Tom Reviews

Here's the latest couple of reviews I've written for Artrocker. Firstly I went to see The Zombies a couple of weeks ago. They were good in places and dull in others. Rod Argent and his rock 'n' roll ancedotes from the 60s reminded me a little of Les McQueen from the League of Gentlemen. "He was ever such a nice chap. He said to me Les, to you it's 80 sheets." Here's my review.

Secondly I reviewed The National's DVD 'A Skin, A Night'. Now I love The National, but the film was hugely disappointing. A lot of arty pish in the main. However it's not a total loss as it comes with a decent 12 track EP. Here's my review.

Edwyn Collins at Oran Mor

On Tuesday night I was at Oran Mor to see Edwyn Collins. As you may be aware Collins fell seriously ill three years ago with a brain hemorrhage. He's battled back and recovered so well that he's now on a national tour.

I was more than curious to see what kind of show he would serve up, as he's still far from having fully recovered. What kind of show it was, was first class. I've seen him a few times in the past and although this time round he talked a lot less between songs it was a corker of a set.

I was there to review it for Artrocker. My review is here and a handful of photographs are here.

The Funniest Film of the Year

I saw Superbad (*****) over the weekend, and as the Tom Stars rating suggests it’s one of the best films of the year. When I posted the trailer back in April my expectations for it were high. Usually when you highly anticipate a film that much it lets you down. At least a wee bit. Superbad doesn’t.

Bringing up to date films like Porky’s and Weird Science with a little touch of Dazed and Confused thrown in, it’s the story of three geeks out to get laid on the last day of High School.

Gag-packed it crams in cracking line after cracking line, squirming incident after squirming incident. If you don’t like hearing a hundred variations on the act of lovemaking then it’s probably not for you.

I couldn’t get enough of that brilliantly baffled look on Michael Cera’s face as George Michael in Arrested Development and the character he plays here isn’t a million miles away from that.

It’s a film similar to things like Anchorman and Dodgeball that will probably improve on repeat viewings.

Films

Here's my round up of some of the films I've seen over the last week or so.

Year of the Dog (****)
From Mike White, the writer of Chuck and Buck and The School of Rock, comes a story of one woman's descent into madness. Molly Shannon turns in an understated performance, totally different from her manic turns in Saturday Night Live, as a woman whose life revoles round her little dog. When he dies she struggles to find something to cling to, but when she meets Peter Sarsgaard, she thinks she's found it. It's really downbeat and it's not for everyone, but it's charming and a strong supporting cast helps it along.

Two Days in Paris (****)
July Delpy writes, stars, directs and edits this film about a French photographer taking her insecure boyfriend back to meet her insane family. It's entertaining stuff. Delpy and Adam Goldberg make a good couple and a lot of the bickering and jealousy rings true. It's been compared to Woody Allen and Diane Keaton's comedies and that's not a bad comparison.

Hallam Foe (***)
Jamie Bell stars as the eponymous peeping tom, convinced his stepmother offed his mum. A lot of this is pompous middle-class folk I couldn't really give a toss about, but enough humour and intrigue pokes through to make it worth the time.

Run Fat Boy Run (***)
Far funnier than you may expect, Run Fat Boy Run, is certainly corny, but there are a good number of laughs in it. Simon Pegg turns in a terrific comic performance and co-star Dylan Moran has a few funny moments himself. David Schwimmer's directorial debut and co-written by Pegg and Michael Ian Black it tells the story of an overweight loser trying to win back his former sweetheart. As a love story it's not really believable, but as a comedy it works. Pegg has a lot of charm and there's enough laughs to make it worthwhile.

Atonement (*****)
A big sweeping epic set in the lead up to, and during, the Second World War. I found it completely compelling from the get-go. James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are both great in the lead roles, though the entire cast is strong. I chose not to read too much about it before I went in, having never read the Ian McEwan novel, so the twists and turns were surprising to me.

The film also looks gorgeous and the 5 minute continuous take on the beach at Dunkirk is stunning. One of the best films of the year it's the kind of film that while you're watching it, you're thinking about seeing it again.

