Okay, maybe it’s not quite in the Christmas spirit in the traditional sense, but one of the most charming, frightening and heart-rending indie films to come out this year gets its release this week in the UK.  Smashed is the second film from writer/director James Ponsoldt (who shares writing credits here with Susan Burke) and stars two of my favourite young actors at the moment, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul.

They are your stereotypical young couple in love.  Married and straight out of university, Kate and Charlie live in Los Angeles.  He’s a music journalist and she teaches primary school.  Like any twenty-something couple, they drink.  We know what it’s like.  A lot of the time, it’s a fun and sociable reason to hang around together.  Only in their case, their drinking spirals helplessly out of control and the two are stuck in this ménage-a-trois with the bottle as the unwelcome guest.  Before they know it, their lives are crashing down around them.

American self-help movies are generally littered with clichés, except Smashed isn’t really a self-help movie.  Smashed is a slice-of-life drama, and one with more than just a hint of social realism about it – something that is severely lacking in the contemporary American independent film.  Winstead (best known for her roles in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Death Proof) and Paul (Breaking Bad and Big Love) are just as believable and utterly adorable.  A surprising eye-opener, and well worth catching if you’re in town this weekend.

Smashed opens this weekend.

We know: Christmas is a week away.  Have you done your Christmas shopping?  No, I didn’t think so; neither have we.  Fortunately, it’s not biting cold outside so maybe it won’t be too deliriously frustrating to tramp through the West End on these final shopping days.  Hey, we might even have time to take in a show.

Jena Düsseldorf is the new show by German artist Sabine Moritz; it’s currently on display at Art@GoldenSquare, a beautifully expansive dipped ground floor space just off the southwestern end of the square itself, and is a lovely diversion as you make your way between Soho and Regent Street.

Moritz was born in the former East Germany, in a small town called Jena.  From 1981 she studied art in West Germany, in Düsseldorf.  This exhibition comprises a series of works (in pencil, crayon, charcoal drawing, watercolour, acrylic and oil paint) were made in the years following the reunification of the country and are composed of Moritz’s memories of growing up under Soviet occupation and Communist rule.

Deliberately naïf and rich in expressive detail, the exhibition is as much a diary of recollections – as much an exploration of the experiences that we believe made us who we are – as it is a hazy, first-person look back at a time when the world was a very different place.

When the exhibition opened, there was much to be made Moritz’s art world champions, and unfortunately the shadow of two of contemporary art’s heavyweights hangs heavy over this show.  You’ll see who when you visit the exhibition itself, I won’t mention them here, because to do so would detract from taking the works on their own terms and grasping the singular vision that’s being presented.  At times dazzling, at times subtle, the show is well worth a moment of your time before it closes at the end of this week.

Sabine Moritz: Jena Düsseldorf is at Art@GoldenSquare until 20 December.

Redstone Press return to Portobello Road this year for the second consecutive year with their ever-delightful pop-up shop.  From now until Christmas Eve, shoppers are invited into the wonderfully idiosyncratic world of this art-meets-literature publishing house.

You’ll be able to select and pick from the full current and back Redstone Press catalogue, as well as host of literary-inspired memorabilia.  New titles include The Redstone Language Diary 2013; Mexico: Macabre, which celebrates the very finest artwork of the Day of the Dead celebrations; their best-selling Psychogames box set of personality tests, games and questionnaires, and The Redstone Inkblot tests.  Enthusiasts can also pore through the Redstone Press archive of publications.

And it’s not just books; the shop holds a great number of surprisingly unique gifts that include authentic Lucha Libre masks, shipped direct from Mexico.  Even the most cursory window shop-glance will have you hooked; from prints by J.G. Posada, to a series of alphabet postcards by designed by Sir Peter Blake, to prints from Russian children’s books of the 1930s, to a box set reissue of an Osip Mandelstam poem, to stacks of the literary newspaper Bananas.  What you’ll get here is something between an artefact, a book and artwork.  Definitely one of the most unique shopping experiences you’ll have this year.  Long live this Christmas tradition.

The Redstone Press Pop-Up Shop, 201 Portobello Road, is open until Christmas Eve.