Don McCullin has spent his life going face-to-face in some of the world’s most dangerous conditions in order to get the photograph.  Born in London in the 1930s, McCullin returned from RAF after the Suez Crisis and almost immediately had a picture of his published in The Observer.  This image of a local London gang began McCullin’s career, one which would see him enter some of the perilous situations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in order to capture some of the most exhilarating imagery ever created.

From the secessionist Biafra, to victims of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, to the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland during The Troubles, McCullin has been there, and a new documentary on the man is one of the most engaging arts films of recent years.  Comprised almost exclusively of his images and a voice-over interview narration, McCullin is both a warm portrait of the man, as well as a hard-hitting overview of social documentary photography.

To warn, this isn’t sometimes the easiest of films to watch, but it’s certainly one of the most worthwhile you’ll see all year.

McCullin is on general release.

Your dear Culture Editor was on the radio the other day.  There was a question asked on what we thought were the best exhibitions of the year.  Fortunately, my selected show is still on.

Aspen magazine ran from 1965-1971.  It was, arguably, the first multimedia magazine, containing articles, artworks, all kinds of music on 7” flexidiscs, and films included on rolls of 8mm film.  Altogether, it came in a box that was redesigned by the guest editors of each issue to match its theme.  Contributors to the magazine included some of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century.  Bear with me; from a total of almost two hundred I will name John Lennon, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Jean Renoir, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Andy Warhol, Marshall McLuhan, Roy Lichtenstein, Allen Ginsberg, Willem de Koonig – I could go on.  Aspen magazine is one of the most recognisable objects of 1960s Conceptual avant-garde, and until March can be seen in the Archive Gallery at Whitechapel Gallery.

What makes this show so good?  It’s the depth.  It’s fantastically difficult to make a coherent exhibition when you’re working from publications – simply, by displaying them in boxes and vitrines you take away one of their great benefits: their tangibility, their objecthood.  This is essentially their sense of being that is being undermined.  But Whitechapel Gallery have added layers and layers of contextual material, interviews, multimedia audiovisual material, both archive and newly-created.  It’s a serious point of learning through art and fulfils the potential of the gallery magnificently.

Aspen Magazine 1965-1971 is at Whitechapel Gallery until 03 March 2013.

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.