Film, Issue 681
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33 articles
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Kim Cattrall, star of Sex and the City, discusses her new film Meet Monica Velour
27 May 2011
Indie comedy about an aging porn star is set to screen at the EIFF
‘To have a role like this in your fifties is quite extraordinary,’ says Kim Cattrall, who is 53 and has made a virtue of playing sexy older women in a business that refuses to equate the one with the other. ‘When Meet Monica Velour showed at the Tribeca…
Domino Records host Edinburgh International Film Festival event
27 May 2011
Event aims to showcase effective combination of music and film
A good advert can, sometimes, sell more than jeans, or alcohol, or cars. Think of the 1999 number one song, 'Flat Beat', which gained enormous popularity after a puppet called Flat Eric danced to it in a Levi’s advert. Levi’s shifted their jeans, the…
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011: The rough guide
27 May 2011
What you need to know about this year's festival
1 The festival has a new artistic director, James Mullighan, who is from Adelaide. Previously he ran the independent filmmakers’ network Shooting People and was a journalist. He says: ‘Throughout its history [the Festival] has been provocative…
Interview - EIFF 2011 curator Alan Warner on the films of Jerzy Skolimowski
27 May 2011
Deep End, The Shout and The Adventures of Gerard to screen at EIFF
People started throwing around that name ‘curator’, which gave the impression that Isabella Rossellini and I were ensconced together in a hotel in the south of France devising programmes. Of course, the truth was that I met Mark Cousins in an Edinburgh…
Profile: Philip Seymour Hoffman, director and star of Jack Goes Boating
27 May 2011
The much-respected actor screens his directorial debut at the EIFF
Born Fairport, New York, 23 July 1967. Background Known as the ‘character actor’s character actor’, Hoffman has been a jobbing actor since the early 1990s. After playing bit parts in television shows, shorts and features, Hoffman got his breakthrough…
Bare Behind Bars, Sea Purple, Here Come the Girls 3 and Dare
27 May 2011
LGBT DVD Roundup
If it’s a quiet night on the sofa you’re after, beware Bare Behind Bars (Arrow Video ●●●●). Described as a ‘chicks in chains grindhouse explosion’, we’re given sadistic lesbian guards, a permanently aroused screwball nurse and convicts with cabin fever…
EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Reel Science
27 May 2011
Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands
Oi! Get Your Grubby Hands out of My Brain A film-initiated debate about the growing commercial application of neuro-imaging, epigenetics and other futuristically-named brain technologies. Do you really want to know if you are going to pass on madness…
EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Outside The Box
27 May 2011
Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands
Duncan Speakman: Our Broken Voice Speakman’s project is a ‘subtlemob’ – ‘A film that’s happening in a public space where you’re both a performer and an audience member,’ he says. Still baffled? Imagine arriving at a designated public location, with an…
EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Conflict and Reportage
27 May 2011
Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands
Conflict and Reportage Frontline Club: Martin Bell presents Salvador Broadcasting and politics’ ‘man in the white suit’ says of this event: ‘I tend to walk out of films about wars that I reported on. I walked out of Oliver Stone’s Salvador when I…
EIFF 2011 - Five to try: Nokia Shorts Weekender
27 May 2011
Our picks for the Edinburgh International Film Festival's outsider strands
Vice TV Greatest Hits! The great global magazine’s four-year-old spin-off youth internet TV channel celebrates the story so far. Having enjoyed early endorsement from Spike Jonze it now has a global network of correspondents who report on all that is…
Profile: Sue Bourne - director of Irish dance documentary Jig
26 May 2011
Director's cinema debut profiles World Irish Dancing Championships
Born London, then moved to Ayr, Scotland at one year old. Background Bourne is an award-winning documentary maker who has made her name producing and directing work that sheds new light on familiar subject matter. Her films include My Street…
Books on cinema - round-up
23 May 2011
How the Movie Brats Took Over Edinburgh, Tough Without A Gun, The Faber Book of French Cinema
As is always the way in Scotland, summer is kind of here, and now is the time to lie in the grass with that growing pile of tosh novels. But let’s face it, you are going to win a lot more kudos from your film-obsessed mates if you create a tower of…
