EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Manijeh Hekmat’s ‘3 Women’

Posted on June 27, 2008 by admin

'3 Women' 2008 x650By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – A woman and her mother and daughter each lose their way in Manijeh Hekmat’s “3 Women,” an observant but choppy portrait of life in modern Iran that treats heavy traffic and savage traditional practices with about the same degree of concern.

Its many accomplished scenes and good performances will take the film to festivals but not far beyond.

Niki Karimi (pictured) plays a sophisticated professional woman caught up in an argument over the sale of a Persian carpet she regards as a national treasure. An expert in such things, she fights with the buyer and seller and the museum that employs her, and ultimately takes the carpet for safekeeping.

Her rebellious daughter (Pegah Ahangarani), who has quit school to pursue a career as a photographer, drives out of town where she encounters an idealistic archeologist (Babak Hamidian), working on a remote excavation.

With her senile mother (Maryam Boubanim) on board, the carpet expert drives her four-by-four about the hectic streets of Tehran seeking her daughter, parking anywhere she chooses.

Complications ensue for all three when the old woman takes the carpet and retraces steps from her youth and the young woman encounters a girl who has just had an abortion and faces barbarous punishment from her family.

The scenes dealing with middle class urban hassles are shot full of dry humor but the surreal sequences of the old woman’s wanderings are murky and the encounter with medieval justice lacks dramatic impact.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Niki Karimi, Pegah Ahangarani, Maryam Boubanim, Babak Hamidian; Director: Manijeh Hekmat. Screenwriters: Nahmeh Samini, Manijeh Hekmat; Director of photography: Dariush Ayyari; Art director: Mohsen Ahangarani; Music: Heydar Sajedi; Costume designer: Zhila Mehrjui; Editor: Mostafa Khergh-Poush; Producers: Manijeh Hekmat, Jalal Shamsian; Production: Bahmad Film; Sales agent: Iranian Independents; No MPAA rating, running time, 94 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Robert Beaucage’s ‘Spike’

Posted on June 27, 2008 by admin

'Spike' 2008 x650By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – When a car full of attractive people breaks down in the woods and things start to go bump in the night, American director Robert Beaucage’s creature feature “Spike” appears to be set on a well trod path. But, no.

Oh, sure, the one guy in the group has a pipe or something plunged into his neck and spends the rest of the film bleeding to death. And two of the young women are lovers who can’t decide if it’s worth going into the forest to help Pipe Boy. They fight and one smashes the other in the head with a ski.

It’s all filmed in the dark, so it’s not clear who’s who, but one of the women wanders into the thick trees and is soon bitten by a snake. There’s a beast in the woods all right, but it turns out he’s a California surfer dude with a soft poetry-reading voice who knows how to treat snake bites except he has a body inexplicably covered with lots of sharp spikes.

Spike Boy actually knew Snake-bit Girl in a previous life and he’s built a lair for her so they can consummate their love notwithstanding the inconvenience of having more razor-sharp blades on him than Edward Scissorhands. It doesn’t end well.

Murky and misguided, with lame dialogue and cheesy effects, the film will be lucky to get a DVD release.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Sarah Livingston Evans, Jared Edwards, Anna-Marie Wayne, Nancy P. Corpo, Edward Gusts; Director: Robert Beaucage; Screenwriter: Robert Beaucage; Directors of photography: Matthew Boyd, Andrew Parke; Production designer: Dan Whifler; Music: Eric Santiestevan; Costume designer: Rachel Ford; Editor: Eric N. Grush; Producers: Devin DiGonno Erik Rodgers; Production: Hopeful Monster; No MPAA rating, running time, 80 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: ‘A Film With Me In It’

Posted on June 27, 2008 by admin

film-with-me-in-it 2008 x650By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – The bodies keep piling up and so do the laughs in Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon’s clever and very funny black farce “A Film With Me In It.”

With an attitude towards sudden death as droll as in the best Ealing comedies, the film lampoons the fevered imagination of screenwriters in its tale of two would-be filmmakers who must deal with one calamity after another in the confines of a basement apartment.

Featuring standout comic performances by Mark Doherty, who wrote the script, and Dylan Moran, the picture’s bracingly dark sense of humor and adherence to its own perverse logic will please audiences that enjoyed such comedies as “Withnail and I” and “A Fish Called Wanda.” It should be a big hit.

Doherty plays Mark, a sad-sack actor whose chance of landing even the bit part of “Onlooker” in his latest audition is remote. Moran is his best friend Pierce, a wastrel who spends his time at the pub and his money on the horses as he dreams up hackneyed screenplays.

