Festivals
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Cannes 2012: ‘The Paperboy’ review
★★☆☆☆ Following up on the success of his previous film, Precious (2009), Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy (2012) is a star-studded oddity; an overly-directed pot-boiler unable to decide how seriously it wants to take itself. Narrated by housemaid Anita (Macy Gray), The Paperboy begins with a murder in a small town near Miami. Although everyone else…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Killing Them Softly’ review
★★★★☆ In competition for the Palme d’Or and one of the most anticipated American entries of the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Andrew Dominik returns with Killing Them Softly (2012), a sharp, noirish thriller which gave an already rain-soaked Cannes a slick masterclass in how genre movies should be done. Adapted by Dominik from George V.…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: Festival roundup
The wonderful Sheffield Doc/Fest sees off its second summer and its 19th year with some fantastic titles, events and workshops – particularly the opening night double bill of Doc/Fest co-production From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012) (with live accompaniment from British Sea Power) and StudioCanal’s hugely moving Searching for Sugar Man (2012). It…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: The Miners’ Hymns review
★★★☆☆ In Decasia (2002), experimental American filmmaker Bill Morrison explored the fragility of film by looking at decomposing celluloid. In The Miners’ Hymns (2010), the director does something very similar but on a grander scale. By slowing down archive footage of the mining communities in the North West of England, and pairing them neatly with…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: From the Sea to the Land Beyond
★★★★★ A group of waitresses in starched white uniforms stand awkwardly in a row, fiddling with their hair and giggling nervously by the seaside promenade, unsure whether the camera is taking a photograph or film. This is one of many fragments of history which documentary director Penny Woolcock has put together in From the Sea…
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Sheffield DocFest 2012: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry review
★★★★☆ Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) is, like all great documentaries, far wider in scope than merely its subject. It’s a fascinating exploration of the Chinese artist and influential tweeter’s ongoing activism, and raises important and relevant questions about an artist’s responsibility in political life and the ever-changing roles that social media may…
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Cannes 2012: Haneke’s ‘Amour’ wins Palme d’Or
After two weeks of screenings, press conferences and red carpets, Austrian director Michael Haneke’s latest film Amour was awarded the coveted Palme d’Or this evening. Haneke joins an elite club of directors to win the prestigious prize twice, having also won in 2009 for The White Ribbon, and fought off competition from Leos Carax, Cristian…
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Cannes 2012: Palme d’Or and other award predictions
As the 65th edition of the Cannes Film Festival draws to a close, predictions are rife about who will win the prestigious Palme d’Or prize, amongst a host of other awards on offer. The field is packed full of former winners (Haneke, Loach, Mungiu and Kiarostami) and each of these all have good claims on…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Holy Motors’ review
★★★★☆ French-born director Leos Carax returns to cinema screens this year with Holy Motors (2012), his first feature film for over a decade (since 1999’s Pola X ), which premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and has since become somewhat of a late favourite for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize. It’s a truly bizarre,…
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Cannes 2012: ‘The Angels’ Share’ review
★★★★☆ Named after the term that describes the amount of alcohol that evaporates from a cask of whisky, The Angels’ Share (2012) finds director Ken Loach – Cannes’ only British Palme d’Or contender – returning to more light-hearted, yet invariably true-to-life and politically-tinged form. Newcomer Paul Brannigan plays Robbie, an untoward young man who, by…