Day Twelve - "Another confrontation with the Angry Tree..."

Day: 240
Film total today: 2
Films seen so far this year: 234 (6 to go)

Total number of films seen this festival: 45

At some point I really ought to post something about the seven festival films I saw in London before the festival started. They are: Thumbsucker, Asylum, Land of the Dead, Kinky Boots, On A Clear Day, Guy X and Battle In Heaven. Not today though.

Popular Music

Swedish coming-of-age film, based on a popular novel.

Awards Brunch: Those results in full

Police Beat

Day Eleven - "You were expecting, maybe, Hannibal Lecter?"

Day: 239
Film total today: 3
Films seen so far this year: 232 (7 to go)

It's official: scenes of dog abuse are the "in" thing, this festival.

Antibodies

German serial killer movie - a lot more fun than it sounds.

The director of Antibodies:



I was slightly disturbed that the director shared the same penchant for woolly hats as his serial killer character in the movie. I mentioned it at the Q&A and he totally dodged the question. He also refused to admit that the ending was influenced by Se7en, but you can tell that it was.


The Egg Experience

Throughout the entire festival, every time I was sitting at the computers in the delegate centre, someone would come up from downstairs, looking blissed out and going on about the Egg and its Magical Relaxation Powers. So I decided to give it a go. And do you know? They were right.

The Egg:



I had a long chat with The Egg Man (see below) about it beforehand - The Egg was his creation and he was naturally rather evangelical about the whole thing. Also, I got lucky, because as we were talking, it became apparent that his next appointment hadn't shown up, so I got to go in straight away. (I enjoyed it so much that I reserved a slot for the next day...and then completely forgot about it). Anyway, inside the egg, there's a massage table, with the knee bit slightly raised. You go in and make yourself comfortable - The Egg Man makes you take off your shoes, jacket, etc. Then he leaves and shuts the door and that's when the Eggsperience begins. First the lights dim to complete darkness, then little pinpricks of light appear on the ceiling, resembling starlight. Then the music starts - from what The Egg Man had said, I'd expected it to be really crappy New Agey, music, but it was surprisingly tasteful and genuinely relaxing. Then the egg releases scented oils into the air and it's at that point that the massage table kicks into gear, gently massaging you up and down your back. For some reason, it seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on the arse, which, I suppose, for a film festival, is quite appropriate. At any rate, as he'd promised, it was incredibly relaxing, but just as I was nodding off to sleep, it finished and The Egg Man arrived to let me out. He said that if it lasted any longer than 15 minutes, he'd be constantly waking people up, because everyone said the same thing. Anyway, it was terrific. I want one. I'd also recommend it to anyone - I really hope he's back next year. Thank you, Egg Man!

The Egg Man:


I was dying to ask him how many times he'd heard the phrase "Goo goo ga-joob" during the festival...

The Wedding

Polish comedy about a wedding that goes horribly wrong.

Closing Night Gala: The Business

Costa del Crime thriller starring Danny Dyer.




















Closing Night Party

Day Ten – “We’re all waiting for something bigger and better to hit us, right?”

Day: 238
Film total today: 4
Films seen so far this year: 229 (9 to go)

No bears or sheep again. Horrible dog scene in Nordkraft though - even worse than the one in Tsotsi.

Snuff Movie

Multi-layered horror film about a famous reclusive director making a snuff movie. Or is he? Etc.

I really don't understand why Snuff Movie was so bad. I'd always thought of Bernard Rose as a good horror director - Candyman was trashy, but suitably scary and fun with it and Paperhouse was a very effective creepy children's fantasy. Snuff Movie is bloody dreadful though. It's supposedly very clever and multi-layered, so that you're never sure what you're meant to be watching (is it a film-within-a-film? A film-within-a-film-within-a-film? Or, er, just a film?) but none of it works. The basic plot is this: a successful Kubrick-like horror director (Jerome Krabbe) becomes a recluse after the murder of his wife in a copycat killing from one of his films. Years later, he invites four actors to come to his house and "audition" for his new movie, although they all sign contracts before they get there. Then -gasp- it turns out he's making a snuff movie on the internet! Or does it? And so on. It doesn't help that the acting is extremely bad, particularly from the lead actress. (Admittedly, she's supposed to be playing a bad actress, but later on she appears as "herself" and she's still a bad actress. If you see what I mean.) It also doesn't help that the same actors keep cropping up in different roles (e.g. the three women who performed the copycat killing 20 years ago show up looking exactly the same) - if this was meant to be part of the joke then it backfires badly. It did have its moments (the internet jokes as the boyfriend discovers the snuff movie; a particularly energetic sex scene; a bit with a severed head being tossed up in the air) but mostly it's poorly scripted, badly acted and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. One star.

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael

The festival’s most controversial film, about a group of bored teenagers in Newhaven, who indulge in a bit of the old ultraviolence.

Edinburgh wouldn't be Edinburgh without at least one controversial movie to stir things up a bit. In previous years we've had: Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (violent rape scene), Catherine Breillat's Romance (explicit sex), Michael Haneke's Funny Games (explicit violence) and Bruno Dumont's L'Humanite (explicit sex again. Or was it violence? I forget.) Usually, however, those films have something to recommend them beyond the explicit sex and/or violence. In the case of The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael, what we have is a pretty good film, with an appalling, horrific, indefensible final rape scene that screams nothing more than "Woooo! Look how much I love A Clockwork Orange!" It's impossible to believe that the scene wasn't included just so the film could garner outraged tabloid inches (Daily Mail sadly not available for comment) and indeed, the director (Thomas Clay) did little to dispel that idea when confronted by angry audiences at the Q&A afterwards. The sad thing is that the film is actually an accomplished piece of work up until that point. Robert (Daniel Spencer) is one of several bored Newhaven teenagers. When his friend's cousin (Danny Dyer) is released from prison, Robert falls in with a bad crowd, which eventually leads to the horrific finale. There's a tiny hint of the sexual violence to come when Robert is seen frantically masturbating to a Marquis de Sade novel, but that doesn't really prepare you for what happens. The odd thing is that Clay already has a powerful rape scene in the middle of the film - a group of lads take a drunk girl back to their flat and she's taken into a back room. The camera stays outside the room while a DJ spins records - we occasionally hear the girl's screams as the other boys enter the room. This scene is horrific but not explicit and it renders the final scene superfluous. The rest of the film is composed almost entirely of long shots and medium shots (there are no close-ups that I can remember) and is extremely effective as it follows a few different characters around. Sadly, as is the way with most controversial films, it has been picked up for distribution, by Tartan Films, so you will get to see it eventually. I urge you not to though - or if you do, beat the rush and walk out before the boys enter the house at the end. Two stars.

Nordkraft (Angels in Fast Motion)

Danish drama focussing on the stories of a junkie, a pusher and a “drugs frau”.

The write-up in the EFF brochure describes Nordkraft as "like Trainspotting crossed with Les Amants de Pont Neuf" and that's pretty accurate. I confess, I liked the kinetic opening sequence more than the rest of the film, because it quickly settles down into a more conventional style. The story concerns three characters who only interact in a peripheral way: Maria, a "drugs frau", who only seems to be involved with drugs because of her pusher boyfriend; Allan, an ex-pusher and user trying to stay clean; and Steso, a junkie torn between his love for his girlfriend and his love of smack. The film is well acted and the stories are engaging, but it never really matches up to its opening sequence, in which Maria almost gets caught delivering drugs. Actually, what I liked about the film were the little details, such as the Turkish dealer who shaves off his moustache out of love for Maria. (This bit was like a mini-version of Le Moustache and the details of how he'd had the moustache ever since he was old enough to shave and how his father and grandfather had had moustaches all their lives made me laugh). There was also yet another brutal scene involving dog abuse - I just don't understand why film-makers seem to have it in for dogs this year. (The scene where Maria's boyfriend realises his dogs are "junkie dogs" was amusing though). I'd be surprised if this gets a mainstream release, as there wasn't really enough here to make it stand out above the other foreign films in the festival. Three stars.

Same Sex America

Documentary about the battle to maintain the legality of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts and several couples who decide to get married while they still can.

This was a "Showtime" TV movie (bit of a cheek having it in the festival, really) so it's unlikely to be appearing at a cinema near you anytime soon. The film centres on several gay couples who have chosen to get married in Massachusetts while the law still allows it - there's an ongoing debate throughout the film that results in the law being suspended, then appealed, then -- well, frankly, I lost sight of how it ended up and it may well have changed again since then. The couples are very well-chosen though and there's some serious scene-stealing by a couple of adopted children (one 5 year old Chinese girl in particular). There's a lot of love in the film - you'd have to be a hard-hearted Conservative indeed to deny these people the right to be legally married. There's also a nice running gag with the county clerk, where the film-makers keep asking him where he stands on gay marriage and he refuses to be drawn...until the very end of the movie. Two stars.

