Film Reviews by David Walsh, WSWS Arts Editor
Gran Torino: What school have film writers and directors passed through?
By David Walsh, January 9, 2009
In Clint Eastwood’s newest film, the actor-director plays a retired auto worker, Walt Kowalski, who’s chosen to go on living in his old, seriously deteriorating neighborhood in metropolitan Detroi...
Doubt: Nothing ‘beautiful’ about this ‘question’
By David Walsh, January 3, 2009
Doubt takes place in the Bronx, New York in 1964. A conflict emerges at a Catholic school between a relatively young and ‘progressive’ parish priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and a b...
David Walsh selects his favorite films of 2008
By David Walsh, December 31, 2008
2008 will be remembered as the year of a great economic crash and a turning point in modern history. It will not be recalled as a great year in filmmaking, despite a few bright spots.
Waltz With Bashir: “Memory takes us where we need to go”
By David Walsh, December 24, 2008
Israeli director Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir is one of the most extraordinary and haunting films of the year. Folman has made an animated film that ends with the tragic events at the Sabra and Sh...
Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky: A film about life and people being worth something
By David Walsh, December 2, 2008
In Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is an irrepressible personality, a teacher in London who looks for the best in people and situations. The WSWS will be posting an interview with...
Vancouver International Film Festival 2008—Part 5
Six films: problems of perspective, passivity
By David Walsh, October 27, 2008
Every film that fails or disappoints does so in its own way. Pointing to the flaws of a work is not a pleasurable task.
W: A crude approach is not good for grasping much of anything
By David Walsh, October 22, 2008
Directed by Oliver Stone, screenplay by Stanley Weiser W. is veteran American director Oliver Stone's film about the life and career of President George W. Bush. It was shot and edited rapidly for rel...
Vancouver International Film Festival 2008—Part 3
The oppressed and excluded
By David Walsh, October 20, 2008
This is the third in a series of articles on the recent Vancouver International Film Festival (September 25-October 10).
Vancouver International Film Festival 2008—Part 1
Life in its incontrovertible reality
By David Walsh, October 13, 2008
This is the first in a series of articles on the recent Vancouver International Film Festival (September 25-October 10).
Toronto International Film Festival 2008—Part 5
The Dardenne brothers: but what about the “extenuating circumstances”?
By David Walsh, September 29, 2008
This is the fifth and final part of a series devoted to the recent Toronto film festival (September 4-13).
Toronto International Film Festival 2008—Part 3
Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City: What the filmmakers now see
By David Walsh, September 24, 2008
This is the third of a series of articles devoted to the recent Toronto film festival (September 4-13). To create a visually appealing and insightful film is difficult. There are many technical probl...
Toronto International Film Festival 2008—Part 1
Glimpses of life, if not the essential facts of the world
By David Walsh, September 18, 2008
This is the first of a series of articles devoted to the recent Toronto film festival (September 4-13). A great many films are screened at the Toronto film festival, some 312 this year. We saw about f...
