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| Cinema |
| The Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2008 |
| Lucas Miller |
June 24, 2008 |
| Cinema is without doubt the most popular art of our modern world. Museums are visited primarily by duty-plagued tourists; popular music is but a clamourous ruckus; books are an entertainment sadly lost on many and fine theatre is a luxury, which cannot be easily reached by the provincial. Film is entertaining, cheap, and easily accessed by folk of both urban and rural habitations. It is an art of swift movement which appeals to our poor attention spans. Most contemporary films are trivial and pointless, but others may contain great profundity and meaning. Cinema is the pinnacle of modern popular culture.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has now reached its 62nd year. In past years the festival it corresponded in time with the hectic August Fringe. This year, however, it is to be run from 18-29 June to allow movie-goers to focus their energies on film alone. It is the last true festival around. All the others, to quote the hit King of Ping Pong (showing at the festival) are about “money, politics, and drugs.” It is the last “egalitarian” festival. The others (including Tribeca, Sundance and Cannes) have been mauled by Hollywood. 
Reviewed to date (more to come!):
Before the Rains, directed by Santosh Sivan
Elegy, directed by Isabel Coixet
Married Life, directed by Ira Sachs
Helen, directed by Sandra Nettelbeck
The Edge of Love, directed by John Maybury
A Film with Me in It, directed by Ian Fitzgibbon, written by Mark Doherty
Standard Operating Procedure, by Errol Morris
Encounters at the End of the World, by Werner Herzog
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The Award Winners!
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| Two of a Kind: Ronan Noone’s The Atheist and Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Directed by Justin Waldman, with Campbell Scott/
DVD Criterion Collection
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| Lucas Miller |
July 7, 2008 |
| It is hardly surprising that Justin Waldman’s production of Ronan Noone’s The Atheist is already being hailed as the best play of the Williamstown Theatre Festival so early in the season. In form, it is a dramatic monologue. The audience listens to the stereotypically amoral and inconsiderate American journalist Augustine Early talk about his rise to disreputable fame, after tainting the lives of so many (though, ironically, he seems to have an unfortunate case of the Midas Touch, making his victims more famous than himself). |
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| There Will Be Blood, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson after the novel Oil by Upton Sinclair, with Daniel Day-Lewis |
| Alan Miller |
February 12, 2008 |
In architecture school, the worst criticism a student can receive is an extended silence broken by the comment -- “Well, I like the font you used.”
That’s a snarky way to begin. There will be Blood is hardly that bad. Even if it were that bad surely it would be bad in a way that is worthy of serious discussion.
Anything Paul Thomas Anderson does is worthy of discussion. And that font is amazing, a real old fashioned title card on a black background, separated from the rest of the film by cuts. Without Saul Bass, it’s the best way left to do opening titles. Believe me, I walked out of the theatre wanting to join the TWBB cool kids fan club. I walked out knowing I’d committed to writing a review and having no idea what to say. Should you bluff and write an appreciation of Magnolia, nine years on? Do you describe There will be Blood as a stylistic departure, the oily murky images, the stilled camera, the lack of an ensemble? All of these elements are very assured, and Anderson is a greater director in my estimation after this film than he was before. And yet I can’t say that I liked it much or that I would want...
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