Amused. I can't actually review this because I pre-viewed and wrote the blurb for the Raindance Film Festival catalogue last year, amongst others. The 'blurb' .. you know, that bit you read about a film that tries to convince you to go see it. If I did a review, it would reflect 'some' of that, sure, but naturally, a fair amount is omitted to ensure it sounds 'good', ie; no critique.

Summer Scars

Anyway, which blurb do you prefer? Which would make you go watch this film?

The Raindance Version (My Version)
When six 14 year old kids skip school to play in the woods, their day's antics culminate in a motorcycle crash where they fear having killed a drifter. Relieved that he is still alive and well, they feel obliged to befriend him- an obligation they come to deeply regret.

The drifter's behaviour increasingly oscillates between kindness and abuse and the truants eventually find themselves being held hostage in their own den. They are soon forced to embrace the darker side of human nature if they are going to survive this ordeal.

Summer Scars sheds serious light on the choices we are forced to make under extreme circumstances where our impulsive reactions can sometimes take us beyond what we thought capable. With an unsettlingly natural Jekyll and Hyde like performance from Kevin Howarth, writer/director Julian Richards superbly captures the essence of life-changing experiences. The resonance of a single event is beautifully explored here, this is a definite must for all British Film fans.

The Cambridge Version
In this disturbing British thriller, the fate of a gang of urban kids who skip school to play in the woods with a souped-up stolen moped is changed forever when they crash into Peter. A dishevelled drifter, Peter is delighted to have a group of youngsters to hang out with. First he gains their trust by joining in their games but then his behaviour begins to change. Peter uses what he has learned about the kids against them, bullying the alpha boys, belittling the weaker ones and saving his worst for the only girl of the group. The kids realise too late that they are being held hostage and when Peter acknowledges things have gone too far, the kids are forced to embrace the dark side of human nature if they are going to survive the ordeal.

The description of this event was such:
Ken Loach will be present to screen a surprise film for a small audience at The Rex. Following the screening, Mr. Loach will speak about his career and take questions from the audience. This is truly a rare opportunity to speak with one the greats of British filmmaking.

The key message here being small audience: (ie; limited spaces, needs pre-booking). As for this Ken Loach guy, I knew his name by reputation, but looking thorugh the imdb listing, I don't believe I'd seen any of his work -- Now I have.

It's a Free World'

Runtime: 95 mins 31 secs
Directed by: Ken Loach
Written by: Paul Laverty

Plot Outlne:
Angie may not have much formal education, but she's got energy, wit and ambition, and she's in her prime. She's been messed about in the past and she's fed up. She has a point to prove. This is her moment.

Angie sets up a recruitment agency with her flat-mate Rose, working in a twilight zone between gangmasters, employment agencies and the migrant workers they place. This is a tale set against the reality of the Anglo Saxon miracle of flexible labour, globalisation, double shifts and lots of happy, happy, happy consumers: Us.

Overall Impressions:
Though in quite a depressive morbid fashion the moral of the story sticks. In a world gone mad, as we all chase for our dreams and riches, people along the way are going to get crushed (sometimes literally), so the question is, how far are you willing to go to succeed? Something else to consider is if and when you reach this success, can you live with the guilt? when is it 'too much' ?

With a British contemporary backdrop it is somewhat reminisicent of Macbeth in some ways, in that our hero(ine) is a victim and someone we grow to like, we follow their journey and at some point along the line we feel she's gone too far, thus now making her the villain of the story. This transformation was forseeable yet still highly effective in the narrative. The script recently won the best screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival.

Strangely, the UK isn't seeing a cinema release of the film, in fact it's gone straight to DVD and aired on Channel 4 a couple of weeks back.

