Edinburgh International Film Festival

            Portrait of Jason is a documentary directed by Shirley Clark.  It is the real story of Jason Holliday.  It is about two hours of Jason, a homosexual black man, setting in front of the camera telling stories from his life.

            This movie left me a little curious as to what the point of the movie had been.  It was basically a two hour home video.  It is filmed over one long thirteen hour night and later edited down to the finished product.  I found a lot of his stories interesting, but was unable to keep up with what the idea behind the film was.  Another problem I had with the film was that as the night progresses Jason gets more and more drunk.  This made him repetitive and hard to understand.  I like the idea of the movie, just set someone in front of the camera and see what happens, but this came off more like an interrogation than an interview.  I didn’t like the cinematography in the movie.  It would constantly go out of focus and leave this faceless blob talking.  I’m certain that this was done to create a certain effect; however, it escapes me as to what that effect might have been.  I will give Portrait of Jason one star.  It was an interesting idea but didn’t translate onto the screen very well.

            Les Amants or The Lovers is a French film produced in1958 and Directed by Louis Malle.  It stars Jeanne Moreau, Alain Cuny, Jose Villalonga, Jean-Marc Bory, and Judith Marge.  This is a land mark film in the fact that it went to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling that the film was not obscene and could be shown in American theaters.  This ruling paved the way for almost all of modern day film and television.

            This was a very entertaining film.  It contains a strong female lead and several good supporting characters.  The story itself is one that is so realistic that it caused me to be irritated with several of the characters.  The story is about something that happened in the period when it was filmed and still happens in today’s society, adultery.  The plot was developed rather well and left me guessing up until the end.  The story doesn’t leave the viewer with a true since of closure.  The ending is definitely open to different interpretations.  It was pretty obvious why this movie was considered risqué in a time when men and women were not even supposed to be portrayed in bed together.  I give The Lovers four stars.  It isn’t the greatest film in existence but it is definitely worth seeing.

The Film Sleep Dealer is directed by Alex Rivera and stars Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela, and Jacob Vargas.  It is a sci-fi film set in the not too distant future.  It is a Mexican film and displays a very bleak view of the future of corporate America.  The movie is designed to make a strong political point.  The film tells the story of a young Mexican who leaves his small town and travels to the city to help support his family.  During the film he’s faced with a series of events that change his ideas about how the world really is.

I found this movie lacking any major direction.  The one thing about it was that I couldn’t identify any real bad guy in the movie.  The other problem that I have is that the character that I identify as the hero (Rudy) in the story had a very minor part.  I also had a problem with the fact that the idea of the “nodes” in their backs and arms was straight out of the Matrix.  Over all the movie wasn’t a bad concept but I didn’t feel like it ever achieved its potential.  The acting was okay and the special effects worked pretty well.  I’ll give this movie two and a half stars, so go look for something more appealing.

Bigga than Ben: A Russians Guide to Ripping Off London is a United Kingdom film directed by S.A. Halewood.  It stars Ben Barnes and Andrei Chadov.  They play two Russian citizens that leave their home country to avoid mandatory service in the military.  They only have enough money to get them as far as London.  They have a plan on how to cheat the system and make their fortune.  The movie is a humorous look at the experiences they have and the results of their endeavors.

I liked the way that this film was done.  The style of the movie was almost that of a documentary.  The film followed these two Russians around and made them the focus of the movie.  They deliberately showed the lower sides of the London landscape.  They used this to show the poverty of these two men, as well as other immigrants. Although it was a comedy and obviously intended to be funny, it had a very serious undertone.  Underneath the humor was a true Marxist film.  It took a lot of effort to show how the poor are forced to remain poor while the rich have all the power.  I give Bigga than Ben three and a half stars.  I liked it but have no desire to see it again.

Bigga than Ben: A Russians Guide to Ripping Off London is a United Kingdom film directed by S.A. Halewood.  It stars Ben Barnes and Andrei Chadov.  They play two Russian citizens that leave their home country to avoid mandatory service in the military.  They only have enough money to get them as far as London.  They have a plan on how to cheat the system and make their fortune.  The movie is a humorous look at the experiences they have and the results of their endeavors.

I liked the way that this film was done.  The style of the movie was almost that of a documentary.  The film followed these two Russians around and made them the focus of the movie.  They deliberately showed the lower sides of the London landscape.  They used this to show the poverty of these two men, as well as other immigrants. Although it was a comedy and obviously intended to be funny, it had a very serious undertone.  Underneath the humor was a true Marxist film.  It took a lot of effort to show how the poor are forced to remain poor while the rich have all the power.  I give Bigga than Ben three and a half stars.  I liked it but have no desire to see it again.