Late Summer Movies

I've been to the cinema a couple of times in the last week. While I'm still an unemployed bum I should spend a bit more time in the cinema than I do.

Anyway first of all I saw Knocked Up (****) it's a really solid comedy. Much as you would expect from Judd Apatow, one of the smartest guys in American comedy. It has plenty of laughs, has characters that you can root for and a strong screenplay that has all the right ups and downs. It's a film that I couldn't stop thinking about even a day or two later. It may well be, as some of the reviews state, the summer's best comedy.

The other film I saw was Breach (****). Chris Cooper plays the real life disgraced FBI man Robert Hanssen. That link tells you all about his crimes, but the film starts off by revealing what happens to him, so therre's no shock ending.

Breach is directed by Billy Ray, who also made Shattered Glass, another story of a man living a lie, who was ultimately brought down. This plays out in a similar fashion. It's a strong, absorbing thriller with excellent performances from Cooper, and Ryan Phillippe as the agent sent to bring him down.

The Bridge

Over the weekend I saw The Bridge, a documentary about The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. More accurately it’s a documentary about the suicides that occur on the bridge.

There was some controversy about how the film was made. The filmmakers set up numerous cameras at various points across the bridge and recorded all the activity there for a year. They told the authorities that they were making a film about a year in the life of the bridge, but didn't tell them they would be focusing solely on those people who chose to jump from there.

It captures many people jumping to their death and it’s quite a haunting and affecting film. It’s such a picturesque scene it can’t help but look great visually.

There are interviews with friends and family of those who jumped. There’s footage of someone who was rescued by a passer-by and there’s an interview with Kevin Hines. Kevin jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge, but survived.

It offers no solutions for the people in the film wondering why their loved one chose to kill themselves. It also provides no suggestions for how San Francisco can stop the bridge staying the World’s no. 1 suicide hotspot.

Early on there’s a fascinating contrast that the location provides. One of the jumpers was found by two guys who were on the water water kiting. They commented on the fact that they used the water as a celebration of life doing something they loved on it, while someone else used it to end their life.

It’s certainly not the easiest film to watch but it’s powerful, moving and totally compelling.

Here's a review of the film from Paste magazine.

Embra 2007

Last year I was at the Edinburgh Festival so much I started a separate blog. Not this year. Although I have all the time in the world I have nae money. But yesterday I went over anyway. I started off my day at The Stand with Devlin’s Daily. This is a good start for two reasons. One. It’s free. Two. There are a handful of acts on so it’s a good taster.

The highlights of the show were Tommy Sheridan, who seemed quite keen to talk about his recent court case. God’s Pottery were the funniest act on. A parody of a Christian folk group they played a couple of songs and went down really well with the crowd.

Michelle McManus finished the show off. Really she was pretty boring, talking about how successful she was. “My ma and da have got a guid hoose noo. My mammy says it’s Bailleston, but it’s Easterhoose really.” Aye hooray for your ma and da. “I’ve goat nothing tae say against Simon Cowell. If it wisnae for Pop Idol…I’m working wi the BBC noo and the new album’s comin oot an this show I’m in‘s transferring tae the west end. So I’m really happy”. However she was quite amusing when she got onto the subject of Gillian McKeith, who was apparently appalled by how much she eats.

Come 4.05pm I joined a sell-out crowd to see Limmy’s Show. It’s easily one of the most inventive shows you’ll see at the Festival. Mixing videos and character comedy it’s packed with laughs and there’s always something happening. He never lets it go stale as he moves from one off the wall topic to the next.

There’s probably too many highlights to list, but I’ll give it a go anyway. The sketch ‘Double Take’ seemed to be the big hit of his show at Blackfriars in March, but it doesn’t even make my top 5 for this one.

Of the video sketches simply banging his head on a door was hilarious, a parody of Cillia Black’s Surprise Surprise was a big laugh, ‘Swings’ a sketch about growing up was great and there was a clever 5 minute piece on Reporting Scotland, and no it’s not what you would think. There’s no one else who would watch Reporting Scotland and come up with this.

