Zero Dark Thirty offers a unique approach to some of the most shocking historical events of the last decade. Written and directed by The Hurt Locker’s Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow, the film offers a behind the scenes look at the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Based on first-hand accounts from CIA agents, the film Read More
Wreck-It Ralph is the latest release from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and it definitely feels fresh. The film’s focus on the world of arcade games is a marked departure from the worlds of princesses and magic of recent Disney films such as 2010’s Tangled. Although Disney has deviated from the traditional fairy tale before, this Read More
Women, Water & Wells by Gil Garcetti is a collection of photographs taken in West Africa. Garcetti’s project highlights issues of water scarcity and the prevalence of waterborne disease that arises from the lack of safe drinking water. These photographs are also included in Water is key, a book that documents the work of NGOs Read More
What Richard Did is a striking and emotionally daunting movie revealing the ease with which a single act can completely alter the course of a life. Set among the rich upper class of Dublin, the film follows the story of Richard (Jack Reynor), an extremely popular rugby player whose life is all planned out until Read More
For readers familiar with Drown, Díaz’s earlier story collection, This Is How You Lose Her will be welcomed as a sequel of sorts. For those new to the author, this book shows he clearly deserves his place as one of America’s best, though not amongst its most prolific, writers. The book shares some similarities with Read More
Most of us take sex for granted but, as demonstrated by Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), if you’ve never had sex it can seem like the biggest deal in the world, the pressure and expectation bearing down on you the older you get without having a sexual experience. Sex becomes an unattainable Read More
Two very different pieces were performed by the international Scottish Dance Theatre at Dundee Rep in late February. The programme’s opener, Second Coming, featuring music by Paganini, Bach, Beethoven and Jasper Gahunia, was from the Angelino choreographer Victor Quijada, while the Norwegian Jo Strømgren designed the next offering, Winter, Again. Strømgren used voice-over for narrative Read More
This major new exhibition by German artist Jutta Koether represents a coup for DCA. Sensitively grouped and divided between the DCA’s two main two galleries, Seasons and Sacraments comprises Koether’s response to two series of paintings by the classical artist, Nicolas Poussin, The Seasons and The Seven Sacraments. Gallery one displays work that was shown Read More
The dust is setting around The Byre Theatre after its sudden liquidation last month, and a passionate and dedicated community in St Andrews can, at the very least, congratulate themselves on bringing the battle for its future to national attention. With The Byre about to enter its 80th year, the livelihoods of its tireless workforce Read More
According to philosopher and art commentator Jean-François Lyotard, there is a distinction to be made between art and its cultural reception. The cultural reception of art situates it in time and space, inscribes it within an art-historical narrative, and presents it alongside other features of the world. It seeks to understand art by placing it Read More