Fashion :: Art :: Review 03 Dec 2008
Lindsay West: Though perhaps not as instantly recognizable outside the fashion industry as her contemporary, Barbara ‘Biba’ Hulanicki, designer Jean Muir’s impact on the British fashion scene was every bit as profound. A specialist in fluid yet com...
Art :: Review 01 Dec 2008
Mark Shukla: Having spent the preceding week building up our critical stamina by bench-pressing the hardback big-print version of Gombrich's History of Art, The Skinny glissaded into the Talbot Rice knowing exactly what we were up against. Showing thirty years' wor...
Andrew Cattanach: Douglas Gordon’s video installation, UNNATURALHISTORIE, takes place in the grand chapel of the Palais des Papes, Avignon, and consists of a number of video works showing various animals going about their usual, albeit displaced, animal business. ...
Film :: Review 01 Dec 2008
Becky Bartlett: Shot in a mixture of crisp colour, grainy sepia and monochrome over ten years, director Steven Sebring does not attempt to inform viewers of a timeline in Patti Smith: Dream of Life. A beatnik, rock and roll mix of poetry and visuals merge together to ...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 28 Nov 2008
Gavin Sturgeon: The Spiderman films taught us that “with great power comes great responsibility”, but what if you chose to spurn your super powers in favour of cheap liquor and even cheaper girls? Smith is Hancock, an anti-hero who has fallen by the waysid...
Film :: Review 28 Nov 2008
Gail Tolley: Reaching the half way point of Erick Zonca’s new film, you wouldn’t be blamed for not wanting to continue much further. Enduring almost an hour of our protagonist Julia (Tilda Swinton), a desperate, egotistical alcoholic, is somewhat tryin...
Kevin McHugh: Robert Carlyle gives a career-best performance in a deeply affecting take on two men’s friendship. Through flashbacks presented by narrator Shaun, we are introduced to our two main characters; Shaun (Carlyle), the local bad boy and his partn...
Film :: Review 25 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: The 90s saw a new and still present cultural phenomenon emerge: the New Lad. As well as embracing binge drinking, football and pseudo-porn magazines, new lads were also quick to lionise gangsters and criminals. One such figure was notorious football ho...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 25 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: Almost every American film made since September 2001 has been probed and prodded for a post-9/11 subtext. Directed by James Marsh, The King (2005) explored the rise of the Christian right in the Bush era, with a family drama of Old Testament proportion...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 23 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: With Obama soon to be in the White House and a renewed sense of hope amongst the American left, Jamie Babbit’s follow up to But I’m A Cheerleader may be the last of its kind. A punk romance, the film follows buttoned down receptionist Anna ...
Games :: Review 22 Nov 2008
Josh Wilson: Alongside standard graphical improvements over the original and a longer, Epic Games have added a slew of tweaks and touches which keep the core gameplay perfectly intact, but fix a few of the niggles that arose with the first game. The game plays out...
Games :: Review 21 Nov 2008
Dave Cook: It was always inevitable that Guitar Hero would follow Rock Band's lead, adding more instruments into the mix. Lower the accusing fingers and cries of 'copycat' and believe the hype: this massive sequel offers would-be rockstars an insane amount of cre...
Art :: Review 20 Nov 2008
Mark Herbert: Neville Rae is the artist lucky enough to have the inaugural show of Sierra Metro, the new gallery housed in a disused warehouse in Granton. The work reacts to the location of the gallery, drawing attention to this patch of waterfront and, mor...
Film :: Review 20 Nov 2008
Gavin Sturgeon: Mike Myers has plunged to new depths for cheap laughs in his first onscreen performance since 2003. As well as playing the leading role, Myers is on writing duties, and plays it well and truly safe: knob gags are lazily in abundance. Did it really take...
Art :: Review 19 Nov 2008
Suzanne Neilson: The first gallery is sparse, containing only two works: a wall-hung ceramic mosaic of a cereal that claims to lower cholesterol, and, on a column in the centre of the room, a small misshapen oven-baked polymer clay sculpture of a carton of rice milk. T...
Games :: Review 19 Nov 2008
Neil Robertson: As Faith, a 'Runner' for an elicit courier service that uses the rooftops of the city as its information conduit, the skyline is your playground. The story mode takes you through the (wafer thin) plot in around 8-10 hours, freeing up speed run options...
Film :: Review 17 Nov 2008
Gail Tolley: Baghdad, Kabul, Grozny, Beirut – names which evoke, more than anything, the war stricken images of televised news. Such associations make creating a documentary on the conflict in these places especially challenging; there are already so many co...
Film :: Review 15 Nov 2008
Gail Tolley: There’s a sense of déjà vu in this pleasant, yet predictable French drama. Our central character, a painter from Paris, returns to the village where he grew up and hires a gardener who turns out to be a school friend he hasn’t...
Comedy :: Review 14 Nov 2008
Scotty McKellar: Regulars to The Stand’s Melting Pot, a monthly showcase for new comedy writing talent, were in for a nasty surprise this week when it was usurped by a fundraiser for North Edinburgh Arts Centre. In place of the normal format, 15 sketches from the...
Film :: Review 14 Nov 2008
Laura Smith: Clark Gregg's strangled adaptation of lit cult favourite Chuck Palahniuk's novel of masculine malaise really wants to be an edgy, twisted little indie satire but fudges all its promise of energetic sleaze and cynicism with an uncertain blend of diluted...
