ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. MUSIC STARS rarely make the grade as actors. Even the semi-successful ones like Sting and Mick Jagger have become strangers to the screen.    Ashley Walters might just be the exception. The former Asher D of So Solid Crew, Walters makes an impressive screen debut in ‘Bullet Boy’, revealing a […]

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. IS THERE ANYTHING left to say on the evil of Hitler and the collapse of the Third Reich? That  might have seemed like a rhetorical question until the arrival of the Oscar-nominated epic Downfall. Based on vivid, first hand accounts of what truly happened in the Spring of 1945, this […]

Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Thursday 31 March 2005

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. IT HAS BEEN a long time coming, but Woody Allen is back on form with Melinda And Melinda. After a string of half-hearted attempts and half-baked ideas, Allen finally delivers a recognisable combination of his trademark wit and worldly wisdom. The snappy one-liners are matched by some sharp insights into […]

MARK FISHER finds Suspect Culture’s latest production takes a fresh and funny look at perennial themes.

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. PENELOPE CRUZ returns to her European roots in Don’t Move, and is rewarded with one of her best roles in recent years. The star of disappointing Hollywood fare like Vanilla Sky and Gothika, Cruz abandons her natural beauty to portray a downtrodden, panda-eyed, working-class woman embroiled in a tragic affair […]

Osprey Centre, Aviemore, Tuesday 15 March 2005

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. 9 SONGS is already guaranteed a degree of notoriety as the most sexually explicit mainstream film ever released in British cinemas. Highly respected director Michael Winterbottom portrays the arc of a love affair purely through the graphic sexual encounters of a young couple. Interludes are provided by the concerts they […]

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies. ALFRED KINSEY taught America about sex. His bestselling behavioural studies in the 1940s dragged the country out of the dark ages towards a more sophisticated understanding of human sexuality. It is his  life and pioneering achievements that provide the basis of this intelligent, immaculately crafted biography from Bill Condon, the […]

MARK FISHER is disappointed by a new production of a recent Scottish hit.