The British Board of Film Classification is 100 years old this year. A number of events have been planned to mark their birthday, including a BFI season curated by Mark Kermode and Linda Ruth Williams. We’ve also been enjoying Mark Kermode’s comments on the matter.
David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia is also celebrating its 50th anniversary with a new digital restoration. It is released nationwide today; The Independent mark the occasion with a very entertaining interview with Omar Sharif.
Edinburgh is hosting its very own Catalan Film Festival. The programme features a number of films being shown across the city, with five venues taking part. Things kick off in style at, one of Blasted’s favourite venues/galleries/spaces, Summerhall on 29 November with Listening to Judge Garzón by Isabel Coixet.
Following on from the release earlier this year of Paul Buchanan’s beautiful solo album Mid Air, The Blue Nile’s classic albums A Walk Across The Rooftops and Hats were reissued this week. The Quietus has a very personal piece on writer Wyndham Wallace’s ‘own private Glasgow’, as seen through the prism of The Blue Nile’s music (n.b. The Quietus’ interview with Buchanan earlier in the year is also worth a read).
Back to Summerhall which has the launch of Alasdair Gray’s new book Every Short Story from 1952 to 2012 on 28 November. You can read a very entertaining interview with this giant (not literally) of Scottish literature over on the Guardian, where he discusses the book in his uniquely tangential and typically entertaining manner.
Looking ahead to next Friday (30 November), Summerhall is also hosting a set from one of Blasted’s favourite bands, The Pastels, at one of Blasted’s favourite nights, Neu! Reekie! - quite the combination! Hopefully we’ll get to hear some material from The Pastels’ long-awaited new album, tentatively slated for release early next year on Domino. There will also be music from TeenCanteen (featuring Vaselines man, and former Pastel, Eugene Kelly) and readings from George Gunn and Emer Martin.
Stephen Pastel will also be participating in the Glasgow portion of VIC.ism, a series of unique events centred on another Blasted favourite, the great Vic Godard. Stephen is leading a Q&A session with Vic after the showing of - yes, that’s right, yet another Blasted favourite - Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece Pierrot le Fou at Glasgow’s GFT on 2 December. Vic will also be introducing the film, as well as playing with - do we really need to say it again? yeah, that's right, they are - The Sexual Objects at Stereo the preceding night, and playing and reading at the Poetry Club for Mao Disney on the Sunday afternoon (with a very rare appearance from Orange Juice's James Kirk, albeit in an unknown capacity). More detailed previews of VIC.ism can be found here and here.
To say we’re absurdly excited about next weekend would be something of an understatement… To be honest, there may be no point in having another weekend again.