This Is England ‘86 starts Tuesday 10.00pm on Channel 4.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The classic critique of the materialistic, ego-centric, and selfish nature of adults is the basis of a new animated TV series, computer game and proposed 3D film.

Greenberg by Noah Baumbach

Current film by the New York cinéaste is mainstream mumblecore starring Ben Stiller. Occasionally funny, occasionally annoying, it has an LCD Soundsystem soundtrack along with a nano-second cameo from James Murphy.

In The Water by Beat Connection

Summer, summer, summer.

I’m In Your Church At Night by Active Child

Atmospheric, creepy place of worship, 80’s LA, synth summer.

Sun by Caribou

Summer sun.

Front page photo: Active Child.

The most melodic, emotive and soulful sub-bass player around. Here’s 5 of his best vocal re-edits… each one puts the original song to shame.

1. MELANIE FIONA – It Kills Me

2. PLAN B – Prayin’

3. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE – Dog Days Are Over

4. DAVID GUETTA Ft. ESTELLE – One Love

5. ZARIF – Over

Breakage’s second album Foundations is out now.

In the heart of Cornwall the Kneehigh theatre company is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary this summer with the launch of its nomadic theatre space, ‘The Asylum’. The Red Shoes, Blast, and The King of Prussia will be showing there during the month of August before the company goes on tour.

Is it wine? Is it cider? It’s cider. It’s definitely cider. But it’s a smoother taste than most, comes in a classier bottle, and doesn’t have a colour that could be mistaken for urine. Cider gentrified, then.

Katy on a mission by Katy B;

Boyfriend by Best Coast;

After Dark by The Count and Sinden;

Wanderland by Hermanos Inglesos;

Tell ‘Em by Sleigh Bells;

Groove Me by Maximum Balloon/Theophilus London.

Any biopic on a singer whose most famous works include a song in which lyrics about going and coming between loins meld with recordings of orgasms, and a track with his 13-year-old daughter entitled ‘Lemon Incest’ is going to have a fair share of sex and music. And Gainsbourg (vie héroïque) is full of it. But to say that was the total scope of this film would be to sell it short. Very short. And to think that this film simply details the most well known events the career of Serge Gainsbourg would be wrong. Very wrong.

First-time filmmaker Joann Sfar has used his background as a graphic novelist and illustrator to create an inventive, fantastical representation of French chanson’s black sheep, partly from fact, partly from his own ideas of who and what the man born Lucien Ginsburg symbolises. For the jewish born director, Gainsbourg is a lover of some of 20^th century French culture’s greatest female icons, a smoker of coronary baiting proportions, and a naturally gifted artist able to turn his hand to anything. Yet he is constantly battling insecurities about his Jewish appearance and feelings of being an outsider.

Sfar’s comic book mind has imagined Serge’s self-persecution complex about his jewishness and the more reckless side of his personality as being manifest in a seven-foot puppet-like caricature that appears during his weaker moments. This character brings to mind Pan from Pan’s Labyrinth not only because the same special effects created both creatures but because they are also both played by actor Doug Jones.

Sfar’s imaginative approach compares favourably to the two biggest films about french icons of recent years. Coco Avant Chanel was criticised in France for being a straightforward telling of the story of a woman who wasn’t the slightest bit straightforward. While La Vie en Rose although not following a linear structure seemed only to be made as such to set up the rather unimaginative final scene. Sfar has given Gainsbourg a linear structure but rather than forming it around the events that shaped the musician’s life, the film focuses on how the personality of the agent provocateur evolves (or not) to present the director’s subjective portrait of what Serge Gainsbourg is. As such, the spectator is thrown straight into the heart of the various phases of the singer’s life when his passions are burning on full flame,  or about to become dying embers, rather than being shown how the these different periods began and finished. This means the film flows at a thrilling pace and never lets up, just like Serge himself. From the very start to the very end he remains the same. The man is shown as being formed from the boy: his love of the female form exists right from the very first scene of the film when, as a youngster, he asks a little girl to kiss him; but as a Jewish boy growing up in Nazi-occupied Paris he also first becomes aware of French anti-Semitism. Sfar has said that this is a film about a French hero, and unlike American heroes, French ones never learn. So Serge never grows up, and on a couple of emotive occasions in his adult life, the young Ginsburg is cut into the place of the elder Gainsbourg. The man forever remains the boy.

Most of all, Vie héroïque makes 60’s Paris look not just chic, but damn cool, mightily sexily, full of beautiful women, and a hell of a lot of fun to be Serge Gainsbourg at his height. The style is most definitely there. The film is oozing with it. But it is intelligently used as the foundations with which to present the substance of a character that is deserving of such a creative depiction.

8.5/10
Gainsbourg is released in UK cinemas 30 July.

Dylan Mills in his younger, pre-pop days.

