Do you love watching animated films but tire of the CGI/3D gloss that the majority of recent examples revel in? If so then The Fantastic Mr Fox is for you.
The last few month have seen a wave of animation hit our cinemas, with Pixar's Up storming the box office charts and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs surprising everyone by being a sleeper hit. Personally I find it hard to get excited about 3D films - while they might add some depth to films they also dull the colours.
As entertaining as both those films are - and I defy anyone not to have “something in their eye” after the first 15 minutes of Up - they still look more like computer games than the old Disney films from the 1940s and 50s.
Long before Pixar came along with their box of magic trick there was stop-motion animation, the technique which involves moving an object in tiny increments so it appears to move on its own. Fans of Wallace and Gromit will be familiar with the technique, while recent fantasy film Coraline also used the medium to produce a unique world of wonder.
The Fantastic Mr Fox goes a step further (or is that step backwards?) in the use of models to depict its characters, Mr Fox's movements and facial expressions based on actor George Clooney who makes for a fantas...sorry, brilliant lead.
Though the high calibre cast of voice artists, including Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Brian Cox, will have you trying to picture the actor playing the part, the decision to go retro is a welcome one and gives a touch of “reality” to the film that can be lacking with CGI films.
When Mr Fox's mouth moves so does the fur around his mouth, evidence that human fingers have painstakingly taken the time to manipulate him. Even simple effects such as leaves dancing across the road must have taken an age to arrange, again giving a human touch to the fantasy world.
If Mr Fox is the huge success it deserves to be, and if Coraline continues to sell well on DVD, then there's a chance movie studios will take a chance on more films like this. We're unlikely to see the end of CGI, but there should be enough room for more than one style of animation in our cinemas.
Halloween may be a few weeks away but horror fans are in for a treat this weekend as terror comes to the cinemas of Edinburgh.
Pontypool (Cameo) is a psychological, low budget chiller which surprised me with its wit and decision to opt for a smart script rather than all-out gore.
A virus breaks out on St Valentine's day in the small town of Pontypool, Ontario, as radio DJ Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) drives to work. With reports coming in of townsfolk attacking a local doctor's surgery en masse, Mazzy and his co-workers discover that something is very strange is going on even closer to home.
A claustrophobic film with an impressive central performance from McHattie as the enigmatic DJ with a voice you'll believe has hidden powers, director Bruce McDonald wrings out just enough tension along with a few laughs to create a memorable little horror gem.
Watch the Pontypool trailer:
Also out is Thirst (Filmhouse), a South Korean vampire tale which has made headlines in the UK after a controversy brewed over its supposedly blasphemous poster.
The poster showed a vampire priest (Song Kang-ho) with his lover hanging from his throat but The Advertising Standards Authority advised the makers that they'd be forced to rule in favour should a single complaint be made. The poster was then changed to remove the dog collar, effectively banning the original.
The film itself comes from acclaimed director Park Chan-wook, best known for his vengeance trilogy - Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance - and focuses on a Priest, Father Sang-hyun, who begins to suffer un-godly thoughts.
Deciding to give up his vocation to go to Africa, Sang-hyun is tragically killed, only to return to life soon after as a vampire. Bound to be full of enough of the red stuff to satisfy the most bloodthirsty film fan, this is one to look out for.
Watch the Thirst trailer:
Staying on the subject of genre films, classic sci-fi fans should look out for a screening of 1970 chiller Colossus: The Forbin Project, coming to the Filmhouse on Monday. Set during the Cold War it features giant supercomputers, nuclear countdowns and maybe even a mad scientist or two.
Henry S Thompson from Edinburgh University's School of Informatics will also present an introductory talk about the state of artificial intelligence and discuss what it means for a computer to be intelligent.
Watch the Forbin Project trailer:
This article originally appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News on Friday 16 October, 2009.
What makes a great film? Is it the actors? If so, then the presence of Guy Pearce, Kate Beckinsale, Forest Whitaker and Dakota Fanning is surely a good start for Rowan Woods new drama Fragments (Momentum Pictures).
