Film Reviews by David Walsh, WSWS Arts Editor
An evaluation of Roman Polanski as an artist—Part 1
By David Walsh, November 18, 2009
Filmmaker Roman Polanski remains in a Zurich jail cell, while his lawyers fight the efforts by US authorities to extradite him. The director has a half-century-long artistic career that needs to be as...
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 6
Thoroughly lost, or playing at it
By David Walsh, October 17, 2009
Lars von Trier from Denmark, once associated with the Dogme 95 group, has been making films for some two decades. His latest effort is Antichrist. It is a murky, hopelessly contrived, and, frankly, ri...
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 4
More human (and artistic) problems
By David Walsh, October 10, 2009
Where are the extraordinary and captivating film dramas, and comedies, that go to the heart of our time?
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.
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 2
“The Iraq war poisoned the water—you can’t undo that, it’s there forever”
By David Walsh, October 3, 2009
Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein have directed at least three remarkable documentaries about the US invasion of Iraq and its consequences: (Gunner Palace (2004), The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Ki...
Atom Egoyan’s Adoration: Also not very compelling
By David Walsh, July 29, 2009
In Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, Simon is a high school student in Toronto, whose teacher, for reasons of her own, encourages him to pose as the son of a would-be terrorist.
Whatever Works: The results are unattractive
By David Walsh, July 15, 2009
The most recent effort from Woody Allen is a very poor film, unconvincingly and even cartoonishly written and performed, accomplished with little humor or grace.
Lymelife: How filmmakers look at recent American life
By David Walsh, May 30, 2009
Lymelife, directed and co-written by Derick Martini (along with his brother Steven), takes place in a New York City suburb in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The film has its share of clichés, but it ...
State of Play: More of Washington’s conspiracies
By David Walsh, April 28, 2009
State of Play is a political thriller, based on a mini-series broadcast by the BBC in 2003. The filmmakers have transposed the events to the US and condensed six hours to two. The general shape of the...
Sunshine Cleaning: A misplaced sense of where the drama (or comedy) lies
By David Walsh, April 8, 2009
In Christine Jeffs’ film, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two sisters (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt) go into business together--cleaning up crime scenes.
Duplicity: The essential unseriousness of it
By David Walsh, March 27, 2009
After the relatively critical edge of Michael Clayton, filmmaker Tony Gilroy appears to offer an olive branch to Hollywood in the form of the trivial, unengaged Duplicity.
Watchmen and Hollywood’s advanced state of decay
By David Walsh, March 13, 2009
Films are only going to get worse before they get better, if Watchmen and the noisy, bombastic trailers accompanying it are any indication.
