Film and Issue 582

Tilda Swinton

9 Aug 2007

Even without her bright beacon of red hair, it would be difficult to miss Tilda Swinton at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Enjoying her inaugural year as patron, alongside the venerable Sir Sean Connery, you can take your pick when it…

Ethan Hawke

9 Aug 2007

Kaleem Aftab talks to actor, writer and now director Ethan Hawke about adapting his novel The Hottest State for the big screen

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered

9 Aug 2007

The recent deaths of art cinema colossi Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni – at the ages of 89 and 94 respectively – led me to wonder about some of the great filmmakers who did not make it to their fifth decade, let alone approach their tenth.

Bernadette Lafont

9 Aug 2007

The veteran French actress Bernadette Lafont is casting her mind back 50 years and recalling her first ever film role. It was in a short called Les Mistons (The Brats), made by a tyro filmmaker called François Truffaut. Shot in her hometown of Nimes…

Jess Weixler

9 Aug 2007

Jess Weixler is so all-American she looks like she’s jumped straight out of a photograph of high school cheerleaders. Her long blond hair and blue eyes make her the archetypal American beauty – just like all those Britney Spears wannabes lusted after by…

The Walker

(15) 109min

9 Aug 2007

‘I’m not naive, I’m superficial’, smiles Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson), the latest in a memorable line of existential loners created by Paul Schrader.

Also Released - Film

9 Aug 2007

• License to Wed (12A) 91min * When lovebirds Sadie (Mandie Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski) become engaged, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams) puts them through a tortuous marriage preparation course to see if they deserve to be married in church. The…

Waitress

(12A) 107min

9 Aug 2007

Jenna (Keri Russell) is a career waitress. She tends tables in a dead-end town in the deep south of the US.

Taxidermia - profile

György Pálfi

9 Aug 2007

Having started as an actor at the age of 14 in anarchistic 1988 Hungarian drama The Documentator, Pálfi quickly decamped to the other side of the camera realising that ‘acting was not for me’. His taste for the weird and underground stayed true…

Longing (Sehnsucht)

9 Aug 2007

Following on from the exorcism drama Requiem and the Stasi surveillance thriller The Lives of the Others, Longing is further evidence of the current resurgence in German cinema.

Hallam Foe

(David Mackenzie, UK, 2007) 95min

9 Aug 2007

All four of talented Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie’s features have premiered at the EIFF. Mackenzie’s latest, an adaptation of novelist Peter Jinks’ Edinburgh-set psychosexual romantic drama, is as good as any of his previous work. But, while…

Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle

(Simon Miller, UK, 2007) 90min

9 Aug 2007

Admirable in intent and ambitious in scope, this first-ever Gaelic language feature is a real achievement. By collaborating with local talent – writers, actors, musicians – from the Isle of Skye where the film was shot, the makers have fulfilled their…

Twisted Sister

(Ed Herzog, Germany, 2006) 94min

9 Aug 2007

Anna (Heike Makatsch) is an apparently successful thirty-something in the music industry, but when she takes a holiday in Spain with her timid younger sister, Marie (Anna Maria Mühe) she turns into a nightmare. Anna makes every event into a…

John Waters: This Filthy World

(Jeff Garlin, US, 2006) 86min

9 Aug 2007

The ‘Ayatollah of Crud’ speaks. Time was when John Waters used to stand for something. Alienation from the mainstream perhaps, a gothic outsiderness, suburban depravity. But now, with money coming in from the ludicrously successful stage (and screen…

5 Reasons To Go To - Scottish Novels On Screen

9 Aug 2007

1 Andrea Gibb (pictured) No relation to the Bee Gees, Gibb (AfterLife, Dear Frankie) is one of Scotland’s most prolific and successful screenwriters. She will be chairing this event/debate which looks at the success of Scottish literature in its many…

Surf's Up

9 Aug 2007

A reasonable improvement on the heavy-handed environmentalism of last year’s hit Happy Feet, Ash Brannon and Chris Buck’s animation is a colourful parody of surfer movies and Stacy Peralta’s 2004 documentary Riding Giants in particular.

Dead or Alive

(18) 105min (Tartan DVD rental/retail)

9 Aug 2007

FUTURISTIC DRAMA In 1999, Takashi Miike released two films. The powerful and disturbing Audition was joined by this ramshackle futuristic affair which featured similar stunts to that year’s Matrix while bowing heavily to the influence of Sergio Leone…

Mother and Son

(U) 71min (Artificial Eye DVD retail)

9 Aug 2007

DRAMA Aleksandr Sokurov’s masterful meditation on death – not as a clinical medical demand but as an immediate, emotionally vivid experience – is one of the greatest of modern films. As we see the son (Aleksei Ananishnov) caring for his dying mother…

Number One, Longing. Number Two, Regret

(15) 98min (Peccadillo Pictures DVD rental/retail)

9 Aug 2007

THRILLER Former computer man John Spears (Paul Conway) is arrested on suspicion of murdering a neighbour. Detective Kenosha (Jenny Agutter) becomes fascinated by the case and tries to work out whether or not he’s guilty. Debut filmmaker Neil…

Bunny Lake is Missing

(12) 115min (DD Home Entertainment DVD retail)

9 Aug 2007

THRILLER Rejoice people rejoice! Otto Preminger’s long difficult to get hold of 1965 psychological thriller is finally seeing the light of day on a decent digitally remastered pressing. When single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) moves to London…

Intolerance

9 Aug 2007

And so begins this year’s List-sponsored Anita Loos Retrospective of films, written by or adapted from the work of the grand old dame of American screenwriting. First up is legendary silent film director DW Griffiths’ one true masterpiece from 1916…

Taxidermia

9 Aug 2007

Welcome to the insane world of György Pálfi. Even if you have seen his previous film, Hukkle, a raw, near wordless film about ornery peasant folk, nothing would have prepared you for this.

Irvine Welsh

5 questions

9 Aug 2007

5 words to describe the film you have at the EIFF Racism and testicular cancer comedy. 4 of your favourite cinemas in the world Cameo, Edinburgh; Rio Dalston, London; IFI, Dublin; Castro, San Francisco. 3 people you would love to work with…

License to Wed

9 Aug 2007

When lovebirds Sadie (Mandie Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski) become engaged, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams) puts them through a tortuous marriage preparation course to see if they deserve to be married in church.

Rush Hour 3

9 Aug 2007

Chris Tucker has certainly put the pounds on for the third instalment of this jolly, paper thin Kung Fu comedy series.