Sheffield Doc/Fest 2014: ‘Visitors’ review
★★★★☆ Godfrey Reggio seems cursed to be forever looked upon as a perpetrator of the modes and forms of the music video and advert...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★★★☆ Godfrey Reggio seems cursed to be forever looked upon as a perpetrator of the modes and forms of the music video and advert...
★★★★★ Forthright director John Pilger’s previous incendiary documentary, 2010’s The War You Don’t See, was a brilliant and eye-opening examination of the media’s handling...
★★★☆☆ Susan Sontag, a formidable voice on American politics and culture, once said of cinema: “Movies preserve the past, resurrect the beautiful dead.” In...
★★★★☆ Far from an overnight success, Sheffield-based group Pulp originally formed in 1978, but only achieved major recognition in the nineties with their unique...
★★★☆☆ A classic case of content overriding form, Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s gay marriage rights doc The Case Against 8 (2014) stirs the...
The annual Sheffield Doc/Fest, which takes place from 7-12 June, recently unveiled its full programme for this year’s international documentary showcase. The festival’s biggest...
★★☆☆☆ Good intentions are the preserve of the deserved, which is a paradox that Berlin Film Festival prize-winner When I Saw You (2012) never...
★★★★☆ Director Ti West has commanded a small but loyal cult after his previous films The House of the Devil (2009) and The Innkeepers...