Of the live stuff he had some good sketches about a money lender, what kitchen implements are the hardest and a ‘guy on a permo’. The best bit for me though was Jacqueline McCafferty’s Big Brother audition tape. I literally had tears running down my face as her audition turns into a rant against Davina McCall.

If we’re handing out stars it would get five. Aye there’s probably some stuff that could be tightened but you’ll struggle to find a show that you’ll laugh harder at this festival.

After that I went for a vanilla latte with the man himself as he waved his bundles of bank notes in my unemployed face.

The rain pished down in the evening as I headed up to the book festival. I don’t think I went near the book festival last year, but I enjoyed hanging about it yesterday. I went to see Iain Banks read from and discuss his new book, The Steep Approach to Garbadale.

I’ve always liked Banks when I’ve seen him do interviews on the telly. He seems to have a childlike enthusiasm about him when he discusses his work. He took questions from the crowd for a while as the rain battered down on the tent roof.

In the queue I spoke to a woman who had been to see Norman Mailer there. He even signed her book. Not really that remarkable until you realise he was in America at the time. His appearance at the book festival, where he also took questions from the Edinburgh audience, was via a video link up and he signed books using Long Pen.

Long Pen was invented by Margaret Atwood. ‘The world’s first long distance, real-time, real pen and ink autographing service.’ The woman’s friend asked her, “Does that really count as an autograph?” The woman seemed unsure. I’d go for no. It’s an odd concept, but the woman’s friend speculated on whether or not that would make the book more valuable or less so.

The Hoax

The Hoax is the story of struggling author Clifford Irving, who, after his latest book is shelved, in a fit of bravado tells his erstwhile publishers that he has ‘the book of the century’. While thinking what that book might be, he remembers an article on the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

Hughes, an eccentric, hasn’t spoken in public for 15 years and communicates only by hand written memos. Hand written memos that are published in the media. Memos that Irving feels confident that he can forge.

So he tells the publisher that he’s been collaborating with Hughes on his autobiography. As no one could contact Hughes, no one could prove Irving wrong. The more ludicrous Irving’s supposed instructions from Hughes, the more plausible they sound.

It’s a true story (for the most part) and you can read about it at Clifford Irving’s website. Although Irving says that really it's a hoax about a hoax.

The film directed by ABBA the Movie director Lasse Hallstrom is one of the best I’ve seen this year. Richard reminds us that actually he is a very good actor. Alfred Molina gives able support as his right hand man.

Every time the heat gets too much Irving cranks it up a notch. The greed though is all over the place as everyone involved gets excited about landing a book that would ‘sell more copies than The Bible’.

The film sags a little bit as Irving descends into paranoia and madness, but it’s never less than a fascinating study of greed, obsession and arrogance.

You can download some chapters of the hoax autobiography in PDF format from Irving's website.

The Crime Library has a good article on the story of how the hoax autobiography came into being.

There's also an article on the saga at Time magazine.

The Simpsons Movie – Tom’s Verdict

The Simpsons Movie didn’t disappoint, it was packed with laughs. No, it’s not quite as good as you may have hoped it was going to be but there are plenty of laughs. Homer befriends a pig and gets the whole of Springfield in big, big trouble.

There’s more pathos than in your typical Simpsons episode and the characters do grow a little bit throughout the film. The local residents don’t get as much screentime as I would have liked, but there’s still some great lines from the likes of Ralph, Moe and Chief Wiggum.

The baddie comes in the form of Albert Brooks playing a shadowy government agency head. Perhaps the thing that dilutes the movie’s impact is that they’ve had 17 years of plotlines in the TV series. Mr. Burns for example would have made a better villain, but of course that had been done several times in the TV series.

I dunno if the film will create new Simpsons fans, but those of you that have been watching it for years will certainly enjoy it. Mind and do as we did and stay in your seats when the credits roll, cos the jokes aren’t finished.

