...like anybody cares

Needless to say, as a fledgling (wannabe) film reviewer, this experience has been a dream come true. Access to as many films as I like and a one blog per day minimum was a great learning experience and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. Yes there were mornings when I woke up with what felt like a hangover but was actually a bad case of square eyes from the three or four films I’d watched the day before on the big screen, but it wasn’t long before I was cured by the old hair of the dog, another big screen adventure, usually a press screening at 10.30am then on to another two films. But that’show they do it at festivals, you have to be totally rock n’ roll to withstand it!

So just briefly I would like to do a brief rundown of my favourite films, favourite elements and favourite performances of the festival.

First off, the award for Biggest Headf**k goes to Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void which was three straight hours of unrelenting madness. Other nominees were The Bad Lieutenant and Shutter Island, both of which were fairly nuts, but didn’t go on for quite so long, giving Enter the Void the advantage.

The award for Best Documentary goes to Colony which I just thought was the best documentary I’ve seen anywhere in years. I’m sorry Mr. Wardrop, I missed His and Hers, but you’ve won plenty already! Colony was an incredibly insightful documentary about the depletion of bee colonies across the United States in recent years. A beautifully made, harrowing documentary which is full of heart and completely mesmerising, I would recommend this film to anyone. What a fascinating subject!

I’m giving Best Actor awards and Best Actress awards but, hard as I try I don’t see any way around giving them to actors in the same film. I don’t want to do it, but my heart is forcing me to! Best Actor must go to Ciaran Hinds for his performance as paroled paedophile Bill in Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime. A truly tragic character, Ciaran Hinds nailed his mix of melancholy vulnerability and creepy menace. Not that he ever does anything truly menacing, but there’s definitely something unstable going on behind the eyes. Sad, scary and brilliantly complex, Hinds played his character in a completely different way than Dylan Baker played him in the Happiness, but no less triumphantly. My award for Best Actress of the festival goes to Shirley Henderson for her portrayal of the ever-miserable and aptly-named Joy also in Life During Wartime. Her mental health is reflected in her outward appearance, black eyes, enormous hair and so tiny she looks like a breeze would bringing her dancing along with it. Her little, angelic voice masks the disturbed and confused woman inside her. Ever word she utters sounds eloquent and tragic in the hands of this actress. She’s quickly becoming one of the rare actors who fall into the category of “I’d go see anything if she’s in it”.

OK, very quickly now because you’re all probably getting bored, I feel it is apt to include a Best CGI Character category in this age of technology and 3D and all that stuff. Beyond any doubt my favourite CGI character, however brief his appearance may be, is the frog who stole the Queens tarts in Alice in Wonderland. A huge round of applause for him folks!

And the Best Film of the Festival is always a difficult one because I saw so many very different and equally brilliant films. So I’m gonna just have to go completely with my own personal taste and give it to the film that I had the most fun watching. And that film was the very wonderful Whip It! A genre that has always fascinated me with its ability to give kind of profound insight into what it means to be yourself and the state of humanity itself, the teen movie is always a great slice of life for the time and place it is set as it is usually immersed in the pop culture of the time. Look at 80’s teen movies, they’re like time capsules. Whip It!, for me was a brilliant, brilliant teen movie. It features a complicated heroine, Bliss, who often makes very wrong decisions and who slowly tries to find out who she is and over time, she does. It also features a wide variety of grown-ups with equally complicated issues. Bliss’s mom, who is a former beauty queen and still incredibly beautiful but works as a postman in the most unflattering uniform ever invented makes for a very sympathetic villain. Now, don’t get the wrong idea about Whip It! It’s not a serious, whingy, moany, emo film, it is the best fun I’ve had in the cinema in ages. Roller derby! Who would’ve thought it could be so cool. Hot girls with silly hair, red lips, short skirts and fishnets. I’m mad up for that! So, although its probably not anybody else’s favourite film of the festival, I have to say it was mine and I will most certainly be checking it out on its cinematic release!

That’s it for this year folks. If you love listening to me prattle on about movies you’ll be pleased to know I do it all year round on my blog Charlene’s Film Blog so check it out and leave me comments! You have no idea what a thrill I get from people dropping a comment!

Thanks for listening, I hope to be back next year for more movie hangovers and Jameson hangovers

Charlene

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