EIFF: Le Donk and ATP Parties Reviewed

I can tell you this year's EIFF has nearly taken it out of me. I decided to go for a swim this morning to try and remember what its like to not be in a cinema and to feel...well just to feel anything to be honest. In the last two weeks, my muscles for doing anything physical have atrophied into a sitting half awake position and consequently I sank to the bottom of the pool like a stone the second I jumped in.

There whilst quietly and calmly drowning, elements of all the films I've seen played themselves out for me in a hallucinatory underwater montage. Oh look, there's Charlotte Gainsbourg diving to the bottom and picking up a pair of rusty scissors. What's she doing with them? Oh no no no...AND CLEAR!...TTTZZZZZ THADUMP!

It's amazing what CPR, mouth to mouth and electrical shock pads can do to a wet, comatose film journalist.

Before I describe the ATP party, I must first give an honourable mention to the Le Donk & Scorz-Ayz-Ee party that followed Shane Meadows hilarious new film of the same name a couple of nights previously. A spoof rockumentary about a band roadie played by the brilliant Paddy Considine, Meadows allegedly shot this low-to-no-budget faux documentary with friends and favours in a mere five days.

In keeping in with the film's spirit as well as its budget, the party was hacked together for a mere £300 and had the (deliberate) feel and look of a rubbish school disco. Even the invites on photocopied bits of paper were crap. Held in St Peter's Hall in Edinburgh's SouthSide, there were help yourself buckets of a dark malty lager, free tequila, a few balloons and a DJ. Paddy Considine and Nottingham rapper Scorz-Ayz-Ee turned up and remained in character throughout. Scorz-Ayz-Ee performed a filthy bad taste but hilarious rap, which involved a young lady's nostrils. I'll let you're imagination run riot on that one and Considine lent equally dubious support by rapping badly and reading his lines off a cardboard box. It was the funniest thing I've seen this festival.

Overall it was a slow burning event and took a while to pick up a head of steam but once it got going there was a fair crowd dancing away and outside the inevitable crowd of smokers watched the legendary Scottish Har roll in from nearby Arthur's Seat and envelop the church in its ghostly haze.

They also had a raffle with really rubbish prizes and you were allowed to take fistfuls of tickets out the box to increase your chances. I didn't win anything but one woman did win the giant inflatable banana and then spent half an hour kicking it around the venue. It was a fun and laid back event and there should definitely be more like them. Maybe we could all start a ‘low budget film and low budget party' film festival as a'short' to the ‘main feature' in future years.

All Tomorrow's Parties

And now to the big flashier and more expensive event.  So my last stand at having fun so you don't have to was at last night's UK premiere of All Tomorrow's Parties (see previous blog). It was a thoroughly enjoyable romp that lived up to the hype.

I arrived in plenty of time to wrangle my ticket and discovered a fairly hefty queue stretching up Lothian Road. There were also three donkeys parked by the entrance and a church organ that seemed to play itself. Well, what else would you expect to see there? It is the dodgy end of Lothian Road after all.

I joined the queue and was immediately set upon by Butlins style camp attendants with loudhailers, or perhaps they were air-stewards. They told me how nice it was to see me back again for another summer and they were looking forward to doing with me again what we apparently got up to last year before I escaped and they moved onto another hapless victim and tortured him with their all-in-the-best-possible-taste nonsense.

A skiffle band of sorts struck up and semi-naked Hawaiian hula dancers gyrated their stuff.

Then as you entered the foyer a tall princess in a pink ballroom gown dished out bingo cards for later on whilst a slightly camp, er, well, camp attendant harangued us all with compliments and innuendo.

Up the stairs and as you pass between the landing and the doors that take you into the venue, a small rock band were literally crushed into a tight corner, playing away as we passed them. They had a mere two fans dressed like 60's hippies who danced like it was Woodtsock all over again.

Once you're in the venue it really is something.

It's a terrific space. It was a beautiful cinema in the old days called The Caley before it was closed down and turned into the horrors that were Revolution and Century 2000. I saw The Empire Strikes Back there on its giant screen in 1980 and then the next time I went it was the opening of the nightclub.

I stood there with my jaw agape and tried not cry. Parked right next to the Subway club, the two venues took Lothian Road's reputation and character on a massive nosedive. Walking safely past this area late at night at the weekend usually involved having an armed escort. The police and local residents must be breathing a sigh of relief for the first time in years.

That someone has bothered to not just turn it into a music venue but actually half restore it to its former glory with the added potential of showing films as last night proved gives me hope for the human race. For how many examples are there of something beautiful being replaced by crap and then returning it to something beautiful again?

The HMV Picture House is a phoenix from the ashes and with Edinburgh's reputation for trying to and often succeeding in closing down every decent music, film and arts venue (The Old Bongo Club, The Venue, The Old Odeon, an attempt on The Queens Hall, etc. etc.) and combined with the loss of La Belle Angelle, The Gilded Balloon, The Bridge Jazz Bar in the Old Town Fire we have this new place, a rallying cry to  stick two fingers up to all the corruption, short-sightedness and disgrace of the men in charge.

I can't remember, but I believe there's an arts festival sometime later in the year and it might be handy if we didn't shut down all the available spaces and turn them into fast food outlets, nightclubs and modern new build homes when there's plenty of beautiful empty buildings ready to convert. Just a thought.

Anyway, I digress. Inside the venue the seaside resort theme continued. There was a smiling, waving sunbather on a deckchair, throw the sponge, hook a duck, a cocktail terrace, free ice cream, a ukulele band, a puppet show and eventually bingo.

Scattered throughout, attractive attendants with loudhailers busied themselves with organisational duties and some cheerleading beach ball girls danced through the crowd smiling and giggling all the way.

It was a terrific effort and the bonus for me was discovering the beautiful balcony area with its red velvet-ish seating area high above with its own bar and another band squeezed into another corner to boot.

Two large video screens showed an endless montage of archive holiday camp footage and for a while I was alarmed at the prospect that this might be the film I'd come to see.

Eventually it was time for the actual film which I thoroughly enjoyed (see previous blog) followed by the incredible tinnitus enhancing excellence of Mogwai.

All in all, the organisers put on a great show. It reminded me of Edinburgh's very own equivalent, many years ago, in the form of Fred Deakin's Going Places Club which took over equally large venues in similar fashion.

Deakin eventually moved to London, but took the Going Places idea there and refashioned it as Impotent Fury at the 333 Club in Old Street. There it was spin the wheel, crazy golf and all manner of fun interactive madness. Like last night's ATP event there's obviously a need for these kind of nostalgic flashbacks in a big way.

ATP have other events on in the future including Grizzly Bear at KOKO in Camden on August 18^th.