as his winning 1996 debut, Hamam (The Turkish Bath). And over the 14 years since that international success introduced a bright new talent to…

Down Terrace

Alternately nasty and hilarious UK kitchen sink gangster film

14 Dec 2010

(15) 89min (Metrodome) Not another facking Brit gangster flick?! Well, yes, but this alternately nasty and hilarious little gem is a world away from the mockney posturing of Guy Ritchie and co. Set in the suburban backstreets of Southern England’s…

Kicks

Lindy Heymann’s dark drama dramatises crisis of Britain’s celebrity culture

14 Dec 2010

(15) 82min (Drakes Avenue) The third and final film to be made under Liverpool and Northwest’s excellent micro-budget scheme, Digital Departures, director Lindy Heymann’s dark drama is very different from its predecessors, Terence Davies…

Monsters

Astonishing science fiction thriller betters both Cloverfield and District 9

30 Nov 2010

(12A) 94min Young British filmmaker Gareth Edwards’ astonishing science fiction thriller combines the immersive excitement of Cloverfield with the astute political allegory of Distrtict 9, and, far from being a rip-off, is actually a much better film…

Robinson in Ruins offers playful commentary on state of the nation - Patrick Keiller profile

'As the 2008 banking crisis unfolded, the film gained a very specific context.'

30 Nov 2010

Name Patrick Keiller. Born Blackpool, England, 1950 Background A graduate of art and architecture, Keiller was inspired to make films by Chris Marker’s unconventional art doc, La Jetée. Keiller’s films, beginning with the 1981 short…

50th anniversary re-release of Peeping Tom - Anna Massey profile

'Peeping Tom wasn’t cosy; it was very ugly'

30 Nov 2010

Name Anna Massey Born 11 August 1937, Thakeham, West Sussex Background In the second volume of his autobiography A Life in Movies, the great British filmmaker Michael Powell recalled why he wanted the then inexperienced and unknown (in…

Outcast

Dreadful script and cack-handed direction renders film unintelligible despite strong cast

30 Nov 2010

(18) 97min This Scottish/Irish co-production shot in Edinburgh and Galway boasts an intriguing premise and a great cast, but its grim supernatural subject matter comes across as, at best, tedious, at worst, laughable. That’s a real shame given…

Shogun Assassin

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Heavily cut by the British Board of Film Censorship for its original cinema release and subsequently banned as a video nasty, this bloodthirsty 1980 martial arts flick has since become a chanabara (samurai…

Sweet Karma

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Anchor Bay) There are echoes of female vigilante benchmarks Ms 45 (aka Angel of Vengeance) and the Kill Bills in this femme fatale revenge thriller in as much as it features a gorgeous girl (model-turned-actress Shera Bechard) brutally…

Chaplin at Keystone

30 Nov 2010

(U) 561min (BFI) Before he became an international star and acclaimed filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin learned to make movies at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company. Spotted in Fred Karno’s touring vaudeville troupe, Chaplin was snapped up by the silent…

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

22 Nov 2010

(U) 89min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Frank Tashlin’s wacky 1957 advertising world romp has got to be a contender for the fastest comedy ever made. Tashlin, the Hollywood animator-turned-filmmaker, even gets in a gag before the film’s opening…

Metropolis

16 Nov 2010

(PG) 150min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) The reconstruction, restoration and re-release of classic films is now becoming a regular occurrence (happily enough), but the reissue of Fritz Lang’s visionary 1927 science fiction film is something altogether…

Chico & Rita

16 Nov 2010

(15) 93min This Spanish-made, English-language, feature-length animation joins the ever-growing list of highly unconventional, beautifully realised, adult-oriented cartoons made outside of America that also includes The Illusionist, Waltz with Bashir…

The Ballroom

Brazilian comic drama enlists former dance kings and ageing beauties

2 Nov 2010

(15) 95min (Matchbox) Brazilian director Lais Bodanzky’s charming but cheeky comic drama takes place over one night in an old school ballroom (or ‘gafieira’) in Sao Paulo, where the ageing locals teach a handful of young newcomers a thing or three…

Yunte Huang - Charlie Chan

27 Oct 2010

(WW Norton) Chinese-American academic Yunte Huang’s biography of the popular Oriental sleuth, star of six bestselling novels published from the mid-1920s on and upwards of 50 Hollywood films that followed, proves to be a pretty solid piece of…

A Town Called Panic (Panique Au Village)

6 Oct 2010

(PG) 77min This insane Belgium animated feature is the big screen spin-off of the popular 2003 television series of the same name created by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar. Its UK release is being championed by Hammer & Tongs, the pop…

Donkeys

6 Oct 2010

(15) 76min The second film to come out of the three-part Scottish-Danish co-production project The Advance Party is a very different beast from the first. By contrast to Andrea Arnold’s disturbing thriller Red Road, Donkeys is a black comedy also set…

Comanechi and Divorce

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Thu 23 Sep 2010

6 Oct 2010

Glasgow all-girl (bar one bloke) punk outfit Divorce and London boy-girl garage duo Comanechi (pictured) are calling their musical ménage-a-deux a ‘marriage of filth’. That’s not a bad tag line for these increasingly inseparable bands that boast…