Released in 2003 and produced for a budget of something like £400,000, 16 Years of Alcohol is the directorial feature film début of ex-Skids frontman, ex-male model and ex-TV presenter Richard Jobson. I've seen this film twice in as many years now and I'll have a stab at reviewing it ...

Jobson has adapted the film from his own semi-autobiographical book of the same name. I cannot pass comment on the book as I have never read it, nor have I seen it for sale anywhere, but it was described as a "prose poem" on the BBC website. This description comes as no surprise to me as I do get the impression that Jobson may have a tendency towards the ostentatiously artistic. Nonetheless, despite having some notable flaws, 16 years of Alcohol is still rather a good film.

Opening with Frankie Mac (Kevin McKidd) receiving what is known in Scotland as a "real doin'" by three other men in a deserted Edinburgh close we are then shown the events leading up to this incident in intercut flashbacks. It is not clear to the viewer whether Frankie dies as a result of this violent and bloody beating and you are left to wonder if the film might not be a dream sequence review of his life seen through the eyes of a dying man.

With a title like 16 Years of Alcohol you would be forgiven for expecting this to be a film about alcoholism. This is true only in passing and the film is more concerned with despair and a paucity of hope which, fuelled by alcohol, results in self-expression and temporary liberation through violence. The seeds of Frankie's hopelessness are made clear in the sections of the film dedicated to his experiences as a young boy in awe of his charismatic father and the chivalry and love his father shows for Frankie's mother. After witnessing a sexual indiscretion between his father and another woman Frankie begins to see through to the grim reality of their lives. His father is an alcoholic and a womaniser and there is a simmering resentment between his parents. In a particularly memorable and heavily stylised scene the 10 year old Frankie sits between his cobweb-strewn parents who sit in their armchairs facing each other with hostile unblinking glares while each gripping a glass of spirits. With a nod to the way the human mind distorts, idealises or amplifies memories through time, the scenes focused on Frankie's early life seem particularly impressionistic.

The section exploring Frankie's life as the leader of a teenage skinhead gang is filmed as an obvious homage to Kubrick's 1971 A Clockwork Orange. Stuart Sinclair Blyth gives a solid performance as Miller, one of the more psychopathic members of the gang. Frankie sees hope of an escape from his tortured life in the shape of art student Helen (Laura Fraser) but their relationship is doomed to failure and Frankie descends into alcoholic oblivion after she leaves him. [McKidd and Fraser also appeared in Gillies MacKinnon's 1996 Small Faces from which Jobson seems to have drawn influence while shooting this film.]

Years later we see Frankie at an AA meeting where he confides to the circle "my name is Frankie and I am a violent man". A second relationship with aspiring actress and fellow AA member Mary (a well cast Susan Lynch) seems to offer Frankie a second chance but, in a clumsy and unconvincing sequence, Frankie mistakenly thinks she has been unfaithful to him in what amounts to an echo of his own father's indiscretions round the back of a pub.

The narration by McKidd throughout the film does on occasion veer quite close to being pretentious nonsense but that aside the actor puts in a good shift and delivers a powerful and memorable performance. As good a performance as I've seen from McKidd.

Whereas some directors would have chosen to make a film with this subject matter in the "kitchen sink" tradition of social realism I think many people will have seen a film just like that before. Jobson and his cinematographer John Rhodes employ striking visual flourishes throughout this film, including still photography, unusual framing and hyper-real colour saturation, which, along with some excellent performances, elevate a fairly standard plot to something much more worthwhile. Viewers of a certain age will also be given a nostalgic aural treat with a soundtrack featuring Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, The Skids (obviously) and Roxy Music.

The title credits dedicate the film to Jobson's late elder brother Francis and subsequent interviews have made it clear that the Frankie in the film is an amalgam of the two brothers. Richard was a teenage gang member in Dunfermline's Abbeyview estate seeking acceptance as part of a larger group. The "AV Toi" gang had tailored clothes and a passion for football-related and drink-fuelled violence. His older brother Francis was also a skinhead but his intellectualism and more solitary nature drove him away from that life and he became a Hare Krishna devotee.

In short then, a visual and aural treat, a tad on the artsy-fartsy side with the narration but generally good acting across the board. You could do a lot worse than give it a go.