The default position for ‘alternative’ music lovers and bands is to self-righteously bang on about how music isn’t a competition, especially around the time of mainstream award ceremonies. Then, when the nominations for the Mercury music prize for best British album of the year are released, the clichés about how ‘winning doesn’t matter’ and that ‘it’s just about the music, man’ are strained to breaking point and the unconcerned façade often slips from the more fame hungry artists: just look at Florence’s forced smile after she lost to Speech Debelle last year. So now that time of year has come around again, lets see who is in the running to be crowned champion of Critically Acclaimed UK Music 2010.

If it were decided by sales or number 1 singles, then Dizzee Rascal would be the clear winner. However, the Mercury Prize isn’t meant to be about commercial success, rather the quality of the music*, which often does not tend to be very high in mainstream pop records, and on the whole Tongue N’ Cheek is a mainstream pop record. More importantly, there are a lot of critics who would say that Tongue N’ Cheek is, from a musical point of view, a big drop-off in Dizzee’s career. So why has it been nominated for the Mercury? Could it be that the judges are trying to give continued support to an artist who they first brought to the wider public’s attention when awarding him the prize for his dark debut Boy In Da Corner in 2003? So as to protect him from the curse of the Mercurys which has befallen previous winners such as M People, Gomez and that bloke with the Indian name what won it 1999? A bit like a football club will try and look after the education of a youngster that they’ve released to make sure he doesn’t fall into a life of crime. Probably not considering that win was seven years ago, since when he’s gone from strength to strength and is now the biggest pop star in the country. But that’s a story in itself. Dylan Mills certainly hasn’t gone the easiest route to the highest peaks of pop; he’s done it on his own label, Dirtee Stank, (having left XL after Maths and English) which is a very commendable achievement. For an independent British rapper, to have five number ones, and play two huge shows on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury within a year would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Now though, largely thanks to Mr Mills, the UK charts and subsequently, festivals have been overtaken by British rappers from Plan B to Tinchy Stryder, Kano to Chipmunk. Some inconsistent (Kano), some of it dire (Chipmunk), and some brilliant (Tinie Tempah), UK pop music has gone through a massive transition period in the last couple of years and Dizzee Rascal is the figurehead, even if he perhaps shouldn’t be its spokesperson (as exemplified here).

Nevertheless, no matter what he’s done in terms of changing the landscape of pop, even if it is for the better, we return to the first point: why is a pop album being considered for the Mercury? Well, for starters, (if we discard the cynics view that his nomination is purely to attract more commercial interest to the ceremony) the official website says that the prize “celebrates music of all genres by British or Irish artists”, so there’s no real reason why pop music should be excluded. Moreover, ever since it decided to take its influences from dance a couple of years ago, having exhausted R’n’B, UK pop music has been on an exciting upward curve and a lot more inventive than a lot of music genres. But at the end of the day, no matter how praiseworthy the state of chart-pop music is, and no matter how much Dizzee is to thank for that (or not depending on your view of modern pop), as an isolated recorded piece of music, Tongue N’ Cheek is a bit crap.

Clearly, if the Mercury should go to the album that most encapsulates the sound of the year then The Xx should win (for these previously stated reasons), but that doesn’t always happen, just ask The Streets. Everything is going so well for The Xx at the moment though that winning the prize wouldn’t much change the trajectory of their already stratospheric ascent. More worthwhile winners would be Wild Beasts who deserve wider recognition for their second album Two Dancers: an intelligent collection of songs of real beauty that asks questions of the listener whilst retaining the tunes. Something Foals probably think they’ve made, and to an extent they have, for Total Life Forever is very good but not as original as Two Dancers or as innovative as the slightly pretentious Oxford boys probably think it is. Similarly to Wild Beasts, Villagers’ Becoming A Jackal is an album that more people need to be aware of.

The most well known name on the list is Paul Weller, but his is not a symbolic nomination in respect of the longevity of his career; Wake Up The Nation is there on merit. The Motown-sounding single No Tears To Cry alone is so good that it would put any LP it was on in contention. At the other end of the scale the least well known name is, as always, the token jazz entry, which this year comes from Kit Downes Trio. In between is a bunch of credible but not groundbreaking records. The important thing is that whoever is nominated for the award, and whatever the judges are looking for, the Mercury Prize should be applauded for celebrating the art of the album in the age of the iPod shuffle.

Mercury Music Prize Nominees 2010: Becoming A Jackal by Villagers; Total Life Forever by Foals; Tongue N’ Cheek by Dizzee Rascal; I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling; Wake Up The Nation by Paul Weller; Sigh No More by Mumford And Sons; The Xx by The Xx; Two Dancers by Wild Beasts; Only Revolutions by Biffy Clyro; Golden by Kit Downes Trio; Sky At Night by I Am Kloot; The Sea by Corrine Bailey Rae.

Alternative Mercury List: One Life Stand by Hot Chip; Black Light by Groove Armada; The Defamation of Strickland Banks by Plan B; A Brief History Of Love by The Big Pink; Kings And Queens by Jamie T; Hidden by These New Puritans; Acolyte by Delphic; There Is Love In You by Four Tet; Compass by Jamie Lidell; Further by The Chemical Brothers; Heligoland by Massive Attack; The First Days Of Spring by Noah And The Whale.

