Going into Foragers, the opening film of the Take One Action Film Festival here in Glasgow, and got given a lovely piece of Palestinian flatbread. So delicious I took a bite out of it before I even took the picture. Om nom nom nom nom!
I’d never seen Moulin Rouge! before. When the trailer came out, back in the day, I just thought, ach, I don’t fancy that. However, in the intervening years this has now meant 1 demerit point on my queer card, so when the GYFF had it as its closing film, I thought I’d rectify that. The…
To see us out, the GYFF closed with Moulin Rouge, and to get us ready for the film, a trio of can-can dancers put on a performance. They came down the aisles handing out flowers and I got this bad boy, before kicking their legs in the air. GYFF and the GFT really know how…
Wiping away tears of laughter. It would be really hard to write something as naturally funny as the folk in this film manage to be. A Bunch Of Amateurs is a documentary about Bradford Movie Makers, an amateur filmmaking club that has lasted nearly a century. It has a vibrant cast of characters, each with…
Going into seeing Corpse Bride, I remembered watching it at the pictures back in the 2000s and coming away rather underwhelmed. I remember thinking that the music felt very phoned-in. As I went for a rewatch in 2022, I struggled to remember if there were actual songs in it. Trouble is, Corpse Bride was the…
GYFF showing Napoleon Dynamite was just the excuse I needed for a rewatch. It wasn’t until it started that I realised, shit I must not have seen this since I first watched it, back in the mid-2000s. I hoped it was as good as I remembered. My trepidation was at least partially founded on the…
Fourth wall-breaking, meta whodunnit. Thoroughly enjoyable. An extra game to play throughout the film, if you’re a loser like me, is spotting actors who have been in Agatha Christie adaptations, and trying to remember from which story and which character they were. Last minute Lucian Msamati was also a delightful treat.
Duthchas is a beautiful film about life on the island of Berneray, combining a family archive of film shot in the 1960s with interviews with residents and their descendants. The title Duthchas is a word roughly translated here into Home, but has no direct translation in English, encompassing a wealth of ideas, including heritage, lineage,…
Ooft! Off The Rails is a documentary about a group of young guys in Guildford into parkour. The film follows their story from 15 to 22, showing the ups and downs of their lives as they try to turn their passion into a career. What this film is really about is class. It’s about the…
I didn’t like it. The Ballad of a Great Disordered Heart is a film made by Aidan O’Rourke, Mark Cousins and Becky Manson about the area known as Little Ireland in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and its cultural and musical legacy. I admit to a bit of trepidation going in, because I’d loved Iorram with Aidan…