A lonely, pathologically shy and socially paralysed 27 year old man orders a life-sized, anatomically correct sex doll from the internet and forms a relationship with her. Does that sound like a story you'd like to spend an evening exploring? If not, you may find that your initial scepticism fades as this well crafted and intelligent film progresses.

Written by regular Six Feet Under contributor Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie (Mr. Woodcock), Lars and the Real Girl never veers into the vulgarity or lewdness that such a storyline might lead toward and turns out to be really quite warm-hearted and touching. Ryan Gosling, rightly praised for his show stopping turn as a crack addled teacher in Half Nelson, gives a thoughtful and understated performance as Lars. As the film progresses we learn more about the life that Lars has led and begin to understand why he is so desperately introverted and awkward. The appearance in his workplace of Margo, played with charm and sensitivity by Kelli Garner, seems to elicit unfamiliar feelings within Lars and helps prompt the purchase of "Bianca".

Sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer) has been becoming increasingly concerned for Lars's mental state and his almost total withdrawal from others. She is delighted that things may be changing for the better when Lars explains that he has a friend visiting him and wants to introduce her to his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Karin. They are then in very unfamiliar territory when "Bianca" is brought to their house for dinner as Lars's new girlfriend. Paul Schneider plays Lars's older brother with considerable skill, giving his best performance to date. Mortimer too is convincing and involving.

The way the God fearing folk of this unnamed mid-western town become more and more involved in Lars's delusion surrounding "Bianca", leading her to eventually be elected to the board of school governors, could easily be sneered at by the more cynical viewer and the story does flirt with fantastical sentimentality at times. However, does that "flaw" make It's a Wonderful Life a bad film? To my mind, it does not. Like Capra's 1946 classic, the film is only superficially realistic. It's a morality fable and if you can fully accept this, use your imagination and just enjoy the performances you will be rewarded.

There are many great moments in this film. The sequence with Lars dancing on his own at the party to which he has brought Bianca and the empathetic moment shared between Lars and Margo when he performs CPR on her recently executed teddy bear being just two. Well worth 105 minutes of your time.

I remember getting my hands on Underworld's seminal dubnobasswithmyheadman (1993) and being gob smacked at how good it was. It's not often that an album will stop you in your tracks and alter the way you listen to almost everything else. The hypnotic bass lines and beats, the riotous textures and the crazed pseudo-poignance of Karl Hyde's lyrics made it one of the best, if not the best electronic “dance” albums ever made. Nearly 15 years (!!!) later it still sounds fresh and wonderful. Although 1996's Second Toughest in the Infants was a great follow up record I felt Underworld never reached the heights they did on their first proper electronic album back in 1993.

This most recent release follows some years of experimentation from the band after the departure of Darren Emerson in 2001 and the release of 2002's 100 Days Off. That album wasn't very dissimilar to the output during the time Emerson was with the band and although it received generally positive reviews it didn't make a huge impression on me. The years of experimentation after 100 Days Off led to the production of three collections of new songs under the banner of The RiverRun Project. These EPs, Lovely Broken Thing, Pizza For Eggs and I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and This Is My Horse were released online at Underworld Live and showed Underworld were taking a more introspective tangent. Add to this the 2006 film score for the late Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering, give things a quick buzz in the blender and out pops Oblivion With Bells.

The opening track Crocodile might not immediately gel with this notion of mellowing introspection and, granted, it's a 4/4 trance grind of a track with a big chorus which wouldn't feel out of place on 100 Days Off or Beaucoup Fish. Beautiful Burnout seems to take us back further in time and sits closer to the epic multiple movement tracks on Second Toughest in the Infants and I defy you to be able to sit still during the final 3 minutes of the track. By the time Karl Hyde is delivering his off beat stream-of-conciousness lyrics on Holding The Moth you're right back to dubnobasswithmyheadman and convinced that this is actually a far better record than you had hoped for.

Highlight after highlight follows and after around 10 full listens over the last few weeks I'm happy to conclude that this is Underworld's finest work in 10-plus years. The closing track, Best Mangu Ever, recalls the blissful head nodding close of dubnobasswithmyheadman's River of Bass and M.E. Rick Smith and Karl Hyde have revitalised their music in recent years and Oblivion With Bells gets a healthy thumbs-up here.