Film Reviews by Joanne Laurier
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story
By Joanne Laurier and David Walsh, October 6, 2009
Veteran documentary filmmaker Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story sets out to examine the recent financial collapse. His aim, he suggests, is a critique of the existing economic set-up.
The Hurt Locker: Part of a deplorable trend
By Joanne Laurier, August 10, 2009
The new film directed by Kathryn Bigelow focuses on an Army bomb deactivation—or Explosive Ordnance Disposal—squad, during its last 38 days of deployment in Iraq in 2004.
Is Chéri genuinely ‘subversive’?
By Joanne Laurier, August 1, 2009
In Stephen Frears’ new movie, Chéri, based on a novel by Colette, a voiceover asserts that in Paris, during the Belle Époque (the 1870s to World War I), successful courtesans were the most powerfu...
Public Enemies and a pivotal moment in American history
By Joanne Laurier, July 11, 2009
Based on material in Bryan Burrough’s Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, Michael Mann’s new film chronicles John Dillinger’s spectacular and short...
2009 San Francisco International Film Festival Part 3: The trauma produced by events
By Joanne Laurier, May 25, 2009
The recent San Francisco film festival, its 52nd, presented 151 films from 55 countries to a combined audience of some 82,000 people. This is the third article in a series.
Everlasting Moments: The world to be explored and preserved
By Joanne Laurier, April 30, 2009
At the age of 77, Swedish director Jan Troell is one of Europe’s more distinguished filmmakers. His latest film, Everlasting Moments, tells the story of Maria Larsson, a Finnish-born mother of seven...
Billy the Kid: “Can you see inside me?”
By Joanne Laurier, March 31, 2009
Billy the Kid is an unusual independent film, about a teenager in a small town in Maine.
Defiance: Those who did not “wait for God”
By Joanne Laurier, January 31, 2009
Four Jewish brothers in the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union organize a partisan group in the Belarusian forest and save the lives of more than 1,000 people.
The Reader: Entering into history light-mindedly
By Joanne Laurier, January 10, 2009
In post-World War II Germany, a young law student discovers that his former lover is on trial for Nazi war crimes.
The blues in Chicago: Cadillac Records
By Joanne Laurier, December 20, 2008
Director Darnell Martin traces the rise and fall of Chess Records, whose roster at one time or another included such musical giants as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chuck ...
Milk, identity politics and Gus Van Sant’s art
By Joanne Laurier, December 9, 2008
Veteran US director Gus Van Sant has made a new film about the life and times of gay politician Harvey Milk, assassinated in San Francisco in 1978, with mixed results.
Few surprises in What Just Happened
By Joanne Laurier, November 22, 2008
Barry Levinson’s new film is an adaptation of the autobiography of veteran producer Art Linson, who also wrote the screenplay. It recounts two weeks in the life of a big-time Hollywood producer, who...
