A lot has changed in twelve years. Kevin Smith has spoiled his copybook with Jersey Girl and the Quick Stop Convenience Store has burned down. Not that the two things are necessarily related, but it means that the careers of Smith and foul-mouthed shop assistant duo Dante Hicks and Randal Graves are in need of resurrection. And so it’s over to the Edinburgh International Festival, where Clerks II gets its UK Premiere at 8pm tonight (Friday). I caught an early screening of the movie and it’s safe to say that, although the pressure was on, Smith hasn’t disappointed his fans. There’s a touch of Jersey Girl romantic mush towards the end, as Dante (Brian O’Halloran) weighs up his feelings for fast-food restaurant boss Becky (Rosario Dawson), but up to that point the film is a torrent of pop culture anti-PC filth, mostly spewing out of the mouth of loveable idiot Randal (Jeff Anderson). Yes, indeed: The Lord Of The Rings is “three movies of people walking to a f***ing volcano”, while “inter-species erotica” is a sight to behold.
Along with Clerks II, some of the best movies I’ve seen this week in Edinburgh are American comedies with one foot in the independent sector and the other in the studio system. Count among them Art School Confidential, the latest collaboration between the Ghost World pairing of director Terry Zwigoff and cartoonist Daniel Clowes. It’s like a typical Hollywood college movie with better characters, smarter jokes and a true understanding of art. Then there’s a personal favourite, Little Miss Sunshine. A dysfunctional family, loaded into a camper van, heading across the country to a kid’s beauty pageant – it could have been a Chevy Chase-style disaster, but with Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin and (an absolute revelation) Steve Carell tapping into a dark vein beneath the comedy, it’s one of the funniest, perceptively written films of the year.
The Brits aren’t being outdone. Top portrait photographer Rankin teams up with co-director Chris Cottam for his first feature film, Lives Of The Saints. It starts off a bit Lock Stock, with its dodgy geezers on the streets of Haringey, but quickly goes all magic realism on the audience as an abandoned child brings supernatural luck to the characters. The film goes nowhere with its clever concept, but it looks fantastic. On the surface, London To Brighton could be another gritty British drama overdosing on social realism with homeless runaways and prostitutes as the key characters. But what emerges is a mean, lean, urban noir that’s downbeat but utterly compelling. Then there’s the best of the Brits so far, Brothers Of The Head. Brian Aldiss’ 1977 novel about conjoined twins who form a band is transformed into a brilliantly unpredictable, dark-themed, punk-fuelled, mock-doc tragedy by the makers of Lost In La Mancha. The music is great, the story magically off-the-wall and the photography by Dogma stalwart Anthony Dod Mantle strangely beautiful.
One final word, though, for the film that is conceptually head and shoulders above anything else on show so far. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait follows the French footballer for the entire 90 minutes of a Real Madrid game. Scottish artist Douglas Gordon trained seventeen cameras on Zidane, focusing on the little details of the player and wider vistas of the pitch. It completely reinvents how you look at a football match. And, after his ignominious World Cup exit, Zidane again gets sent off for an out-of-nowhere moment of madness in this game. Red card for Zidane the player, man of the match for Zidane the movie.
Alan Morrison