Taking Liberties

Yesterday I went to see Taking Liberties, a documentary about how the Labour government has slowly taken away a wide range of things people in Britain held dear. Innocent until proven guilty, the right to protest etc.

It's one of the best films I've seen this year. As it shows laws being changed to suit the government's agenda and the police wasting everyone's time by treating hippies and pensioners as 'terrorists' it's actually a film that makes you angry.

If you're still unconvinced over ID cards, the film offers some great reasons why we shouldn't have them and why we don't need them. If you think, 'If you don't do anything wrong, then you've nothing to worry about,' then it's worth seeing here there are some very good examples of people who weren't doing anything wrong and found out that they had a lot to worry about.

The film also sums up one of the reasons that I hate this government. Because I now agree with people like Boris Johnson

Unfortunately it's only showing at the GFT until Sunday, but when it comes out on DVD or gets another limited run at the cinema it's well worth seeing.

Ted Leo @ King Tut's

On Saturday night along with the TPID boys and friends I went to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists play King Tuts. This was part of a UK tour, which in turn was part of a larger European tour. We were quite lucky as circumstances meant that Ted Leo had to cancel the rest of the tour and fly back home the next day. So this was the tour’s last night.

This time there was an extra guitarist to augment the group to a four piece. They played a lot from the new LP Living With the Living as well as many fan favourites.

My favourite tunes were probably the first two songs of the encore ‘Timorous Me’ and ‘Walking to Do’. The one that met with the best reaction from the crowd was probably ‘Bottle of Buckie’, his song on hanging about in Govanhill.

The show ended with Ted casting his guitar aside, nearly hitting Chris the drummer with it in the process, before he launched himself headfirst into the crowd, where he continued singing despite practically landing on his head as folk struggled to keep him held up.

There’s a handful of photographs below. Underneath them there's the video for Bomb Repeat Bomb.

It Happened Here

Yesterday I went along to the GFT to see It Happened Here, showing as part of their ‘What If…?’ season. It Happened Here was made over 8 years (the longest ever film production schedule) and finally emerged in 1965.

It tells the story of an England inhabited by the German Army in the time after Dunkirk. British police forces patrol alongside Nazi soldiers and for the majority complying with law and order is the best way to get along and get Britain out of its current dark days.

There was a lengthy introduction to the film, by film critic Mitch Miller, who provided much of the background to the film. The directors Kenneth Brownlow and Andrew Mollo made the film initially without any funding (although director Tony Richardson provided a contribution towards the end), using their own wages, working on weekends and employing mainly amateur actors and friends. All the costumes were painstakingly sourced; none were made for the production.

The finished film was deemed to be controversial for a number of reasons. For one the film industry at large didn’t like it that two amateurs could go out and make a professionally looking film that also had artistic merit. The film’s suggestion that Britain could have colluded with the Nazis also sat uncomfortably for people.

Kevin Brownlow said of the production, “We started as raw amateurs, with no money. We ended as semi-professionals, our film sold to United Artists. And no money. En route, we had the bumpiest ride imaginable. Desertions from the cast, technical catastrophes, lawsuits…Enraging the film industry is not a sensible way to become part of it. And to make what you firmly believe to be an anti-Fascist film and to be accused of anti-Semitism is something of a blow."

The film features real-life British national socialists as officers in the incumbent puppet regime. They provide their real thoughts in a 7-minute segment in the film. Although it adds to the authenticity it sparked criticism that the filmmakers had allowed them a platform.

As for the film itself, it was very interesting from a historical point of view. It’s no war film, where the Goodies and Baddies are very clearly illustrated. There’s a lot of confusion in how people have to live their lives, not really knowing who they can trust and compromise plays a large part in their existence.

It Happened Here is available on DVD and Kevin Brownlow has written a book on his experiences.

Films, Films, Films

So enough about the unemployment you’re all saying. Tell us about all the films this free time has enabled you to watch. Okay folks, I will.

In addition to going to the cinema more often I’ve been renting some films on DVD. So here’s a weekly round up.

