EIFF 2010 - Day 5

Another day at the film festival and another full lineup. We started in the Cameo for the Japanese animation Mai Mai Miracle which could have been better but was alright. After a Red Bull to stave off my tiredness, we caught the amazingly funny Jackboots on Whitehall which is like a British World War II Team America. After a break giving us enough time for dinner, we went into French gangster movie 22 Bullets which was Jean-Reno-tastic. With only a 10 minute break it was straight into Snowman's Land which was completely different from what I thought it was going to be. Finally, we had to rush back to the Cameo to see documentary Superhero Me

EIFF 2010 - Day 4

Our first full day of films and with 5 to get through it proved to be a bit of a marathon. First up was New Zealand comedy Boy which was excellent. This was followed by the 1930's period piece The Red Machine. Third film for the day was another excellent movie, Monsters which is as much an emotional road trip tale as it is a monster movie. After a short break for dinner it was time for gritty prison drama R and then on to the pretty awful Outcast.

EIFF 2010 - Day 3

Day 3 and another 3 movies, first up was the massively disappointing Huge followed by yet another slow paced foreign film (in a good way). This time round it was Iranian drama The Hunter. We finished the evening with madcap Greek Zombie movie Evil in the Time of Heroes.

EIFF 2010 - Day 2

3 films yesterday at the second day of the Film Festival. First up, a slow paced family drama from France, Family Tree. Second, a slow paced drama from Hong-Kong questioning memories and identity, Fog. And lastly, a Dutch horror which although pretty generic, still had a few scares: Two Eyes Staring.

Another 3 films today, so hopefully some more interesting ones.

EIFF 2010!

12 days or so until the Edinburgh International Film Festival opens and I just picked up my tickets today. Got 18 films planned which is higher than most years, but not the most ever, 10 of these are all in a single weekend though, so hope I can survive my two 5 film days!

Miller's Crossing - Bomb 20

Just watched the Coen Brothers' film Miller's Crossing. Just in-case anyone has seen it was wondering where they've heard the piece of dialogue "Something I try to teach all my boys" before, it's sampled (complete with the deranged screaming) in the Bomb 20 track "One in the brain" from the "Field Manual" album, now I just need to watch enough movies to find out where the sample at the end comes from. I guess it makes sense since Tom is told to put "one in the brain" when he is sent to kill Bernie.

I don't actually think many people will be familiar with the track and happen to watch the movie, but you never know.

Movie Challenges

In my quest to watch every movie worth watching, there are a couple of lists I'm trying to completed. The 1001 movies you must see before you die and the ImDB top 250 being the most important at the moment.

The editor of the 1001 movies ... book released 4 slightly smaller books last year, 101 n Movies you must see before you die for values of n in {Gangster, Horror, Sci-Fi and War}. I've just bought the War and Gangster books to get my hands on the full lists so can now track my progress on these as well. The 101 subsets include films not on the larger 1001 list, so there are far more films I have to watch now than previously.

As it stands at the moment, I've seen 29 from the Gangster list, 28 from the Horror list, 38 from the Sci-Fi list and 21 from the War list. Neil and Gwen are hoping to complete the Sci-Fi list by the end of 2010, so I think I'm going to go for a similar challenge and try for the Gangster or War lists (Probably the Gangster list as there are less left to see on it)

Alien marathon

Well, yesterday I watched the first three Alien movies and I've just finished the quadrilogy with Alien Resurrection. I have to say Alien and Aliens are awesome, definitely classics. Alien 3 is a bit disappointing but not as bad as a lot of people seem to say and I actually thought Resurrection was pretty good. With Scott, Cameron, Fincher and Jeunet it's an impressive line up of directors however you look at it.

Liverpool

Not updated in a while and in a bid to stop this becoming a blog of tumbleweed again, I'm going to write some crap about my weekend. Rosie and I travelled down to Liverpool to visit Neil so at least there is something to write about.

I finally finished Deathnote on the train down, it's only taken 2 years!

Saturday we saw the sites of Liverpool (Photos) including a helicopter display from the Royal Navy! We had dinner in a nice place in Chinatown called Jumbo City, food was good and the portions were so large we didn't manage to eat it all (well I managed mine, Rosie struggled a bit with her noodles). After dinner we caught the new Chan-Wook Park movie Thirst at the cool FACT cinema (2 seater sofas for cinema chairs!). Movie is excellent btw.

