2011
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Film Review: ‘Paranormal Activity 3’
★☆☆☆☆ After the generally well-received original Paranormal Activity (2009) and its quick successor, the coma-inducing Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), it’s no surprise to see Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) topping the UK box office. Yet directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have managed to create a cataclysmic abomination of a film, forever tarnishing the reputation of…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Sleeping Sickness’
★★☆☆☆ Ulrich Köhler’s latest drama Sleeping Sickness (2011) is a difficult and tiresome film that leaves a sour taste of lethargy and disappointment in the mouth. Set in Cameroon, it focuses on Dr. Velten (Pierre Bokma), who for the past five years has been managing a sleeping sickness programme. His wife and child return to…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Into the Abyss’
★★★★☆ Werner Herzog returns for the second time this year with another extremely powerful and moving documentary, Into the Abyss (2011). After the success of Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) earlier this year it was hard to imagine where Herzog would go next, and the German director could not have picked a more radically different…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘The Deep Blue Sea’
★★★☆☆ After an 11-year hiatus, British director Terence Davies returns to screens with his passionately faithful adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea (2011) – which closed the 55th BFI London Film Festival – starring the ever-wonderful Rachel Weisz (star of the upcoming The Bourne Legacy [2012]) and Tom Hiddleston (Archipelago [2010]).Rattigan’s play is…
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Film Review: ‘The Help’
★★★☆☆ Tate Taylor’s Oscar-baiting The Help (2011) – starring Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer – is an incredibly well-crafted film with an impressive cast, that not only tells a story of racial injustice, but also of the gender inequality of the 1950s. The film has its moments of twee sentimentalism,…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: The best films of LFF
After two-and-a-half weeks of cinema heaven, he 55th BFI London Film Festival came to a close this past Thursday with the UK premiere of Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea. It also marked the final LFF for Sandra Hebron, who steps down as the festival’s Artistic Director after nine successful years at the healm, to…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Target’
★☆☆☆☆ Russian cinema has a long and rich history of producing exceptional sci-fi movies. From the pioneering silent films of Protazanov and Zhuravlyov, to the deeply philosophical films of Tarkovsky and Lopishansky, Russia has always used this speculative science based genre to comment on social issues rather than merely forms of escapism. Screening at this…
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Film Review: ‘The Ides of March’
★★★☆☆ The Ides of March (2011) – directed by and starring George Clooney – takes a swipe at the ruthless back-room deals and media hype that lie at the heart of American politics. Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) is running against Senator Pullman in a presidential primary race for the Democratic Party ticket. The film opens…
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Film Review: ‘The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn’
★★★★☆ When the announcement came that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson would be bringing Hergé’s famous boy detective Tintin to the big screen in The Adventures of Tintin (2011), most of us thought that if any pair could do the books justice, it would be those two master craftsmen. Rumours swirled that it was going…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Anonymous’
★★☆☆☆ Roland Emmerich – either by his own hand or by Hollywood’s – has been typecast as a multi-million dollar blockbuster director who specialises in depicting post apocalyptic scenarios involving aliens, mutated monster or catastrophic natural disasters. With his latest film, the Elizabethan drama Anonymous (2011), Emmerich seems to have departed from his well-established oeuvre,…