Shattered Glass. Based on the true story of New Republic journalist Stephen Glass this is quite a compelling watch. A simple story well told. Hayden Christensen plays Glass, a young journalist desperate to impress his peers and his bosses with his fantastic pieces. So desperate that he begins to make things up.

Peter Sarsgaard is excellent as Chuck Lane, his editor, and there’s good support from Chole Sevigny, Melanie Lynskey, Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn.

Conversations With Other Women. Shot in split-screen, this features Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham-Carter sharing an evening at a wedding. It feels a lot more like a play than a film.

The split-screen aspect seems to lend weight to the film that it doesn’t really have and it’s only the strong performances of the two leads that carry it through.

The Queen. I never got round to seeing this in the cinema, but seeing as it’s a Stephen Frears film I always knew that it was going to be solid. Helen Mirren is never less than believable as the Monarch, but for me Michael Sheen is the stand-out as Tony Blair. He’s played him before of course in The Deal the drama Frears and The Queen’s scriptwriter Peter Morgan made for TV.

It’s another simple story made compelling in the telling, with The Queen reluctant to make much of a fuss about the death of Princess Diana. While Blair’s popularity among the British public grows in comparison. “You will experience this as well,” she later tells the Prime Minister.

Outfoxed. This is a documentary that looks at Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News company. ‘Fair and Balanced’ goes their slogan, but this documentary shows that they are anything but.

It focuses a lot on Bill O’Reilly, a man so contemptible, the more you look at him, the sicker you physically feel. He’s one of those talk shows hosts who is happy to listen to their guests so long as they agree 100% with him and his politics. Unlike radio talk show hosts who can cut their callers off, O’Reilly frequently resorts to shouting “Shut up!” and asking his technical people to “Cut his mic.”

One notable encounter features Jeremy M. Glick, the son of a man who died at the World Trade Center. O’Reilly had him on his show as he couldn’t believe that he would have the audacity to sign an anti-war petition despite being the son of a man murdered by terrorists.

Glick gives as good as he gets from O’Reilly, who grows increasingly irritated by Glick’s refusal to back down.

Outfoxed had a number of volunteers who watched Fox News round the clock and noted down various anomalies and curiosities about their coverage. Pro-Bush stories masquerading as news items, so called left-wing liberal correspondents backing down in debates with much tougher right wing presenters. However all the volunteers on Outfoxed were already politically aware and all of them had either strong-left wing sensibilities or were already aware of how much Fox skewers the news it presents. I would have found it more interesting had the people taking part been unaware of how Fox spins its news coverage.

Spiderman 3. I really didn’t like this. I was always a big Spiderman fan as a kid and although the films can’t play to all the strengths that made Spiderman popular as a comic book hero it didn’t hit enough of them to make this a success in my eyes.

For instance I don’t remember the comics having lengthy portions where Peter Parker greets over his girlfriend. I think he may have done it once or twice, but usually The Vulture or The Sandman or someone got in the way. In the film his mask routinely keeps coming off. I know you don’t want to keep the star of the film hidden under a mask all the time, but it’s Spiderman for chrissakes. And how come practically everyone knows his identity?

I also had problems with the black suit. Not because it turns Spidey into a darker character, but because it just seems to turn him into an obnoxious dick. The sub-Saturday Night Fever section I found excruciating.

As for the villains. Too many of them and none of them really given enough room to manoeuvre. There were some good bits in the film, mainly with the Sandman, but on the whole this was such a disappointment that it had me looking forward to the new Fantastic Four film.

The Pixies Live at the Paradise in Boston. This is a concert film of The Pixies playing a 200 capacity venue in their hometown last year. The band seems quite relaxed and chatty with the audience as they play through faves like Nimrod’s Son, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Debaser and Gigantic. The DVD also features a 12-song set from a Boston show in October 1986, filmed on a shaky camcorder and transferred from a bad quality video tape.

9/11 Press for Truth. This is a documentary that centres on the Jersey Girls, a group of women who all lost husbands or sons in the World Trade Center. They fight to have established what the Bush administration really knew about terrorists threats before 9/11 and what they did and did not do on the day to prevent them happening.

