Silence is Golden for the Southside Film Festival

Over 200 people attended the Southside Film Festival’s first ever sell-out event in the delightfully atmospheric Pollokshaws Burgh Hall all eager to see Lon Chaney's ghoulish performance of The Phantom of The Opera in the 1920s silent horror classic.

A girl selling tubs of vanilla ice cream from a tray and an old-fashioned popcorn machine staffed by a couple in matching candy-striped uniforms added a vintage feel to the event which was part of the wider Glasgow Film Festival.

In a age when downloading films is easier than visiting the cinema why would so many people flock to see an old film with no dialogue, primitive special effects and some fairly melodramatic acting?

Tawny Kerr, from the West End, made a special trip to Pollokshaws on a wet, miserable evening because she wanted to see something other than the usual fare.

“This film is an important part of cinematic history. I like to spend my money on a different film experience, I’d rather come and watch a classic than something that will end up on TV anyway.”

Part of this experience was the live accompaniment by a Wurlitzer Organ, the last of its kind in Scotland, which added an ambient complement to the story, its vibrations rolling out across the town hall floorboards and adding texture to the sensory experience. 

The melodic chords were as suited to the slapstick moments as they were for the dramatic crescendos and organist David Gray even threw in some we'll received references from My Funny Valentine and I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles interspersed throughout the classic Phantom score.

Although the crowd were a refreshing mix of ages, a common passion united them. So discerning were they that barely a respectful rustle of their popcorn bags was audible as they gasped and laughed, gleefully drinking in the vintage action.

“The music really was outstanding and it was just such a nice experience to share the scary bits and the humour with people that are passionate about classic films. It becomes so much more than just sitting watching something on your own ” said Greenock resident Jennifer McGhee.

One of the passions of founder, Karen O’Hare, is a move back to community events and the encouragement of distinctive, grassroots talent.  Is it any wonder that this event was so successful on the night that an offbeat, silent film swept the Oscars board for the first time since its launch in 1929.

It appears that there is still a significant audience for unique, distinctive and even more traditional films.  The feeling that people want something different than just the latest blockbuster is alive and well in the southside of Glasgow and Karen hopes to continue this when the festival proper kicks off again in May.

For more information check out the festival website.

Charity event at Rebel Rouge

Calum’s Cabins Charity Event

Wednesday February 29, 6pm at Rebel Rouge, Sauchiehall Street

Tickets £10

When Calum Speirs lost his battle with an inoperable brain tumour at the age of twelve, his family paid tribute to his kindness and bravery by setting up a charity in his name.

They now run a holiday cabin on the Isle of Bute in Calum’s name to give other families who have a child dealing with cancer the chance to have some respite and enjoy time together in a lovely, peaceful setting.

This Wednesday at 6pm, a fund-raising event will take place at Rebel Rouge on Sauchiehall Street, featuring live music from Something Blue, a top quality, energetic, four piece band featuring Scotland's freshest musical talent.  They specialize in rock, pop and soul music and have played a number of events including Glastonbury music festival.

There will be drinks, nibbles and an auction with prizes to cater for all budgets including the chance to have one of Scotland’s leading chefs and Sunday Mail cookery columnist, Michael Kilkie, cook for you and five of your friends in your own home!

All are welcome to this event and tickets are available on the door.  If you cannot attend, those who still wish to donate to this very worthwhile cause can do so at the Calum’s Cabin website.

Phantastic Entertainment!

The Phantom of the Opera

Sunday 26th February

Doors 7pm, film and music, 7.30pm

Pollokshaws Burgh Hall

The latest offering from the Southside Film Festival will take place this Sunday with a screening of The Phantom of the Opera in the wonderfully atmospheric Pollokshaws Burgh Hall.

The performance will be hosted with live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment, something that captured audiences at last year’s showing of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

The 1920s horror film was shown to a sell-out audience and according to Festival Director Karen O’Hare there is something about the Wurlitzer that appeals to cinema goers.

“When we first showed Dr Caligari the response was phenomenal, there was something about showing a silent film with the live organ that people really interacted with.  It gave an extra dimension to the event and it was something completely different for Southsiders.  We hope this next screening will be the same.”

This experience is part of a program of events linked with the wider Glasgow Film Festival and Karen is passionate about bringing back the joy of cinema back to this side of the river. 

“The success of the film festival last year proves that there is a great appetite for film in the Southside and for a varied programme of films viewed by diverse audiences.  The festival will be back 18-20 May this year but in the meantime we want to keep film very much at the heart of Southside culture and can't wait to get people spooked by ‘The Phantom’.”

She is also keen to provide a more sociable experience that engages people from all across the city and re-awaken people’s passion for the cinematic experience in general.