Mark lives with his quadriplegic brother David (David O’Doherty), pretty girlfriend Sally (Amy Huberman), and her indolent pet dog Jersey. Their place is filled with broken things such as window sashes and lighting fixtures that landlord Jack (Kevin Allen) refuses to fix until the rent is paid.

Sally storms out after discovering that Mark hasn’t paid the rent in three months and he senses things may get worse when a shelving unit collapses and kills her dog. When a heavy chandelier crashes down from the ceiling with even more unpleasant results, he’s sure of it.

Doherty’s script is sly and increasingly hilarious as nitwits Mark and Pierce deal with an escalating number of dead people and conspire to dream up madly unreasonable explanations they think might sound plausible to the police.

Moran gets the slightly fractured speech borne of an alcohol soaked brain exactly right while Doherty captures Marks bewilderment perfectly. Director Fitzgibbon hits all the right notes with comic finesse as the film heads towards its pleasingly delirious conclusion.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Dylan Moran, Mark Doherty, Amy Huberman, Aisling O’Sullivan, Kevin Allen, David O’Doherty; Director: Ian Fitzgibbon; Screenwriter: Mark Doherty; Producers: Alan Moloney, Susan Mullen. Executive producer: Mary Callery; Director of photography: Seamus Deasy; Production designer: Eleanor Wood; Music: Denis Woods; Costume designer: Maeve Paterson; Editor: Tony Cranstoun; Production: Parallel Films in association with the Irish Film Board; Sales agent: Cinetic Media; No MPAA rating, running time, 88 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM BRIEF: Gerardo Olivares’ ’14 Kilometers’

Posted on June 27, 2008 by admin

'14 Kilometers' 2008By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – The “14 Kilometers” in Gerardo Olivares’ ambitious tale of African refugees seeking a better life in Europe is the stretch of water that separates the northern tip of Africa from Spain.

To reach it, the central characters of two brothers from Niger and a young woman from Mail must traverse the enormous and pitiless Tenere Desert, often at the mercy of people interested only in their money.

Olivares wrote the screenplay and is one of the cinematographers along with Alberto Moro, but the two elements of the film clash in ways that undermine the story’s power. Adoum Moussa, as a talented soccer player, Illiassou Mahamadou Alzouma as his doting brother, and Aminata Kanta as a young woman desperate to flee an unwanted marriage, are appealing but the script doesn’t get under their skin.

Their desperate plight is often at odds with and not informed by the gorgeous desert scenery, which is photographed in all its contoured glory. A winner at the Valladolid film festival in Spain, the film will continue to entertain festival audiences but is unlikely to go much beyond that.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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The best little real ale pub in Edinburgh: Halfway House

Posted on June 25, 2008 by admin

Halfway House

By Ray Bennett

No visit to Edinburgh is complete without stopping in at the Halfway House pub on Fleshmarket Close in Old Town between Cockburn Street and Market Street.

It is one of the best real ale pubs in Britain and the food is great too. Yesterday, it was a plate of beef and venison casserole followed by a rhubarb fool. A pint or two of An teallach ale and all is right with the world.

Halfway House bar

 

Here’s the pub’s website.

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Comedian George Carlin dies

Posted on June 24, 2008 by admin

George Carlin x650

By Ray Bennett

I saw George Carlin, who died today aged 71, perform live in Detroit and Los Angeles and he always put me on the floor.

One of his most observant and funniest routines was simply about “stuff”: my stuff, your stuff, the stuff we collect and all the stuff we put up with but all of his routines identified things in our lives that struck him as odd.

The New York Times has his obituary and links to several stories, and comic Jerry Seinfeld also has written a piece. Here’s how it starts:

“The honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes.

“We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.’”

Read Jerry Seinfeld’s full article and more about Carlin in The New York Times

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Juliette Binoche in ‘Summer Hours’

Posted on June 23, 2008 by admin

summer-hours 2008 x650By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – French filmmaker Olivier Assayas’s film “Summer Hours” was commissioned to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Its depth of character, therefore, comes as something of a surprise.

He has chosen to weave the museum’s goal of preserving the best of French art into the transition of one family’s home and heirlooms from one generation to the next, and both his screenplay and direction make the most of the notion.

It’s not hugely dramatic but it does feel real and with beautiful settings and an ensemble cast of big French names topped by Oscar-winner Juliette Binoche, the film will find a warm reception from art-house audiences.

