Having just seen Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes at the Berlin Film Festival, in which Ian McKellen plays a testy 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes upset that Dr Watson had fibbed about his deerstalker and pipe-smoking, it will be curious to see one…
Month: February 2015
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Posted in Film Reviews, Remastered Reissue Tagged with: Barbican cinema, Maurice Elvey, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Mr Holmes
Rating: In his book A Slight Trick of the Mind, Mitch Cullin saw Sherlock Holmes as an old man past 90 who regrets the silly legends that have grown around him and, in his rather testy retirement, tries to solve…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Bill Condon, Ian McKellen, Mr Holmes
Knight of Cups
Rating: Everyone, even the greatest director, is entitled to one bad film. But it is still a shock to discover that Terrence Malick is capable of a rotten egg like Knight of Cups. It presents Christian Bale as a successful…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Ben Kingsley, Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Knight of Cups, Natalie Portman, Terrence Malick
Diary of a Chambermaid
Rating: Benoit Jacquot’s Diary of a Chambermaid — the fourth adaptation of the Mirbeau novel already made famous on the screen by Renoir and Buñuel — has Lea Seydoux as the young chambermaid, sent from Paris into the provinces to…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Benoit Jacquot, Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Diary of a Chambermaid, Lea Seydoux
Ixcanul Volcano
Rating: Guatamalian director Jayro Bustamante’s first feature has Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan peasant girl, betrothed by her parents to the foreman of a local farm, made pregnant by a coffee harvester and hoping to escape with him to the States.…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Ixcanul, Ixcanul Volcano, Jayro Bustamante
Taxi
Rating: Iranian director, Jafar Panahi, forbidden to make movies after quarrelling with the regime, tried a different dodge this time after making one in his flat and another in a friend’s seaside bungalow. Taxi, his third unattributed feature, takes place…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Iranian, Jafar Panahi, Taxi
Queen of the Desert
Rating: Here’s what happens when a director of passion and imagination thinks of an intriguing project and finds himself lumbered with an expensive production full of name players and compromise. The director in this case is none other than Werner…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Nicole Kidman, Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog
45 Years
Rating: It may take some considerable time for any of us to see more consummate performers than Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay acting together at the top of their form. So writer-director Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, the British competition entry…
Posted in Film Festivals, Film Reviews Tagged with: 45 Years, Andrew Haigh, Berlin 2015, Berlin Festival, Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay
