Edinburgh International Film Festival

The new film Faintheart is a smash, with a sweeping story line that covers almost two millennia. The director, Vito Rocco, was given the opportunity to direct after Myspace users chose him during open competitions online. He took the chance, and ran with it, creating Faintheart. The film is set in the modern day, and the characters are a band of Viking battle re-enactors. Richard (Eddie Marsan) is dedicated to the Viking way of life, but when he misses his father-in-law’s funeral because of a battle, his wife has had enough and leaves him. Torn between the bickering spouses is their son who eventually abandons his father. Richard gives up on the Viking way of life, and on his Viking friends, in an attempt to win back his wife. However, he only discovers further heartache and pain, and realizes in the end that it is best to be himself.
Faintheart is a hilarious film filled with comedic moments that you can’t forget. Richard and his Viking friends are a throwback to Monty Python, but his family brings a bit of reality that everyone can relate to. The movie explores the world of geek-dom, and comes complete with comic books, Captain Kirk signed photos, and a Klingon language sex scene. Myspace users auditioned for the various roles in the film, and even got to vote on which scenes made it into the film and which didn’t. Viewing the finished product, it is entire and whole, and very well made. The only gripe I had was in the opening scenes, when the caption read that William the Conqueror fought the formidable army of Mercia. The Kingdom of Mercia no longer existed when William I conquered England. Perhaps I am the true nerd, but I still give the film four and a half stars.

WALL-E, directed by Andrew Stanton, is a new film from PIxar Animation, and is the story of a robot named WALL-E who, along with thousands like him, is charged with cleaning up Earth’s dangerous trash levels while the humans evacuate to a massive space ship called Axiom. After leaving Earth, the humans embark upon what they think will be a one hundred year cruise around space. WALL-E, on the other hand, stays behind to clean up. However, after seven hundred years, WALL-E is the last of his kind, and the last robot functioning on Earth. He has still continued cleaning up the Earth, but without the help of the other robots he cannot fix much. During his long solitude, he has developed a personality, and is very curious about some of the objects he finds in the trash heaps. For seven hundred years he cleans, until one day, a shiny new robot he’s never seen before lands on Earth. In his attempts to make first contact, he is wrapped up in a drama he could never have expected.
WALL-E is a fun and exciting film. It is, however, slightly disappointing when compared to the hype that led up to it in the theaters and posters. The story is very interesting and endearing. The animation is superb. I give it four stars.

Portrait of Jason, a film by Shirley Clark and starring Jason Holiday is an artistic film interview of a human being with an interesting story to tell. The film is basically a single camera placed in front of the subject, and turned on. He is allowed to tell his story in his own terms at his own speed, while drinking and smoking. As he gets more and more intoxicated, he becomes more and more real.
This film is very badly made. Each scene blurs in and out of focus as a transition, and the blurring can last as long as three minutes. The subject is entirely lost, with only his voice letting us know the film is continuing. He tells his story so very slowly that most audience members were asleep by the middle of the movie. It was painful to sit through, and painful to write a review about. I give it one star.

The Fall is an engrossing and eye popping film by Tarsem Singh and starring Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, and Lee Pace. The film opens with black and white film actors trying to retrieve fellow actors from a river after a shoot. The music for the scene is captivating, and holds your interest through the opening credits. After the film changes back to color, a little girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) takes the stage. She is an immensely curious young lady with a broken arm. Alexandria befriends Roy, one of the actors who was thrown into the river during the opening scene and is now recuperating in the hospital where she is staying. Roy begins to tell her a fascinating story about bandits who rise against the evil Governor. The story is set in a far away land of sprawling deserts and beautiful cities. The girl is captivated, and is thereby turned into an assistant to the man in the completion of his goals.
The cinematography in The Fall is excellent, as in the acting and the score. The plot is a bit weighed down by the actor’s story, but is necessary to be such to convey as large of a meaning and impact the audience as much as the filmmakers needed to do. The color choices made during the movie are genius. The little girl’s world is subdued colors of pale whites and light darks, while the colors used in the imaginary world created in the girl’s mind by the actor’s story are vivid and magical. Dark blacks and blues and violent reds help place emphasis on the story and its imaginative power. The movie is a fun yet emotional trainride through a brief period of the two central characters lives, and will leave audiences pleased and entertained. I give it 4.9 stars, because of the unnecessary death of a primate.

Transsiberian, a new film by Brad Anderson and starring Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, and Sir Ben Kingsley is an adventurous and entertainingly dramatic ride. After finishing a church mission trip in China, Roy and Jessie decide to take the Transsiberian railway to Moscow instead of immediately flying back to the states. It takes a week for the train to make its way from China to Moscow, plenty of time for the happy couple to get accidently wound up into a drug mule scheme that turns into a life or death run through Siberia.
The acting in this film is spot on perfect, especially the performances of Sir Ben Kingsley as a Russian police official, and Emily Mortimer as Jessie. Woody Harrelson’s acting is good, and I admire him for his attempt to break his type cast, however, he simply isn’t believable (at this time) in a serious role. The scenery and cinematography in this film makes the railway perfectly believable, and I loved the depiction of the local people and their customs. This film is fun and thrilling, and will have you on the edge of your seat for most of the performance. I give it four stars.

Let The Right One In, a new Swedish film directed by Tomas Alfredsson, is an amazing new look at the classic vampire movie, using new ideas and old vampire canon together to make an amazing and entertaining film. Set in the early 1980s in a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden, the film’s main character is a young boy named Oskar. He is abused at school by bullies, and feels cut off while at home due to his parents separation and the mistrust associated with it. He finds solace in a new friend whom he meets on the jungle gym outside his apartment late one night. Her name is Eli, and while she seems a little strange, the boy sees only their mutual feelings of loneliness and vulnerability. Through a strange series of botched killings in the town, and various other events, the film unfolds into a fascinating series of events that bring the two young children together, probably forever.
The film is a cinematographic masterpiece. Each shot is well planned and executed, and the color choices and combinations set the mood for the entire movie. The acting is spectacular and the story amazing. The only flaw in the movie would be the a few of the CGI elements, especially concerning cats and fire (the two never being mixed, thankfully). The CGI effects seem overly fake and could have been made much better. However, as the two scenes with those elements in them are very short, I can overlook the flaws and give this film an amazing four and a half stars. It is an entertaining and engrossing film that I would like to watch over and over again.

In Death Defying Acts, the Harry Houdini film by Gillian Armstrong, the boundaries of love and betrayal are explored to create an action packed take on the classic love story. Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) comes to 1920s Edinburgh, Scotland, to perform his death defying stunts and magic tricks for the Scottish capital. While there his longing for peace concerning the death of his beloved mother reaches a head, and he declares publically that he will give $10,000 to any medium or psychic that can tell him the last words spoken to him by his mother. No one knows, except Harry, what she said to him as she lay dying. Enter Mary (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a trickster who manufactures fortunes via theft and forgery to obtain money to help herself and her young daughter, Benji, to survive. After trying desperately to discover Harry’s secret, and being discovered snooping around his hotel room by Houdini himself, Mary discovers a new and disturbing attraction between herself and Harry has begun, and must endeavor to not get wrapped up into it herself.
Death Defying Acts is a fun and adventurous film, traveling along the story line at a good and entertaining speed. There are no slow and tedious scenes in the film, and the acting is supurb. The parts of the film that were filmed on site in Edinburgh are very well done, and make the 1920s look of the city in the film very believable. I enjoyed this film very much, and therefore give the film a four and a half star rating.

Enlightened Blood, a film by Mexican director , is a story of several people who, after collapsing, wake up to discover they now have the memories of dozens of former ‘lives’ and possess a silver locket that they can not bear to be separated from. As the story progresses, it is realized that what has happened to them is a life form of unknown origin, structure, or intention has connected itself with their minds and memories. They only have contact with it through the memories of its past lives. Eventually the being leaves, which causes a similar collapse, but the human host must go on living with the memories of so many people in their heads, and must learn to cope. One host is different, however, and understands more about the purpose and reasons behind what ever it is the hosts are experiencing.
This movie is a cinematographic wonderland. Each shot is well planned and executed, and brings the audience closer to the movie. However, the film’s story line is garbled, and there is little story to interest the viewer. I couldn’t decide if the film had a bad director and a great editor, or the other way around. Very little happens in the film, many side stories are started, none are followed up or completed. It is a very frustrating film to watch. I give it two and half stars, because the acting is good and the camera work is superb.

Cadaver, a Korean film by Derek Son, is a new look at the classic thriller movie, with moments of horror and gore. Physiological conditions are mixed with an element of the supernatural to give this film a good plot and a fair amount of action. Five medical students prepare to learn how to dissect the human body. However, they soon discover that the woman’s body they’ve been given to study has a dark secret past, and an evil wish to destroy. After a fellow student’s horrifying death in the basement autopsy room late one night, the remaining students of the group hurriedly seek answers as the head professor visits old friends with less than the best of intentions.
This film is a bloody good time. The cinematography is excellent, and sets the mood for the film without the first line being spoken. The score is good, and combines with each scene excellently. The acting in the film is genuine and very good, even though the typical Asian horror film’s habit of screaming very loudly and for extended periods of time is used extensively throughout. I give this film four stars.

Bigga Than Ben: A Russian’s Guide to Ripping Off London, directed by S. A. Halewood, is an exciting and fun film about two young Russians who want to defeat the London financial system and make a few thousand dollars to help jumpstart their band. Cobakka and Spiker, played by Ben Barnes and Andrei Chadov, give us a look at the London rarely seen in film and by tourists, filled with drugs and run down apartment complexes. Ben Barnes (Caspian in the new Chronicles of Narnia film) delivers a stellar performance that gives us a new and different look at his acting abilities. Bigga Than Ben is humorous without being silly, and has a very serious side where the characters skirt danger on a 24-hour basis. It is based on true events.
Bigga Than Ben is a fun adventure for adult audiences. Its set up as a home made documentary, shot entirely in 16mm film and showing what the characters think is practical advice for ripping off the system. There are many laughs, especially when America is mentioned, or when they use the subtitle button as a gag. This movie does have a serious side, which helps control the humor, and leaves you with a somewhat bittersweet ending. The laughs are worth the sadness, however, and I give this film 4 stars.