tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-326770192011-04-21T21:25:31.079+01:00News and reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2006Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.comBlogger211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156959526654338742006-08-30T18:36:00.000+01:002006-08-30T18:38:46.656+01:00

The mockumentary format has been around for quite some time now and is usually associated with comedy or satire. For some reason music, and rock in particular, has been the inspiration for some of the best of the genre. This is Spinal Tap is the film most people think of when mockumentary is mentioned, and so it should as it is a highly original piece of comedy that highlights the excesses and

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156959111650493532006-08-30T18:18:00.000+01:002006-08-30T18:31:51.673+01:00

Gritty, 'real life' dramas are a strange form of entertainment as there is voyeuristic feeling to them, but given the popularity of reality TV and docu-soaps it is obviously a genre that attracts audiences. Of course the advantage of dramatised versions is they real actors and scriptwriters to craft the story and develop some sort of resolution, and even empathy for the characters, whereas with '

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156958312370254662006-08-30T18:15:00.000+01:002006-08-30T18:18:32.373+01:00

Starting with a chilling video interview with an unidentified child who has just killed someone, the film moves into an almost monochromatic, rainswept scene of two men in a car discussing what may be a bust, or possibly a sting. It's all a bit clichéd but not unbearably so right up to the moment of the armed stand-off, reminiscent of True Romance. Then the action kicks in, in an excellently

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156958118269945072006-08-30T17:47:00.000+01:002006-08-30T18:15:18.383+01:00

With three films on release at the moment, it would appear that Tony Grisoni is one of the most prolific screenwriters in the country. Tideland and Brothers of the Head are both adaptations of other people's books, as was Fear and Loathing, but Lives of the Saints is an original piece and one of the writer's first scripts.Set in one of the low-rent multicultural areas of North London, inhabited

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156609783672687092006-08-26T17:22:00.000+01:002006-08-26T17:29:43.680+01:00

As the 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival drew to a close, the outgoing Festival Artistic Director, Shane Danielsen, hosted a very low-key Awards ceremony to a room full of industry delegates and luminaries.The Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film was awarded to the excellent Brothers of the Head, directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. The Award was collected by the

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156593833424859942006-08-26T13:02:00.000+01:002006-08-26T13:03:53.436+01:00

Take a cult Japanese novella, a French woman director, a Hamburg setting and possibly one of the most beautiful women in the world and you have some of the ingredients that make up this mysterious fantasy film.Based on a novel by Yoko Ogawa it is transposed to unnamed European location, where they speak French. The setting is contemporary but somehow timeless, which further enhances the overall

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156527913071610872006-08-25T18:35:00.000+01:002006-08-25T18:45:13.080+01:00

As much as the general French population want to deny it, France, and Paris in particular, is one of the great multicultural cities of Europe, mostly thanks to its past colonialism. The youth are far more integrated and are developing their own new cultural identities with ties to Africa. This French horror film takes its title from the the Muslim word for the devil and features three young

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156508385574188492006-08-25T13:18:00.000+01:002006-08-25T13:19:45.586+01:00

If there's one thing the British film industry does well is quirky comedies. Not the high-profile Richard Curtis rom-coms, but the smaller independent ones like Shaun of the Dead. Shut Up and Shoot Me isn't a purely UK movie, but a co-production with the new centre of European filmmaking, Czech Republic.Given the cultural backgrounds of production partners, the comedy is morbid, or dark in

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156501718522147142006-08-25T11:26:00.000+01:002006-08-25T11:28:38.523+01:00

Movies about human drama are nearly always traumatic affairs filled with angst and a full gamut of other emotions that invariably involve shouting and crying. It takes a certain frame of mind to go and watch people suffering for an hour and a half (or more), but it's a mindset that appeals to people who give out movie awards and justifiably so. A well-written drama will stretch the actor and if

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156501499115749072006-08-25T11:22:00.000+01:002006-08-25T11:24:59.123+01:00

No matter what you think of the abrupt ending of Zidane's career during the World Cup, there is no denying that the method in which he did it was as unorthodox and inspired as the rest of his playing. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is a fitting tribute to one of the greatest footballers of our time, and one whose skills seem to have been largely ignored by the British public and media alike.This

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156335312352545802006-08-23T13:08:00.000+01:002006-08-23T13:15:15.350+01:00