Scottish Screen Party

There’s not much to tell about this, really. It was held in the nightclub they used for the same party last year and I wasn’t really in the mood for all the chunga-chunga-chunga, as my friend Esteban used to say. Still, I chatted to the producer and director of Night People again (I hadn’t realised they were partners) and also to My New Friend Alessandro Nivola about the various Jury films he’d seen. I’m guessing they’re going to give the award to Tsotsi, which would be a very deserving winner and has coincidentally just knocked Serenity off the top spot for the Audience Award. Finally, just as I was about to head off home, I met The Lovely Neve McIntosh and was delighted to discover that she’s just finished filming the second series of Bodies and that there will be ten episodes this time round, instead of six. I told her that Bodies was easily the best British TV drama I’d seen in the last couple of years and also that I loved Psychos – she explained why they hadn’t made a second series of it, but I couldn’t hear what she said, what with it being A BLOODY NIGHTCLUB and all. I also did some more shilling for Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling, which I’ve basically been recommending to everyone I meet. It’s definitely my favourite film of the festival.

Day Nine – “Look! An idiot!”

Day: 237
Film total today: 3
Films seen so far this year: 225 (12 to go)

No bears or sheep today. There was that weird hedgehog / platypus thing in Mirrormask though.

Mirrormask

Children’s fantasy drama from the creators of the Sandman comics, starring Stephanie Leonidas as a circus performer who gets sucked into the mysterious Dark Lands.

Very odd, beautifully realised film, by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, the writer and artist behind the Sandman comics. In a neat reversal from the running-away-to-join-the-circus fantasy, Stephanie Leonidas plays Helena, an artistic teenager who longs to escape the circus, which is owned and run by her loving parents, Rob Brydon and Gina McKee. However, when her mother falls ill, Helena gets sucked into the mysterious Dark Lands, a dream world that seems to be made up of images from X’s own drawings. As you might expect from the creative team involved, the film looks absolutely stunning from the sock-puppet credits sequence to the effects-heavy finale, even in the live-action sequences, which make great use of some unusual Brighton locations. It’s also well-acted and has some amusing cameos voicing the various creatures (Stephen Fry etc). The main problem is that the story isn’t very exciting and the direction fails to capitalise on the built-in suspense of the set-up, particularly during the poorly-paced finale. That said, it’s never less than gorgeous to look at and there’s a wealth of detail in the design that will reward repeated viewings. A definite curiosity – worth seeing. Three stars.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Documentary about cult artist and musician Daniel Johnston, detailing his rollercoaster career and his battles with mental illness.















Fascinating documentary by director Jeff Feuerzeig. I’d never even heard of Daniel Johnston, so this was a real eye-opener, by turns funny, riveting and heart-breaking. Johnston is something of a cult figure in America, thanks to both his cartoonish artwork (which reminded me of both Robert Crumb and the drawings in Napoleon Dynamite) and his own unique brand of folk music. The film points out that interest in Johnston really took off after Kurt Cobain wore a t-shirt of the artwork for ‘Hi, How Are You?’ (see poster, above) on several different photoshoots. As with Capturing the Friedmans, Johnston was obsessed with movie-making when he was growing up, so there’s no shortage of archive footage. The film deals with Johnston’s childhood (including his obsessions with Captain America and Casper the Friendly Ghost, as well as the fact that he used to tape-record his mother bawling him out and then make movies where he’d dress up in her clothes and dub her dialogue onto his performance), his rollercoaster career and his difficult relationships with girlfriends, his best friend and his manager. It also details his battles with mental illness - during one particularly horrific bout, he wrestled control of a plane away from his father, causing them both to crash. Miraculously, they both survived - the interview with Daniel’s father about this incident is heart-breaking. As a result, Daniel has spent most of his life in and out of various mental institutions – some more successful than others; the voice-over amusingly informs us that one time, Daniel “was committed to an asylum, released by clerical error and actually opened for Firestorm at CBGBs that night…” There are some very weird scenes – for some reason, the lead singer of Butthole Surfers is interviewed while getting dental treatment. Ultimately, the film is heart-breaking, funny and inspirational, in equal measure – it’ll also make you want to buy at least one Daniel Johnston album and you’ll probably find yourself singing “Casper the Friendly Ghost” for the rest of the day. Four stars.

Surprise Movie: Lords of Dogtown

Fictionalised version of the events documented in Stacy Peralta’s Dogtown and Z-Boys, about the birth of the skateboarding craze and the three guys who started it all.

I completely fell for the guy’s introduction on this one – he was offering a prize to anyone who guessed the film from his clues. Someone guessed “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo” and won the prize, so when the Columbia logo came up, that’s what I thought the film was. It wasn’t, of course, it was Lords of Dogtown instead, which I’d already seen. Pity – I was probably the only person in the entire audience who hoped it actually was the Deuce Bigalow sequel. Lords of Dogtown was a good choice though and I didn’t mind seeing it again. It’s directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who made Thirteen, and her rough-edged, semi-documentary style fits the film perfectly. It also has a cast that is so achingly hip that it hurts – Victor Rasuk (from Raising Victor Vargas) as Tony Alva, John Robinson (from Elephant) as Stacy Peralta and Emile Hirsch (who will be a huge star) as skating bad boy Jay Adams. There’s also great support work from Heath Ledger (doing a great Val Kilmer impression as Skip) and from Michael Angarano (from Sky High and Dear Wendy) as Sid, as well as Rebecca DeMornay as Jay’s mum and Johnny Knoxville as local big-shot Topper Burks. If the story sounds familiar, that’s probably because you’ve seen Peralta’s documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, from which he adapted the script. This is a must-see for anyone who liked that film – it’s extremely well acted (Hirsch the stand-out), the skating scenes have a genuine energy to them (helped by the fact that the leads all learned to skate like pros); and there’s a terrific soundtrack that Hardwicke puts to good use. Highlights include: Jay’s seduction of Stacy’s girlfriend, while dancing to Hendrix; Skip making surfboards while singing Maggie May; the use of ‘Wish You Were Here’ over the skating championship sequence; Jay taking out a vicious bully with the judicious use of a skateboard to the side of the head; Sid’s sex scene with “Thundermonkey” (America Ferrera), in which he asks her to “Tell me I’m a great skater”; and the moving final Dogbowl reunion. Definitely worth seeing. Four stars.

Day Eight - "Welcome to the house at Pooh Corner..."

Day: 236
Film total today: 4
Films seen so far this year: 222 (14 to go)

Still no bears. Second great use of sheep in two days though.

The Dark

British thriller starring Maria Bello and Sean Bean as a couple who experience Spooky Goings On after their young daughter goes missing and is presumed drowned.

I was keen to see this because I interviewed Maria Bello for The Cooler last year and she'd described The Dark to me. Also, it's directed by John Fawcett, who made Ginger Snaps - one of the best horror films of the last few years. The Dark is ultimately a bit of a disappointment, but it does have several things going for it - namely the gorgeous scenery, some stunning location work, strong performances by the three leads and an impressive bit of Sheep Wrangling. The film is based on a novel called "Sheep" (which drew a few sniggers from the audience before the film had even got going) - Maria Bello plays Adele, a mother who takes her young daughter Sarah (pre-teen Scarlett Johansson lookalike Sophie Stuckey) to see her estranged father, James (Sean Bean) on the North coast of Wales. There's tension between mother and daughter because of a recent incident in New York, so when Sarah goes missing and is presumed drowned, Adele feels incredibly guilty. However, in true horror movie fashion, Strange Things start to happen - Adele keeps seeing a spooky young girl who isn't Sarah and James' handyman tells her of a local myth involving the resurrection of the dead by sacrificing a life for a life... In terms of its plot, The Dark has rather had its thunder stolen by Dark Water, but it's creepily effective in places. The script could use some work though - it really irritated me that the characters had to spell everything out for the audience (the worst example of this being Adele reading out loud from the articles she finds in the library). Similarly, the direction of the ending could have been a lot tighter - its impact is lessened as a result. Great sheep scene though. Three stars.

Stoned

British drama starring Paddy Considine, about the last days of Rolling Stones founder member Brian Jones (Leo Gregory).