Binoche, Charles Berling and Jeremie Renier play siblings celebrating the 75th birthday of their mother Helene (Edith Scob) at her lovely family home in the country. The place is filled with memories and impressive artifacts collected by their great uncle, who was a renowned artist.

Aware of her responsibility as the caretaker of some precious works, Helene impresses the reluctant but dutiful Frederic (Berling) of the need to make the necessary arrangements for their safe disposal upon her death. When that comes unexpectedly soon, Frederic finds himself bearing the weight of responsibility with Adrienne (Binoche) now living in New York and Jeremie (Renier) in Shanghai.

Assayas draws finely measured performances from his cast as they discuss what to do, and he encourages cinematographer Eric Gautier to observe their small moments of familial intimacy. He gives one of his characters an intriguing romantic mystery while capturing the nostalgia of the family home and lingering on its nooks, crannies and hideaways.

Assayas makes the point that objects of fascination and affection to one generation may be far less so to the next and he observes the role that people-friendly museums can play in keeping a nation’s treasures safe with pleasing subtlety.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jeremie Renier, Edith Scob, Dominique Raymond, Valerie Bonneton, Isabelle Sadoyan, Kyle Eastwood, Alice de Lencquesaing, Emile Berling, Jean-Baptiste Malartre; Director: Oliver Assayas; Screenwriter: Oliver Assayas; Director of photography: Eric Gautier; Production designer: Francois-Renaud Labarthe; Costume designers: Anais Romand, Jurgen Doering; Editor: Luc Barnier; Producers: Charles Gilbert, Marin Karmitz, Nathanael Karmitz. Production: MK2 Productions, Canal Plus, Region Ile-de-France; Sales: IFC Films; No MPAA rating, running time 103 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: ‘Stone of Destiny’

Posted on June 23, 2008 by admin

stoneofdestiny1By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – The “Stone of Destiny” in Charles Martin Smith’s pedestrian new film is the macguffin that a group of Scottish nationalists plan to repatriate from the heart of England in order to encourage the movement for Scotland’s independence.

Shrouded in myth and also known as the Coronation Stone, it’s a slab of rock taken from Scotland by an English king 1000 years ago and kept for ages at Westminster Abbey. The film is based on a true incident in 1950 when some students from Glasgow broke into the Abbey and stole it.

Intended as a rousing feel-good tale of rebellion, the film suffers from slack direction and bland performances with very little tension and no surprises. Box office prospects are slim beyond what can be drummed up from the worldwide Scottish community but it’s not going to cause many to spill their whisky.

stoneofdestiny2 x650Based on a book by central character Ian Hamilton (Charles Cox), “Stone of Destiny” relates in some awe what is obviously meant to be the daredevil escapade of an idealistic young man who relishes the opportunity of making a name for himself.

Although his best mate (Billy Boyd) decides not to put his education and future employment at risk, Ian recruits two other young men (Stephen McCole and Ciaron Kelly) and a pretty young woman named Kay (Kate Mara, pictured with Cox)) with no arm-twisting at all.

With financial backing from a prominent educator and politician (Robert Carlyle), they set off to London to scout the layout of Westminster Abbey and plan their raid. Curiously, the presence of four young Scottish people in London arouses a great deal of suspicion as if everyone knows what they’re up to. It stretches credibility and so do the foursome’s contrived antics during the raid, which involve missed signals, dropped keys and lots of running about in the rain.

Veterans Carlyle, Mullan and Flicker have cameos but the film rests on the youngsters, especially Cox and Mara, who do their best but cannot enliven the dull script. By sticking reasonably close to the actual events, the film has to reach for its heroes’ small victories but they’re not enough to make the picture memorable.

Venue: Edinburgh Inrternational Film Festival; Cast: Charlie Cox, Kate Mara, Stephen McCole, Ciaron Kelly, Billy Boyd, Robert Carlyle, Peter Mullan, Brenda Flicker; Director: Charles Martin Smith; Screenwriter: Charles Martin Smith; Director of photography: Glen Winter; Production designer: Tom Sayer; Music: Mychael Danna; Costume designer: Trisha Biggar; Editor: Fredrik Thorsen; Producers: Andrew Boswell, Rob Merilees; Executive producers: Terrence Yason, Michael S. Murphy, Charles Martin Smith, William Vince, Carole Sheridan, Victor Loewy; Production: Infinity Features Entertainment and the Mob Film Company; Rated PG, running time, 96 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Gideon Koppel’s ‘Sleep Furiously

Posted on June 21, 2008 by admin

sleep-furiously 2008 x650By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – Lyrical and haunting, Gideon Koppel’s documentary feature “Sleep Furiously” is a love letter to a way of life in rural Wales that is fast disappearing.

