Edinburgh International Film Festival – Day 4

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

Toy Story 3: Ah… this movie had special significance to me, as I remember seeing the original with my grandparents when I was 7 years old, and now that the story involves their owner leaving them behind as he moves off to college, I’m finishing the series in Edinburgh after a foreign study program. In my opinion the original 1995 film is still Pixar’s best movie to date, although I found the third installment to be a worthy successor (and hopefully the absolute final chapter to close out the franchise with). I won’t add too much more since there’s already been much better reviews written on the film, I’ll just say I found the main daycare narrative to be entertaining if not a little trite, especially the character Lotso, who functioned as a good villain but didn’t we already see his character in Toy Story 2 when he was voiced by Kelsey Grammar? The ending of course has everyone in theaters choked up, including just a little bit yours truly. This also happened to be the UK premiere screening of Toy Story 3.

Winter’s Bone: American Neorealism has become a formidable force in independent cinema, with recent movies such as Wendy & Lucy appearing to be modern updating of the classic Italian film Umberto D. Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone appears to be another step in the same direction, although this story ends up being a bit darker and more foreboding than other neorealist films which focus just on the ordinary plight of every-day living. Here a murder mystery factors into the equation, as 17-year-old protagonist Ree must track down her absentee daddy before he misses his court date and she and her younger siblings lose their house he put up for his bail. Ree’s feelings towards her father are frosty at best, and upon realizing that he probably was killed on a drug run and lying in a ditch somewhere hardly has any impact on her. The problem is she still needs to find that body to prove his death is the reason for his absence, and the people that were responsible for his death aren’t likely to hand it over to a girl who will in turn be handing it over to the police. The values Ree embodies are unmistakably Midwestern, as she uses whatever resources she can muster (few are material) to independently accomplish a mission she knows to be the right course of action. It’s a very strong character and sure to lead young actress Jennifer Lawrence to plenty of attention from the rest of the film industry.

Outcast: This was a rather bizarre horror/fantasy film set in Edinburgh, featuring vampires and other cultish elements, although to be honest I couldn’t tell you what really happened in this film. I must apologize because most of that probably stems from the fact that after four days of movie-going (and having hiked up a mountain just before starting my triple-screening that evening) I was starting to feel rather fatigued and started to doze off several times throughout the movie… which I suspect the filmmakers wouldn’t entirely condemn because it made the parts I was foggily trying to keep awake through even more surrealist to me. I might have to give it a second try when it comes out on DVD because I recall some rather strange stuff I’d like to see pieced together.

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