I'd heard that this was terrible, so I'm pleased to report that I really liked it. You can't go too far wrong with Paddy Considine, really. It does have its problems - particularly towards the end - and it's hampered by not having the rights to any actual Stones songs, but for the most part it's a well-acted, engaging drama. Plus, it has loads of equal-opportunity nudity in it. It's directed by producer-turned-director Stephen Woolly and set during the last few months in the life of Rolling Stones founder member Brian Jones (Leo Gregory, fulfilling the promise that was predicted for him after Out of Control a couple of Edinburghs ago). Brian's drug convictions prevent him from joining the Stones on their American tour, so he's holed up in his country mansion (that used to belong to A.A.Milne), drinking, shagging and doing boat-loads of drugs. His manager (David Morrissey) hires Frank Thoroughgood (Paddy Considine) as a live-in builder, partly to work on Brian's house and partly to keep him company. The friendship between the two men gets increasingly strange, until it all comes to an end, when Brian is found dead in his pool. There are also tonnes of flashbacks that detail Brian's relationship with Anita Pallenberg (Monet Mazur), until she nicked off with Keith Richards (Ben Whishaw). Considine is as superb as ever - his character is extremely complex and you're never quite sure which of Frank or Brian is the one with the power in the relationship. Gregory is equally good, though his constant drug-induced haze becomes rather one-note after a while - this is primarily the script's fault. The real pleasures of the film are in the supporting performances, especially the always excellent David Morrissey - his Michael Caine impression to impress the lay-deez is an early highlight. Whishaw is good too, although I wish Luke de Woolfson (as Mick) had had more to do. Also notable are Amelia Warner (who I haven't seen on screen since Quills) and Tuva Novotny (as Brian's girlfriend), who has a terrific scene where she teases Frank by promising to take off an item of clothing every time he does 50 press-ups. This is getting a theatrical release quite soon and it's worth seeing, if not quite as good as it could have been. Three stars.

The Intruder

French film about a French man who kills people and then moves to Tahiti after a heart operation. Or something.

That Claire Denis, eh? She’s a tricky one and no mistake. I’m one of the few people I know who actually enjoyed Trouble Every Day (in which Beatrice Dalle fucks and eats people) but The Intruder is a lot harder to defend. Her storytelling style consists of presenting a series of scenes in which nothing much happens and nobody really says anything. Then something horrible happens. Then nothing happens again for ages. And that’s kind of it. To be fair though, that’s not the problem here – I was enjoying the first half of the film, which seemed to be about a semi-reclusive grumpy old guy who killed immigrants if they strayed onto his property. Then, for no reason that I could see, he fucked off to Tahiti after a heart operation and tried to build a relationship with an adopted son, when he had a perfectly good real son at home. It really felt like the film was made from the result of a photocopying accident in which two scripts got mixed together – at any rate, it doesn’t help that the second half of the film is much, much weaker than the first. There were precisely three things I liked about The Intruder: 1) the unusual sex scene near the beginning with Gregoire Colin and his wife, 2) a scene in which Beatrice Dalle (as “The Queen of the Northern Hemisphere”, it says here) answers the door wearing a bra and a fur coat, and 3) the final scene, which for some reason involves Beatrice Dalle, laughing and sledging down hill, pulled by a team of dogs. And Claire Denis includes rather more close-ups of her cleavage than you’d expect from a prestigious female director. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Dalle’s actually only in one other scene, which makes her other two appearances all the weirder – maybe Denis just doesn’t like to see her friends out of work. Two stars.

Green Street

British film in which Elijah Wood becomes a football hooligan. Yes, you read that right.

Seriously, who casts Elijah Wood as a football hooligan? Or Charlie Hunnam, for that matter. Shoddy work, casting directors. Shoddy. Anyway, Elijah plays Matthew Buckner, an American journalism major who gets expelled from Harvard when his rich roommate frames him for drug possession. He ends up in dear old Blighty, intending to visit his sister (Claire Forlani). He then quickly hooks up with his brother-in-law’s brother (Charlie Hunnam), who turns out to be the leader of “The Glorious GSE” (Green Street Elite) – a firm of West Ham-supporting hooligans. After his first fight, Matthew is accepted into the firm, despite the suspicions of fellow hooligan Leo Gregory (yet another actor with two films in the festival). But how will they react when they discover his journalistic background? Green Street is yet another film I had heard terrible things about from friends, but again, it’s not actually that bad. The fight sequences are very violent and actually quite exciting – they’re very well staged. It also has some great supporting performances, notably from Forlani (who really doesn’t have the career she deserves), Leo Gregory, Joel Beckett (Jake Moon from EastEnders) and the always excellent Marc Warren (as Matthew’s brother-in-law). On top of that, it makes brilliant use of West Ham’s adopted anthem “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” (also used to devastating effect in EastEnders, when die-hard Hammers fan Gary realises that Baby Bobby is Ian’s and not his and ends up teaching Ian to sing the song because it’s the only way Bobby can get to sleep – I’m welling up just thinking about it, but I digress). Anyway, the problem is that the bad bits of Green Street are very bad indeed. They include: the casting of Elijah (he’s actually pretty good, but horribly miscast); Hunnam’s utterly dreadful, line-mangling, squirm-inducing performance (reputedly redubbed, but still pretty bad); and some appalling voice-over narration that includes lines such as “We could have died that day in Manchester. But we didn’t. We survived.” Actually, the combination of semi-decent movie and hilarious bad movie elements are making me feel more charitable towards this in the final analysis. Two stars.

Random FilmHouse Encounters Of The Famous Variety

I had planned on a party-free evening and a relatively early night but I stuck around the FilmHouse to catch the Q&A for The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael (see below) with a friend and I got chatting to Pauline McLynn while at the bar. She’s really lovely – one of those people who you makes you feel like you’ve known them your whole life. She’d just come from the first public screening of Gypo, so we discussed that - I congratulated her on the surprisingly good love scene and she told me some amusing stories about the direction of the scene. We also talked about the new version of Heidi (which she’s also in) and agreed that Heidi didn’t get beaten nearly enough. I then met Chloe Sirene (see below, when Blogger gets its act together with the photo upload thingy), who I was surprised to discover was English and not foreign at all. Impressive accent skillz, lady. Finally, I very briefly met Paul McGann – long enough to tell him I loved both The Monocled Mutineer and Withnail & I but not long enough to start quoting bits of it at him. Which was probably a good thing.

Chloe Sirene (star of Gypo):

Day Seven - "I'm gayer than the average bear - and bears are wicked gay."

Day 235
Film total today: 3
Films seen so far this year: 218 (17 to go)

Still no bears, despite the quote above (from the Joss Whedon Q&A). The weather is crazy, though - gorgeous sunshine for two days, then freezing cold and rain for two days, then sunshine again for two days and so on. On the plus side, it's the hottest Edinburgh weather since 2001. On the minus side, it's also the coldest.

Gypo

British Dogme film, starring Pauline McLynn as an unhappily married woman who befriends an attractive young refugee and her mother.

Structurally ambitious film that remains enjoyable, even if some of its more audacious elements don't quite come off. This is one of those films that tells the same story from three different points of view and it's clear that each character remembers events slightly differently, Rashomon-style. Set in Margate, the film stars Pauline McLynn as Helen, an unhappily married woman who's fed up of looking after her teenage daughter's baby and cooking for her uncommunicative husband, Paul (Paul McGann). She befriends an attractive Czech refugee named Tasha (Chloe Sirene) and her mother, played by Rula Lenska. The next section of the film is from the husband's point of view and the final section tells Tasha's side of the story and reveals a number of surprising twists in the tale. (Warning: spoilers follow). Basically, if you're going to do this type of film, then the revelations in the second and third segments have to really pay off. With Gypo, they do and they don't, but the film kept me watching because of the differences in the way the characters remembered the events and I kept wondering where that was going. It's also brilliantly acted by everyone except the girl who played Helen's daughter (Tamzin Dunstone), who screams her lines like she's learned them phonetically and doesn't understand them. I liked the subtle cheekiness of some of the revelations (what we think is blood later turns out to be ketchup) and the fact that some of the important details were not explicitly mentioned but left for the audience to work out for themselves (e.g. that Paul had slept with Tasha when she was a prostitute). It also has perhaps the most surprising lesbian scene in recent history. (Lesbian scenes in movies don't usually do it for me, but this was the exception.) Four stars.

Junebug

American independent film starring Alessandro Nivola and Embeth Davidtz as a recently married Chicago couple who make a family visit while attempting to persuade a reclusive artist to sign with their gallery.

Enjoyable, superbly acted, relatively low budget American indie flick that (according to My New Friend Alessandro Nivola) only received funding because of the presence of Benjamin McKenzie, better known as 'Ryan from The O.C.' It's directed by Phil Morrison and has a great soundtrack, courtesy of Yo La Tengo. Actually, the opening credits sequence made me think it was going to be a lot more like a Wes Anderson movie, but it soon settles down into something different. Embeth Davidtz plays Madeleine, a gallery owner in Chicago who has recently married George (Alessandro Nivola) a man she has only known for a short time. When her job takes her down to the backwoods of North Carolina in order to see the work of a weird reclusive artist ("I couldn't fit General Lee's cock in the frame so I continued on the back"), George suggests that they visit his family. However, his mother is less than friendly towards Madeleine, his father is more preoccupied with other things ("Where would I be if I was a screwdriver?") and his brother, Johnny (Ben McKenzie) is openly hostile towards him. Only his heavily pregnant sister-in-law Ashley (an award-winning comic performance by Amy Adams) welcomes both him and Madeleine with open arms. The set-up of the film sounds fairly generic, but the mood of the film lifts it out of the ordinary. There are some terrific scenes - highlights include: George singing a beautiful hymn with the local church group, to Madeleine's astonishment; Johnny experiencing a bout of Video Panic while trying to tape a programme on meerkats for Ashley; a shocking scene involving a spanner (the unusual aftermath of this scene is typical of the film's offbeat nature); and a heart-breaking scene between Ashley and George in the hospital. Recommended. Five stars. (This is also in my Festival Top Ten).

