robotnic.co

Day 10
Friday has to be one of my favourite days at EIFF.

It began with Superhero Me at the Cameo – a.k.a. the comfiest cinema in the universe. Enveloped in its cozy red seats, we were swept away on a magical journey of cheap spandex, a novice superhero named SOS, and a network of eccentrics. Superhero Me is a documentary from Steve Sale, a first-time filmmaker who wondered – “Long before Kick-Ass!” –  what it would be like to become a superhero. Quickly taking action, he shot his forays into real life comic book filmmaking on home video equipment, camera phones, and whatever else he could get his hands on. It’s an enjoyable romp, with a poignant message to be found in later scenes with an Orlando-based superhero named Master Legend. Unfortunately it was ill-projected, so we missed the subtitles while he spoke with an Italian vigilante and some other details. Not amazing, but certainly enjoyable.

After getting some work done(!) I met up with a friend from home and we returned to the Cameo for Mai Mai Miracle. Directed by Sunao Katabuchi, once assistant to Hayao Miyazaki, it’s an autobiographical anime with Studio Ghibli flavour. Beautifully drawn, it has some sweet characters but does not quite develop into anything more than a parochial childhood tale.

Late that evening I caught the UK premiere of Get Low. Starring Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, it’s the directorial debut of cinematographer Aaron Schneider. Equal parts real-life legend and folk tale, it’s the story of a Southern hermit who threw his own funeral party. Set in 1930s Tennessee, the film explores what might inspire a man to do such a thing. Duvall is excellent as the misunderstood and curmudgeonly Felix Bush. Bill Murray provides comic relief in a strong performance as Frank Quinn, while Lucas Black makes a great appearance as his young protégé. Beautifully shot with excellent performances, it’s a solid, enjoyable picture. Aaron Schnieder also appeared for a Q&A to discuss working with Duvall and Murray.

After a spot of bowling, some friends and I made our way to the Honeymooner party. Star of the film Gerard Kearns was in attendance – you’ll recognise him as Ian Gallagher from Shameless. It was an interesting night to say the least, and perhaps the less that is said, the better. Let’s just say the brandy cocktails were a bit of a knock-out.

Day 11
On Saturday morning, Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins’ flash mob took place, where they danced to Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West ditty. Shortly afterwards, their event and screening took place. The 8 1/2 Foundation was founded by Mark and Tilda as a project that encourages children to celebrate cinema by way of a new kind of birthday – their 8 1/2th. The event began with Mark, Tilda, and a group of friends dancing around Filmhouse 1 with signs, before waving a flag with “The State of Cinema” splashed across it while a spotlight raced around the room. Quite disorienting, but everyone involved had a blast.

It’s rather a cool venture. By inviting children to celebrate film, it also encourages an active involvement from schools and clubs to become members and discover all kinds of films to which children might never have been introduced. The event rounded off with a screening of Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon.

It was a quiet evening, for which I was thankful, as it was soon time to make our way to the closing night party! It was a fantastic night at the Caves in Edinburgh, a maze of a venue. I spotted Brian Cox (cutting in line right in front of me, the cheek!) and Jonathan Ames, writer of The Extra Man. I also spoke briefly to Morag McKinnon, director of Donkeys, who said that she had been approached by a buyer, so keep an eye out!

A brilliant night was had all round.

Day 12
As predicted, Edinburgh was a ghost town on Sunday. The combination of the usual Sunday silence around the cinematic triangle (locals have a less PG name for the area) and the departure of delegates made the festival feel truly over.

The delegate centre was a sight to behold, and pretty much summed up how I felt after almost 2 weeks of hard festing. There were boxes of magazines all around, the lights were dimmed, and there were people strewn across couches, curled up on chairs, and falling asleep into their own cupped hands.

After lunch, I decided to catch one last film. The last day of EIFF is second-chance Sunday, when the picks for Best of the Fest are screened. I caught Hotel Atlantico, a Brazillian film by Suzana Amarel. If you’ve been reading about ‘Slow Cinema’ in Sight and Sound lately, you’ll know the type. It’s the story of a solitary alcoholic actor traveling through the south of Brazil. The meandering storyline involves all sorts of absurd situations and human relations. I was dozing off at the beginning, then it became somewhat more engaging through the middle and downright strange towards the end.

After an evening of packing and trying not to collapse in a heap, I rounded off my festival with a party at the delegate centre followed by a few hours at the Blue Blazer (the unofficial pub of the fest). It was a lovely way to finish up, and after some solemn goodbyes it was time to shuttle back home to Glasgow.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my EIFF adventures as much as I’ve enjoyed having them.

Check back soon for my interview with Pixar animators Bobby Podesta and Mike Venturini!