Sadly, if an interesting plot, inspiring direction and an attempt to make something deserving of repeat viewing is also on "must-have" list for that elusive great film, Fragments will leave you wanting.
The film opens in a Los Angeles diner when a gunman opens fire on innocent customers. It soon transpires that those involved in the incident had something in common and that the meaning of their lives have changed.
As each of the characters tries to come to terms with what happened that day, their stories form the basis of the unfolding drama.
Lethargic and full of its own self-importance, Fragments is a difficult watch. The acting talent may be top-notch but there's little for the cast to get their teeth into, the feeling that their skills have been misappropriated for this venture a common one as each scene thuds into the next rather than flowing gracefully.
Thankfully gracefulness and serenity are present in abundance in Gideon Koppel's fascinating documentary sleep furiously (newwave films) which follows everyday life in a small Welsh farming community over a number of months.
With no linking narration or attempt to create drama where there is none, Koppel simply sets the camera rolling as life unfolds before him. Continuity is achieved by the appearance of a library van which tours the area, local residents taking time out of their days to pick up the latest cookery book and catch-up with the librarian, come rain, snow or sunshine.
Many scenes simply linger on a solitary image while others depict the increase of new technology on a traditional way of life, the result a beautiful and contemplative film which is an antidote to many of the films you're likely to see this year.
It's back to the 1960's for science fiction thriller The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Network), a British made epic from one of the country's finest genre directors, Val Guest.
Edward Judd, Janet Munro and Leo McKern lead the cast, giving their all to the piece as the tension increases and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance following nuclear tests by both the Americans and the Soviets.
As the Earth tilts on its axis and shifts out of orbit, tough decisions must be made before the globe hurtles into the Sun.
Though made in black and white, the film is bookended by scenes given a red-hued tint to signify the effects of a nuclear explosion on London, the rest of the film flashing back to the events which led to the Earth's descent into apocalypse.
Beautifully shot and packed with incident, this is a gem from yesteryear which looks stunning on DVD. A must-have.
If you failed to pick-up the recent Michael Haneke trilogy boxset earlier in 2009 you might want to go for the new 10-film Essential Michael Haneke(Artificial Eye) DVD set instead.
The award-winning German director, best known in Britain for the shot-for-shot US remake of his same-named German film Funny Games, starring Naomi Watts, seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance if these releases are anything to go by, which is no bad thing.
Going right back to the start of Haneke's career, within this box you'll find the first in the director's “emotional glaciation' trilogy, 1989's The Seventh Continent alongside Benny's Video (1992) and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994). Based on a true story, Seventh Continent is set over a three year period in the lives of one Austrian family while Benny's Video foreshadows Funny Games in its portrayal of casual violence.
71 Fragments is perhaps the most interesting of the three, once again featuring acts of violence seen in a new light, quite unlike the majority of modern cinema.
Elsewhere there's Code Unknown (2000), both Funny Games (1997 and 2007), Hidden (2005), Time of the Wolf (2003), The Piano Teacher (2001) and, for the first time in the UK, TV movie The Castle (1997), which also comes with a new documentary on the man.
As a way to follow the career of a director with something of a cult status in Europe, this set is hard to beat.
Finally, also out now is French biographical thriller (Optimum), following Gallic criminal Jacques MesrineMesrine as he works his way through France's underworld of the 1960s and 70s to become Public Enemy Number One
Made in 1984 and starring Nicolas Silberg in the lead role of Mesrine, this version should not in any way be confused with the recently released Mesrine: Killer Instinct or Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 starring Vincent Cassel as Mesrine.
While the latter two movies combine style and substance to produce a thrilling insight into the life and mind of a master criminal brought down by his own arrogance, this film is more of a "Greatest Hits" package of events, trying hard to be gritty but forgetting to add much humanity to the man.
Still, as a way to see how different writers, directors and actors approach the same events, this is perhaps of interest to the completists out there, the film not without moments of interest as Mesrine shoots, stabs and tricks his way out of various situations.