Now and Then

Low-key French drama about a shy young woman (Julie Depardieu) who becomes obsessed with the disappearance of her illustrious predecessor, when she accepts a job on a landscape photography project in an Alpine town.

The Festival write-up refers to Now and Then as "delicate, cerebral and carefully understated" - it's a good description, but it doesn't quite prepare you for the way the film sneaks up and subtly takes hold of you. It's a quiet, unusual film, but I really enjoyed it. Julie Depardieu (daughter of Gerard) plays Alice, a photographer who is offered a job on a landscape photography project, largely because her mother's ex-lover wants to get back in contact. She's shy, seemingly a little unstable and certainly lacking in social skills: her standard response in an uncomfortable situation is to say "Excuse me" and quickly leave the room - it's almost like it's her comedy catchphrase. The job involves continuing the work of her illustrious predecessor, a famous English photographer who has mysteriously disappeared. In the course of finding and duplicating his photographs (a year-by-year record of the Alpine countryside), Alice comes to see through his eyes and becomes more and more obsessed with his disappearance. She also seems to open up in the process - she takes a lover (perhaps because her predecessor did the same thing?), befriends the Englishman's ex-lover and begins to socialise with a holidaying group of hang-gliding fanatics. She also discovers her artistic side, where she had previously described herself as "a technician". Depardieu is an engaging actress - she does very little but you really want to know what she's thinking. The film also has a great final shot involving the photographing of a group of sheep as they appear over the top of a hill. Great use of HMS Pinafore, too. Magnifique. Quatre etoiles.

Joss Whedon ReelTalk Event

Very enjoyable - Shane Danielson's intro was particularly amusing, quizzing the crowd to find out who had paid the most for a ticket on e-Bay (£210) and then explaining that it was alright, because he was doing lots more Q&As throughout the festival and that people who had missed out would have several chances to see him again. Joss talked about script doctoring, about turning a failed movie into a successful TV show with Buffy and then about reversing the process and turning a failed TV show into a (hopefully) successful movie with Firefly / Serenity. He also gave some passionate, heartfelt advice to a film student who told him she had learned more from his work than from her entire course ("Just squeeze every last drop from the course that you can - take advantage of all their facilities and try everything you can -sound recordist, cameraman, directing, lighting- just so you can develop those skills.") It was also nice that Nathan Fillion showed up to support him in the audience (the row behind us) - this allowed for a few comedy insults from Joss, to which Nathan retorted, "I can hear you, you know!"

Green Street Party

No photos this time. The Serenity guys must be well and truly sick of me by now. It's probably a good thing they're all leaving tomorrow. Still, at least I got to ask Nathan Fillion what it was like to kiss Julie Cooper, even if I didn't get to explain my theory about how his character is basically Captain Kirk. I also talked to Gina (lovely, lovely Gina), Sean (no longer shy and very chatty) and Jewel again - she told me that she was going to choose her next role carefully and didn't want to just take the next thing that came along. Wise move. I'm looking at you, Dushku. Soul Survivors, indeed. Anyway, Biggsy was there again and we had a brief chat but his promises to come over later came to nothing. I did have a long chat with Alessandro about Junebug though, in which I learned, a) that it really was him singing in the amazing hymn scene, b) that Benjamin McKenzie is a lovely guy and comes from a highly academic family background, and c) that that was Alessandro's real arse in the sex scene. Elijah Wood was at the party too (it was his film, after all) but he just went straight to the back and sat on a table with his friends for the whole night - contrast that with the Serenity guys who were dancing, joking and chatting to people all night. Shame though, because I'd wanted to tell Elijah that I'd loved him in Avalon. Ah well.

Day Six: "If it ever gets out how many puffins died during the making of this movie, I'm in big trouble..."

Day: 234
Film total today: 2
Films seen so far this year: 215 (19 to go)

Beginning to think bears are frightfully under-represented this year after all.

Song of Songs

British film starring Natalie Press as a Jewish girl trying to reconcile her estranged brother with her dying mother.


Worst film of the festival so far. My Summer of Love was one of my favourite films last year, so I was really excited to see Natalie Press's new film, even if it didn't exactly sound like a barrel of laughs. But it was just awful. Confusing, pretentious, badly acted (though not by Natalie) and just flat out dull. Even the quasi-incest scene towards the end couldn't liven it up. And I still don't understand the bit with the wig. My notes for the film just read "What. The. Fuck?"

Interview with Saul Metzstein (director of Guy X)



My ongoing struggle to contact The Big Issue Scotland continues - I was still trying to contact them to confirm the interviews for Guy X between interviewing the director and the star. Anyway, I'd enjoyed Metzstein's first film (Late Night Shopping) and was keen to interview him for Guy X. In person he's very chatty and enthusiastic and is clearly still tripping on the whole "great big train set" side of directing, most notable in his delight at having got to work with Michael Ironside. We talked a lot about his influences and about 70s movies in general, as well as M*A*S*H and Catch-22 - the two most obvious influences on Guy X. He didn't tell me the Puffin Wrangler story though - I had to get that from Biggsy.

Interview with Jason Biggs (or "Biggsy", as I call him)

Bloody nice chap, even if his taste in jumpers does leave a little to be desired. In person, like Metzstein, he's very likeable and chatty, but also quite serious, perhaps because he knows that Guy X is his first shot at a proper dramatic lead performance. I'd seen him before at the press conference for American Pie 3 and he had the room in stitches, so I was secretly a little disappointed that he wasn't making with the jokes. We talked about the film (and how he had to step in as a Puffin Wrangler - at least he knows he'll still have a future in show business if the acting doesn't work out), about the other members of the Pie cast (he's good friends with Eddie Kaye Thomas and Chris Klein but doesn't see Seann William Scott much) and about films in general - in particular we discovered a shared love of documentaries, so I bigged up "the whistling movie" as well as Sherman's March (the first classic that came into my head). He recommended both Winged Migration and the current box office hit March of the Penguins, so he obviously has an affinity for flightless aquatic birds. He's also acutely aware of his own strengths and weaknesses, as far as his career is concerned - he knows that he has a likeable 'everyman' quality that audiences warm to but he also knows that a lot is riding on Guy X in terms of his career potential in the future, at least as far as serious dramas are concerned. That said, it's clear his first love is comedy and if American Pie 4: The Next Generation gets the green light, I'm sure he'll be involved somewhere.

Biggsy:



Serenity Press Conference and Photo-call

This was great fun. I've only recently acquired the digital camera, so I decided to tag along to the photocall - actually, I wasn't going to go, but when they said it was on the roof of the Balmoral Hotel, I changed my mind. Highlights from the press conference are as follows: Joss discussing the little girl inside him who allows him to write such great parts for women; my well-received question -answered by everyone - about what it was like to return to the set ("It was like someone had redecorated and made everything bigger"); and the following exchanges:

Q: "Nathan, you're very much an Indiana Jones-style leading man. Was your performance a deliberate homage to Harrison Ford?"
Nathan: "Well, as I've said before, and Joss will agree, what I do isn't so much a homage to Harrison Ford, as it is copying him completely."

xxx

Adam: "I see the movie as a redemption for the show and a reaffirmation for ourselves and our characters."
Nathan: "I see it more as sweet, sweet revenge."

xxx

Joss: "I admit it - I'd let success go to my head, so after the show was cancelled, I just really felt I owed it to my cast to make it up to them somehow."
Nathan: "I remember the day you came to the set and told us the news, and I looked at you and thought, 'You've let us all down.'



















The Puffy Chair

Low budget independent road movie about a guy and his girlfriend who drive to North Carolina to pick up a chair the guy has bought on e-Bay.

I saw this at the videotheque, which was a little annoying because a) the DVD kept sticking, b) I hadn't booked so had to change seats and keep one eye on the staff in case they kicked me off again, and c) I couldn't figure out how to make it fast-forward (it's a complicated double-push-and-hold procedure) so I ended up watching the first 7 minutes twice when they kicked me off the first time. Anyway, it was worth the effort - it's a very enjoyable little film about the relationship between the lead, his girlfriend and his very weird brother, who tags along on their trip after they stop by for a visit. It's one of those films that really sneaks up on you - I didn't realise how much I'd enjoyed it until later, when I was talking to friends about it. It does a couple of pretty brave things, in that none of the characters are especially likeable - the lead, in particular is a complete wanker and you wonder what his girlfriend sees in him. She's not blameless either, however, because she's actually a bit of a psycho. I also really wanted the brother to get the pounding he deserved. In short, this is very enjoyable and it's the second film I've ever seen (Gummo being the first) that's actually made me feel sorry for a chair. (I actually met the director the next night and had a long, interesting chat about the film, as well as telling him about The Big Sofa).

