Cinema | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Jun 24 2019

Cinema, Edinburgh, Movie, Movies, Photography, Technology, Uncategorized

Visions of π (1998).

Scorching Edinburgh.

Took this snap on a sweltering Friday afternoon in Edinburgh. For days I was trying to pinpoint why I was having … visions of a semi-obscure movie from the late ’90s. Then it finally came to me along with the following almost poetic narration:

‘9:13, Personal Note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn’t know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see, but something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first headache.’

Darren Aronofsky’s π (1998), which is as stylish a movie one could ever make about mathematics. It’s quite something.

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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Movies, Scotland, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Mark Renton Street, Edinburgh.

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Calton Road this afternoon. It struck me today that I’ve never once snapped this Mark-Renton-gets-run-over spot, the manic laugh he offers to the driver an iconic snippet from Trainspotting (1996).

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I was an employee (an actual ‘trainspotter’, no less) of East Coast Railways a decade ago and used to sneak out the back of Waverley Station to this Renton hideaway for a cheeky fag and a can of Monster, my walkie-talkie in hand just in case my absence was noted. Come to think of it, 30% of my ‘working day’ consisted of either this filmic interlude or listening to Kanye West tunes in the ScotRail bogs.

“Where are you?”

“Just having a shite, I’ll be on the platform in a minute.”

Those were the days.

Tagged Calton Road, Edinburgh, Film, Mark Renton, Movie, Scotland, Train station, Trainspotting, Waverley

Jun 18 2019

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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Phantom Menace (1999) two decades on.

I recall the incident well – HMV, Princes Street came to a standstill as the trailer was broadcast on a Sunday afternoon. “Jesus fucking Christ, this looks epic,” I said to myself. The matter is, I did indeed think it was a belter of a movie, viewing it four times that summer of ’99.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to the movie is perhaps the first case of fanboys going ape, sending shockwaves through an industry a bit slow to catch on to the power of the internet with its bloggers and keyboard warriors.

It’s 2019 and I legit believe it’s not a bad film, and some moments in it are up there with the first two movies: the pod race, Anakin’s farewell to his mother, the climactic Darth Maul brawl, cracking scenes underpinned by substantive character development. You take out Jar Jar and it’s immeasurably better. And I don’t get why fans were complaining about this childish Binks cretin yet conversely whinged on the detail dedicated to taxation and trade wars, an adult domain buttressing the magic and the wonder.

I treasure it as a nostalgia piece, a cinematic madeleine cake taking me back to a time when my standards were low and I was easily amused.

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Art, Cinema, Iceland, Movies, Uncategorized

Arctic (2018) is your proper minimalist survival thriller.

Arctic

I was mightily impressed with this, and it’s most refreshing to watch a flick without a one-liner or a wooden numpty in a cape. No pointless dialogue, no heavy exposition, no pretensions; just life-and-death struggle in a daunting environment, and Mads Mikkelsen’s terrifyingly alluring cheekbones. What a strange occurrence those things are.

The movie reminded me of The Grey (2011) with Liam Neeson, except this one without a sadistic pack of looney wolves.

Tagged Arctic, Film, Iceland, Mads Mikkelsen, Movie

May 12 2019

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Architecture, Art, Cinema, Construction, Documentary, Film, Movie, Movies, Photography, Soviet Union, Technology, Television, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized, USSR

Chernobyl – TV mini-series.

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Shot in Fabijoniškės, Lithuania, this 5-episode mini-series by HBO is a cracker so far (one episode in). It puzzles me how there’s not, to my knowledge, been a major TV series or film about Chernobyl until now. One wouldn’t expect this would come from the Russian slice of the former Soviet Union, but you’d think Ukraine (its ‘western-oriented’ regions) would have put something together.

Documentaries have been galore, the main theme that the disaster was indicative of the pitfalls of communism, and a metaphor for the swift end of the USSR in the Gorbachev era of glasnost and perestroika.

