Whatever happened to.. udpating my blog?

Two years? Really? Anybody would think I'd found something better to do with my time.. or maybe people just don't blog any more - after all we now have 'social networks'. Anyway, here I am in the middle of the 2011 Borderlines Film Festival (http://www.borderlinesfilmfestival.org/), thinking "I should really make some notes about some of these films so I don't forget what I saw and when, and whether they were any good.." So, just like my Clash/Rude Boy ramblings back in the day (below) here's my attempts at a miniature Film 2011, just for you dear reader. And you don't even have to listen to Claudia Winkelman! Bonus.. The Borderlines Festival runs over about 3 weeks in venues across Herefordshire, Shropshire and what's cutely called the Welsh Marches. A mix of small independent films, shorts, documentaries and a few 'big hitters' (it is just after Oscar time, after all), it offers a great opportunity for the celluloid junkie (raises hand enthusiastically) to see loads of movies over a short period. An added bonus is that most of the people attending are also 'serious' movie people, so not quite so likely to whisper through the first five minutes, throw popcorn at anyone older than them, or play with their i-Phones in the dark. Not quite so likely. With around 80 full length features on show at over thirty venues, the hard part of attending something like this is deciding which movies to see - and which to miss. In order to maximise my time (I do work, remember!) I had to make some tough decisions: no Nic Roeg in conversation, no 'Winter's bone' or 'Some like it Hot'. Luckily I'd already seen 'the Secret in their Eyes' and 'Samson and Delilah', care of the ever excellent Abergavenny Film Society (http://www.abergavennyfilmsociety.com/). I could live without Megamind. We all could. So what did I see? And what did I think? Glad you asked...


127 hours: I started off with a biggie - having just seen Danny Boyle's amazing stage production of Frankenstein at the NT (in Monmouth!) - care of NTLive, I was keen to see his interpretation of Aron Ralston's story 'Between a rock and a hard place'. Ralston was the silly bugger who, you'll remember, went off on a climbing trip without letting anyone know where he was going, got his arm trapped under a massive falling boulder (as you do) and ended up sawing it off with a blunt penknife in order to escape and survive. So, not a barrel of laughs. In fact quite gruelling and in parts definitely quite yuck. But, as you'd expect from Boyle, it veered between harsh realism and odd fantasy/dream sequences, with an occasionally blasting soundtrack punctuating some of the odder scenes. Ultimately a tale of redemption of sorts, and James Franco in the lead is genuinely excellent: he starts off slightly annoying and smug, as you know Ralston surely must have been, and over a few short days becomes a more self-aware person. There are the obligatory hallucinogenic moments that always seem to appear in US movies set in their deserts, and the whole thing ends with a slightly twee shot of the real Ralston, still doing crazy things, but now able to share his life with a significant other. Ah, bless. Good, but not great.


Chico & Rita: Now this is more like it! A Spanish/Cuban film about star-crossed lovers in 1948 Cuba - she's a torch singer, he's a jazz/bebop piano player. This is an animated feature in a beautiful vivid style, the visuals perfectly complementing the feel and the sound of a decadent time gone by. The zoot suits are razor sharp, the ladies are all hourglass figures and crimson lips, and it brilliantly evokes an atmosphere of heat, sensuality and most of all wild music. Someone sitting near me made the odd criticism at the end that they couldn't understand why this had been made as an animation rather than live action - for me it simply wouldn't have worked anywhere near as well. The cartoonish style allowed the makers to run off into fantasy realms that rivalled some of the best bits of Fantasia: a pastiche of 'On the Town' when Chico heads to New York is brilliantly done, while elsewhere the animated approach allows us to enjoy cameos from Fidel Castro, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Parker, Marlon Brando and Fred Astaire. How many other movies have you seen with that kind of guest star selection? A lovely film, and you don't need to be a jazz lover (I'm certainly not!) to fall for its hypnotic charms.


Anybody else have any thoughts on these fillums? Let me know what you thought... I'll update my list shortly, before the 'seen it' list starts to get longer than the 'still to see's...