Guy X Party

This was a huge amount of fun, even if the Serenity people didn't show up. The ticket said "The Gymnasium, Edinburgh Academy" and we thought that was some fancy-schmancy name for a club or a cocktail bar, but no, it actually was in a gymnasium, although they moved the gym ropes out of the way pretty sharpish after I tried to swing on them. The dancefloor was entertaining too, especially when A Certain London Journalist (who shall remain nameless) revealed some hitherto unsuspected Mad Dancing Skillz. Also, I took along a friend from FU and introduced her to Biggsy - that then became a sort of running joke and I ended up introducing him to pretty much everyone I bumped into. There was a good balance of new friends and old friends at the party, plus I made a couple of new ones and managed to have a conversation in Spanish at some point. I also met Alessandro Nivola, who's on the Edinburgh Jury this year and is utterly charming. We had a long conversation about films in general - he's in Junebug, which I'm looking forward to seeing tomorrow. Finally, That Natacha McElhone showed up (bit of a cheek, considering she wasn't around for press or the onstage Q&A) and I had a nice chat with her too - she's surprisingly unrubbish in real life. I came to the charitable conclusion that she's been miscast more than she really deserves, particularly when she explained that there had actually been a scene that explained her Iranian accent in Laurel Canyon, but that it had been axed, along with a relevant subplot. Note to future casting directors - let McElhone use her own accent!

My new friend Alessandro Nivola and That Nice Natacha McElhone:

Day Five: "Yes, that's right. I read a poem. Try not to faint."

Day: 233
Film total today: 3
Films seen so far this year: 213 (20 to go)

Still no bears. But today's entry is brought to you by The Unpleasant Lair of Spank the Monkey and monkeys are almost as good.

The Moustache

French film about a man who begins to doubt his own existence after he shaves off his moustache and no-one notices.


I absolutely adored this, largely for personal reasons which the photo below should make abundantly clear. Basically, I have recently grown a beard - it started as a couple of days of Not Shaving and then I started to like the idea. I quickly realised that here was something I could actually achieve but, crucially, without doing any work whatsoever. If only everything else in life were so easy. Anyway, I also figured it would be good not to have to shave in Edinburgh. The thing is, hardly anyone has commented on it! But I digress. In the film, Vincent Lindon plays a man who has worn a moustache for the last 15 years. The film opens with him shaving in the bath and he casually asks his wife (Emmanuelle Devos, currently in the running for the Most Films At The Festival Award, alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor) how she would feel if he shaved it off. She tells him not too, that she's grown used to it, but he shaves it off anyway. However, his wife doesn't notice. They go out to dinner and their friends don't notice either. Neither do his work colleagues the next day. He becomes angry, because he thinks his wife has told his friends not to say anything, but when he confronts her she says, "What are you talking about? You've never had a moustache." From that bizarre, intriguing premise, the film gets stranger and stranger: he leaves out photos that show him with a moustache, but they disappear and his wife denies they ever existed. A woman in the street confirms that he does indeed have a moustache in his passport photo. Then his wife buys him a hideous green jacket and makes him wear it to a restaurant. Finally, he's driven to distraction and hunts through the garbage, waking his wife up to show her a handful of hair. Then, just when his wife is about to have him committed, he escapes to Hong Kong, where he does nothing but ride the ferry all day. And then comes the brilliant ending, which I won't spoil. Lindon is terrific, with his hangdog expression and strangely sad eyes - he underplays it and it works brilliantly. Devos is really good too and you're never sure what exactly is going on. Four stars - this is easily one of my favourite films so far. It's also definitely getting a theatrical release later in the year.

Serenity

Joss Whedon's hotly-anticipated big screen edition of Firefly, his brilliant-but-cancelled space-western TV show

A bit of history first. For those who may not know, Joss Whedon is the writer-creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, as well as a space western series called Firefly that ran for 13 episodes before being cancelled. Although I'd seen all of Buffy and Angel, I didn't actually get around to seeing Firefly until about a month ago, when I realised the film would be out soon. Anyway, I loved the show so I'm coming to the film from a fan's perspective, rather than seeing it without knowing anything about the characters etc. And, speaking as a fan, I loved it. It delivers on all counts - you laugh, you cry, it has heart-stopping action sequences and, crucially, characters you really care about. It's also brilliantly acted. I was really pleased to see David Krumholz as Mr Universe - he's one of my favourite unsung character actors. My Inner Geek also gave a great whoop of joy when I spotted the still from Flash Gordon (the original Buster Crabbe version) on one of Mr Universe's screens. Anyway, Serenity is the current shoo-in for the audience award, largely thanks to the screenings being packed to the gills with hardcore Joss-fans, all of whom will have torn the "excellent" part of the voting slip. I'd be surprised it it got less than 99%, to be honest. Put simply, it rocks. Five stars.

Night People

Multi-character film set in Edinburgh over the course of one night.

I wasn't initially planning on seeing this, but I bumped into an old friend in the delegate centre and it turns out that the director (a very nice chap indeed) is a friend of hers, so I went along. I'm really glad I did - I really liked it. I'm kind of a sucker for a good multi-character piece and this had some great characters, a cracking script and some lovely little moments. It looks terrific too - Edinburgh at night has probably never looked lovelier and there are some breath-takingly beautiful shots of the sky, etc. The actors, none of whom are famous, are all wonderful (one of them looked like the lovely Zooey Deschanel), except maybe the little girl, although she was saddled with a difficult part to pull off. The plots (which don't overlap, for once) include: a female taxi-driver forced to keep her daughter with her in the cab for the night; a priest who meets a feisty teenager with a dark secret when she takes refuge in his church; a young runaway boy who meets an older rent boy while waiting for the bus to London; and a desperate man whose wife has left him in charge of their two children, who steals a dog and attempts to sell it in order to feed his family. I really hope this gets the release it deserves - if not, it'll almost certainly show up on TV at some point. Best line: "Do you know this wee lassie reeks of pharmaceutical grade cocaine?" Four stars.

Kinky Boots Party

This was a huge amount of fun. Free cocktails all night and lots of really good food served on trays by feisty Edinburgh ladies. I had a nice chat with Chiwetel Ejiofor (see below) and we talked about Serenity, Kinky Boots, Dirty Pretty Things and so on. I then met Joel Edgerton and as soon as I heard his Australian accent, I realised that the reason he'd been so damn familiar was because I'd seen him in both Ned Kelly and The Hard Way. That's a tribute to his performance, because I genuinely thought he was from Northumberland in the movie. I also met Damien Lewis and he told me that Robert Redford was more of a diva than Jennifer Lopez (I'm paraphrasing) and that she'd been incredibly professional and basically 'normal' during the filming of An Unfinished Life. He also talked a little bit about why his film Keane had been pulled from the festival and said some unprintable things about festival politics. He's also a lot taller than you'd think.

The real highlight of the night, however, was meeting Joss Whedon and the cast of Serenity. It had been rumoured that they'd be turning up and eventually they did, although my friends had left by then. They were all buzzing over the success of the press screening and were really keen to talk about it. I spent about 25 minutes talking to Joss Whedon, congratulated him on the film, talked about David Krumholz (he loves him too), how he'd cast Chiwetel (he'd seen Dirty Pretty Things), the various things on Mr Universe's screens (the Godzilla cartoon is actually from a Max Fleischer Superman cartoon, which they got cheap by agreeing not to use Superman's image), and quizzed him relentlessly over Wonder Woman (I couldn't persuade him to promise to give Lynda Carter a cameo role; he definitely wants to cast an unknown, like they've done with Superman; and Morena Baccarin is definitely on his shortlist). I then spoke to Jewel Staite (lovely), Sean Maher (nice, smiley, seemed shy), Morena (delightful), Nathan (hilarious) and the very lovely Gina Torres, who, it turns out, is married to Laurence Fishburne.

Top: Joel Edgerton, star of Kinky Boots.

Middle: Chiwetel Ejiofor and Damien Lewis.

Bottom: Me and Nathan Fillion (taken by Nathan).

Day Four - "When Sam met me I was very easily - I don't want to say manipulated, but swayed".

Day: 232
Film total today: 5
Films seen so far this year: 210 (22 to go)

No bears today either.

Radiant

Low-budget sci-fi about a group of scientists caught up in a bio-chemical crisis.

Radiant is like Primer gone rubbish. Last year's surprise hit of the festival (coincidentally released theatrically this week) was an equally low-budget sci-fi flick, but where that was audacious, thought-provoking and brilliant, Radiant is just...well, bad. The films are also similar in that they both feature an omniscient narrator, but that's where the comparisons end. This is by turns pretentious, boring, badly thought-out and unimaginative. Given the choice between a low-budget film about the outbreak of a virus and the high-budget version, I'll take the high-budget version any day. I mean, you'd think a film where the government has been secretly funding a team of crack scientists who are trying to create the ultimate vaccine (which, in turn is accidentally released and starts to KILL) would be a huge amount of fun, wouldn't you? Well, guess again. Nice idea, poorly executed, though I liked the bit where the lead guy described their likely symptoms and then they went through the symptoms in record time. One star.

Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family

Documentary filmed over eight years, about two gay men who "bring a woman into their relationship". And marry her.

Impressive, heart-warming and eventually depressing documentary by Susan Kaplan, filmed over eight years. Sam and Steve are two bisexual men who have been in a relationship for several years. One day Sam turns round and says, "Wouldn't it be great if we brought a woman into the relationship?" and Steve gradually comes round to the idea. (Later on he says the line above, about not being easily manipulated, but easily swayed). After a couple of trial runs that didn't work out (one woman only loved Sam, not Steve; another was just in it for the sex), Sam tentatively suggests the idea to his friend Samantha and she agrees. They stay together for 13 years. It's not entirely clear when the documentary was actually started (or whose idea it was), but it was presumably shortly before they decided to have a baby, as we see Samantha taking a pregnancy test and we're there for the result. After that, the cracks begin to appear in the relationship - prefigured by Sam's obsessive games of 'What if...?' - but it's a long, slow process before the inevitable happens. (Too slow, to be honest - the film could easily be a good 15 minutes shorter). It's a fascinating relationship, to be sure. Samantha probably comes off best - it seems that she really loves both men. Sam's very neurotic, but his family background makes up the most interesting part of the film (his father was a notorious criminal who was loving to his family but went to prison for armed robbery and murder). And Steven...well, Steven starts off very sympathetic but becomes a total wanker by the end of the film, haggling for hours over whether or not he should have to pay to look after their dog. There's also a lot of therapy-speak and you start to wonder whether all that therapy was really such a good idea, as they all seemed so happy in the beginning. Ultimately, that's the sad part of the film - we see a genuinely loving, happy relationship that really works and is almost inspirational...and then it all falls apart. Three stars.

When Will I Be Loved

New York drama by James Toback, about a hustler attempting to pimp his girlfriend to an Italian billionaire.

That James Toback, eh? He's a saucy one. And he certainly likes his "group sex in Central Park" scenes, judging by this film and Black and White. Actually, When Will I Be Loved is probably Toback's best film since Fingers, but that really isn't saying much. He has also somehow persuaded Neve Campbell to drop her famous no-nudity clause for this film - the film begins and ends with shots of her masturbating in the shower. (He's not known for his subtlety, really). Frankly, Neve, this is outrageous behaviour. You go naked for Toback but not for Wild Things? Where's the sense in that? Anyway, the film stars Frederick Weller as Ford, a hustler who is trying to pimp his girlfriend (Campbell) to an Italain billionaire played by Uncle Junior from The Sopranos (Dominic Chianese). The film starts well - Toback cuts quickly between short scenes of both Campbell and Weller (Campbell indulging in a surprisingly tasteful and erotic lesbian sex scene, as well as flirting with random men and a university professor played by Toback himself; Weller attempting to set up a deal with Damon Dash) and there's a genuine rhythm and energy to the editing. Then it turns out that Campbell and Weller are together and suddenly he has nowhere to cut to, although the long scene in her apartment is surprisingly effective. After that, the film becomes like a bizarrely hip retread of Indecent Proposal and...well, and then it becomes something else entirely. There are also cameos from Toback's celebrity friends, such as Mike Tyson, Damon Dash and, most delightfully, Karen Allen, although she barely has any lines. Not as bad as any of Toback's other films might lead you to expect. Three stars.

The Beat My Heart Skipped

French remake of James Toback's Fingers, starring Romain Duris as a tightly wound young man with dreams of being a concert pianist.

Very possibly the best film of the festival. French heartthrob Romain Duris (who looks a little like a Gallic Ewan McGregor) plays Thomas Seyr, a small-time hood who occasionally does a bit of strong-arm work to assist in his father's dodgy real-estate deals. A chance encounter gives Thomas the chance to audition for a place in a famous musical academy and maybe become a famous musician, like his mother. Thomas begins to take lessons with Miao Lin, a Chinese piano virtuoso (Lin Dan Pham), who doesn't speak a word of French - music is the only language they have in common. Meanwhile, he becomes attracted to his best friend's regularly-cuckolded wife, Aline (the gorgeous Aure Atika) and gets caught up in his father's business, whether it's plotting revenge on the Russian gangster that stiffed him on a deal or trying to persuade him not to marry a much younger woman (Emmanuelle Devos in a strangely small part). The film is wonderful from beginning to end - it's beautifully shot and Duris gives a thoroughly engaging performance. There are some superb scenes, particularly the scenes with Miao Lin and Aline, as well as Thomas' amusing initial revenge on the Russian. Highly recommended. Five stars.

Mad Hot Ballroom

Documentary about a New York Ballroom Dancing competition for 10 and 11 year-old boys and girls.

Everyone is saying that Mad Hot Ballroom is this year's Spellbound, but for my money, that mantle already belongs to "the whistling movie" (Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling). However, the similarities between Mad Hot Ballroom and Spellbound are, on the surface, more obvious, because both films deal with a competition and both films feature children. The main problem is that the pleasures of Mad Hot Ballroom are all the same - it's basically almost two hours of going "Awww, aren't those ballroom-dancing kids cute? And isn't it a shame that some of them will be crack dealers and hos within a year or two?" The main problem is that the film is too long and the focus is too wide - by deciding to focus on three entire classes of children we don't get to know the kids as well as we should. That said, some interesting characters do emerge (one of the teachers takes it all a little too seriously), particularly the sweet-natured, slightly chubby little boy and a couple of amusingly precocious girls. There's also a good balance of highs and lows - we see one class's devastation at being knocked out early on and...well, I shouldn't say anything else but the final competition is nail-bitingly tense. There are also some lovely scenes of the children rehearsing out of school hours on a rock in Central Park - although someone meanly pointed out to me afterwards that these would, of course, have been staged. It's still a very enjoyable film, but it's not as flat-out delightful as Spellbound. That said, I loved the kids enthustiastically cheering each other on and they are terrific dancers - it made me want to take ballroom dancing lessons. Three stars.

Party time

And then I went to the party for Battle In Heaven (one of seven festival films I'd already seen in London before the festival started) and saw Tilda Swinton dancing to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'...

Day Three - "I once accidentally whistled at a funeral..."

Day: 230
Film total today: 7
Films seen so far this year: 205 (25 to go)

No bears today.

A fantastic day, film-wise - I feel like I packed an entire festival's worth of great films into one day. I'd be surprised if most of these didn't end up making it into my Best of the Fest list by the end. That said, 7 films in one day is too much, even for me. 6 is fine, 7 is...knackering.

The Spectator

Italian drama about a young woman who becomes obsessed with her male neighbour.

Impressive Italian drama, which shares the same basic premise as the little-seen Facing Window. Barbara Bobulova plays Valeria, a beautiful, yet emotionally withdrawn young woman who becomes obsessed with her male neighbour, Massimo, who she watches every night through the window in her Turin apartment. Just as she's about ready to make contact, she learns that he has moved to Rome, so she follows him there and befriends his older lover, an author working on a book about her dead husband. When she's offered a job as the lover's assistant, she finally meets Massimo, who begins to take an interest in her. This is a beautifully acted, atmospheric film that pulls off some nice reversals and has some unusal scenes - particularly in regard to Valeria's relationship with the barman who takes her in. There's also a wonderfully tense scene towards the end - one of those scenes where you're begging the characters to say what they're really feeling. Four stars.

Fourteen Sucks

Swedish drama about a teenage girl dealing with the aftermath of being molested at a party while drunk.

This year's Show Me Love. (I would have said 'This year's Just Bea' but nobody has yet seen fit to give Just Bea the cinema release it so justly deserves). Elin Ahlberg (who looks a little bit like a 14 year old Victoria Silvstedt) plays Emma, a typical Swedish teenager who likes listening to music, hanging out with her friends, getting drunk and gate-crashing parties held by Older Boys. She has a fractious relationship with her older brother, Marcus (Jesper Fridh), in that he won't go to his friend's parties if he knows she'll be there, because she embarrasses him. However, when Emma wakes up after a party with a killer hangover and the word "whore" written on her head, she has a nasty feeling that someone has taken advantage of her. To make matters worse, her friends are whispering that she's had sex and her brother's friends keep laughing at her. When she meets Aron (Andreas Karoliussen), a sweet skater boy with a crush on her, she finds herself falling for someone for the first time - but will he still want to be with her when he finds out what she's done? This is a delightful film that brilliantly captures both the heartache and the heady rapture of a first crush. The performances are terrific and there's a genuine intelligence behind the script. There are also some really lovely scenes - particularly the final scene and the use the film makes of the drinking game "I never".

