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The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Film runs until March 22 Photo: Amber Wilkinson The fifth Hippodrome Festival of Silent Film, which kicked off on Wednesday, enjoyed a gala evening to remember in Bo'ness, West Lothian, last night.

With a drinks reception and many cinemagoers taking up the invitation to wear "flapper glamour" for the evening, the atmosphere was perfect for the screening of comedy romp Synthetic Sin - a flapper film starring the sparkling Colleen Moore as an innocent determined to "suffer and sin right now!" in order to become a better actress. Audiences for the festival seem to grow year on year, with people who had come from as far afield as London and the Us mixing with an enthusiastic crowd of locals. Adding to the atmosphere was live music from Gladstone Bag.

Colleen Moore in Synthetic Sin. The evening was introduced by the chair of the Falkirk Trust Ian Scott...

Hungry wild animals, raging wildfires, dangerous marauders, and hanging over everything: a zombie outbreak ready to make a full-force comeback. These are the obstacles facing a small band of survivors making a cross-country road trip in author Brian Keene’s comic book series The Last Zombie. Their hellish road trip makes the Griswold family’s cross-country trek to Walley World look like a leisurely Sunday drive. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the complete series run of The Last Zombie is now available in one massive trade paperback.

Totaling over 600 pages and titled The Last Zombie: Zomnibus, Brian Keene’s post-zombie-apocalypse graphic novel is now available from Antarctic Press in comic book shops and online at Amazon.com. In addition to writing The Last Zombie, Keene also explored the living dead in his novels The Rising and its sequel, City of the Dead, the former winning a Bram Stoker Award for...

American studies professor Ian Scott argues that this amusing if puerile comedy can't escape the fact that, when it comes to political extremes, life has now overtaken art

Is this the best political film I've ever seen? No – it's pretty puerile, actually. Will Ferrell plays congressman Cam Brady, a misogynistic, conservative Democrat who is campaigning – unchallenged – for re-election in North Carolina. Then he leaves a filthy message, meant for his girlfriend, on a Christian family's answerphone by mistake. So his biggest backers, evil tycoons the Motch brothers, decide to put another local man up against him.

It is a bit more intelligent than it first seems, though. It's set in the 14th congressional district of North Carolina, which is quite amusing, since there isn't one: North Carolina only has 13. And, although the Motch brothers are little more than caricatures, their name – and financial clout – is presumably meant to recall the Koch brothers,...

Britain's Got Talent singer Janey Cutler has died at the age of 82. The singing grandmother impressed judges and viewers alike with her performances of Edith Piaf's 'Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien' during last year's series of the ITV1 competition. The Sun reports that Cutler was found dead at her home yesterday. Family and friends left messages of condolence on Facebook, with her grandson Ian Scott writing: "Good night rest in peace oor wee granny, mother and friend to all (sic)." Cutler finished ninth in the live final, won by dance group Spelbound. Despite alleged (more)...

We told you last week about Anthrax guitarist and comic book author Ian Scott fulfilling a dream by playing a zombie for The Walking Dead (it turns out that it’s for a The Walking Dead webisode directed by Greg Nicotero, key special makeup effects supervisor for The Walking Dead).

We also told you that Ian recently started blogging but hadn’t posted about this adventure yet because he needed to watch the Doctor Who special instead. We love him. Well the wait is over, and he has posted, in words and pictures, all about the awesomeness. Thanks Scott!

[Warning: Contains Adult Language]

Hey Scott, do anything fun last week?

Hmmm, let’s see, well I played some guitar, did some catching up on my reading and oh yeah, I Got To Be A Fucking Zombie On Walking Dead.

Ok so here’s the scoop…

My agent got the call asking if I wanted...

Chanel Ryan has a lot going on and definitely one to be on the look out for! The model/actress will soon be seen in several upcoming horror projects including Bad Kids Go To Hell (we talk about that) and more. She's every geeks dream girl, smart and as funny as she is pretty and then some, plus she loves Brian Shirley's Crocaloctopus and I like that a lot! Check out my newest crush and latest Versus with actress Chanel Ryan.

Brian  S- Ok, you started out modeling and have ended up acting. How did you get into acting?

Chanel Ryan- This is true. At the time I had done a couple of modeling jobs and was having dinner at my friends Traci & Stephi"s house.  We lived close to the beach so had just come in and were still in our swimsuits.  Their older sister was a...

Brian Keene's "The Last Zombie" graphic novels are being compiled into a paperback version, by Antarctic Press. This title will release May 3rd, as The Last Zombie: Dead New World and the novel follows several characters in a land ravaged by disease and "roving packs of wild animals" (Antarctic). One man, Dr. Ian Scott, is not interested in a cure, but the woman he loves. Issue #4 creates a cliffhanger (Keene), with issues #1-5 included in The Last Zombie: Dead New World release. For those interested, a synopsis is provided below.

The synopsis for The Last Zombie: Dead New World:

"Follow the frantic journey of a man seeking his one ray of hope in a post-apocalyptic nightmare United States. The zombies have come and (mostly) gone, but the disease is still out there, threatening the survivors. The country swarms with roving packs of wild animals — and worse, desperate humans—ready to...