The film also features Paul Thompson, author of The Complete 9/11 Timeline, who discovered that a lot of articles containing some stunning facts about the terrorist threats to the US were being buried away inside newspapers and online.

It’s an interesting film, that leaves you in no doubt that at the very least those at the top in the US don’t really give a fuck what the general public thinks.

A Scanner Darkly. Another one I missed at the cinema. Phillip K. Dick’s novel, filmed then animated by Richard Linklater. Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. all put in first rate performances. Yes, even Keanu, I think the animation format enhances his turn. Although obviously a drug fuelled story it flows very well and the pieces all fit together nicely. And what’s more it made me remember how much I love Winona Ryder.

Mutual Appreciation. I really can’t emphasise enough how much this film is about nothing. I’m a fan of the Brooklyn band Bishop Allen and when I discovered that the two guys in the band are also both actors and read a bit about the films they were in I thought, ‘I’ll look out for them if they’re ever released here.’

Well, Mutual Appreciation was one of those films. On limited release here it features Justin Rice as Alan, a singer who comes to New York, looking to put a band together to play his songs. His band’s songs are actually Bishop Allen’s songs and probably the best bit in the film for me was a nervy live performance of ‘Quarter to Three’.

I really enjoyed this film, but it’s not something I would recommend to people, because very little happens in it. It’s very naturalistic and in one scene where Alan arrives late and drunk at a party that’s wound down I couldn’t help feeling I’d been to exactly the same party.

There’s a little love triangle forming with Alan, his best friend and his best friend’s girl, but it’s so understated it barely gets going, doing to the blushing and fumbling of its participants.

If you imagine Woody Allen as a 25 year old singer/songwriter playing in a band called The Bumblebees you’re not far off Mutual Appreciation.

Special. Michael Rapaport is in pretty much every single scene as a man who discovers that medical tests have given him super-powers and as such he sets out to fight crime. But have they really given him super-powers and is that man really his doctor and are there really ‘suits’ on his trail? To be honest even by the end I’m not quite sure. Was the whole thing a metaphor for something else? Again I’m not really sure.

It’s quite an enjoyable film however. Even if it did seem a little bit baffling and it becomes much darker than it initially appears to be. Rapaport is always good in just the right role and he’s excellent here as a man whose desire to fight crime and have superpowers far outweighs his need to cling on to his sanity.

Zodiac

With my new found unemployment I can now go to the cinema in the afternoon and it was with this recently acquired cinematic spring in my step I went to see Zodiac (****).

The film tells the story of the sprawling investigation into a San Francisco serial killer in the late 60s. The always watchable Mark Ruffalo plays the hot-shot detective haunted by the case. Robert Downey Jnr. turns in yet another outstanding performance as an investigate journalist singled out by the killer in a bid to win media fame. Jake Gynellhall completes the triumvirate of male leads as a newspaper cartoonist whose casual interest in the case becomes an obsession.

There’s good support too from Anthony Edwards, Elias Koteas, Phillip Baker Hall and Chloe Sevigny.

The film is equally intriguing and horrific. The killings happen in painfully lingering detail onscreen. It’s less flashy than David Fincher’s previous films and at just over two and a half hours, possibly it’s slightly long.

Good performances all round though.

T-Break Showcase

For the last three nights I’ve been in King Tut’s to see the T-Break Showcases. I was there to review them for a magazine called Artrocker.

The showcases were for unsigned bands. A judging panel selects 12 bands to play on the T Break stage at this year’s T in the Park. With 6 bands playing every night you may expect one or two duffers, but the standard was pretty high.

Over the three nights my favourites were The Little Kicks, Little Doses, Radars and Theatre Fall. You can hear some mp3s on their websites or you can go to the T-Break site to hear songs from all 48 bands on over the week in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I’ve got some photographs from across all three nights or you can look at James Cadden’s much better photographs from last night’s show.