“It’s one of the things about going to the cinema now is so much competition for people’s attention, with so much entertainment online people can download films for much less money and so we try to make it a sociable experience that you can’t get at home.”

Tickets cost £8/£6 and are available in advance from the Glasgow Film Theatre box office and at the venue on the night.


For more information check out The Southside Film Festival

Being Human - Review

Being Human Season 4 episode 1: Eve of the War

Sundays 9pm BBC Three

Feeling I had missed the boat slightly on British vampire series Being Human I thought I’d give the fourth series a watch.

I’m glad I did. 

A plethora of slick, stylized US offerings have glorified impossibly good-looking and impossibly broody vampires and other preternatural beings. You know who you are Vampire Diaries.

But this show lends a gritty and almost credible charm to such a tired subject matter and, shock horror, there’s even some humour thrown in.

This episode opens in London 2037 where werewolves and ghosts have joined forces to resist the imminent coming of the ‘Old Ones.’  An ancient scroll is unearthed which prophesizes the birth of a human baby, known as The War Child, who will end the reign of these vice-seeking harridans.

The writing and characterization are the real highlights here, writer and creator Toby Whithouse conveys a humanity to these supernatural creatures that is perhaps the reason behind the shows’ cult fan base.

There is also a freshness to his scripting, the cull of a considerable number of popular characters at the end of the last series was a bold risk but one that appears to have paid off.

Lovable scamp of a werewolf, Tom and wonderfully serene ghost, Annie are able to come to the fore while 500 year-old vampire Hal gives a commanding performance as he is forced out of a self-imposed incarceration to protect the world from his blood-lust.

A naïve bloodsucker from called Dewi sparkles in a small role that adds comic relief in a lilting Welsh accent; “Do I talk too much? My mother can't stand it. She has to lie on the sofa with a door sausage over her head.”

As for the baddies, Cutler is dressed to kill as the sharp-tonged young predator looking to shake the cobwebs off his archaic elders and Mark Williams is at his Brummie best playing the seemingly bumbling ‘Vampire Recorder’.      

                                        

The score is atmospheric and its symphonic melodies add gravitas to the acting and allow the plot to move seamlessly from humour to drama.

One negative is the low-budget prosthetics and the only area the show comes up lacking against its US counterparts.  The transformation of the werewolves is well acted and favorably lit but the end result misses the mark, resembling something of a rabid Basil Brush.

But then the beauty of this series is its unpretentiousness, it never pretends to be a Bram Stoker classic but it’s definitely worth a watch.

It represents what British drama-comedy has always been celebrated for, a likeable and down-to-earth humour that thankfully doesn’t take itself too seriously.

It’s a kind of fiendish mix between Two Pints of Lager and Misfits. You’ll like it.

Oh Noel not again!

Noel Fielding: Luxury Comedy 

Thursdays 10 pm (E4)

When a comedian lists Spike Milligan and Salvador Dali as influences you know you are in for a healthy dose of the bizarre. But will they make you laugh?

I can’t claim to have been a huge Mighty Boosh fan but any real humour or sense of balance present in that show appears to have exited with Fielding’s partner in crime Julian Barratt.

This series is the ultimate in self-indulgence and departs even further from the oddball comedy that won the Perrier best newcomer award in 1998.

Fielding’s lukewarm stand-up shows and appearances on Never Mind The Buzzcocks had already told us that wearing a cape may be eccentric, but it is not actually funny.

Although some of the sketches border on amusing - Noel dressed in a cheap animal suit playing Dandelion, a manic depressive lion living in a rundown Zoo - the humour lacks depth.

There is also some potential in Sergeant Raymond Boombox, a surreal bright-yellow mix of Colombo and Serpico with traces of a few other much-mimicked TV Cops thrown in for good measure. His trusty deputy? A talking knife wound of course!

Other sketches are just confused and irritating.  The opening skit of a psychedelic cooking show starring Renny and Gaviskon, think of a French Mr Blobby cooking with a hairy Mexican wolf-boy, accompanied by running commentary from a Nasa spokesman sitting on a trapeze – well it’s as entertaining as it sounds.

We see an all too rare glimmer of self-deprecation when he sends up his fine-art background by comparing the mysteries of a felt-tip drawing of Pele holding a teacup and kicking a ‘ball’ to the Mona Lisa.  This is funny for 30 seconds.  The fact it is then developed throughout the show highlights the real dearth of creativity in Fielding’s solo material. 

A big plus point are the vivid colours, large quantities of face paint and creative mix of live-action, animation and puppetry that really pack a visual punch.

The soundtrack also fits well and is provided by Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzarono although  you can't help feeling it's an attempt to score cool points.

