Lucy Popescu
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DVD Review: ‘The Last Summer of La Boyita’
★★★★☆ Set in the Pampas of Argentina, Julia Solomonoff’s The Last Summer of La Boyita (2009) is a quirky rites of passage drama focusing upon two children on the cusp of adolescence. A precocious child and tomboy, Jorgelina (Guadalupe Alonso) adores her older sister and they play games and exchange confidences in La Boyita, their family’s…
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Film Review: ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’
★★☆☆☆ Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), the latest feature from Lasse Hallström, features a host of British talent including Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas. McGregor plays Dr. Alfred Jones (McGregor), a buttoned-up scientist working in the Department of Fisheries and Agriculture, unwillingly drawn into a project aimed at introducing salmon to…
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Human Rights Watch Festival 2012: ‘The Island President’
★★★★☆ Jon Shenk’s The Island President (2011) traces one man’s extraordinary journey from political prisoner to head of state. Mohamed Nasheed was democratically elected president of the Maldives in October 2008; previously, the archipelago of 1,200 tropical islands in the Indian Ocean – popular with tourists – had been under the despotic rule of Maumoon…
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Film Review: ‘Red Dog’
★★★★☆ Kriv Stenders’s Red Dog (2011), an adaptation of the Louis de Bernières novel and starring Josh Lucas and Rachael Taylor, is based on the true story of a stray, red Kelpie who – in the 1970s – gained legendary status in the Australian outback.The film opens with trucker Thomas (Luke Ford) arriving in the…
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Film Review: ‘The Woman in the Fifth’
★★★★☆ Paweł Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth (2011) – starring Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas – is stylishly shot, slickly directed and frustratingly enigmatic. Pawlikowski cut his teeth in documentary filmmaking, forging a name for himself in the 1990s, and remarkably this is only his third feature film to date. Hawke plays Tom…
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DVD Review: ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’
★★★☆☆ Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) – starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore – is an enjoyable, if flawed, US rom-com. Its multi-strand focus upon teenage obsession, twenty somethings dating, and a middle-aged couple trying to save their marriage is clearly meant to appeal to as wide an audience…
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DVD Review: ‘The Whistleblower’
★★★★☆ Canadian filmmaker Laraysa Kondracki’s extraordinary debut feature The Whistleblower – starring Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave and Benedict Cumberbatch – focuses on sex-trafficking in post-war Bosnia. Co-scripted by Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan, the film also exposes some of the wider issues associated with war – in particular, how violence and brutality often persist…
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DVD Review: ‘Everything Must Go’
★★★☆☆ Loosely based on a short story by Raymond Carver, Dan Rush’s Everything Must Go (2010) follows the fortunes of an alcoholic salesman, Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell), who loses both his job and his wife on the same day. Nick is a high-powered salesman but his frequent lapses, drunken antics, and the weeks he’s had…
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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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Special Feature: CNN’s ‘Not My Life’
Not My Life (2011) – written, directed and produced by Robert Bilheimer and narrated by Glenn Close – is a documentary focusing on the brutal world of human trafficking and modern slavery. Filmed on five continents over a period of four years, Not My Life concentrates mainly on the selling of women and children who…