RULES OF "I NEVER" (for which I am indebted to the year of quality time I spent at UC Santa Barbara):

It's basically a truth game, in which the object is both to show off, share your wildest life experiences or, alternatively, embarrass the hell out of any friends you're playing with. You sit in a circle and someone says "I never..." and finishes the sentence with something they either have or haven't done. The point is that if you HAVE done the thing mentioned, then you drink. For example, when I played it my friend X said, "I've never been chased by the police" and proceeded to tell an amusing story about, well, being chased by the police. Another friend, Y, used the game to get Z to admit he'd paid for sex. Oh, the hilarity, etc. (The game is used brilliantly in the film on two occasions - when Marcus says "I never had sex with my sister, he is trying to find out who molested Emma, but he's also letting them know that he knows. And the other time...well, you'll just have to see that for yourself).

Tsotsi

South African drama about a vicious thug who accidentally steals a baby.

This year's City of God. Impressive, beautifully made film that marks director Gavin Hood out as a talent to watch. Presley Cheweneyagae plays "Tsosti" (a nickname that means, appropriately, "thug"), a violent hood, whose gang perform a shocking robbery and murder on the Johannesburg tube in the opening sequence. One of his gang ('Boston') expresses remorse, causing Tsosti to beat him half to death in a bar. He then shoot a woman and steals her car, only to discover that there's a baby on the back seat. The rest of the film concerns Tsotsi's redemptive attempts to look after the baby, which include: forcing a woman to breast-feed him at gunpoint; using a newspaper as a nappy; and even robbing the same family again, in order to get familiar toys for the baby. Hood maintains a constant level of tension, aided considerably by Cheweneyagae's magnificent performance. He also has a strong eye for memorable images, such as the shot of the baby covered in giant ants. (Dog-lovers should also note that there's a really horrible flashback scene that you may find it hard to sit through). A solid four stars - as far as I know, this already has a distributor, so look out for it soon. Interesting trivial note: Hood once appeared in the TV series Stargate).

Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling

Documentary about the participants in the Lewisberg International Whistling Competition.

This year's Spellbound. People will tell you that Mad Hot Ballroom (see Day Four) is this year's Spellbound, but for my money, Pucker Up is the better film. It employs a similar structure, in that we follow around seven participants in the International Whistling Competition. It also reminded me of Stacey Peralta's stunning surfing documentary Riding Giants, because the film was also packed with lots of Interesting Whistling Facts - for example, did you know that there's a village in Turkey where the inhabitants speak a language composed of whistling? Or that whistling is illegal in Jacksonville, Illinois? There are also loads of great archive clips and lots of amusing diversions, such as a piece on The Dark Side of Whistling (which looks at "M" and whistling serial killers etc), a look at the frankly disturbing practice of "throat whistling" (which has to be seen to be believed) and interviews with various experts, one of whom utters the hilarious line, "A guy at college showed me how to double-whistle, so in return I taught him how to A-WOO-GAH!" (Trust me - when you hear him A-WOO-GAH, it's funny). The competitors include a wisecracking turkey hauler ("I translated (turkey noise) - it means 'I don't want to die'); a sweet-natured Dutch social worker called Geert ("I once accidentally whistled at a funeral - it's sooo not done..."); a septugenerian who knows his whistling days are coming to an end; the red bow-tie wearing reigning champion (an investment banker -- he's like the Pete Sampras of whistling - technically proficient but very boring); a frankly insane-looking woman; a school governor; and a laid-back guy named Steve who practices with his pet parrot (cue amusing parrot reaction shots). The competition itself is genuinely thrilling and, believe it or not, incredibly moving. I can honestly say that music has never moved me to tears before, but it did here - the whistling performances are just wonderful. The film is also extremely funny in places - I won't spoil the funniest moment, but let's just say that the climax of the film has a particularly deicious twist to it. Easily one of the top ten films of the festival - highly recommended. Five stars.

The Aristocrats

Documentary about a particularly filthy joke told amongst comedians.

To be honest, I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more if I hadn't seen Pucker Up immediately beforehand. The press notes refer to it as 'the world's filthiest joke' but that's really the point of the joke - it starts with "A man walks into a talent agent's office and says, 'Wow, have I got a family act for you...'" and the joke-teller then describes the filthiest act imaginable, all of which leads up to the agent asking, 'What do you call yourselves?' and the punchline of the title. Basically, it's a joke told by comedians to comedians. The film includes a host of well-known faces (Billy Connelly, Robin Williams, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock etc) either giving their own interpretation of the joke or making some observation about it. Essentially, the joke tells you more about the teller than anything else. As for the joke itself, most versions seem to centre on shit, blood, piss and incest and this, inevitably, wears thin after a while - as a result, it's the variations and deviations that get the most laughs, e.g. the mime version, the card trick version and the reversal of the joke with the punchline 'We're The Cock-sucking Motherfuckers'. There are laughs in a couple of the official versions (e.g. Whoopi's version of the joke, the South Park version) and a couple of the deviations (Sara Silverman, Kevin Pollack's impression of Christopher Walken telling the joke), but for a film about a joke, the laughs aren't as frequent as you might think. Three stars.

The Life I Want

Romantic Italian drama about two actors who fall in love during the filming of a costume drama.

Second impressive Italian movie of the day. I adore films about film-making and this is one of the best of the genre. Sandra Ceccarelli plays Laura, a novice actress who lands her first big role in a costume drama, alongside famous star Stefano (Luigi Lo Cascio). Their onscreen love affair soon spills over into their real lives and the film plays several intriguing variations on the idea of the film-within-a-film. By the end of the film, it's not just the central characters whose real lives are echoing their onscreen roles, but also the supporting cast. The film has a lot to say about actors and acting, with several astute observations on the lies actors tell each other ("I accompanied my friend to the audition and the director spotted me and asked me to read"; actors pretending not to be studying the script beforehand) and their petty jealousies. The film is also achingly romantic and there are several wonderful scenes - highlights include: the ball scene (mostly filmed as a finished scene within the film, which is a bit of a cheat, but it works); the comedy out-take when Stefano falls over; and a lovely scene where Laura is running after Stefano's car while dressed in full period costume. Recommended. Four stars.

Murk (Morke)

Danish thriller about a man who becomes convinced that his brain-damaged sister was murdered by her new husband.

Final film of the day. It was very disturbing to learn in the Q&A (see below, eventually) that the director actually had a sister who attempted suicide, got brain-damage and then committed suicide after getting married - and that he had turned his own traumatic experience into...a slick, glossy thriller about an is he / isn't he serial killer. Danish heartthrob Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays Jakob, a man who becomes convinced that his brain-damaged sister was murdered by her new husband, Anker (Nicolas Bro). A few months after her death, he travels to the small town of Morke in order to question Anker, only to discover that he is engaged to be married to another brain-damaged woman. The film has the occasional plot-hole, but you don't care because it's a gripping, brilliantly acted thriller that's reminiscent of George Sluizer's masterful The Vanishing (that's Spoorloos, the Dutch version, not the bastardised American version). See it now before the inevitable remake. Four stars.

Day Two: "I want you to let the bear go, man..."

Day: 230
Film total today: 4
Films seen so far this year: 198 (32 to go)

Another day, another bear movie...

36 Quai des Orfevres

French thriller starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu as two rival cops.

I went to see this because the write-up described it as a sort of French Heat. That's not too far from the truth: it has some pretty fantastic shoot-outs, a decent script and the mouth-watering prospect of France's two finest male actors facing off against each other. It's not quite as intense as Heat was though. Auteuil and Depardieu play Leo Vrinks and Dennis Klein, two French cops who are both assigned to take down a brutal gang of armed robbers, with the understanding that whoever nails the gang first will get promoted. However, Klein fucks up the arrest, which results in the death of Vrinks' best friend and the rest of the department turning against him. Meanwhile, Vrinks is blackmailed by an old informant into providing an alibi and when Klein finds out, he decides to take Vrinks down, with tragic results. The shoot-outs are genuinely exciting and there are some terrific scenes. Highlights include: a criminal jumping out of a window and taking Vrinks with him; an upsetting scene involving a Mini; and one of Vrinks' men showing his disapproval of Klein by urinating on him. It also has great lines, such as: "What about our ethics code?" "I've wiped my arse with that for years..." Oh, and if anyone knows who the gorgeous woman who was part of the armed robbery gang was, please let me know. She's only in three scenes but my first note reads: "Wow. Who is that?"

The Art of Losing (Perder es un cuestion de metodo)

Convoluted thriller involving Columbian real estate.

I said yesterday that I usually struggled to stay awake through the slowest film of the day and today, this was it. All I can really say about it is that the lead actress was gorgeous and reminded me of Morena thingy from Serenity. It also didn't help that the subtitles were missing from the first five minutes. (I managed to keep up with the Spanish, but my brain was making, "Eh? Is the entire film without subs?" protests and eventually I went out to see what was going on. It had its moments though.