Profile: Jim Mickle, director of vampire horror Stake Land
23 May 2011
Director turnes hometown into a post-apocalyptic wasteland
Name Jim Mickle Born Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 1977 Background After graduating from New York University’s filmmaking programme, Mickle worked in the camera department for features Transamerica, Shortbus and Pride and Glory. The experience gave him…
Profile: Gregg Araki - director of Kaboom
23 May 2011
A wild, sex-filled ride heavily influenced by the B-movie genre
Name Gregg Araki Born 17 December 1959, Los Angeles Background Araki came to prominence in the 1990s as one of the leading figures in what was labelled New Queer Cinema (a collection of films by directors including Derek Jarman and Todd Haynes…
Bridesmaids
23 May 2011
Kristen Wiig writes and stars in sharp Apatow comedy
(15) 125min Kristen Wiig (Adventureland, Whip It!) comes close to grasping the comedy crown from her Saturday Night Live colleague Tina Fey with this hilarious reinvigoration of the chick flick. As co-writer and star, Wiig disposes of traditional…
The Beaver
23 May 2011
Mel Gibson steps closer to redemption in Jodie Foster-directed comedy
(12A) 90min Just when it seemed that Mel Gibson would never work in Hollywood again, The Beaver proves that he might have a future after all. A string of tabloid scandals suggested that Gibson had pressed the self-destruct button on his career.
Incendies
23 May 2011
Franco-Canadian drama is a deserving award-winner
(15) 130min This commendable and impressive Franco-Canadian drama arrives fresh from scooping of seven Genies (Canada’s Oscars). Set in the Middle East and dramatising an endless cycle of violence and retribution, it’s an unashamedly didactic piece…
The Big Picture
23 May 2011
Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama
(tbc) 114min This adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel relocates the setting from New York and Montana to Paris and the Adriatic Coast. Its plot involves murder, identity theft and abandonment but this is not so much a thriller as an investigation…
The Pipe
23 May 2011
Risteard O’Domhnaill's stirring documentary shows a community's fight against big business
(12A) 83min In 1996 natural gas was discovered off the west coast of Ireland. Shortly afterwards, Shell UK announced plans to run a pipe through the waters and land of Rossport in County Mayo to an inland refinery. Risteard O’Domhnaill’s remarkable…
The First Grader
23 May 2011
Biographical drama has good intentions, but lacks purpose
(12A) 102min The importance of free education may be a perennial political hot potato, but films like Justin Chadwick’s The First Grader add little to the debate other than good intentions. Based on a true story, Chadwick’s film seeks to inspire and…
Kaboom
23 May 2011
Cult director Gregg Araki returns to his B-movie roots with comedy-sci-fi-horror
(15) 86min Cult director Gregg Araki (The Living End, Mysterious Skin), one of the leading figures in the New Queer Cinema of the 90s, returns to the style of his earlier work for Kaboom, a gloriously trashy, insane ride of a film that wears its…
Potiche
23 May 2011
Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu star in playful French comedy
(15) 103 min Catherine Deneuve has a gift of a role in this deliciously subversive farce from the prolific François Ozon. Deneuve is Suzanne, the ‘potiche’ or trophy wife, blithely content to be a domestic goddess in the shadow of insufferable…
Countdown to Zero
23 May 2011
Documentary highlights the problems with nuclear weapons, but proposes no solutions
Following the success of last year’s Oscar-nominated Waste Land, British filmmaker Lucy Walker returns with a persuasive argument for nuclear disarmament in her latest documentary, Countdown to Zero. Featuring a range of high-profile talking heads…
Point Blank (A Bout Portant)
23 May 2011
Director Fred Cavayé's French thriller is engaging and well-paced
(15) 84 min Fashion photographer turned filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything For Her) would have thrived in the old Hollywood studio system. His films operate with the speed and single-mindedness of a runaway locomotive. Give him a high concept premise…
Mother's Day
23 May 2011
Rebecca De Mornay stars in rare example of a horror remake done well
(18) 112min Following on the heels of bloodless remakes of cherished 1980s slasher flicks like The Stepfather and Prom Night, Mother’s Day is a nastier but more accomplished beast. This home invasion drama is a reboot of the 1980 Troma original, and…
