So to the first EIFF to take place out of the context of Festival City in August. There are several opinions and counter rumours as to why this actually happened. None of which I feel like dragging through the neighborhood right now. I approached the programme this year with the outline that I wouldn't go to anything at Cineworld. First up was Louis Malle's Viva Maria. You can't go far wrong with some very safe burlesque positioned within an extended episode of "The High Chapparal" with "Wild Wild West" tendancies. The fact that Jeanne Moreau and Brigit Bardot are involved don't hurt none either. Of course, it's utter tosh but pretty good fun with the girls coming on like the Morecombe and Wise film, "The Magnificent Two" which came out around the same time as this did originally.
Good to see Mr McKay so we retired to a local pub between screenings. By the time we left there, the heavens had opened and things got a bit damp. Patti Smith: Dream of Life is a documentary which meanders in alternative chronology but on the whole is very good if you dig Patti. I'm sure that there's a double length version someplace and that it was probably difficult to shoehorn into just over 90 minutes. I particularly liked the bits where she went to visit her parents and also when she and Flea shared peeing on the hop stories. Her son's Jackson's likeness to Fred Smith is uncanny. It also features Benjamin Smoke on stage with the PSG group just before he died. Actually I thought he was dead by that time. There was no introduction or appearance by the director or Ms Smith. That sucked. If the film maker isn't up for attending then their film shouldn't be in the programme. Simple as that. So I still don't have the answer to my Geator dilemma but the quest goes on.
From there, it was on through a horrible, drunk strewn Edinburgh which seems to be under construction. The grassmarket is something of a maze to be negotiated. Packs of stag party fuckwits roaming with their pointy faces toward Burke and Hare's strip joint. There was a pertty bad vibe in town and there were little posses of police trying to keep a lid on it. It was the polar opposite of my experience in Stockholm the previous week. And these people could drink the scumhordes from here under the table twice still there was no overbearing nastiness.
So I finally made it to the Liquid Rooms just as The Five Aces were closing their set. It was underattended to the point of Phoenix Nights. The Primevals were their usual stonking selves and it seemed to by in a heartbeat. If you can make it to the show in Stereo tonight then do so.
More packs of ugly, pished idiots were negotiated on my way to the station and sitting on the train I was thinking to myself, fuck this for a game of soldiers. Ostensibly I have another couple of films today but I'm not altogether sure that I can get it together to drag myself into town. We'll see, loathe as I am to waste the tickets - the flesh and spirit are competing for the accolade of weakest.
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