Joseph Walsh
-
Blu-ray Review: ‘City of Women’
★★★☆☆ From its initial shot of a train hurtling along a rural track and entering a pitch-black tunnel, Federico Fellini’s City of Women (La città delle donne, 1980) screams sex from the very beginning. This frank, highly personal dissection of feminism in 1980s Italy succeeds the master director’s echoing his more succinct and potent previous…
-
DocHouse Presents: In My Mother’s Arms review
★★★★☆ Set in the hazardous district of Al-Sadr in downtown Baghdad, Atia and Mohamed Al Daradji’s heart-wrenching 2011 documentary In My Mother’s Arms follows the story of unlikely hero Husham Al Thabe, who works tirelessly to improve the lives of thirty Iraqi orphans. Shot with a modest handheld camera, the sibling directors capture the action…
-
Film Review: ‘Lore’
★★★★☆ Opening with the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, Cate Shortland’s brave and expertly handled second feature, Lore (2012), traverses difficult territory with grace and eloquence. As the Allies march on Berlin, Lore (Saskia Rosendahal), a blue-eyed, blond-haired prodigy of the Hitler Youth, is left with the task of getting herself and the surviving…
-
DVD Review: ‘Valley of Song’
★★★☆☆ Beginning as a train hurtles down a track, accompanied by a deep, baritone Welsh choir booming out over the opening the credits, Gilbert Gunn’s 1953 film Valley of Song (rereleased by StudioCanal) successfully brings Cliff Gordon’s celebrated play Choir Practice to life in the form of a light-hearted comedy. Returning to the idyllic village…
-
DVD Review: ‘Skyfall’
★★★★☆ Bond is most certainly back. Sam Mendes’ long-awaited 23rd entry in the franchise, Skyfall (2012), starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem, is full of all the typical thrills and spills we have come to expect from Her Majesty’s favourite spy over the past fifty years. Yet this time around, we have a refreshing approach…
-
Berlin 2013: ‘Interior. Leather Bar.’ review
★★☆☆☆ Polymath James Franco and director Travis Mathews take it upon themselves to re-imagine the lost 40-minutes of William Friedkin’s controversial drama Cruising (1980) in new film Interior. Leather Bar. (2013). The absent footage was reputedly cut due to its sexually graphic content by the MPAA, so that Friedkin could secure an R-rating upon Cruising’s…
-
Berlin 2013: ‘Prince Avalanche’ review
★★☆☆☆ David Gordon Green makes an underwhelming return to his indie roots with this tiresome remake of Icelandic comedy-drama Either Way (Á annan Veg, 2011), re-titled Prince Avalanche (2013) and starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. Alvin (Rudd) and Lance (Hirsch) spend the summer of 1988 remarking the seemingly endless roads that run through a…
-
Berlin 2013: ‘Before Midnight’ review
★★★★☆ American director Richard Linklater returns to the tale of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) that he began seventeen years ago in Before Sunrise (1995) with 2013’s Before Midnight. Set nine years after the events of Before Sunset (2004), this is an eloquently scripted dissection of a now middle-aged couple’s relationship. Reflective in…
-
Berlin 2013: ‘Side Effects’ review
★★★★☆ Reputedly prolific American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s final big screen outing, 2013’s Side Effects – starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones – is a compelling thriller exploring the blurred lines between psychopharmacology and the US justice system. Protagonist Emily Taylor’s (Mara) life is an endless cycle of misery and paranoia – each day…
-
Berlin 2013: ‘For Marx’ review
★★★★☆ A starkly-shot Russian addition to the Berlinale’s Forum section, Svetlana Baskova’s For Marx (Za Marksa, 2013) might not have much cinematic polish, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for with a thorough exploration of geopolitical themes, wrapped in a pithy, compelling drama. A group of hardy steel workers decide to establish an…