The Q&A in a nutshell
Ken Loach has worked in films for multiple decades, it's far to see he knows his stuff, he was friendly and it was good to see a certain honesty in his answers to questions, much of which was wasted on me. I'm not into politics and frankly, I just don't give a damned. *cough* That said, it was interesting to hear that one of his previous films was key in changing a law, quite an achievement I thought. Then when quizzed he mentioned that this film simply wouldn't hit the government radar even though 1 in 20 people of the population is an illegal immigrant because all the parties are focussed on commerce. (& I add understandably so, as it's commerce that makes an economy, and an economy is unfortunately how a country is perceived to the rest of the world.)

... but yea' enough of that stuff, what did catch my interest was some of the technical questions with regards to shooting:

The film was pretty low budget, few and small locations et al & he mentioned that if circumstances provide, it's good to shoot the whole film in sequence, the order the viewere will see it, especially with films where the character is supposed to progress a certain way. This way the first-day jitters and the growing confidence over the days of shoot helps give the character further depth and naturalness. In addition, each actor would be only given their own part of he script, and in parts only a few days/hours before shooting. Too much practise also loses realism. Fair comments inmy opinion, noted *taps-nose*

He also mentioned, he's not a fan of using cranes, trolleys and all the jazz that most the industry raves about as making their livs a lot easier, most his shots are taken by hand or using an old fashioned tripod. -- Well if it works, fair enough, but I'm not in total agreement, maybe just a matter of the things he's used to.

All in all, though it was a strong film with a message, I must admit this wasn't really my kind of film. It was painful rather than entertaining to see this transformation in character. Quite a contrast to Weirdsville and quite what I'd feared, at least they eft it to the next day. :)

I had a plumber/gas/electric check feller who's contracted to check my flat once a year. Me being the busy chappy that I am, rarely see much of my flat and so the only time I could fit this in was Wednesday morning before work. Now considering that I Ieave for work at around 7am when on Fortess of Solitude Shifts, this meant Mr. Handyman had to be done by then, so he was due to arrive at 06:30. He calls me on Monday to reschedule for Tuesday, I think: "oh dear this can't be good for my health", but have pity and agree. This brings me to today (Tuesday 25th).

Wake up: 05:00. Shower and get ready for this man to check the boiler and cooker. Thankfully I'd remembered from last year that he tends to come earlier than the said time. He turned up at 05:50 and left within a half hour. I figure there's be no point napping for a half hour else it's become 2 or 3 hours. I get out of the door and into the Fortress between my scheduled time frame of 08:00 and 16:30.

At 16:30 I had to shoot off to pickup my suit for it needed amending (I've put on a couple of inches waist size since last year), off to Picadilly Circus, grab suit, shoot home, get showered get changed, head back into Central London. If I get the 18:10 bus I can still make the 18:45 showing. Bus to Victoria. Awesome, 10 minutes remainng for a 3 minute Tube journey, I can do this, easy!

"The underground services from London Victoria have been suspended due to overcrowded platforms" ... F@*k!!! Now what?? Well it can't be 'that' far, I'll find a bus that goes there, right get out in the open, lighting strikes, the sky comes dribbling down with rain. My suit's getting wet. Aha bus, run!!! Anyone that knows me, being late for a film is the only time they'll ever catch me running.

"Excuse me, do you go to Picadilly Circus?" ..
"Yea",
"Great, thanks" ... as I hop onto the bus and take a seat, the next thing I know, the driver put on his jacket and walks off the bus. I'm thinking "what the hell??, I need this bus moving, NOW!!!"

As my blood pressire probably rocketed through the roof of the bus, I thought I'd calm myself by putting on some music. So the iPod came out and the soundtrack for the forthcoming SRK flick filled my ears from Track 1.. "Ajab Si" ... A slow and soothing number. Then some old man came and sat next to me. I say old but I mean 50'ish with a Financial Times in hand, white hair, chunky glasses, just your stereo typical old guy. He openes up his FT and then asks me to make some space. I manage to move an inch, probably less, I've already been more than generous with space, besides its his poncey newspaper that needs the space, not him.