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This is mind-blowing, though, a real-life 28 Days Later (2002) with wild animals replacing the ‘infected’:

I know a good lad I met in Budapest, a fellow traveller named Paul. He’s the only person I’ve met who’s wandered into Pripyat’s Zone of Alienation with a Geiger counter. I have an epic image of him strolling about in a Walter White biohazard suit, with a beer hat atop the garb.

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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Leon (1994) is one of the best shot (no pun) movies ever made.

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Leon (1994) is a Sergio Leone aesthetic with a chunk of Lolita chucked in the works. The dodgy-as-fuck paedo spectacle aside, its images are pure art, Widescreen as perfection. Luc Besson is an aficionado for the inchoate screenplay, but as a pure thriller this really reaches the summit. And seldom has a movie set in New York City had literally nothing to do with New York City; it could be set in Marseilles, Edinburgh, Reykjavik. There’s something to be said for that, such are filmmakers’ obsession with the place. Personally, I don’t get it. I’ve been twice and wasn’t overly impressed; it felt like a cauldron of reprobates. And loud people roam the streets clutching fast food. Awful.

It’s just a cool-as-milk film, visuals off the scale. It doesn’t matter that the ‘Italian’ assassin sounds like Charles de Gaulle on methadone; it’s all about the framing. And Gary Oldman off his tits.

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Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

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Scorsese’s last movie of the ’90s is curiously his weakest work. It’s a lazy narrative that seems enamoured with MTV standards/trends of cinematography. It also suffers from ‘The Affliction’: the liberal use of popular music tracks to paper over deficiencies in the script.

It’s a promising concept: Nicolas Cage’s paramedic, physically and emotionally drained, drives around an early ’90s Manhattan – by all accounts a crack-strewn cesspit at that time – in search of the high of saving a life, and a broader redemption as he’s haunted by those he couldn’t save.

By the one-hour mark the picture sadly has nowhere to go. There are a few moments of transcendence, particularly the final shot, but it’s all rather boring, from the cartoon character supporting roles to Cage’s … bored performance. One suspects it could have worked better as a small-scale picture, Mean Streets (1973) with a defibrillator.

The life of an ambulance driver has never looked so torporific. One of the very few Scorsese pictures I’ll pass on should it ever crop up again.

Tagged Ambulance, Bringing out the Dead, Film, Martin Scorsese, Movie, Nicolas Cage, Nineties, Paul Schrader, Scorsese

Apr 20 2019

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Art, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Lost in Translation (2003) is garbage.

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Saw this in the cinema when I was 16 and thought it was incredible, my generation’s bit of peak Bertolucci or something. It’s been a long hiatus but I caught it again the other day. My god, it’s fucking appalling, an arty-farty piece of silly, trivial gibberish, and unbelievably racist. The characters are one-note, self-obsessed twats, and the picture depicts the Japanese as a mass of hysterical idiots. About 20 minutes in I couldn’t believe what I was watching. It’s concocted anthropology à la Nanook of the North (1922). Never again. Sad!

Tagged Film, Japan, Lost in Translation, Movies, Shite, Tokyo

Mar 31 2019

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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movies, Music, Uncategorized

Edinburgh in a standstill.

A snippet from Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967) came to Gorgie today. An eerie stillness, a surreal chav-free mise en scène. And one car was blasting out ‘The Boys of Summer’.

Traffic jams aren’t always rotten.

Tagged Edinburgh, Godard, Gorgie, Scotland, Traffic jam

Mar 26 2019

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Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Movies, Scotland, Uncategorized

Adjuster – a cheeky short.

A shitty wee movie I have made. Uploading the beast took longer than making the actual thing (seven hours of shooting). The sound ‘design’ is fucking awful, but some of the visuals look decent.

Tagged Amateur filmmaking, City Centre, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Short, Short Film

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Category Archives: Cinema

Visions of π (1998).

Mark Renton Street, Edinburgh.

The Phantom Menace (1999) two decades on.

Arctic (2018) is your proper minimalist survival thriller.

Chernobyl – TV mini-series.

Leon (1994) is one of the best shot (no pun) movies ever made.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

Lost in Translation (2003) is garbage.

Edinburgh in a standstill.

Adjuster – a cheeky short.