Possibly I shouldn’t have watched this so soon after listening to Mark Kermode’s review as it definitely coloured my opinion, but I agree with him on so many levels about this film that it doesn’t really matter.

This is a great, great film but it is not a film about the Iraq war. There are no great insights into combat or the soldier’s feelings about the war. It is, instead, a film about men and the macho, posturing, buddy relationships between those men. The story is propelled forward by the introduction of a new officer in the bomb disposal unit who is more gung-ho than the officer he’s replacing, putting the troops under him on edge.

I really can’t recommend this film highly enough, the time flew by and I left feeling completely satisfied with that I’d seen.

Well, it’s okay, but it’s been a while now since I actually sat down to it and I can’t remember all that much about it. What I do remember is feeling that it was distinctly average. The film has a “millenium fever” feel to it where serves to date it badly. It also has a number of actors who I’m not particularly fond of for one reason or another. And it’s long.

Ach, it was alright, and I can see myself sitting down to watch it again based on the fact it’s a Kathryn Bigelow film but it won’t be for a while yet.

Cassel plays Max, a businessman on his way to Tokyo to close a major deal. He’s engaged and seemingly settled in his life. That is until he catches sight of Lisa, the love of his life, in a cafe. Max ditches the business trip to hunt Lisa through the streets of Paris to the apartment that she lives in. Through flashbacks to their earlier life together we get to know what happened to their relationship, to the people around them, the mistakes they made and what they missed.

I’m no expert on romantic cinema by any manner of means, but this is certainly a very interesting entry to the genre. What makes it more interesting the farcical nature of it at times as the two leads play an unwitting game of cat and mouse, not knowing where the other is. Both are superb, bringing an eminently believable chemistry to the screen. It’s not hard to believe they were married just a few years later.

I can definitely see myself picking this one up next time I see it in a sale.

No, I’m not reviewing a porn film, at least, not directly. Instead it’s a documentary called 9 to 5: Days In Porn. The last documentary film I watched on this subject was Sex: The Annabel Chong Story which I cannot recommend highly enough if you want to be thoroughly and utterly depressed.

9to5 is not so focused on one individual, preferring to take a slightly broader look at some of the people in the adult entertainment business who treat it as just that, a business, and have chosen to make their living from it. Some have taken to it as a career, some a way to earn a bit of extra cash quickly and some see it as a stepping stone to bigger things.

The director treats the subject matter as his subjects do; as a way to make a living. There’s little in the way of salaciousness on display, the documentary camera preferring to hang back and observe what’s happening on the periphery as well as the main stage. At the end of the day he manages to make the erotic industry thoroughly unerotic as video shoots are shown to be stop/start affairs where the performers look bored between takes, lounge at bars, chat on the phone, drink beer and wait for the paycheck.

The documentary follows a number of people in the industry; performers, directors, agents and health care staff. All of these people are given free reign to speak their mind and there doesn’t seem to be any manipulation to play up anyone as a hero or villain. Some come across better than others but this is probably as much a product of the viewer’s own prejudices rather than anything else. There are a couple of participants who appear unsure of their motives for being in the business (aside from money) and tellingly, it is these who seem to have left the industry when the credits roll. We also learn that one “is better” which is a relief. We never know what is wrong but there’s an undercurrent through the feature.

This is a very interesting and entertaining documentary, but one that will probably be heavily censored if it ever surfaces on a UK DVD. That would be a shame as it would undermine the tone of the piece that this is an industry populated by willing participants. Recommended.

I say that because time seems to be flying past me at the moment. As Kas said at work today, the days drag by but any unit of time longer than that flies by.

Anyway, last weekend I went back to my marshalling ways to help out at the Kielder 100, the first time a 100 mile single lap mountain bike race has been organised in the UK. It really was a great event though I can really only comment about two small points in the course. From an organisational standpoint though, everything went off without a hitch and there weren’t any injuries. Us marshals were exceedingly well looked after with free drinks and plenty of food. I also came home with a rather nice Montane Featherlite Smock.

That was Saturday and then on Sunday I drove home in time to watch District 9 before discussing it with Dave and Iain over at Sonic’s Ring. It was a lot of fun and I’d like to do it again, next time actually bringing some coherent opinions with me.

In summary; District 9 was a very good film and a hell of a lot of fun. I wasn’t too keen on the flipping between documentary and drama and I also thought there were more interesting stories that could have been told with the premise, but overall it’s well worth a trip to the cinema.

The Lives of Others is one of those films that lots of people raved about so I thought I should probably watch. I don’t mean that to sound pissy or anything as I wanted to see the film on its own merits, it’s just that a few recommendations were from the type of people who say they like to watched subtitled films and subtitles aren’t a genre. But moving on.

