Reviews & features: Film, Issue 582

Tilda Swinton

Even without her bright beacon of red hair, it would be difficult to miss Tilda Swinton at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Enjoying her inaugural year as patron, alongside the venerable Sir Sean Connery, you can take your pick when it…

Ethan Hawke

Kaleem Aftab talks to actor, writer and now director Ethan Hawke about adapting his novel The Hottest State for the big screen

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Remastered

The recent deaths of art cinema colossi Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni – at the ages of 89 and 94 respectively – led me to wonder about some of the great filmmakers who did not make it to their fifth decade, let alone approach their tenth.

Jess Weixler

Jess Weixler is so all-American she looks like she’s jumped straight out of a photograph of high school cheerleaders. Her long blond hair and blue eyes make her the archetypal American beauty – just like all those Britney Spears wannabes lusted after by…

Hallam Foe

(David Mackenzie, UK, 2007) 95min

All four of talented Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie’s features have premiered at the EIFF. Mackenzie’s latest, an adaptation of novelist Peter Jinks’ Edinburgh-set psychosexual romantic drama, is as good as any of his previous work. But, while…

Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle

(Simon Miller, UK, 2007) 90min

Admirable in intent and ambitious in scope, this first-ever Gaelic language feature is a real achievement. By collaborating with local talent – writers, actors, musicians – from the Isle of Skye where the film was shot, the makers have fulfilled their…

Twisted Sister

(Ed Herzog, Germany, 2006) 94min

Anna (Heike Makatsch) is an apparently successful thirty-something in the music industry, but when she takes a holiday in Spain with her timid younger sister, Marie (Anna Maria Mühe) she turns into a nightmare. Anna makes every event into a…

John Waters: This Filthy World

(Jeff Garlin, US, 2006) 86min

The ‘Ayatollah of Crud’ speaks. Time was when John Waters used to stand for something. Alienation from the mainstream perhaps, a gothic outsiderness, suburban depravity. But now, with money coming in from the ludicrously successful stage (and screen…

Intolerance

And so begins this year’s List-sponsored Anita Loos Retrospective of films, written by or adapted from the work of the grand old dame of American screenwriting. First up is legendary silent film director DW Griffiths’ one true masterpiece from 1916…

Irvine Welsh

5 questions

5 words to describe the film you have at the EIFF Racism and testicular cancer comedy. 4 of your favourite cinemas in the world Cameo, Edinburgh; Rio Dalston, London; IFI, Dublin; Castro, San Francisco. 3 people you would love to work with…