Hollywood and European glamour collide, leaving the scattered fall-out that is Oscar-winning director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark's The Tourist.

Jolie stars as enigmatic beauty Elise, who is under surveillance by gangster Reggie Shaw since her boyfriend, mysterious embezzler Alexander Pearce, has him monumentally pissed off. Hapless tourist Frank (Depp) - perhaps math academia's only first-class traveler - is the target of her faux-affections to divert the scent of Scotland Yard. Predictably, none of them are what they seem, so it's fairly easy to guess who really works for whom.

Jolie slinks around in glamorous clothing, seeming to achieve nothing but look the part and have every man gawp like proverbial moths to the flame. Why Scotland Yard ever needs to communicate via radio is probably the film's biggest mystery, as they'd handily follow the sea of turned heads like a flaming arrow through any crowd, all the way towards its obvious ending.

Meanwhile, Depp mumbles and twitches dully, breaking into movement only when doing his best Daniel Craig impression by skirting along rooftops and falling into market-stalls. Suddenly, amongst the soaring strings and glamour shots sponsored by Venice tourist board - it's Quantum of Solace with added pyjamas.

Whether it's theatre or heavy-handed soap opera set in the sunshine is difficult to decide. Frank's transformation into Elise's "man who does what he likes" means becoming a male version of her. It turns out even the slyest foxy women of Hollywood melt beneath their make-up and ultimately need to be saved. Hooray for femininity!

Hollywood is as Hollywood does, and The Tourist's head-on approach to this is almost refreshing. What kills it is the self-perpetuating promo material cliché that pervades from start to finish. Like a North-Hollywood sunbed parlour named Euro Sun, Jolie's "glamour" and Depp's dorky, cultureless American completes the picture of a film labouring under the pretence that multilingual suits and cardboard-cut-out Englishmen (that means you, Bettany) makes for a suspenseful thriller with elegant European refinement.

The Tourist is released on DVD on Monday, 25th April.

I’ve been putting such a premium on originality lately. Like, I’m not even kidding. I am such a hipster. Not 3.5 days into the Charlie Sheen media frenzy, I’m already sitting there: monitor blaring, mouth agape… not in shock, nor horror, nor wonder - not even in intellectually-fuelled concentration. In boredom. Dude is having a full-frontal public meltdown, carried out online (my office, my playground), and I’m already passing it up with an almighty yawn.

I find it happening in all aspects of my life. Someone reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on the train? YAWN. Waiting 3 minutes in line? YAWN. Telling me there’s snow in Scotland while there’s a natural disaster halfway around the globe? You selfish motherfucker.

I’m obsessed, consumed by getting there first. If it happened 3 days ago, went viral before you found it, I’m not interested. My attention span is dictated not by the movement of the tides (even by this week’s standard) but the upload speed of my latest Skype note (no doubt a lol or a yawn). Memes are my heartbeats. Even my analogies are tailored to the events of today. Which, by the way, are so yesterday.

There’s this sentence I’ve come to fear. It’s pretty innocuous, but to the addict of buffet-cart pop culture, it’s poison.

You haven’t seen / heard / read that?!

Unless you can say yes, then top it with a dubstep remix, you’re drowning.

So. That’s why it’s time to take a step back. Not only do I word-count every 280 characters, but I can no longer conceive of a thought or opinion that can be expressed in over 4 paragraphs. It’s time to miss out and catch up. Sometimes you’ve got to hit pause and give your ideas time to buffer.

Maybe I’ll get my MLitt written while I’m at it.

Clio Barnard's incredible documentary The Arbor explores the life and legacy of playwright Andrea Dunbar. Concentrating its gaze on the run down estate in Bradford where Dunbar lived, the film comes to focus on the tumultuous life of her daughter, Lorraine, who was left alone at the age of 10 when her mother died in 1990 (aged only 29). Barnard tells this tragic story through a unique and genre-defying reconstruction.

Taking audio interviews of members of the Dunbar family and their neighbours, the director has the actors lip-sync with the recordings to create this mind-bending film filled with discordant yet complementary images. Beautifully shot, The Arbor intercuts performances of Dunbar's plays, archive footage, and re-enacted real life situations, to create a dynamic and powerful mix of measured takes and varied perspectives. An affecting yet slick rendition of history, its striking authenticity of voice makes this one of the most interesting releases of the year.

