Festivals: London Reviews
BFI London 2023 Review: PARADISE IS BURNING (Paradiset brinner) in a Vigorous Drama about Sisterhood
Directed by Mika Gustafson, the Swedish drama stars Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, and Safira Mossberg.
London 2012 Review: VILLAGE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Life's tough when you're a teenager. All those raging hormones. The confusion, the angst, the opposite (or same) sex, what to do with your life. Issues universal to all teenagers maybe, but compound that with being the only teenager...
Review: HOW TO RE-ESTABLISH A VODKA EMPIRE
Daniel Edelstyn's ramshackle but absolutely captivating documentary How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire is a pretty good argument for the idea that, if you're not sure how to tell your story, you should just throw all of it at the...
London 2011: HERE Review
Cartography is a strange discipline these days. With the physical geography of the world long since mapped (though that may change with global warming,) most cartographers are either concerned with political lines, or with incredibly detailed satellite imaging made possible...
London 2011: TRISHNA Review
Even in Michael Winterbottom's prolific and varied film career, it is probably inevitable that he would again tackle an adaptation of a classic english novel, and (as is befitting his Britishness) make a film set in India. His latest film...
London 2011: ALOIS NEBEL Review
Graphic novels might have a reputation for frivolity, but they also have been proven to be very good for dealing serious topics that require the kind of creativity offered to deal with trauma. Art Spiegelman's Maus and Joe Sacco's Safe...
London 2011: CARNAGE Review
It might seem that adapting a play for the screen is easy and fairly natural. You can recreate the setting, or add new ones. It's still a group of actors performing for an audience; they just deliver their words more...
London 2011: SNOWTOWN Review
Note to self: do not see films about killing and child abuse first thing in the morning. It will ruin your day. Which is to not to suggest that a film about such subjects is bad; far from it. When...
London 2011: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE Review
While cults and communes are not the exclusive domain of the United States, ones located within its borders are great fodder for artistic exploration. In the case of ones that abuse residents either physically or psychologically or both, we are...
London 2011: NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU Review
Even though she died nearly 50 years ago, Marilyn Monroe still holds a fascination for many film and conspiracy theory lovers. Director and co-screenwriter Gérald Hustache-Mathieu's film Nobody Else but You is a relatively light neo-noir thriller, with rather bizarre...
London 2011: THE KID WITH A BIKE (LE GAMIN AU VÉLO) Review
The Dardenne brothers might just be the most reliable film-makers working today. With a unique brand of realist cinema they've made a succession of critically lauded dramas concerned with Belgium's grimmer locales and inhabitants. Often involving low level criminality,...
London 2011: EARLY ONE MORNING (DE BON MATIN) Review
Early One Morning (De bon matin) opens with middle-aged banker Paul Wertret (Jean-Pierre Daroussin) entering his office as normal before shooting two of his fellow workers dead without hesitation. Through a series of flashbacks as Paul sits at his desk,...
London 2011: DARK HORSE Review
Todd Solondz is either a pretty happy guy with a great imagination, or rather miserable and willing to share. Or it could be somewhere in between; either way, he has a knack for creating misanthropic characters who just can't seem...
BIFF 2011: 13 ASSASSINS review
Miike Takashi's chanbara flick 13 Assassins will probably strike a lot of people as much more impressive than it really is, if they've never seen a Kurosawa movie, read Lone Wolf & Cub or even missed out on Yôji...
BIFF 2011: MEEK'S CUTOFF review
Woe betide anyone who turns up for Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff expecting anything like a typical Western. Languid, spare and dreamlike, other than the setting and the motif of a journey across vast, inhospitable stretches of America there's little else...
London 2010: A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN Review
A farcical comic drama form Norway, Hans Petter Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man stars Stellan Skarsgard as Ulrik, released from jail after a lengthy sentence for killing the man who slept with his wife. Re-entering the free world with more...
London 2010: SOMEWHERE Review
[Our thanks to Shelagh Rowan-Legg for the following review.]Quentin Tarantino received a great deal of controversy when the jury at the Venice International Film Festival, of which he was the head, awarded the Golden Lion to Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. Many...
London 2010: THE KING'S SPEECH Review
[Our thanks to Shelagh Rowan-Legg for the following review.]Winner of the Cadillac People's Choice Award at TIFF 2010, it's hardly surprising that The King's Speech would be getting probably the most attention of any film at LFF this year. It...
London 2010: MEEK'S CUTOFF Review
[Our thanks to Shelagh Rowan-Legg for the following review.]Everything and nothing happens in Kelly Reichardt's new film Meek's Cutoff. But that is precisely the point, and what makes this film a work of quiet genius. Unlike most tales of settlers...
London 2010: EVERYTHING MUST GO Review
[Our thanks to Shelagh Rowan-Legg for the following review.]There is a certain subgenre of American film that has evolved over the past 10 years I like to call the Sundance film. It's usually independent (or close to it), written...