Sunday morning we watched Young and Dangerous 4 and 5 and ate bacon rolls before catching our train back north. A quick stop in Preston where we met Hannah and Ross before catching another train back to Edinburgh. I finished the book I started on the way down on the way up as well (Foundation by Isaac Asimov).

So overall, a good weekend, but tiring

Twitter

Everyone loves Twitter, so I now announce movie reviews via twitter. 140 characters is more than enough to critique any film, so if you don't have time to read a full-length film review, why not read my Twitter Movie Reviews

Website - New pages

I've just updated my site with a couple of new pages, the pages have been there for a while, but only just added them to the menu :) EIFF shows a list of all the films I've seen at the Edinburgh Internation Film Festival since 2004 including links to my reviews. IMDb Top 250 shows the top 250 movies from IMDb with those I've seen/reviewed highlighted. I'm up at 128 out of 250 at the moment (99 reviewed) hopefully, there's a bit of overlap with the 1001 movies you must see before you die list.

1001 Movies you must see before you die

Just got the 2009 edition of the 1001 Movies you must see before you die. As usual, a bit more adding and removing this year, with notable inclusions of The Dark Knight, Wall-E, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and rather randomly, Korean Action adventure The Good, the Bad and the Weird.

Luckily, the changing about means I'm now 4 movies up with a total of 223 viewed in the new book.

EIFF Day 9

Our last day at the film festival and another 3 movies, luckily we went out on a bang because they were all good. First off, a father and son reunite on an Indonesian fishing platform in the drama Jermal. Second off, Steven Soderbergh's art-house movie about a high class escort, The Girlfriend Experience and lastly, one of the best movies from the festival, Pontypool; an intelligent twist on the zombie genre.

So that's it for another year, 19 films on 9 different days, only a couple of duff ones, some excellent small art-house movies, No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti, Can go through skin and Jermal especially and some bigger but still excellent films, Sin Nombre, the hilarious Black Dynamite and Pontypool.

EIFF 2009 Day 8

Our second last day at the film festival and we're going out with a bumper 3 movies for each of the last two days. First up was the excellent, touching tale of a man trying to fight against the system to keep his daughter, No Puedo Sin Vivir Ti. Next up was the slightly disappointing Adventureland and lastly the even more disappointing Romeo and Juliet vs The Living Dead.

Tonight's our last night, but there's still 3 more films to see before it's over.

EIFF 2009 Day 7

Another two films, to start me on my way to 2000 reviews :) First off, a private investigator led modern take on film noir, The Missing Person and then, the extremely violent Korean Gangster movie Breathless. Only two more days and 6 films left at the festival, but there should still be some good movies coming up.

www.wilkiewideweb.com 1000th film review

I've just posted the 1000th film review on my www.wilkiewideweb.com site. That means since August 2003, I've watch around 1 film every 2 days!

EIFF 2009 Day 6

Yesterday was our 6th day at the Film Festival, another two movies. First up, Dutch psychological drama Can Go Through Skin, a tale of one woman coming to terms with a violent attack. Later on we saw Black Dynamite, a 70's Blaxsploitation spoof which has to be one of the funniest films this year and one of the best spoofs in ages.

EIFF 2009 Day 5

Another day at the film festival and another 2 movies. I left work half an hour earlier than usual to catch our first movie at Cineworld, the very good El niño pez a tale of love across the class divide in Argentina's Buenos Aires. After grabbing some dinner we went to the second film for the evening, Members of the Funeral a darkly comic and slightly confusing South Korean film, focusing on 3 family members at the funeral of a young boy, none of whom really know anything about each other.

EIFF 2009 Day 4

Yesterday was my 4th day at the EIFF, only 1 film, my 7th of the festival and it was the bleak, realist, family drama Der Architekt. 2 more again tonight, which will take me through to just under half way.

EIFF 2009 Day 3

Another day at the Edinburgh Film Festival. I didn't see any movies yesterday due to a Stag Do, but saw another two today. First up was Irish comedy Wide Open Spaces which saw Ardal O'Hanlon and Ewan Bremner star as two friends who must leave the city and take up manual labouring jobs in the country.

The second movie was Jerichow a German retelling of The Postman Always Rings Twice which tells the story of a loner struggling to make ends meet who is given a job by a rich local business man. When he begins an affair with his new boss' wife, the relationship between the 3 of them becomes tense.

Only one movie tomorrow, but with another 13 to go, I'm nearly a third of the way through the festival.