Reviews & features: Paul Dale
- Filtered by:
- Paul Dale
Time Bomb
7 Aug 2008
It's 2017 and Westminster wants to go nuclear on Iran, but MP Victoria Clarke and her middle English family hold a secret that could change the vote forever. There's some nice ideas about where the personal and apocalyptic meet in Tim Burton's one-act…
The Open Couple
7 Aug 2008
This re-improvised restaging of Dario Fo and Franca Rame's superb, oft overlooked 1983 two-hander is a delight. Though too young for their roles (Fo and Rame played them in their 50s), Stuart Brennan and Jennifer Dean are brilliantly convincing as the…
Pete Firman
7 Aug 2008
For a bit of straightforward, old-fashioned entertainment you can't go wrong with comedy magician Firman. With the giddy fakir style trickery skills of Tommy Cooper and the flirtatious warmth of Eric Morecambe, he's a northern crowd-pleasing wonder.
Errol Morris - Exclusive interview
5 Aug 2008
Audio
Paul Dale goes head to head with arguably the best documentarian and interviewer of his generation - Errol Morris. Morris was in town to promote his soon to be released film Standard Operating Procedure.
Richard Jenkins - Exclusive interview
5 Aug 2008
Audio
At this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival I had the great pleasure of grabbing a chat with the American actor, and proud son of Illinois, Richard Jenkins. I have been a great admirer of Jenkins work as a character actor since his marginal…
Little Feat
22 Jul 2008
Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival
Formed in 1969 by Lowell George, one of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Little Feat were always going to be different from the blues bands of the period. Small in stature, guitarist and lead singer George was a talented firebrand of R&B, country…
Matter of fact - Documentaries at the EIFF
19 Jun 2008
Edinburgh International Film Festival
When the Edinburgh International Film Festival opened its doors for the first time in 1947, documentary films were the only things on the menu. Much has changed since then, but the EIFF has continued its commitment to the feature documentary form. Every…
Elite Squad (Tropa D'Elite)
19 Jun 2008
Edinburgh International Film Festival
(José Padilha, Brazil) 118min Based on Luiz Eduardo Soares’ bestseller, Elite Squad is a favela thriller from the director of 2002 documentary Bus 174. It’s 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, months before a visit from Pope John Paul II. The rundown housing…
Bigga Than Ben: A Russian's Guide to Ripping Off London
19 Jun 2008
Edinburgh International Film Festival
(SA Halewood, UK) 85min Allegedly based on the diary of a young Moscovite who came to London in the late 1990s, Bigga than Ben is, for the majority of its running time, a distracting black comedy. Cobakka (Ben Barnes) and Spiker (Andrei Chadov) are a…
Edinburgh International Film Festival - Jeanne Moreau
5 Jun 2008
Born between the wars to an English chorus girl mother and a French restaurateur father, Jeanne Moreau was born to play what feminist film critic Molly Haskell called ‘the glorious fantasy, appealing to both sexes, to men as eternal mistress, to women…
Hallam Foe
23 Aug 2007
(18) 95min
As writer and philosopher William Gass once noted: ‘for the voyeur, fiction is what’s called going all the way’. No one knows this better than rural Scottish boy Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell). While his father (Ciarán Hinds) and stepmother (Claire Forlani…
Run Granny Run
23 Aug 2007
Don Ameche In the 20 or so years before his death in 1993, Ameche had become the über OAP in huge box office hits Trading Places and Cocoon. His best late great performance was as shoe shiner come ageing mafia don in David Mamet’s hugely enjoyable…
Ex Drummer
23 Aug 2007
Based on the degenerate novel of the same name by the hugely popular Flemish novelist and poet Herman Brusselmans, Ex Drummer is like a checklist of the Belgian writer’s obsessions, noticeably alcohol, sex, disability, boredom, violence, punk rock and…
Time of His Life: The Films of Eddie McConnell
23 Aug 20071 John Grierson Feted Scottish documentary cameraman and filmmaker McConnell was mentored by the Stirlingshire documentary filmmaker Grierson in his early days in the profession. Much of Grierson’s dedication to the idea of cinematic truth and lyricism…
Duncan and Wilma Finnigan
16 Aug 2007
Scottish filmmaking
Meet the Finnegans: Duncan and Wilma Finnigan, the John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands of Coatbridge. Scotland’s best kept filmmaking secret. The couple’s films inhabit a strange hinterland between community video amateurishness, Forsythian whimsy and…
Phantom Love
16 Aug 2007
One of the undoubted highlights of this year’s experimental Black Box strand is US filmmaker Nina Menkes’ black and white internationally roaming surreal familial drama Phantom Love. Menkes has been described as one of ‘the most provocative artists…
Anita Loos Retrospective
16 Aug 2007
Name Anita Loos. Born 26 April, 1888, California. Died 18 August 1981, New York. Who was she? Loos was one of the most celebrated US screenwriters, playwrights and authors of the last century. Over her long life she experienced several…
John Waters: This Filthy World
9 Aug 2007
(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…
5 Reasons To Go To - Scottish Novels On Screen
9 Aug 20071 Andrea Gibb (pictured) No relation to the Bee Gees, Gibb (AfterLife, Dear Frankie) is one of Scotland’s most prolific and successful screenwriters. She will be chairing this event/debate which looks at the success of Scottish literature in its many…
This Filthy World
19 Jul 2007Edinburgh International Film Festival
As a new film about him comes to this year’s Festival, veteran cult filmmaker John Waters shows no sign of slowing down. Paul Dale does his best to catch up with him
Anita Loos retrospective
19 Jul 2007
Anita Loos was an intellectual brunette who wrote about dumb gold-diggers. As a major retrospective of her work hits the Festival, Paul Dale explores her legacy
Komma, Ex Drummer
19 Jul 2007A pair of Belgian movies at the EIFF will showcase the talents of Flemish superstar composer and actor Arno Hintjens. The 59-year-old’s surprisingly mature acting (for a pop star) can be sampled in Martine Doyen’s engrossing personality theft drama…
The Directors
13 Nov 2006
It may not be very apparent yet, but Scotland’s summer festivals are feeling seismic tremors. On the one hand there are new chiefs heading up two of Edinburgh’s prestigious festivals. On the other, there’s a new, upmarket music festival outside Glasgow…
Colour Me Kubrick
25 Jul 2006What do you get if you cross Six Degrees of Separation with Catch Me If You Can? The answer is, of course, Colour Me Kubrick. Based on a story by long time Kubrick friend, writer and fellow photography enthusiast Anthony Frewin, Colour Me Kubrick is the…
