Saturday August 9th, 2008

SOMERS TOWN
8/10
One of my favourite films of the festival. Shane Meadows did last year's Closing Night film at MIFF, This is England, and also did Dead Man's Shoes at MIFF 3-4 years ago. I loved both of those films, and this one makes three out of three. It's a short one, only 75 minutes, and shot in black and white. It's the story of the friendship between a homeless boy (played by the main actor from This is England, Thomas Turgoose) and a Polish immigrant whose parents are divorced and is taken care of by his working class father. Lots of great moments and beautifully filmed with plenty to keep your eyes interested. Hopefully this will get a cinema release here.

THE WACKNESS
6.5/10
This film had all the ingredients for being fantastic, but for some reason it just didn't equal the sum of its parts for me. It's set in NYC in 1993(?) and is about a loner kid who's just finished high school and is whiling away the summer dealing marijuana to the locals, including a psychiatrist played by Ben Kingsley, who offers him advice in return for some stash. I can't help but think that it would have been better if they hadn't tried to set it in the early 90s and just updated the story for today. Maybe I'm missing the point, but the dialogue was distracting, yo. Word.

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MY SEXUAL FAILURES
6/10
This was a documentary, but really, like Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, it's really just made for entertainment and not for a factual unbiased representation of an event or set of facts. It's about a guy who's been dumped by nearly all his girlfriends over the years and sets out to try and find out why. Sorry if it's a spoiler, but jeez, if you're an unemployed, dirty lazy guy who plays with action figures and can't get an erection, what do you expect? There were plenty of funny and cringeworthy moments, but I couldn't help but think he was playing a part rather than being his true self when talking on film, and a couple of parts just seemed to much like stunts for entertainment rather than being relevant to the story (visit to the bondage mistress and the viagra episode, mainly). Not a terribly film, but I think it could have been better if he'd left the devices for entertainment out, or toned them down at least.