Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Updates, Headlines (well, one anyway) and Trailers (at last?)

Update #1 - Smartphone

Yes, we've finally got one of those Smartphones. I say At last, 'cause Alice has been holding off for just ages.

Firstly, she was anxious about the expense. Gosh, we have been spending like crazy lately. I say, You only live once, enjoy it while you can! She's anxious about potential disasters that might need her to dip into her tiny and diminishing pot of savings - like the pending (for years now) roof repair. But since she's no longer Underground, she might even try and sort that out herself. I bet she will, too: she can be exceedingly efficient when she gets stuck in, you know. [Blushes from Alice here, though she is still typing it in... ]

And, then of course, her poor overworked Credit Card had already been loaded with the cost of tickets for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the upcoming Book Festival, and the Fringe too. Summerhall had cunningly sent her an email and when she looked at their site, several shows appealed. Dance Base too. But, I said, That's even more fun to look forward to in August! Not to mention the wonderful special screenings at the good old Cameo, like the Gala of Amy (with all the Q & A afterwards) an RSC production of Othello with a black Iago in September, and good old Cumberbatch as Hamlet in October. I know, that's a lot of links we've given you here: but do look at some of them, please. And watch this space. . .

Secondly, she wasn't sure how she'd manage to learn a whole new bunch of skills, like tapping, pressing, and swiping plus trying to type on a virtual keboard. And what on earth is  the difference between "Aps" and "Widgets"? [Where do you humans come up with these fanciful names!] She's still finding it quite frustrating trying to negotiate websites without being able to SEE all her open tabs by name. And so on.  

Hacker's Keyboard logo

Well, we'd only had the thing three days or so, and she was on it almost non-stop: there was quite a lot of swearing and Where's it gone! Yet she'd soon downloaded an alternative keyboard called Hacker's (but really nothing to do with hacking, unless, I suppose, you are a clandestine hacker) which has  V   <  and  >  keys to move the cursor to get to the inevitable mistakes that need correcting. Much better than the generic Android keyboard with that horrible little green line+blob thingy which never moved where she wanted it to and only had an <x> which just deletes the last character put it. So now she's happier about that bit, anyway. Me, I just watch it all in amazement.

As you can see in the first photo above, she sent for a "universal" (Hhh!) "sock", but it was too small, so Ba appropriated it for a cozy sleeping bag. Then Alice took it over as a protective cover for her beloved iPod, and made a stripey one for the phone, out of - a sock! That's true Alice ingenuity, just like her namesake.

Update #2 - Preparing for the Festival
 

Alice was off to the Fringe Office yesterday, to collect a few more tickets. The High Street is already full of buskers and performers and stalls. So of course, she had to stop and look.

This talented young woman was applying henna patterns.  Alice succumbed. It takes about half an hour to dry into the skin, before the paste can be removed. Then it's tarra, tarraah.

So we spent the time in the upstairs of one of those Coffee Chains, reading over the Fringe Program and making our final decisions.

[Click on these tiny little pix to see the details.]

Headline #1 - Film Festival
We'll never arrive at the Trailers if we spend too long on the wonderful Film Festival, so here's a few snippets instead.

Desert Dancer
Alice's favourite was Desert Dancer, which she saw on the second night of the UK premiere. The film was a drama about the dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who defied the Iranian authorities by setting up an underground dance company, was imprisoned, and later escaped to Paris. Another audience member wrote a very good review on her blog. 

The photo is from Richard Raymond's delighted Tweet. "The last #DesertDancer screening & the audience breaks into V for victory Words can not express thanku." It was actually great fun to do, as well as very moving. Alice has (somewhat childishly, I think) indicated herself with an arrow. [Click to see larger, as usual.]

Under Milk Wood  

The 2015 version of Under Milk Wood is an amazingly creative and imaginative reworking of Dylan Thomas' work. It's visually completely stunning: incredible cimematography and editing. Acting, costumes and singing all top notch. Wow all round.

It's also hilariously amusing, I must point out, before Alice swoons away altogether. In fact she went up afterwards and spoke to the cinematographer, Andy Hollis, and effusively voiced her appreciation. When she said the opening tracking shot was "very Tarkovsky", he told her he'd filmed it with a miniature camera attched to a remote contolled model helicopter!

On YouTube Rhys Ifans describes it as A beautiful, visual, sonic banquet of a film. The clip is as good as a trailer: take a look. General release isn't due til November, so put it on your watchlist. Get one for yourself on Letterboxd.

Last Days in the Desert
Alice had managed to buy a ticket to hear Ewan McGregor give a very relaxed, spontaneous and lively interview about his life in acting and film. See an excellent account on wandywatson's blog. He also touched on how he came to take his role/s in Last Days in the Desert, where he plays both Jesus and the Devil. Get more details in his  interesting press interview, posted by EIFF on YouTube.

Later we saw the actual film: slow, meditative, hardly any background music (or maybe even none at all) unusual and intriguing. This is a film about the biblical Jesus that treats him as a believably real individual, albeit one who has issues with his father / Father.

Haskell Wexler

Alice especially enjoys listening to (and seeing) directors, cinematographers and actors talk about film in general, or their experience and work on a particluar film. For a few festivals in the past this element disappeared from the EIFF programme, because of losing out on some grants - so it was great to see it come back. Even famous workers in cinema love to recieve appreciation, as well as curiosity about their films.

Haskell Wexler, at 93, was one hell of a phenomenon all to himself. Have a look at the EIFF Clip Reel of his films. It became clear what a passionate, politically committed individual he is. You can also see clips from his film Who Needs Sleep, edited by EIFF with excerpts from the following Q&A. We were there! Alice has pre-ordered a copy of his Medium Cool movie - which appeals to her especially since she remembers all the political upheavals of the 60's.

This catching-up lark has taken us into the wee small hours again - so the promised Trailers will have to wait a few more days. Sorry, folks, but sleep calls.