I met with director John Stalberg at Edinburgh International Film Festival to discuss his film HIGH School. Starring Adrien Brody, Michael Chiklis, and Colin Hanks, HIGH School is a comedy in which top-of-the-class Henry (Matt Bush) reconnects with his burn-out friend Travis (Sean Marquette) and do what Travis does best – get high. Soon after, the principal of their school announces that he is mandating a drug test of the entire student body.

The only logical conclusion? Everybody must get stoned.

Adrien Brody gives an outlandish performance as Psycho Ed, their drug dealer. The chaos that ensues is hilarious, with plenty of laughs peppered throughout. With a straight-laced Michael Chiklis as the school Principle and Colin Hanks getting loose as the cool vice-dean, it’s The Girl Next Door with drugs instead of porn.

How did you go about researching the film?
Oh, years and years of research… I did what most people do to research the topic of marijuana, I just went to college. I went to Boulder, Colorado, and I’m from L.A., so I’m kind of from the two weed capitals of the world. I met a bunch of characters along the way that were involved with growing, selling, smoking marijuana.

Your teens are quite realistic – how did you make them as real as possible and accurate for this time period?
I have a lot of friends who are in the skating world, and friends who own this shoe company [he points to his skate shoes]. So I just spent a lot of time with them and listened to the way that they talked. We’d go to barbecues and hang out, listen to the way they spoke. There’s one line where Travis says, “I can’t wait to have an ex-wife, man, I can’t wait for that s***!” That was just taken from this skater. He said that out of nowhere one night, it was a total non-sequitur. It struck a chord with me, like this urge to be an adult – to have adult problems. It was something that seemed very true of teenage kids, especially a kid like Travis who is constantly s*** on by authority figures. All I wanted as a kid was to become an adult so that authority figures had no control over me, so that’s kind of Travis’ dream. That was one thing. The same guy also said one night, at like 3 in the morning – he said “I’m going to go home, get changed, and then it begins.” So I put that line in the same scene.

So I just kind of pick things from people. You have to have a good ear. I’m constantly sniping people’s names and little bits of dialogue.

You mentioned authority figures. Did that play into how you wrote Colin Hanks’ character? He’s kind of an authority figure who doesn’t want to be.
Yeah. It’s interesting, I pitched him all this back story that doesn’t exist in the script. I said, “You’re the kid who did well in high school – was on the track team, had a good-looking girlfriend, really had it together. You went to college, you started smoking weed, took some harder drugs, and your life started falling apart. You had to go to rehab to get it together. You had this bright future and kind of messed it up. So you gravitated back towards the high school where things felt right, but now you’re in this lesser position and you have to take crap from the principal.”

He’s the guy who’s relatable with the kids, and is kind of the barometer for how stoned the school gets. In a weird way, he regresses back to his college years. There’s something a little bit kind of sad about his regression, and about him, period. He’s stuck in this banal, horrible job, listening to the meanderings of some idiot.

Adrien Brody is also a big presence in the film. Did you give him a lot of direction or did you just let him go all out?
We talked about it and figured it out. We have a very similar approach to filmmaking – he prepares, he gets it ready. When he shows up on set he’s ready to go. He knows exactly what he’s going to do, we’ve discussed it, and we try to get it to be as good as we can. Sometimes we would improvise a scene, and we’d riff. I’d almost be in the scene, working on things in the moment. I think there was only one idea that he had that I didn’t love – that’s how great he is at making the scenes better. Everything he suggested was great, and it makes me look good. That’s what makes him such a great actor – he’s not only good at what you give him to do. He was honestly like a dream come true. He’s so good, he’s so funny, he’s so collaborative.

What was your favourite scene to shoot?
I guess it was the scenes in the grow room, when the kids are trying to steal the stuff. There was one really quick moment where Psycho Ed (Brody) discovers that his keef is missing from the freezer. There’s a whole scene that takes place there that I cut out of the movie and used as a teaser trailer online. It’s like this whole There Will Be Blood style monologue that he does about karma, standing there surrounded by his weed.

I noticed there were elements of The Girl Next Door – the kid who gets dragged into temptation and has someone to repay, etc. Were there any films that you tried to emulate in some way?

Films like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Risky Business. You know there’s the scene in Ferris Bueller where he’s racing home, and the girls are out sunbathing, and he stops to introduce himself? That’s kind of the opposite of Henry. He’d love to be able to say hi to this cute girl next door, but he’s not equipped with that at the beginning of the story. Those are the kinds of movies I tried to emulate – anything with a little bit of seriousness or paranoia or pressure about school – something that’s real about being a teenager. I drew on a lot of my own experiences.

In terms of high school movies, you managed to create some realistic characters.

I tried to make the two main characters realistic then have these three kind of bad guys who are kind of crazy – Dr Gordon, Psycho Ed, and Sebastian – who orbit around them. When the kids start to go downhill, these three start colliding with one another. I thought that if the kids weren’t realistic, I’d lose the audience.

HIGH School had its international premiere here at EIFF, and is currently seeking UK distribution.