This is England

I went to the cinema for the first time in ages last night. The first time since I saw perhaps the year’s worst film The Number 23. I went to see This is England. Shane Meadows’ latest has a lot in common with his last film Dead Man’s Shoes.

They both spotlight violence, bleak council estates and gang mentality and how some people threaten and dominate those weaker than them. You‘re probably aware of the film’s plot, but briefly, set in 1983, it centres on a 12 year old lad, who lost his father in the Falklands. He falls in with a gang of skinheads and comes under the spell of Combo a skinhead recently released from prison who thinks its his duty to claim back what ‘is England’ from immigrants and everyone else he thinks has a better time of it than him.

The film captures skinheads well. Some of them were just into the fashion. The haircut, the clothes, the music. Others saw it as some sort of solution for why their lives were shit. It in no way glamorises violence or racism. In fact it makes it seem pretty pathetic. It’s people trying to dominate folk weaker than them. And that goes up as well as down as we see Combo at a National Front meeting looking up to NF leader (a great understated cameo from Frank Harper), who’s dominating and controlling him in the same way he’s attempting to do with the younger lads.

One of the film’s stars Andrew Shim sums up how the film differs from other skinhead films well in an interview with Britfilms.

"See, that’s the thing, ‘This Is England’ has captured it perfectly. Films like ‘Romper Stomper’ and ‘American History X’ focus on the racism and kicking the s**t out of each other. They don’t do true skinheads the justice they deserve and show what they were really like. They were listening to Reggae and Reggae artists were making music for skinheads."

The cast are all excellent, Thomas Turgoose is the most talked about cast member, being the young centre of the film, but Stephen Graham is also excellent as Combo. It's dark and it's brutal in places, but it's well worth seeing.

The This is England website has a lot of good behind the scenes video and other stuff.

James @ the Academy

I went to see James at the Carling Academy last night. I was there to review them for The Skinny, so I saved on the unbelievable 30 quid ticket price. As I mentioned in a post last week, I’ve been a fan of James since the late 80s, from round about the time the Strip Mine album came out.

I became less attached to them as the years went on and their popularity increased. However they would always come along every so often with a song I really liked. So when the chance came to see them for nothing I was happy to take it.

The Twang opened for them. Touted as the next big thing by the music press they recall the Madchester days of the Mondays and yes, Northside. Why do we need another Northside? We don’t really, eh? But they were actually quite good. They have two singers, one doing a Bez type act. I’m sure they’ll be about for some time to come. You can listen to their single ‘Wide Awake’ through the BBC site here.

The audience seemed to be full of people in their mid 30s to mid 50s and given that James are doing this tour to celebrate 25 years in the business that’s no great surprise. They kicked off with ‘Come Home’ and from then on most people in the audience treated the night like a World Cup win. A lot of folk seemed to find the need to watch the show with their arms aloft in some sort of messiah pose.

Many older guys did that jogging on the spot style of dancing throughout the night too. For me there always seemed that there was a hint of trouble in the air and midway through their set a fight broke out not a few feet from me.

Although there was a large steward presence close by, they seemed to take ages getting involved as two guys hammered blows at each other’s head. I was only disappointed that I didn’t get a good photo of it, only capturing the aftermath.

As for the show well James were really good. They dared to play only two new songs, since the crowd were pretty much here to hear songs that they knew.

They did mostly everything you would expect. I enjoyed hearing Johnny Yen again and a few others like Say Something, Laid and Destiny Calling I enjoyed too. You really couldn’t knock their performance, they’ve always been a great live band and they’ve lost none of their performance skills in the years they’ve been away.

There is a selection of photos on my Flickr page.

Rocking Your World in Quite a Gentle Way

Last night Jo and I went to see David O’Doherty at The Stand. O’Doherty is a consistently brilliant, funny and inventive comic who should have a much larger profile than he currently has.

The room was about three quarters full, but there should be no reason why he isn’t selling out venues of this size.

In his traditional checked shirt, Post Office tie, jeans and trainers he kicked off the show with a newly written musical introduction. After declaring it shambolic he got on with playing some tried and tested stuff.