An Unfinished Life

Jennifer Lopez flees yet another abusive boyfriend and takes refuge with her estranged father-in-law (Robert Redford).

“I liked it when the bear escaped.”

The second bear-related movie in two days. Lasse Hallstrom’s An Unfinished Life is a last-minute replacement for Keane, which was apparently pulled because those bloody Frenchies had requested it for the Deauville festival. Lousy frogs. Anyway, the word is that Damian Lewis suggested it as a replacement, because he’s in both films. The basic plot is as follows: Jennifer Lopez plays a widowed mother who takes her feisty daughter (Anna Paquin-alike newcomer Becca Gardner) and flees abusive boyfriend Damian Lewis, ending up in Ishamooa, Wyoming and taking refuge with her bitter father-in-law, Einar (Robert Redford). Einar lives with Mitch (Morgan Freeman), his best friend, who is still recovering from a vicious bear-mauling. Einar still blames Lopez for his son’s death in a car accident, but his cold heart is slowly thawed by the granddaughter he never knew he had. And that’s when it hit me – it’s fucking HEIDI! Okay, so a couple of extra characters have been added and there’s a fucking great bear instead of all that business with the wheelchair, but the story is basically the same. Anyway, the scenery is gorgeous, there are several funny moments and the performances are superb, particularly Gardner, who is a real find. Lopez lets the side down a little and bungles her big emotional scene, but for the most part this is an enjoyable drama. Good support from Camryn Mannheim (whose name I have just learned because she was also in one of Marilyn Hotchkiss’ best scenes) and Josh Lucas, who, for once, escapes the Abusive Boyfriend role. There are Oscar whispers for this already, apparently – don’t be surprised if it picks up both a Best Picture nomination and one for Redford as Best Actor. It’s that kind of performance (alcoholic, learns to live again, etc.) Three stars.


The Magician

Australian “mockumentary”, in which a hit man agrees to be filmed by a film student.

The Magician doesn’t really do anything that wasn’t done ten times better by Man Bites Dog. However, this is less about sensationalism and more about the surreal humour in the relationship that develops between cocky hit man “Ray” (writer-director-star Scott Ryan) and film student “Max” (Massimiliano Andrighetto). It’s also very funny in places, with several laugh-out-loud scenes. Highlights include: Max opening the trunk to ask his latest victim (Tony) to settle an argument about whether or not Clint Eastwood was in The Dirty Dozen; Max suggesting that Ray lends Tony his underpants, because Tony has soiled his (and then lending him his own when Ray refuses); Ray later refusing to let Max sleep next to him because he doesn’t have his pants on; Max’s increasingly bizarre questions, such as, “So, Ray, how much would it take for you to eat a bowl of shit?” In fact, although the film is ostensibly about Ray (who looks like the scrawny lovechild of David Beckham and Willem Dafoe), it’s Max who steals the film, despite never appearing on camera. Andrighetto is either genuinely “foreign” and amusing or is an incredibly gifted comic actor – his innocent, matter-of-fact delivery of the line “Why don’t you lend him your underpants?” had me laughing out loud. Worth seeing.

Day One - "That wound up being the bear they found Tim in..."

Day: 229
Film total today: 5
Films seen so far this year: 194 (35 to go)

Crashing out at 9pm last night was definitely the right thing to do. Normally my eyes start to close during the slowest film of the day, but that didn't happen today.

Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

Robert Carlyle stars as a recently widowed man who finds a new lease of life when a stranger directs him to Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School

Co-written and directed by Randy Miller, based on a short film he made 15 years ago - now that's tenacity for you. This is a sweet film with a terrific cast. Carlyle stars as a recently widowed baker, trying to get over his loss by going to a self-help group that includes David Paymer, Adam Arkin and Sean Astin. Unfortunately, it isn't really helping, but when he witnesses a car crash on a lonely road, he gets talking to the victim (John Goodman) and discovers that he had been rushing to complete a date he had made over 40 years ago. Intending to speak to the woman Goodman had wanted to meet, he attends Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School and finds more than he had been looking for, particularly when he falls for one of the students (Marisa Tomei). The cast are wonderful - Mary Steenburgen is particularly good as the weirdly mannered Marienne Hotchkiss (Marilyn's daughter) and Donnie Wahlberg is superb as the class's best dancer. It's also intriguingly structured - Miller's original short story appears in the film as a series of flashbacks narrated by Goodman and starring Eldon Henson (who also appears, 15 years later, as one of Carlyle's colleagues). All in all, this is 10 times better than the recent Shall We Dance remake with Richard Gere. Three stars.

Gamblers (Les Mauvais Joueurs)

French film about a group of Armenian and Chinese people living and working together in Paris.

Average film, really. There's not much of a plot beyond the fact that one of the Chinese teenagers is a bit rowdy and gets into trouble when he attacks his sister's employer. It does have a fantastic foot chase at the end though, as well as a few surprises. I doubt this will get a theatrical release. Two stars.

Grizzly Man

Documentary by Werner Herzog, about a man who dedicated his life to living amongst Alaskan bears

I liked it when the bear ate the guy.

Easily the best film of the day - I'd wanted to see this since reading about it during Cannes. Herzog's strange film tells the tale of Timothy Treadwell, a young man whose obsession with living amongst bears led to the untimely deaths of both himself and his girlfriend. Herzog seems to have, rather ghoulishly, become involved after the fact - he's edited the film together from over 100 hours of videotape shot by Treadwell himself. The thing is, by the end of the film, you're kind of glad the bears ate him. Most people seem to regard Treadwell as some kind of nutter - the film certainly presents a fair sample of opinions about what he was doing. It's suggested that in some way, he actually wanted to be eaten by bears. As the film goes on, lots of weird things come to the surface - such as the fact that Treadwell would often go to 'The Grizzly Maze' with girlfriends, but insisted that they never appeared on the video footage - and not only that, but he also delivers many monologues on how alone he feels. It also turns out that he originally went to California to become an actor (Treadwell isn't his real name) and that he was allegedly depressed after losing out on the part of Woody in Cheers to Woody Harrelson. At times it's fairly clear that Treadwell was insane - at one point (during a particularly barking on-camera rant), Herzog astutely points out that "the actor has taken over from the film-maker". His relationship with the camera is at least as interesting as his relationship with the bears - sometimes he's trying to make political statements, sometimes he's running around filming an action movie (that's all in his head) and sometimes he uses it as a bizarre confessional - during one scene he's filming himself while hiking and suddenly goes off on a bizarre tangent about how he wished he'd been gay "because gay people can just get sex in truck stops..." There are several great scenes - highlights include: friendly foxes stealing his cap; Treadwell praying for rain ("Come on, Jesus Boy! Christ Man! We need some rain! Melissa is eating her babies!"); and the coroner describing, in detail, the audio recording of Tim and Amy's final few minutes. Four stars.

Astronauts

Spanish drama starring Nancho Novo as a recovering heroin addict who takes in a homeless girl

Funniest out-of-context-line-of-the-day: "A sailboat!"

Enjoyable Spanish drama, stylishly directed and well acted by its two leads. There are lots of weird touches in the film, such as the Python-esque animated inserts that illustrate Daniel's (Novo) own personal ten-step programme. Three stars.

Wah-Wah

Richard E. Grant's directorial debut, about his childhood in Swaziland.

Strange choice to open the festival with, really, as it's pretty downbeat stuff. Grant (renamed Ralph Compton) is played by two kids, one of whom is the kid from About A Boy, who has shot up to around twice the size. I can see him breaking a few hearts in the future. Anyway, the basic story is: Ralph sees his mother (Miranda Richardson) shagging one of his dad's (Gabriel Byrne) friends in the front seat of his car, she leaves, his dad becomes an alcoholic. Ralph develops a nasty facial tic. He goes to boarding school - when he returns he finds his dad has married Ruby (Emily Watson) a pretty American air hostess he has known for 6 weeks. Ralph doesn't want to like her but they soon bond. His father's alcoholism gets so bad that at one point he chases Ralph with a loaded gun. His mother comes back, then leaves again. Not many laughs, really. The scenery is gorgeous though and the performances make up for the occasionally lacklustre script. Good support from Celia Imrie, Julie Walters and Fenella Woolgar, who's bizarrely sexy in one particular scene.

Opening night party

Bit dull really. REG, Emily Watson and Gabriel Byrne had all left by the time I arrived, plus I'd missed the food and the free beer was about to run out. I did, however, have a nice conversation with Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kas (see below), who's here with a film called Mork.

Edinburgh Film Festival 2005

This is intended to be both a diary and a database of reviews that I can later refer to when I review the films for ViewLondon.co.uk. It is also my stated intention to use the Edinburgh Film Festival press screenings in order to achieve my personal goal of seeing over 365 films this year. Currently we are on Day 228 and I have seen a mere 189 films, so I'll need to see 51 films over the next 13 days, in order to catch up. That's roughly 4 films a day. Should be easy.