It is filled with images of the faces and hands of folk who see that small-scale agriculture is giving way to the modern world but who still enjoy the intimacy of their connection to the harsh but beautiful landscape that provides them with a hard-won living.

Shot on film so that the rich textures of physiognomy and geology register fully, the picture will thrive on the festival circuit and will delight art house audiences. It should have a long life not only as an historical record but also for Koppel’s patient and artistic filmmaking.

He spent months filming the locals of the hill-farming community of Trefeurig in mid-Wales, some 50 miles north of where Dylan Thomas set his fictional village in “Under Milk Wood.” The director says it is a film “for” Thomas if not a contemporary translation.

Teachers lead their pupils in a choir and a percussion band; farmers make hay; a calf is born, and then piglets; sheep are sheared. A poet in Wellington Boots laments the replacement of a sturdy wooden signpost with a cheap metal one that swings in the wind. A woman walks the hills with her dog and places a stone by a gravestone. Summer blows away and winter comes to linger. Koppel’s camera catches it all from sunshine on leafy trees to the mist rolling across the heath.

Starting with a town crier ringing his bell on a deserted hill road and covering the closure of the local school; many local traditions including sheep trials, cookery contests and gardening competitions; and what feels like the last harvest, Koppel views the place with a smile and a tear in his eye.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival;

Director: Gideon Koppel; Director of Photography: Gideon Koppel; Music: Aphex Twin; Editor: Mario Battistel; Producers: Gideon Koppel, Margaret Matheson. Executive producers: Mike Figgis, Serge Lalou; Production: Film Agency Wales in association with Bard Entertainments and Van Film; No MPAA rating, running time, 94 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’

Posted on June 20, 2008 by admin

the-kreutzer-sonata 2008 x600By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – Leo Tolstoy’s story of compulsive jealousy set to the disturbing chords of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “The Kreutzer Sonata” is given a lurid screen treatment by British director Bernard Rose.

Danny Huston plays a wealthy and cultured man whose love for his beautiful pianist wife (Elisabeth Rohm) is undone by his ungrounded fear that she is being unfaithful with a hunky young violinist (Matthew Yang King).

Told in flashbacks, the film has a steady undercurrent of dread since what has just happened as the film begins is revealed only at the end in a very gory and not entirely unexpected climax. Huston’s narration holds the attention and his sexual antics with Rohm (from TV’s “Law and Order”) are quite heated but the film doesn’t really illuminate what drives sexual jealousy. Sure to be admired at festivals, the film’s box office prospects remain iffy.

Huston plays Edgar Hudson, a rich man who runs a well-funded charitable foundation but while he later reveals he was once married there is little information about him beyond what he relates in the voice-over. He meets pianist Abigail at a party and they immediately commence rutting like it was going out of style.

They marry but life changes when two infants arrive and it’s not long before Abigail is longing for some independence. Edgar takes that as her wishing to be with other men and when a handsome violinist is hired to play at a charity event his imagination starts to run wild.

The musical selection they are to play is Beethoven’s Opus 47 No. 9, known as “The Kreutzer Sonata,” a piece of music that Edgar has read feels to its performers as if they are making love. Rose cuts back and forth to the complicated and sometimes furious music as events, real and imagined, transpire and Edgar begins to froth at the mouth and eye the kitchen carving knives.

Anjelica Huston shows up for a quiet scene toward the end as Edgar’s concerned sister, who senses that all is not well. The film veers from that restraint to all-out passion although Danny Huston does a good job of conveying the growing madness behind Edgar’s cultivated demeanor while Rohm gives herself selflessly to her performance, baring all physically and emotionally.

Rose has done Tolstoy before (“Anna Karenina” and “Ivan XTC,” both with Huston) and explored the madness in Beethoven’s music (“Immortal Beloved”), but he also makes horror films such as “Candyman.” Mixing all three elements, only the composer was ever likely to make it out in one piece.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Danny Huston, Elisabeth Rohm, Matthew Yang King, Anjelica Huston; Director: Bernard Rose; Screenwriters: Lisa Enos, Bernard Rose, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy; Director of photography: Bernard Rose; Music: Ludwig Van Beethoven; Editor: Bernard Rose; Producers: Naomi Despres, Lisa Enos; Executive producers: Lisa Henson; Production companies: Animandala, Giant Door Productions; Sales: Independent; No MPAA rating, running time, 100 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.the-kreutzer-sonata 2008 x600

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