The Arbor is released on DVD in the UK on Monday, 14 March.

21 year-old actor-director Xavier Dolan returns to the festival circuit this year with his second feature, Heartbeats (Les Amours Imaginaires). Set in Quebec, it follows the friendship of Marie and Francis and their infatuation with a mysterious newcomer, the cool and insouciantly handsome Nicholas. Opening with a recurring set of interviews with scorned young women, Heartbeats lays down a tone of 20-something sarcasm communicated through tongue-clicks, snide smirks and eye-rolls galore.

Bright young things jaded by love, Marie and Francis' nervous, quick-fire word vomiting sessions are followed by artful moments of introspection. While their fluffed phone-calls and self-reproaches in mirrors are by no means original, the theatricality of their unlikely rivalry is refreshing. Making use of unusual angles and itchy-handed camerawork, Heartbeats overall aesthetic matches the tone of casual très cool. Beautifully shot with a striking yet limited palette, it hits all the notes of unrequited love to the tune of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) and Bach's Suite No 1 on cello.

Yesterday was World Book Night, in which 1 million books were released to the UK public via thousands of book givers, all in the name of spreading the love of reading. I signed up to become a giver back in January, and thought I'd share my experience!

Although I wasn't chosen during the first selection, the lovely folk at World Book Night kept my details on file and contacted me last month inviting me to join the reserve givers. Incidentally, the book that was delivered for me was Alan Bennett's A Life Like Other People's - my initial first choice. After setting some aside for my Mum's book group, assorted friends, and a Quotables giveaway, I met up with my friend , who was giving away Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters, and we hit the streets of Glasgow to distribute our freebie goods to potential readers.

Readers are more difficult to spot on a Saturday afternoon than at any other time. Though I'm a fan of surreptitious peeks at fellow readers' paperbacks on my daily commute, there are many, many fewer readers chilling in coffee shops - our first line of attack - at prime hours. However, our first stop was Costa at Buchanan Galleries, which was heaving but provided us with some receptive first book recipients. We quickly found our best customers were people between our age and mid-40s, along with a few blokes at the GFT already disguising their noses in a literary face sandwich. The GFT was probably our best crowd, with a few muscling in from nearby tables and requesting additional copies. "Gladly!" said we.

Although I'm not even quite done giving mine away, I handed out most of my 48 to some very pleased people, and as an avid reader it's lovely to share a love of literature with strangers, even for the briefest of moments.

I hope you all had a lovely World Book Night, and if you were approached by any givers yourself I'd love to hear about it! If you're in the UK and would like a copy of Allan Bennett's book, leave me a comment!

Unwillingly pretty and formidably clever Emma Morley and haplessly handsome Dexter Mayhew get together on their graduation night. Though they don't sleep together, they become fast friends, dancing around the prospect of a relationship as they make strides into their postgraduate lives. Their mutual like lingers, setting off tiny sparks every time they're together or correspond. As time passes, they wait…

And wait…

And wait.

There's not a whole lot of substance to One Day, which is the main bafflement and standing issue I have with the book. It's chick lit disguised as literary fiction: more lazy reading on the beach than glasses-on intellectual life study.

What Nicholls does well is keep the dialogue light end entertaining; safely - if only just - on the safe side of canny throughout. The characterisation of Emma is rounded and wry, while Dexter is less sympathetic but consistent. While their relationship does hang together, it's not quite enough to fill 400 pages without feeling like there's something amiss.

Book #4: ★★★★★

Double Pulitzer-winning writer, newspaperman, political candidate, film director, father of 9, author of over 30 books, and 6-time husband Norman Mailer is the subject of biographical documentary The American. His story is told through interviews with Mailer's family, wives, and the man himself.

Dynamically spun together with stock images, personal photos, and striking footage, director Joseph Mantegna does not shy away from Mailer's well-documented faults and violent streaks - including the stabbing of his second wife at a party. Though the sex-loving, crass-talking author is often referred to as troubled, but this is never suggested as an excuse for his erratic behaviour. Delving further into his character than most biographical films, it goes as far as to explore the darker side of his sexuality. Visually striking and absolutely absorbing, Norman Mailer: The American is one of Glasgow Film Festival's must-see documentaries.