            Helen is a United Kingdom and Irish film that was co-directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor.  It stars Annie Townsend in the title role.  This was a movie that attempted to show the story of a girl who has no personality or history of her own.  She spends the movie adapting to another girls personality only to find her own history in the end.

            I really didn’t like this movie.  I found the acting to be dismal.  The cinematography was okay but shots lasted too long making the entire movie seem rather lethargic.  The story itself was atrocious.  At no point during this entire movie did I find one thing that made me want to sit there and watch it.  I suppose that the idea behind the movie was to create an art piece and not really to entertain.  At this it succeeded.  I was never involved with the movie in anyway and spent most of the time wishing that I could have gotten up and left the theater.  I didn’t find any emotion in the movie at all.  The characters all seemed to be single or non-dimensional without any substance to them what so ever.  I will only give Helen half a star.  I will say that at least it was in focus.

            Transsiberian is a United Kingdom film that is directed by Brad Anderson.  It stars Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, Kate Mara, and Sir Ben Kingsley.  This movie is a suspenseful tale of a couple as they take a train trip across Siberia.  With drugs, thugs, and corrupt Russians all coming into play this trip turns out to be much more than they originally bargained for.

            This movie was right up my alley.  I’ve always enjoyed espionage, suspense, action style movies and this movie fits the bill.  The cinematography of this movie was outstanding.  There are several beautiful shots of the bleak countryside that they are passing through.  The movie keeps the audience guessing as to what is really going on giving only little glimpses at a time until finally the viewer has the whole picture.  I was especially impressed with the finale of this movie.  There is some heart stopping action, a train crash, and a twist that most people want see coming.  I will say that the movie seemed to drag a little in some spots.  This added to the suspense, but I think that it might have been a little over used.  I give Transsiberian four and a half stars.  It is a movie that I will be recommending to others that I know like this type of film.

WALL•E is the latest movie from Disney’s Pixar Studios who brought us animated films like Toy Story and Ratatouille.  It was a United States film directed by Andrew Stanton. This animated feature is a funny and heartwarming story of the last robot on earth after the human race has departed for the stars. WALL•E is lonely until he meets Eva, an updated robot sent to find life on earth.  It’s a humorous movie with the underlying themes of man’s wastefulness and laziness.

I was immediately taken with this movie. I loved the animation, although I wouldn’t have expected any less from a studio like Pixar.  The characters immediately drew you in and caused you to become involved with the movie.  The story was very satisfying.  There was plenty of lighthearted humor as well as some serious indications at where our society could be heading.  It is the classic story of the underdog who wins out in the end.  I honestly couldn’t find anything that I thought the movie was lacking.  Some may find offense in the fact that it portrays the human race as excessively lazy but I thought that it was a humorous way of looking at what is a real possibility.  I give WALL•E five stars.  I loved this film and will certainly watch it again.

            UK Shorts was a collection of short films from the United Kingdom.  This group includes First from director Tinge Krishnan, K from director Piers Thompson, One in Four from director Matti Harju, Slapper from director Chiwetel Ejiofor, Son from director Daniel Mulloy, and Wish from director Matt Day.  Each of these film shorts ranged in length from about six minutes to twenty minutes.  They were all various looks at different tragedies in people’s lives.

            I can’t say that I really enjoyed any of the short films that we watched in this series.  They all seemed to be themed by someone’s misery, which isn’t something that I particularly enjoy watching.  Certain ones of them, such as Son and One in Four, were very hard to keep up with and figure out as to what was going on.  None of them were particularly interesting.  I will say that they managed to get their point across when you could follow them.  Wish is a short that is based on true events about the death of two girls.  It was probably my favorite of the group simply because of the fact that I didn’t see the end coming.  I’ll give these films one and a half stars.  I understand that they weren’t developed for entertainment so much as they were for the art of film, but I can’t stand sitting through something that isn’t at least somewhat entertaining.

            Faintheart is a comedy from the United Kingdom and directed by Vito Rocco.  It stars Eddie Marsan, Ewan Bremnar, Jessica Hynes, Bronagh Gallagher, and Tim Healy.  It is the story of a group of middle-aged men that are medieval re-enactors and one man’s struggle to get his wife back.  It is a classic comedy that manages to keep its audience smiling as the movie moves through the highs and lows of this laughable group of people.

            This was one of the better comedies that I’ve seen in quite some time.  I particularly enjoyed the humor about things like Star Trek and gaming.  I believe that this movie is directed at people of my generation.  It had elements that appealed to people who are my age and perhaps a bit younger. I don’t think it would have had the same effect on someone that wasn’t familiar with the subject matter.  The actors in the movie did a very good job.  I completely identified with them during the course of the film.  The cinematography was probably the weakest part about the whole movie.  The shots usually seemed rather drab and there wasn’t much that jumped out at me.  I give Faintheart four and a half stars.  This is a movie that I really want to see again.