What a fricking idiot I think & tell him sarcastically, "I'm sorry I only managed to move an inch" and he replies "Very nice, thanks." with total non-understanding ... Well there you go what can you say to that?! Thankfully another driver turns up at this point and gets the bus moving, it is 7pm -- on a generic show even all the adverts would be done by now. I should probably just give up and go the afterparty maybe? Not a bad idea, it would give me a chance to get some food, but I wanna see the movie. As these thoughts roll around in my head I come to realise the bus is doing the same. Not moving at more than 10 miles per hour it rolls down a long road that doesn't look all that familiar.

Suddenly it does, it's Quarter past 7, I get off realising I'd walk quicker than the bus anyway and head to the cinema just to see if anyone can tell me how long the film is so I know when to pop back to mingle with the crowds. To my glee, there's a huge queue outside. Waiting to get their tickets. I already have mine in my inside left pocket -- courtesy of being a superstud with a press pass it was posted to me earlier in the week. Mission: Accomplised.

The afterparty was all you'd expect, from the excited film makers out to tell you about their screening at some point in the next few days, to bumping into acquaintances from other festivals whose name you can't remember. There was ample free drinks to keep everybody entertained too. It was good seeing a bunch of familiar faces from last year's festival. One of the chaps who delivers all the prints throughout the festival shared the same concern as myself with regards to the atmosphere of the party which hugely depended on the opening night film and as I mentioned in my review we were both pleasantly surprised by the upbeat movie filum. He was a friendly chap, I recall speaking to him most days at the festival last year, b*tching about the horrible films, complementing the awesome ones. I do remember his name, seriously, I do.

As I made the sensible choice of leaving the party before trains came to a halt, it dawned upon me, the end of the day, I knew I had a day off the next day, relaxation started kicking in like the caffeine does each morning with the first latte of the day. And so I thought to myself "well, so it begins"... I'll be seeing a lot of this over the next 2 weeks ... & like some lost tourist I took this snap, before hopping onto the tube back home:

In a nutshell, all's well that ends well, but wow what an extremely busy day. *phew* I'm knackered.

Weirdsville'

Runtime: 90 minutes
Directed by: Allan Moyle
Written by: Willem Wennekers
Release Date: November 16th 2007

Plot Outline:
Royce (Wes Bentley) and Dexter (Scott Speedman) are two slackers who live in the strange little town of Weedsville. When Royce's girlfriend Matilda (Taryn Manning) overdose's on their stash and dies, they decide to bury her in an abandoned Drive-In theater. Things get out of control when they discover Satanists performing a ritual sacrifice right where they were going to bury the body.

Overall Impressions:
The opening film for the 14th RDFF last year (which I naughtily didn't document at all) was quite depressing. It was a film that sent you to the after-party drinking your sorrows away like Devdas gone mad, rather than feeling good & mingling with the fellow film-enthusiasts and film-makers.

Admittedly, I had some reservations that this may end up being a similarly depressing flick or worse, maybe like Trainspotting that shows dead babies & throws you in a horrific limelight to portray the message that it's giving: "Drugs are Bad Mmmmmkay."

Thankfully the opening film for the 15th RDFF couldn't have been any better than this. It was an upbeat feel-good film with ample dosage of laugh-out-loud moments. Though it showed drug-usage and its possible repercussions, it did in a total tongue-in-cheek fashion. The plot does get rather silly and the whole tone reflects with the sense of humour attached.

The star of the show I'd have to say is Scott Speedman, who you probably recognise from the Underworld films. He seems very comfortable in his role here. He definitely has strong screen presence, it surprises me that he isn't getting the commercial success that I would attach to that attribute.

The Director did introduce the film and tis a shame we didn't get a chance to quiz him after the show as the film started quite late, but this lateness actually worked out to my advantage. More on that on my next post.

Though in essense its just another 'drugs are bad' film it's the emphasis on comedy and the way that it's delivered throws it into the above average film category. Certainly worth a watch.