The film’s set in mid-eighties East Berlin and follows a member of the Stasi as he is set the task with finding dirt on a leading, socialist playwright at the behest of a crooked higher-up who wants to sleep the the playwright’s partner. All quite simple really, except the up-till-now unshakeable member of the wire tapping brigade immediately falls for the girlfriend as well and so starts to find it difficult to pass on possibly damning information which may wreck her life.

And there’s my first problem with the film; it starts off with a good central premise but without knowing much about the character, so Wiesler’s infatuation with Sieland felt a little cold. The film also ends with a horribly sentimental final scene and should have stopped sixty seconds earlier. This would have given it a much more poignant ending and I can’t help but feel that the conclusion we have was tacked on to leave the audience with something to smile about.

That said, everything that comes between these two points is excellent. A thoroughly engrossing film with brilliant performances from everyone involved. All of the leads bring an astonishing weight of emotion to the parts, especially Wiesler as he moves further from his training and his loyalties.

On reflection, I’m sure I must have missed something which would explain his change of heart. I probably need to go back and re-examine this one which, given that I watched it less than a month ago, goes to show how much I enjoyed the film. Very highly recommended.

The Doctor is right in that this film has no right being as much fun as it is. It’s a shitty “take ‘em somewhere isolated, carve ‘em up” b-movie but it manages to toe that line without wavering and still manages to keep you interested for 90 minutes. I remarked to friends afterwards that there are probably three camps of people when it comes to this film; those who don’t notice the cliches and enjoy the film, those who will dismiss it as a by-the-numbers popcorn muncher and those (like me) who will revel in the misdirections, occasional knowing wink and delightfully over the top finale.

After the film I headed to some pub at Bristo Square to meet the others. Being first there I nabbed a chair and others around it by simply sitting down and reading my book. People rarely go near someone reading in a pub on a Friday night, a trick I’ve used to secure tables before.

I took umbrage with a comment at one point during the night even though I’m fairly sure it was meant in jest. I was told that I was old with  my house and garden. To be honest, the flip-side that was offered to this by asking when was the last time I got so drunk I was sick can stay in the past where it belongs. I rarely feel the need to get blind drunk anymore and I can’t remember the last time it happened by mistake. This isn’t to say I don’t enjoy a drink, movie nights regularly leave me feeling a bit rough the next day, but going out to get drunk? That can fuck right off. Apparently I’m also not too old to enjoy photo bombing a friend’s mobile when he’s at the bar.

At this point, I’m also going to stop bothering to tell some people about Zombie Club nights. After the better part of a year of people saying “yeah, that sounds like fun” no-one has ever bothered their arse to turn up. I wonder if they’re just too polite to say they’re not interested. People will watch The Room and proclaim it hilarious yet won’t watch other bad films? I guess we’ll have to show more meme movies. Nah, I think I’ll just leave them to it.

Apart from that I’ve been trying out a couple of new TV shows. After four episodes of Dark Blue I’m really not sure it’s worth any more of my time. Having shouted at the screen twice for poor writing I’m not sure pushing on would be of much use. There’s no interesting overall arc just a motley collection of stereotypes. And it’s exec-produced by Bruckheimer so it’s very unlikely to ever tax my brain. Nah, it’s dumped.

The second show is Defying Gravity which immediately wins lots of brownie points for being sci-fi and populated with many faces I recognised from various shows and films. Like Dark Blue though, it loses points for poor writing. They might as well have had a character standing in the background of every scene shouting “There’s a mysterious entity controlling the mission! Why won’t anyone listen to me?”. Oh, and if your show is set in 2050, a ten dollar bet is very unlikely to seem worth it. Aside from that it remains reasonably interesting after two episodes so it’s staying on for the time being.

Bad Movie Roundup

Right, since I’ve got nine films I’ve yet to note down I’m going to do them in clumps. Clump one will be those that I’ve seen at the various bad movie nights around Edinburgh.

Last month’s Zombie Club consisted of two of my own discs; Contamination and Lifeforce. I’ve seen Contamination a couple of times but Lifeforce was a new one on me. Turns out it’s something of a favourite amongst sci-fi fans of a certain age as the leading lady is quite fetching and spends most of the film butt naked. The film is great fun and is shlocky, violent sci-fi of the highest order. I was laughing heartily as Patrick Stewart writhed around on the ground being possessed by aliens.

At the last B-Movie Club before the Festival, Gordon and I sat down to watch Shock Waves which is something that’s been on my To Watch list for many years. I really should have watched it sooner because it’s a piece of very entertaining shit but maybe being in the presence of other gore hounds made it that much better. Apparently, genetically modified SS troops like to lie down in rock pools and then sit bolt upright. Great stuff.

