Category Archives: Edinburgh
This street is special.
For many reasons, but I’ll just stick to a brief summary. The Edinburgh Napier University student halls, three strip clubs, and the local job centre are lined up next to each other. The castle towers above, watching over the flock. It’s like a life lesson, evolution and all that.
Filth (2013) – sometimes brilliant, but ultimately disappointing.
This is hilarious at times, black comedy done as it should be. And as an intro to Edinburgh it’s up there with the best of them. The Hamburg scene is off the charts in its accuracy. I’ve been on that messy adventure, believe me. However, I do feel this movie is a bit of a wasted opportunity. There’s not any kind of overarching message that elevates it into something other than a yarn, and the style is painfully nonexistent. One can only imagine what someone like Danny Boyle would have done with the script.
It’s a cracker. But it should be better.
Quality poster, though.
Leith Street – forever under construction.
It’s at the stage now where I can’t remember this roundabout or whatever it is not being an absolute shambles. I don’t know a soul who possesses any notion of what work is being done or why.
It’s just … there. A big fucking mess for all eternity.
The Last of the Mohicans (1992). Wow.
This blew my mind it was so good. On a simple action-adventure level it’s pure Mann, the framing and the cutting all signature style. What further distinguishes it are the connotations, though, the other world beyond the landscape. Mann always does this, always a subtext in the works. He makes deceptively uncomplicated yarns, but look closer and you unearth what he’s getting at.
This is pre-Revolutionary War (1775–1783) sparked by a Boston Tea Party. Get your head around that. The ending is magisterial, a literal crescendo of dimensions. The last shot – old America, current America, future America. It conveys more about American history than thousands of movies.
On a personal aside, I once synced the incredible Trevor Jones score to a panning shot of Edinburgh taken on a VHS-C camera from the top of Hillend. It was fucking pathetic but we can’t all be Michael Mann.
Essential cinema.
A foggy Meadowbank in all its autumn splendour.
A shithole, that is without question. But it’s my kind of toilet and it’s defined the past half decade of my life. I’m in that KFC three days a week. I’ve seen some faces come and go, yet I am the constant. It’s my escape from the office, which is even worse than the actual TV show The Office. I haven’t seen the American version.
Bye for now.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 