He mixes storytelling with quirky songs, telling tales of squatting on his neighbours’ wireless internet, his friend’s misfortune at being called Paul Daniels and his love of dinosaur facts.

This was the third time we’ve seen him and I think my favourite is still his song of people struggling to cope with technology ‘Sent a Text to the Person the Text was About’.

“I’ve never felt so alive and yet so dead at the same time.”

Here he is playing ‘FAQ of the DOD’.

Caught by the Fuzz

A load of us from work went to see Hot Fuzz (*****) last night. Brought to us by the same team that made Shaun of the Dead it lived up to the success of their first film by providing all the things you’d expect from 'Lethal Weapon meets Miss Marple.’

With Simon Pegg as a hot shot cop sent to the country and Nick Frost his bungling country bumpkin sidekick, a serious of suspicious deaths occur in the sleepy village.

The relationship between the pair of them is the central point of the whole thing, as Frost’s Danny looks up to his new mentor.

It’s gag after gag, with hilarious action sequences and a vast selection of amusing characters. Timothy Dalton takes on the main bad guy role, but the whole cast is great.

Paddy Considine, Kevin Eldon, Jim Broadbent, Edward Woodward, Anne Reid, Olivia Coleman, Steve Coogan and many other familiar faces from British TV and film make up the supporting cast.

After the screening we were treated to a Q & A with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The session was hosted by Evening Times film writer Andy Dougan, who despite his attempts to be hip was wholly tedious.

Several of the audience questions pretty much went “Simon I think you are brilliant. I really want you to like me. Can I tell people we are pals?” Of the first two ‘questions’ one guy bought them both a Cornetto and another guy took his Fratellis CD down to be signed.

Of the noteworthy things that came out of it were; there’s pretty much no chance of a third season of Spaced and Simon Pegg thinks he has missed his chance of playing Rorschach in the film of Watchmen because he slagged off director Zack Snyder’s previous film, the remake of Dawn of the Dead.

All in all a good night out and a film I’ll definitely go to see again.

Katie has a kind of review of it up at her blog.

Weekly Movies

Rocky Balboa (****)

Despite my reaction being ‘surely not’ when I heard that Stallone was making this film, I actually really enjoyed it. Rocky coming back to box at 50 doesn’t seem all that ridiculous and when you read about guys like Jerry Quarry, there’s certainly precedent for it.

It’s a movie with a message, and has lots of ‘inspirational’ moments throughout. It plays on all the things we liked about the original Rocky movie and its sequels – the training montage, the run up the steps, the trash-talking, the love story, the uplifting speeches. It covers all the old Rocky ground.

Although there are numerous plot holes in it and silly scenes of Rocky bonding with various folk, it’s worth a trip to the cinema to see.



Dreamgirls (****)

It took me a little bit of time to get into Eddie Murphy as a straight man and stop thinking about him doing James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party on SNL. Once I did, I really enjoyed him in his role as James Thunder Early a man who although a star was never going right to the top.

Step in the Dreamgirls, with Beyonce Knowles with the glamour, but Jennifer Hudson the stand out. An Oscar surely beckons.

It’s a musical in the proper sense, dialogue turns into singing bouts and there’s never an opportunity missed for a show stopping number. The songs aren’t all that memorable, and the storyline has been done before. But that didn’t stop from making it a worthwhile watch.



Venus (***)

The story of a pervy old man and a yobbish young girl, Venus is held together by the performances of Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips. When I went into the cinema I noticed the 5 strong team of neds and nedettes, feet up on the seats, rabbitting away. I made sure I sat as far away as possible from them. However, even although they got pulled up by the staff at one point they seemed to roar with laughter all the way through the film.

This was mainly to do with the fact that O’Toole and Phillips play a couple of foul mouthed elderly gentlemen. Barely a sentence went by without a ‘fucker’ or stronger.

A film that you could easily envisage on stage, Venus is mostly amusing, though plodding in parts. With weaker actors it wouldn’t have had as much charm, but it just about pulls it off.