I just don’t get it and I don’t think I ever will. Perhaps diehard Boosh fans will say that’s the whole point, but this feels like 30 minutes of being trapped with that annoying, middle-class, ‘zany’ art student at a party and wishing you were anywhere else.

 “I think you can go a long, long way in performance if you have charm. On Buzzcocks, if someone’s charming, they don’t have to be funny. If not, it never works” the Cuban-heel wearing comic says. How right you are Noel.

J Edgar Film Review

J Edgar Cert 15

Directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Dustin Lance Black. With Leonardo DiCaprio as J Edgar Hoover, Judi Dench as Annie Hoover, Naomi Watts as Helen Gandy and Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson

Clint Eastwood’s biopic is essentially an attempt to expose the personal world of an intensely private public figure but it fails to penetrate far, revealing only a veneer of paranoia, racial prejudice and intolerance. 


His twilight foray into directing has shown an attraction to the gritty and candid side of life but a focus on the conjecture surrounding Hoover’s relationship with his deputy Clyde Tolson (Hammer) feels vague and incomplete.   While we are in no doubt of Tolson’s feelings, we are left wondering whether they are reciprocated in any real emotional way.

DiCaprio is competent in his role but not dazzling, perhaps explaining the Oscar snub. His portrayal of a young Edgar is more vivid; joy at an ill-fated date with secretary Helen Gandy (Watts) at a reference library and disgust at the Bolshevist uprisings in the early 20^th Century show the obsessive organisational skills and extreme moral compass which would drive the creation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hoover is portrayed as a socially awkward and narcissistic mummy’s boy, and although centralising a US fingerprint database and modernising evidence gathering procedure further the cause of his beloved Bureau, his relentless pursuit of illicit information on his enemies do not.

The script by Dustin Lance Black is largely to blame for such wooden characterization, a real let down after his academy award-winning work for Milk. While the flash back scenes of Hoover as an old man do add some perspective, they confuse the timeline and leave the plot disjointed. This is reflected in Eastwood’s soundtrack, at times melancholic and bittersweet, at others jarring and discordant.

The makeup is nothing short of absurd as the main characters slowly morph into a beige, liver-spotted, and previously unknown species of the genus testudines.  The pained love scenes between Hoover and Tolson which were at points touching, now verge on comedic and the actors seem restricted by the thick layers of prosthetics.

There are some positives, Judi Dench gives as robust a performance as ever as Edgar’s controlling and strong-willed mother, whom in many ways seems the catalyst for his resolute attempts to eradicate corruption and vice.  


Armie Hammer is similarly astute in his role as Hoover's dashing young muse at times even extracting a laugh from the dreary law-man.  And the plotline of the infamous kidnap of Charles Lindberg’s 20 month old son in the 1930s is also fast-paced and relevant to the development of the bureau.

But, it must be asked why the acclaimed director chose to tell this version of a story that has been told before and one cannot help but feel it is a missed opportunity.  At a time when racial prejudice, covert surveillance and social unrest are as prominent as ever, this could have provided an insightful historical commentary on the human element of governance and the dangers of unbridled authority.  It doesn't.

Clap Your Hands Say...Yeah!

BROOKLYN band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (CYHSY) are celebrating the release of their third album, “Hysterical”, with a long-awaited British tour.

Fresh from three dates in Ireland, the indie rockers will showcase their melodic charms to a Scottish audience at west-end venue Studio Warehouse Glasgow on the 28^th of this month.

The former college friends founded the band in 2004 and their eponymously named first album was released on the back of considerable online success without a record label.

The creative, off-beat charm of singles such as “In This Home on Ice” and “The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth” made the music industry sit up and listen.

With critical acclaim from Pitchfork Media and a few famous fans, including David Bowie and David Byrne (former Talking Head's frontman) being spotted at their gigs, CYHSY had brought their avant-garde style very much into the spotlight.

Relentless touring ensued with only a brief pause to record their second offering, “Some Loud Thunder” in 2007, and such brevity was perhaps the reason for its failure to recapture the buzz of earlier efforts.

After a five year hiatus from the industry to pursue solo albums and extra-curricular projects, the band are keen to reassure fans they are firmly back on form.

Their latest release is a fresher and more considered accomplishment with single “Same Mistake” being compared by NME to first album favourite “Is This Love?”

Highly regarded music magazine Clash calls this album of synthesised strings, jangled chords and yodelling vocals “jubilant” and “disarmingly wonderful” as well as “their finest record to date.”

The five-piece will want to capitalise on such rejuvenated interest at this forthcoming intimate gig and one of Glasgow's most bohemian spaces seems the perfect venue for it.

Tickets cost £12.50. For more details visit: www.seetickets.com