Miles Fielder

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…

Alan Moore - Lost Girls

5 Feb 2009

‘What we wanted to do with Lost Girls was to come up with a different form of pornography. We realised we had the ideas for something enormous and wonderful.’ Alan Moore, who’s widely considered to be the finest writer working in comics today and is…

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…

Frances Ruffelle: Beneath the Dress

Cheeky, sexy and surprising cabaret-esque show

23 Aug 2010

Given Ruffelle’s showbiz background – she’s the daughter of London theatre school founder Sylvia Young and a Tony Award-winning star of West End and Broadway musicals such as Les Misérables and Chicago – it’s unsurprising that her cabaret-esque Fringe…

Morecambe

Show-stopping comic tribute

10 Aug 2009

This funny-sad account of the life and death of the man who was dubbed Britain’s ‘comedian of the century’ is already a big hit with Fringe crowds. It’s fair to assume that the prospect of seeing the late, great Eric Morecambe brought back to life on…

Wedding Daze

21 May 2007

COMEDY In an excruciatingly embarrassing opening sequence worthy of the notorious warm apple tart shag in American Pie, the star of both somewhat infantile romantic comedies, the charmingly gormless Jason Biggs, proposes marriage to his sweetheart…

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

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…

Film Noir

19 Feb 2009

(18) 96min (Optimum DVD retail) ANIMATION/THRILLER Mixing the conventions of its genre namesake with explicit sex scenes, this adult animated feature is a cross between 40s noir The Big Sleep and 70s underground cartoon Fritz The Cat. It…

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…

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…

Simon Callow - A Festival Dickens

A rich performance of moving, entertaining tales

21 Aug 2008

Having taken his celebrated one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens around the world, British thesp Simon Callow is no stranger to the Victorian writer and philanthropist. Here, Callow performs his second solo Dickens show under the sure-handed…

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…

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…

The Queen of Spades - Michael Medwin interview

17 Dec 2009

‘The Queen of Spades is a terrific film,’ Medwin says. ‘It’s a very gripping piece. At the time, it was one of the most expensive British films and, at the time, it was critically acclaimed. It’s nice that it’s being resuscitated.’ Born in London in…

Howard Chaykin - American Flagg!

28 May 2009

With a penchant for eroticism and violence, US comics visionary Howard Chaykin is releasing another groundbreaking work. Miles Fielder chats to him.

Emily Blunt - Yo majesty!

5 Mar 2009

When people got an eyeful of Emily Blunt’s striking good looks and acting ability in My Summer of Love, winner of the Best New British Feature award following its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2004, the general consensus…

Sex Drive

8 Jan 2009

COMEDY Determined not to start college a virgin, semi-nerdy teenager Ian (Josh Zuckerman, best known as Young Dr Evil in the Austin Powers sequel Goldmember) drives across country to bed a red-hot babe he met on the internet named Ms Tasty. Fuelled…

Jason - I Killed Adolf Hitler

29 Nov 2007

IDIOSYNCRATIC SCI-FI I Killed Adolf Hitler (Fantagraphics) Having re-imagined heavyweight modernist writing icons Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound as criminals involved in a heist in The Left Bank Gang, and plundered George Romeo’s zombie…

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…

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…

The Passion Within

Period detail and good-looking actors in an unremarkable film

17 Aug 2010

‘You f**k like a boy’, reads the message that an actress leaves smeared in red lipstick across the bedroom mirror of a famous bullfighter in this 1940s Spain-set biopic that focuses on the tempestuous romance between Lupe Sino (Penelope Cruz) and…

David Strassman: Ventriloquism taken to a whole new level

Duality brilliantly wrong-foots audience and may blow minds

6 Aug 2010

American entertainer David Strassman continues to single-handedly revive and redefine the ancient art of ventriloquism for the 21st century with this hilarious mind-bending psychodrama which might have been written by Charlie Being John Malkovich…

Wolf

Richly atmospheric exploration of human-wolf relations

26 Jul 2010

Inspired by current proposals to reintroduce wolves into the Scottish highlands (the last wolf north of the border was killed back in 1769), the debut production by director Kath Burlinson’s Authentic Artistic Collective (drawing performers from Cirque…