If America had an equivalent: Teen Dream by Beach House; Wave Like Home by Future Islands; This Is Happening by Lcd Soundsystem; High Violet by The National; Contra by Vampire Weekend; A Sufi And A Killer by Gonjasufi; Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus; OddBlood by Yeasayer; New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh) by Erykah Badu, Treats by Sleigh Bells; Embryonic by The Flaming Lips; I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron.

This Page Photograph: Linda Nylind , Front page photograph: AFP

* That doesn’t always hold true though. They nominated Apache Indian in 1993 and Take That in 1994.

A slight twist on the celebrity adage that would aptly fit the subject of this article would go: ‘All the nerdy indie boys want to be like him, ALL the girls want to sleep with him.’ Who, you may incredulously be asking yourself if for some unlikely reason you have completely bypassed the title of this post, could this technologically literate, social misfit of an Adonis be? The answer, obviously, is Canada’s second greatest ever export (Arcade Fire will forever be number one): Michael Cera. And why do all the hot, cool, intelligent, beautiful and interesting girls want to sleep with him? Because he is the nice guy who also happens to be libido-lubricatingly funny. A winning combination, and one that is put to use yet again in the new Edgar Wright film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Since moving into the movie industry after the end of Arrested Development, Cera has become Hollywood’s go-to-guy to play the gentle teenage boy who in his unassuming, self-effacing, and mild-mannered way never fails to get the girl of his dreams. So, when in his last film Youth in Revolt, adapted from the ’93 novel by C.D. Payne, his character utters the line “In the movies the good guy gets the girl, in real life it’s usually the prick”, it rings noticeably true.

The list of the films in which he plays this character is long and continuing on a biannual basis to get longer. Superbad, Juno, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Year One, Paper Heart, Youth In Revolt, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Yes, he’s continually playing roles closely resembling his own self, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is the extent of his range, although there is little evidence at the moment to suggest otherwise. Apart from his role as Nick’s Twisp’s alter ego François Dillinger in Youth In Revolt perhaps, though that still wasn’t really much of a departure from his norm. The fact is that this type of character is in such constant demand in American indie and studio cinema at the moment that Cera doesn’t deserve to be overly criticised for being a ‘one-note’ actor as he’s merely capitalising on his style of acting currently being so very desirable. Moreover, the boy deserves credit for making these types of roles so popular. Yes, he keeps playing himself but he keeps getting parts that require him to play himself because he’s so damn good at it!

He’s also been helped by a resurgence of really good American teenage films in the last few years, the best since the 1980s. The stupid frat boy humour of American Pie and everything that followed in the 90s have been firmly put in place by films like Juno, and even Superbad, which although still silly, is more intelligent than the high-school films of the previous decades. Mainly thanks to it’s interest in platonic male love rather than purely concentrating on boys looking to get their end away. However, even though Michael will always give the filmmakers and the audience what they want, having him as a star of a film is no guarantee that it will be any good, as even his presence couldn’t save the disasters that were, for different reasons, Paper Heart and Year One.

Cera may be the cord wearing geek who gets all the girls but Woody Allen he ain’t, as anyone who has seen the self-penned Clark and Michael web series will testify. He is the characters he plays in films which is why he always plays them well but these characters are also slightly wittier versions of himself as anyone who has seen him on chat shows should concur. He can’t write, he needs to be written for. Although, in the 2005 short film Darling, Darling, where, quelle surprise he plays his usual socially inept self, the most interesting thing about the film is that it credits Cera for ‘additional improvised dialogue’ and you get the feeling that this is what he’s good at. He can’t write a whole screenplay on his own or with a partner (as Clarke and Michael proved) but what he can do is turn up, be himself and subtly adapt his own personality to whatever are the slight difference in nuances between himself and the character he is playing, thus he actually just is the character and can talk in the same style of dialogue that is written for him whilst slightly improving it.

At least in Scott Pilgrim, based on a series of comics by fellow Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley, there’s a twist which sees his character have to defeat the girl of his desire’s seven ex-boyfriends in cartoon computer-game style martial art combats, but he is still essentially, playing the same character. This is no bad thing as the Michael Cera character is a great character, and no one currently plays it better than Michael Cera. But, you worry about for how long he can keep at it. What’s he going to do when he enters his thirties? His whole shtick is about being an awkward yet charming youth; will being an awkward adult stuttering towards middle age be quite so charming? Probably not.

Nevertheless, for me, and all indie kids, geeks, nerds, dweebs, he is currently Jesus, he is Buddha, he is who we try to be, the epitome of, dare I say it, ‘geek chic’. The whole essence of someone who has most fun making mix-tapes and playing in crappy bands can be summed up in his character’s lines in Juno when he responds to being told that he’s so cool without evening trying, by saying ‘I try really hard actually’.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is in cinemas this summer. The trailer is out now.