Tuesday dawned gray, gusty and rain-spattered here in Edinburgh – the kind of morning where there’s nothing for it than to bury oneself in the comforting recesses of a dark movie theater – which, handily enough, is all that I had on my agenda for today.
After formulating a strategy over breakfast as to which films could be caught at a later date, I ended up deciding morning’s viewing with a coin-toss, a concession to fate that happily led to the droll delights of Australian animation “Mary and Max,” before my afternoon was given over to the festival’s rather more glossy opener, “Away We Go.”
As I write, Sam Mendes and cast members John Krasinski and Maggie Gyllenhaal are treading the red carpet to formally christen this year’s festival. (Not joining them is female lead Maya Rudolph, who, in an irony apparent to anyone who has seen the film, was unable to fly to Edinburgh because she is eight months pregnant.)
It’s a fitting opener, in the sense that its carefully negotiated balance between indie outsiderness and cozy Hollywood warmth reflects the transitory state of the Edinburgh Film Festival as a whole. Symbolic neatness aside, however, I see no context in which “Away We Go” (**1/2) can’t be regarded as a major disappointment from Sam Mendes.
As a younger film lover, there are few thrills greater than seeing a title you’ve always loved through the medium of television and DVD (and, at the risk of dating myself, home video) given new life on a cinema screen, the way nature, or the filmmaker at least, originally intended.
Today’s Edinburgh talk may have centered on festival opener “Away We Go” (more on that to come), but the day’s real delight was “Mary and Max” (***1/2), an alternately disarming and disconcerting feature debut from claymation maestro Adam Elliot, who won a 2003 Academy Award for his short “Harvey Krumpet,” and carries that film’s decidedly adult-level cuteness into his new effort.
(Edinburgh International Film Festival)
After wrestling with dodgy wireless setups for the better part of the evening, I am happy to tell you that I’m comfortably installed in an Old Town coffee shop with an immaculate connection, so I can fill you in on the day’s doings.
Power and money don’t go hand in hand, it would seem.
In a little over an hour, I’ll be hopping on a (very) early morning train and making the 300 mile journey up north to Edinburgh. Ordinarily, this alone would be cause for excitement — for me, Scotland’s capital, with its curious combination of twisty Medieval quirk, stately academia and cooler-than-thou cultural swagger, is one of the most delightful cities in Europe. On this occasion, however, it boasts an extra drawcard — the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
It’s been a long time, if ever, since Ken Loach made a film that could legitimately be called a crowd-pleaser, but this is precisely what he has made in “Looking for Eric.”
IFC has yet to reveal when it plans to 
Sometimes wishes really do come true in the movies. After March’s depressing (to me, at least) 
A quiet week round these parts — and everywhere else, for that matter:
As if Dev Patel hadn’t had enough luck this year, he’s only gone and nabbed Freida Pinto into the bargain. The relationship between the 19 year-old Brit and the stunning 24 year-old actress has been something of an open secret for a while, but the couple have finally 
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There are few things as antithetical to great drama as an unmitigated hero, a character rendered almost inhuman by unfailing nobleness and valor. In fiction and non-fiction alike, we are inevitably more compelled by the flawed and conflicted of our kind – whether in lurid warts-and-all celebrity biographies or more subtly probing character studies. In film, true-life heroes often make for worthily sanitized Oscar bait (from “Gandhi” to “Milk”), but they rarely provoke great art.