Tags archives: Alan Cumming
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2 years ago
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Courtesy of Obscured Pictures
It's probably safe to say that Jono McLeod’s documentary My Old School isn’t quite like anything we’ve seen before, both in subject and format. This inventive and charmingly told tale about a renowned Scottish hoax is probably not familiar to most Americans, all the better for us to watch it unfold and deliver its surprises. Using current interviews, old footage and news reports, and many animated sequences, McLeod puts together a fascinating portrait of Brandon Lee (not the late actor), his former classmate at the posh Bearsden Academy in Glasgow. Though Lee agreed to be interviewed, he declined to appear on camera, resulting in one of the film’s most interesting elements: venerable Scots actor Alan Cumming “stars” as Lee, expertly lip-synching his story. (All of the other film’s characters appear as themselves, as animated versions of themselves, or both.)
The tale begins in 1993, when Lee enters fifth form at Bearsden Academy, located in one of Glasgow's fancier neighborhoods. Tall and somewhat odd-looking, he stands out from his 16-year-old classmates in several ways, including his deep voice , unplaceable accent, and formal clothes.
Courtesy of Obscured Pictures
His fellow classmates soon find out that Lee had previously lived in Canada with his late opera-singer mother, toured with her extensively, and had been privately tutored, which explained his accent and advanced age. His ”mask-like” appearance was due to plastic surgery[...]
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