Paul Dale

The Devil Wears Prada

2 Oct 2006

Long before Jimmy Choo or Louis Vuitton, the Romans knew the score on couture. Back in 1AD Roman philosopher Seneca warned of the imperilled dangers of living ‘not according to reason, but according to fashion.’ Not that anyone took any notice. A couple…

The Aryan Couple

2 Oct 2006

John Daly is a big man in the filmmaking world. His exec producer credits include Salvador, River’s Edge, Platoon, The Last Emperor and Loach’s Hidden Agenda. So how he came to direct a film this bad is something of a mystery. Based on the not very true…

How to Steal a Diamond

Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Thu 5 Oct, then touring

2 Oct 2006

CRIME/COMEDY/DRAMA Oxygen and water, that’s what diamonds are made of. And yet whatever rung of society you are hanging off, the possession of these rocks is an invitation to a world of riches. Inspiring independent theatre company, Vox Motus…

Glasgay! film season

A selection of fine, exciting (and occasionally un

28 Sep 2006

This year’s programme is strong, and though it lacks the big US names (Todd Haynes, Gregg Araki, John Walters) there is still plenty to savour. Check out Argentinean filmmaker Pablo Sofovich’s tale of turkey basters, lesbian parentage and familial farce…

Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion (Bantam)

28 Sep 2006

Like a latter day John Thomas Scopes (the Tennessee biology teacher who was the inspiration for the play and film Inherit the Wind) Richard Dawkins has long been vocal about his belief that all children should be taught the Darwinian Theory of Evolution…

Keane

(15) 94min

18 Sep 2006

DRAMA ‘Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy,’ according to the great Canadian philosopher and theorist Herbert Marshall McLuhan, but it is also a surety of grief. No one thinks he knows this better than William Keane (Damian…

This Film is Not Yet Rated

(18) 97min

18 Sep 2006

DOCUMENTARY Kirby Dick’s hilarious but deeply worrying exposé of the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating board is one of the most thoroughly entertaining documentaries of the year. A clearly partisan Dick (his own films, among them Sick…

In A Man's World - DVD review

In a Man's World

18 Sep 2006

CRIME/DRAMA OK, first things first: In a Man’s World is not a very good film, but it is interesting one for a number of reasons. Aberdonian writer/director Lee Hutcheson’s debut feature is a stilted, ultra low budget cross of Goodfellas, Sleepers and…

PS - DVD review

PS

18 Sep 2006

ROMANCE Films set in or around art schools are still something of a rarity (although Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential should be touching down sometime in 2007) so it’s something of a shame that Dylan Rodger Dodger Kidd’s second feature never…

The Wicker Man

4 Sep 2006

Love can make us do the strangest things. Just ask Neil Labute, the writer/director of In the Company of Men, Our Friends and Neighbours and The Shape of Things. Labute, for all his inconsistencies, has long been noted as the foremost chronicler of the…

The Fallen Idol

4 Sep 2006

Between 1947’s Odd Man Out and 1949’s The Third Man, the great British filmmaker Carol Reed made this tiny gem of bewilderment, childhood perception and very adult deceptions. The Fallen Idol was the first of three collaborations between Reed and Graham…

Bob Dylan - CD review

Bob Dylan

4 Sep 2006

BLUES FOLK ROCK Dylan’s long-gestating 32nd studio album may not, as the man pointed out in a recent, much publicised interview, sound half as good on CD as it did in the studio, but there is plenty here to warm the hearts of those who rallied behind…

David Hamilton Boxset

(18) 242min (Jeff DVD retail)

4 Sep 2006

SOFT CORE COLLECTION In the late 70s and early 80s, London society photographer David Hamilton turned his hand to filmmaking and directed a couple of soft focus impressionistic sex dramas. His three best-known films, which are featured in this…

I Am Curious Yellow/I Am Curious Blue

(18) 220min (2nd DVD retail)

4 Sep 2006

SEX DRAMA A very welcome re-release of director Vilgot Sjöman’s seminal sexploitation movie. In 1966 Sjöman went to his producer and asked for 100,000 metres of black and white film and total freedom to make a film without a script. The result was…

Colour Me Kubrick

25 Jul 2006

What do you get if you cross Six Degrees of Separation with Catch Me If You Can? The answer is, of course, Colour Me Kubrick. Based on a story by long time Kubrick friend, writer and fellow photography enthusiast Anthony Frewin, Colour Me Kubrick is the…

Alexander McCall Smith - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Some years ago Mma 'Precious' Ramotswe decided to use her inheritance from her beloved father to open a detective agency in Botswana. Having been met with scepticism by her bank manager ('Can women be detectives?'), she put together her assets (a tiny…