Starting in 1929 with the aim of being the place to go to see the kinds of films either ignored or forgotten about by mainstream cinema, the Edinburgh Film Guild this week celebrates its 80th season of screenings with 100 films coming your way from now until April.
Tucked away to the rear of Lothian Road's Filmhouse cinema, the Guild has its own bar, club room and cinema where it will show 125 screenings of 100 different films (the most popular are shown twice) between 4 October 2009 and 16 April 2010.
Sixteen mini-seasons, each comprised of six films, with titles as diverse as Apocalypse and Beyond, Lost Classics of Irish Cinema and Mafiosos of the World, run on Friday's, Sunday's and Wednesday's, with members able to sign up for as many, or as few, as they want for just a fiver each.
Much like trying to decide which film to see at any other cinema, picking the best of the choices on offer here is a near-impossible task.
For example tonight sees the Guild show two classic science fiction films from 1962, The Earth Dies Screaming and The Creation of the Humanoids, while Sunday's Coyote Waits, part of the Native American Cinema season, is a detective story based on one of the Leaphorn and Chee mystery novels.
Coming up in future weeks are rare screenings of Sean Connery films The Hill and The Offence (Sydney Lumet season), a chance to see Laurel and Hardy's Laurel on his own in The Stan Laurel Collection (Silent Comedy season), bizarre Italian cowboy flick Django Kill (Spaghetti Westerns season) and the otherwise banned in the UK horror, Fight for Your Life (Extreme Cinema season).
With the chance to meet other film fans before and after screenings and a maximum cost of £50 should you decide to sign up to all 100 films, this is one of those rare things in modern cinema: a bargain. Find out more at www.edinburghfilmguild.org.uk.
The Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival, running from 1 - 22 October, aims to promote positive mental health in the context of equality and social justice through a series of film screening at the Filmhouse and Cameo.
Films on offer in include The Misfits, Bringing Up Baby, A Woman Under the Influence and Muriel's Wedding. Go to www.mhfestival.com for details.
This article previously appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News on 9 October 2009.
Laura Fraser returns with a dark tale that will drive you Cuckoo
Dreaming spires and punting on the Cam were two things I pretty much ignored last week as I took a trip down to Cambridge for their 29th Film Festival.
As someone more used to the larger scale Edinburgh Film Festival, the compact and friendly Cambridge event was a breath of fresh air.
The main reason for my visit was to attend the premiere of new British feature film Cuckoo, starring one of Scotland's finest actresses, Laura Fraser, alongside Richard E Grant and Tamsin Greig.
The film introduces us to Polly (Fraser), a researcher in a cardiology department whose work and personal lives are causing her stress. As Polly tries to plan her future, away from her musician boyfriend (Adam Fenton) who stays out most nights, she begins to hear things in her flat.
Though her sister Jimi (Antonia Bernath) seems oblivious to the sounds, she brings the situation to the attention of Polly's obsessed boss, Professor Greengrass (Grant) who uncovers dark secrets which could soon change all their lives forever.
Dark and brooding in both colour palette and script – writer/director Richard Bracewell gives his locations and interiors as many shades of gray as the characters that inhabit them – Cuckoo is an intelligent drama which kept me guessing right up until the closing moments.
I also caught US gaming documentary Frag, focusing on the rise of the celebrity computer gamer in America. While I'm no games fan (though I do still have an N64 somewhere in the cupboard) it was fascinating to see and hear what really goes on behind the scenes and how money and sponsorship has both saved and damaged the young players involved.
My final screening of the weekend was Easier with Practice, a small American film starring Brian Geraghty and Kel O'Neill as Davy and Sam, two brothers touring small town USA to promote Davy's book of short stories.
One night while stopping at a small Motel, Davy picks up a random telephone call to his room from an unknown woman which leads to the pair starting a relationship based solely on the sounds of their voices.
Very funny and thought provoking (though not for the squeamish), Geraghty is a superb leading man who gives Davy a number of aspects to his personality. It might be painful to watch at times, but this is still a memorable piece of work.
This article first appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News on Friday 2 October.
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