Lucy Popescu
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Film Review: ‘Dangerous Acts’
★★★★☆ In Dangerous Acts (2013), Madeleine Sackler documents a year in the life of the Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), an acclaimed theatrical troupe forced to work underground in their native country. President Lukashenko, often dubbed Europe’s last remaining dictator, has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for the past twenty years. Free expression is suppressed…
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Special Feature: Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2014
Now in its 18th year, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival runs from 18-28 March 2014 with a programme of twenty award-winning documentary and feature films screening at the Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and the Barbican. Jehane Noujaim’s award-winning documentary The Square (2013) serves as the Festival’s fundraising benefit at Curzon Mayfair on…
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DVD Review: ‘Gravity’
★★★☆☆ Gravity (2013) plays on that classic dramatic conflict – man versus the elements – exploited by Alfonso Cuarón in his Oscar-winning and visually arresting film about two astronauts lost in space. Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first NASA mission, accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). When…
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DVD Review: ‘The 7.39’
★★★☆☆ David Nicholls has had a varied career to date and has won acclaim for his work in TV and film, as well as his fiction. His first feature was an adaptation of Sam Shepard’s stage-play Simpatico (1999). Nicholls then cut his teeth contributing scripts for the popular TV series Cold Feet (2000). He gained…
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DVD Review: ‘Child’s Pose’
★★★★★ A worthy winner of Berlin’s Golden Bear and a strong contender for Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Academy Awards, Child’s Pose (2013) provides a fascinating insight into Romania’s affluent society and ubiquitous corruption. Calin Peter Netzer focuses on one middle-class family and the troubled relationship of a domineering mother Cornelia and her…
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DVD Review: ‘Stuck in Love’
★★★☆☆ Debut director Josh Boone’s Stuck in Love (2012) is an intelligent romantic comedy about love, loss, the consolations of literature and the familial bonds that tie. Divorced novelist Bill Borgens (Greg Kinnear) still lays a place for his wife Erica (Jennifer Connelly) at the family’s Thanksgiving table. She’s left him for a younger man.…
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DVD Review: ‘Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer’
★★★★☆ Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s provocative documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013) follows the trial of Nadia (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova), Katia (Ekaterina Samutsevich) and Masha (Maria Alyokhina), three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot who last year were sentenced to two years in a labour camp. The activists were charged with hooliganism…
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DVD Review: ‘Buck’
★★★★☆ Cindy Meehl’s poignant portrait of horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, the subject of author Nicholas Evans’ bestselling novel and the 1998 Robert Redford Hollywood movie, wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2011 and is rereleased on DVD this week by Dogwoof after the collapse of Revolver. At the start of Buck (2011),…
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DVD Review: ‘Renoir’
★★★☆☆ Renoir (2012), Gilles Bourdos’ sumptuous portrait of the French master’s final years and his filmmaker son Jean’s first creative stirrings, is big on atmosphere but lacks dramatic tension. Father (Michel Bouquet) and son (Vincent Rottiers) fall for the same woman, Andrée Heuschling (Christa Theret), who becomes Jean’s wife and the leading actress in his…
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DVD Review: ‘Summer in February’
★★★☆☆ Equestrian artist Alfred Munnings’ love affair and disastrous marriage to aspiring painter Florence Carter-Wood is the subject of Christopher Menaul’s involving costume drama Summer in February (2013). It’s 1912 and Munnings (Dominic Cooper) is a prominent member of the bohemian Lamorna Group, a colony of artists living and practising their craft in Cornwall. Fleeing…