Hollywood and the movies has always been about the American Dream; the freedom to do and be what you want. Come the Sixties and Seventies and the new generation realised that the dream was going bad and set off to look for America and for themselves. First in literature with Kerouac and Thompson, then with films like Easy Rider came the start of the road movies (not to be confused the Crosby and

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156331715099950632006-08-23T12:11:00.000+01:002006-08-23T12:15:15.133+01:00

India is one of the most prolific filmmaking countries in the world, but most of its content is the populist Bollywood fare, but there are the occasional serious, as in art house, filmmakers in the vein of Satyajit Ray. Interestingly two of the most adventurous and internationally recognised are women; Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding) and Deepa Mehta, the director of Water. It is even

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156253553720467882006-08-22T14:26:00.000+01:002006-08-22T14:32:33.796+01:00

Imagine, a 21st Century sex comedy free from nudity and graphic onscreen sex. That's what The Oh in Ohio is. Freed from the attractions of the flesh this film relies on its smart script and excellent performances from a stellar cast to deliver an intelligent and hilarious look at the pressures placed on a society obsessed with sexual performance.Priscilla (Parker Posey) is a high-achieving career

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156246681983863462006-08-22T12:31:00.000+01:002006-08-22T12:38:01.993+01:00

With somuch going on in Edinburgh in August, what with the Arts Festival, Book Festival, Fringe and the Film Festival, it is very hard to find something that unifies all these diverse elements into a single evening's entertainment.FUTURE CINEMA is a highly innovative cinematic experience, fusing film, music, theatre and cabaret together to dazzling effect. Brought to you by Stella Artois and

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156165836312972042006-08-21T14:03:00.000+01:002006-08-21T14:10:36.330+01:00

Part of film festival experience is seeing films that would rarely get distribution outside of their home countries, and even then on a very limited arthouse cinema release. The films I'm talking about are not independent and mini-major releases that often get called arthouse but movies that are often personal, sometimes experimental, projects that don't follow the current, common perception of

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156082831206826162006-08-20T14:58:00.000+01:002006-08-20T15:07:11.216+01:00

Making a film about suicide may be considered artistic suicide, especially a film that is aimed at a relatively mainstream audience. Wristcutters isn't a documentary or one of those incomprehensible arthouse movies that never makes it beyond the festival circuit. Quite the opposite. It is a love story and a road movie, with moments of subtle humour.After taking his own life with razor blades

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156011417217894512006-08-19T19:16:00.000+01:002006-08-19T19:16:57.220+01:00

The forbidden/mismatched love finishing in tragedy has been the theme of plays and films ever since the first performance of Romeo and Juliet, and probably even before then. Apart from straight cinema versions Shakespeare's play, it was the basis of West Side Story and hundreds of Bollywood films follow a similar formula. While Neo Ned does follow the basic concept of classic play with the tragic

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1156010829068180752006-08-19T19:04:00.000+01:002006-08-19T19:07:46.443+01:00

Ever since Disney made his first animated feature, Snow White, fairy tales have been a popular source for children's and family movies. Disney sanitised the original tales for the delicate minds of American children, (the same ones that have grown into killers, but that's another discussion for another place). Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm went some way to showing how dark fairy tales are,

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1155993969407602652006-08-19T13:57:00.000+01:002006-08-19T14:51:32.876+01:00

For most people, comic book movies usually involve superheroes, a hangover from their perceptions of the source material. But as any self-respecting reader of comics, or graphic novels as they prefer to be called, will tell you, they cover every genre, with Japanese manga being the most diverse and generally free from costumed super men. In the last year or so we have had A History of Violence

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1155984977110724372006-08-19T11:46:00.000+01:002006-08-19T11:56:17.120+01:00

Ten years after Kevin Smith's debut film made him darling of the independent film world, he has carved himself a nice little niche in New Jersey-based movies that feature a motley crew of reprobates including his alter ego Silent Bob and his (non-gay) partner Jay. It was so successful it even spawned an animated series and a comic book (comics being one of Smith's passions). After the original

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32677019.post-1155746954146081612006-08-16T17:32:00.000+01:002006-08-19T19:15:51.706+01:00

Challenging and controversial are two words that could be used to describe this film, so are pretentious rubbish. I had the same reaction to this film as I did to Battle for Heaven last year, "What am I doing here?" It was another error of judgement that came from reading, and believing, the accompanying blurb in the programme. I was expecting something a bit different just because of the names

Chris Patmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13959009010288298197noreply@blogger.com0