Another strong contender for best title of the festival, this is a cute, funny little Korean film about a guy struggling to get his feature film debut made - or indeed, written.
There’s a slightly twitchy cross-cutting of stories/timelines/fact/fiction that could get irritating, but luckily it’s executed with enough irreverence to be endearing. Lots of nice comic touches, with a particularly neat central concept, whereby the central character (who loses his girlfirend because he talks too much), attempting to write about a character with aphasia, first develops aphasia, and then finds himself making sounds like musical instruments when he attempts to speak (only able to be understood when heard through electronic equipment).
Posted on 26th June, 2008 in media and tagged with eiff, films about film-making, Korea, Milky Way Liberation Front.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival opened it’s box office today, so I spent my lunch booking my summer holiday. 22 films, fairly miscellaneous - I’m now going to spend the next month paranoid that I’ve made the wrong choices.
That’s partly a consequence of always trying to book at the earliest possible moment, in order to get tickets for the films I know I want to see (after the trauma of failing to see Serenity at the EIFF in 2005) - this year, the latest Pixar, WALL-E (Yay!). And unlike the last few years, booking online wasn’t even slightly traumatic (their server didn’t crash, and I got all the tickets I aimed for)
So, the 22 - actually 18 films, two of their animated short film collections and two real-live people events:
- 19/06/08, 17:15: McLaren Animation 1
- 19/06/08, 20:15: The Song of Sparrows
- 21/06/08, 15:00: Tiramisu
- 21/06/08, 18:45: Stone of Destiny
- 22/06/08, 14:00: Roger Deakins & Seamus McGarvey: In Conversation
- 22/06/08, 17:30: Standard Operating Procedure
- 22/06/08, 20:00: Strange Girls
- 23/06/08, 14:00: International Animation 1
- 23/06/08, 17:15: Bananaz
- 23/06/08, 19:15: Warsaw Dark
- 24/06/08, 19:00: The Surprise Movie
- 25/06/08, 17:30: Ray Harryhausen: In Person
- 25/06/08, 19:40: Dreams with Sharp Teeth
- 26/06/08, 15:00: Milky Way Liberation Front
- 26/06/08, 17:15: Sleep Dealer
- 26/06/08, 20:00: Idiots and Angels
- 27/06/08, 14:30: The Bride Wore Black
- 27/06/08, 17:15: Fear(s) of the Dark
- 27/06/08, 19:05: Encounters at the End of the World
- 28/06/08, 14:15: WALL-E
- 28/06/08, 16:45: The Fall
- 28/06/08, 21:30: Faintheart
Fewer than last year (there’s even a day I’m missing completely - but I’ve realised that I really can’t watch four films in one day). And the move from August to June means that, with my daily commute to the festival, I can’t see any of the later films, as the last train out is at 11.30pm. The only film that risks leaving me stranded in Edinburgh at midnight if the closing film, Faintheart, but it’s about battle re-enactors, so how could I resist?
I’ll go through my rationale for my choices nearer the time (or, not now), but did I mention WALL-E? Yay! (Pixar-induced glee…)
Posted on 9th May, 2008 in media and tagged with Bananaz, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, eiff, Encounters at the End of the World, Faintheart, Fear(s) of the Dark, gratuitous Joss Whedon reference, Idiots and Angels, International Animation, McLaren Animation, Milky Way Liberation Front, Pixar rocks, Ray Harryhausen, Roger Deakins, Seamus McGarvey, Sleep Dealer, Standard Operating Procedure, Stone of Destiny, Strange Girls, The Bride Wore Black, The Fall, The Song of Sparrows, The Surprise Movie, Tiramisu, WALL-E, Warsaw Dark, yay!.
