Joseph Walsh
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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: ‘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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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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Blu-ray Review: ‘The Adventures of Tintin’
★★★★☆ Hergé’s Tintin, the world famous boy reporter, has been given the HD treatment in a rerelease of the classic 1990s cartoon on DVD and Blu-ray in anticipation of Steven Spielberg’s soon-to be released, 3D motion capture blockbuster The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, featuring the voice talents of Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘The Monster of Nix’
★★★☆☆ The Monster of Nix (2011) is an entertaining and quirky existential animation from Rosto, featuring the voices of Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits, and is one of the highlights of the 55th BFI London Film Festival’s animation programme. Willy (Joe Eshuis) lives with his grandmother in Nix – a peaceful, secluded community – until…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai’
★★☆☆☆ Takashi Miike’s Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Ichimei, 2011) – starring Kôji Yakusho, Naoto Takenaka and Hikari Mitsushima – can best be described as troublesome; a remake (based on Masaki Kobayashi Harakiri [1962]) that is full of potential, yet ultimately fails to deliver. The plot is your usual fair of revenge and honour that…
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BFI London Film Festival 2011: ‘Natural Selection’
★★★★☆ One of many unexpected highlights of this year’s 55th BFI London Film Festival, Natural Selection (2011) is an amusing, unconventional comedy from first-time director Robbie Pickering, starring Rachael Harris, John Diehl and Matt O’Leary.Barren, evangelical housewife Linda (Harris) discovers that her husband Abe (John Diehl) has been secretly donating to a sperm bank for…