2011
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Film Review: ‘An American in Paris’
★★★★★ Gershwin musicals don’t come better than Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris (1951) starring Gene Kelly, Oscar Levant, and Leslie Caron. The sumptuous colours, outstanding choreography and toe-tapping tunes are nothing but first-rate. It is easy to see why An American in Paris picked up 6 out of 8 Oscar nominations back in 1952.Set…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Miss Bala’
★★★★☆ Miss Bala (2011) is the latest film from Mexican director Gerado Naranjo, starring the stunningly beautiful Stephanie Sigman. Sigman plays Laura, a young woman who struggles to make it in the ‘Miss Bala’ beauty pageant and consequently find herself embroiled in the Mexican mafia. Forced into this nightmarish underworld, Laura is forced to aid…
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Special Feature: Shane Meadows and a new Stone Roses film?
Shane Meadows and The Stone Roses are said to be teaming up to produce a film to document their comeback tour later next year. Could it even be among the new film releases at the cinema in time for Christmas 2012? Having announced a trio of sell-out dates in Manchester’s Heaton Park in June next…
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BFI LFF 2011: ‘Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below’
★★★★☆ Director Makoto Shinkai’s previous effort 5 Centimetres Per Second (2007) is one of the most beautiful animes to ever grace the screen. Its tale of unrequited love told across three stages created a story more emotionally devastating than even the most assured romantic film. Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (2011) is…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: Award winners announced
The 55th BFI London Film Festival tonight announced its award winners at a Central London ceremony. Hosted by Marcus Brigstocke, the four awards were presented by some of the most respected figures in the film world, and to some of the most deserving films at this year’s LFF.Best Film: We Need To Talks About Kevin…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘The Great Bear’
★★★☆☆ Danish cinema has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence of late, with Susanne Bier’s Academy Award winner In a Better World (2010) and the consistently provocative work of Lars von Trier. However, Denmark is a country that has so far never been famed for its animation output – something Esben Toft Jacobsen is looking to amend…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Faust’
★★★★☆ Acclaimed Russian director Alexander Sokurov looks set to divide audiences at this year’s 55th BFI London Film Festival with his deeply profound, Venice Golden Lion-winning variation on Goethe’s tragedy Faust (2011) – a unique and transcendental adaptation, with all the characteristic flare and style we’ve come to expect from this pioneering director.After a dreamlike…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Footnote’
★★★☆☆ Following his Oscar-nominated, deeply moving anti-war film Beaufort (2007), director Joseph Cedar continues to raise his profile with Footnote (2011), a uniquely comedic exploration into issues of pride, sacrifice and jealousy through a fragile family dynamic which won him the prestigious best screenplay award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.The story of a fierce…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘We Have a Pope’
★★★★★ Italian director Nanni Moretti has been making films since 1973 and is often labelled as the ‘Italian Woody Allen’ by lazy critics with a passion for tenuous comparisons. Yet Allen, even on his best day, couldn’t match the skill, humour and ambition Moretti displays in his latest effort We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam,…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘A Dangerous Method’
★★★☆☆ Initial critical responses to David Cronenberg’s latest effort A Dangerous Method (2011) were less than positive following the film’s premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Now screening in the UK for the first time at the BFI London Film Festival, Cronenberg’s psychoanalytical drama is markedly flat and even unremarkable, yet is lifted by…