This month’s EZC only had one film screening due to a cock-up with reserving the back room of the Brass Monkey. It was my first Jess Franco movie and I now understand why some people were moved to sing “There’s only one Jess Franco!” at Dead by Dawn some years ago. Thank goodness! As I expected, the film is an absolute mess and a hoot at the same time. Franco, for some reason, likes to zoom in just about every shot and seems to do this manually causing the frame to jump around. Pat and I sat at the back of the room in fits of giggles, intoning “zooooom” every time it happened. It kept us entertained. As Pat said afterwards, “Franco has an amazing directorial talent in that he can make an eighty minute movie feel like two hours.”

It was alright. No, it was good, in some places it was very good. I can’t point to a section that was weak unless I include any scene which includes Eli Roth attempting to act. Actually, that really surprised me given how good Tarantino is at coaxing performances from actors. Surely he would see the dailies and think “wow, it really looks like I’ve just cast my mate in this”.

However, the film is too long and not by a few minutes, by about an hour. The plot is paper thin and no amount of well made padding can disguise this. You know how that extra half hour in Death Proof added nothing? Well, you could probably do the same here.

It’s by no means a bad film, Tarantino just needs someone to reign him in. What worries me slightly is that there are clearly scenes that have been left out which means there’s undoubtedly a three-hour cut floating around. Luckily, he never seems to revisit his films (where’s the Kill Bill full version?) so we’ll unlikely to see it.

Recommended, once a fan edit turns up.

(Fuck. I’ve got another six films I haven’t written about yet.)

So, on Tuesday night I checked into my booked room at Pollock Halls and headed to the Filmhouse for Phill & Phil’s Perfect Ten Live, with a screening of Blazing Saddles. But let’s first tackle the elephant in the small, salmon pink room.

Waking up in your old halls after a decade…wasn’t really all that bad. It was a bit strange but my almost complete lack of nostalgia meant it really just felt like an over-priced Holiday Inn. £34 for a room that hadn’t been cleaned properly and having to share showers is a bit much. Add to that the fact that I had to fix the shower door before use (clearly none of my fellow residents could understand how runners work).

But enough about that. The Tens work great, I laughed my drunk arse off at Blazing Saddles (which I’d never seen before) and then stayed to dance badly in the corner of screen one while Juniper and Wilding pressed play on the CD players. Aces.

After suffering through the Pollock breakfast on Wednesday morning (shockingly bad) I stumbled over to George IVth Bridge to meet with Jack for morning coffee and festival program perusal. The day was to be bookended with the Collings and Herrin in the morning and Richard Herring in the evening. We elected to pick up tickets for Hardeep Singh Koli in the evening slot, with Michael Legge for post-lunch and free comedy at the White (something) as well.

The podcast was a corker, I belly laughed more than once. Then we bumped into a face I recognised from the night before and so the duo became a trio for the day as Colin joined the gang. After the podcast we decamped to the Tempting Tattie for lunch and then off to the GRV for Michael Legge’s show.

Despite Michael ragging on his own show, the three of us agreed that we’d enjoyed it. It was not 5/5 to be sure with some of the sketches falling flat but there were definite laughs in there and the names are now lodged in my head for future googling. Colin was pulled out of the small audience to participate which is only important to know once we move the action to the free show…

…which is now. One compere, three comics. The compere was Chris Martin and he was definitely the strongest act. The only other worth really mentioning was the girl who came on second. Mostly because she died on her arse. Badly. At one point she tried to engage the audience and picked on Colin. He promptly moved her onto me by stating he’d been picked on for the last show. The following exchange then occured;

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a software engineer.”

“Oh, right…do you enjoy it?”

“Aye, it’s good fun.”

“Oh…get paid a lot?”
“Not bad, I can’t complain.”

And then she moved on to Jack who responded that he was  PhD student. She went back to jokes.

Then food, where I barely managed to stay awake, having only had four hours in Pollock. Hardeep was a bit of a disapointment. He can tell a good tale, to be sure, but he seemed to be hiding behind the gimmick of cooking at the same time which consistently ruined the flow.

Then to Hitler Moustache which marks the first time I’ve seen Herring live. I laughed. I laughed so hard. I think he was right in his own critique that it strays a bit from comedy in the final act and veers towards being a bit too right-on, but his politics gel with mine so it was no hardship.

So adding the five shows I did on Wednesday (P&P was non-fringe) to seeing Adam Hills earlier, Rich Hall last night and Marcus Brigstocke next week, I’m definitely doing the Fringe this year. I guess that makes me a tourist in a city I’ve lived in.