David R. Walker

Archive for June, 2025

F1: The Movie

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Cast: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Shea Wingham, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick

Running Time: 2 hours 35 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Director Joseph Kosinski follows up his hugely successful 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick with F1: The Movie starring Oscar winner Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as racing car driver Sonny Hayes who teams up with the young driver Joshua Pierce played by Damson Idris in a bid to revive his racing career in an around the world docudrama which possesses strong production values, great acting and a storyline which is average.

F1: The Movie is not going to appeal to everyone but it is saved by some great performances relying heavily on the star power of Brad Pitt who at 61 still commands the screen with his sparkling blue eyes and that screen charisma which is electrifying. Pairing Brad Pitt with Spanish Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) is a brilliant choice as Bardem plays the flashy Ruben Cervantes the talent manager of a racing car team which travels the F1 circuit from Silverstone in England to Abu Dhabi in the UAE with a pit stop in Las Vegas.

While screenwriter Ehren Kruger’s storyline reads more like a repetitive docudrama about racing cars, there are some significant scenes particularly between Pitt and Bardem and Pitt’s love interest played by Irish star and Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) who retains her accent for this international racing film.

Initially the young driver Joshua Pierce clashes with the supposedly washed up driver Sonny Hayes who is recovering from gambling debts and failed marriages, Hayes and Pierce at the request of the first female technical director Kate McKenna expertly played by Kerry Condon urges the two drivers to work together as team because that is what racing car driving is all about.

Where F1: The Movie scores big is with the glossy production design by Ben Munro and Mark Tildesley along with expert cinematography by Oscar winner Claudio Miranda who won for Life of Pi. The film’s editing is also brilliant and while the storyline does lag in parts it’s really the acting which carries F1: The Movie across the finish line. Of particular note are the scenes in Las Vegas and the final race in the impressive Abu Dhabi F1 race track.

The screen chemistry between Kerry Condon and Brad Pitt is perfect while rising star Damson Idris does his best to hold his own on screen against these established stars.

Produced by Lewis Hamilton amongst others, F1: The Movie is an interesting film, slightly long but worth seeing without all the glamour and drama of Ron Howard’s 2013 film Rush.

See the film for Brad Pitt who is excellent as Sonny Hayes the man that proves that you can still drive forever.

F1: The Movie gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is recommended viewing for those that love sporting films. The technical aspects of this film outweigh any narrative discrepancies. Just watch out for a cinematic experience crammed with strategic brand placement.

How to Train Your Dragon

Director: Dean DeBlois

Cast: Gerard Butler, Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Gabriel Howell, Peter Serafinowicz, Bronwyn James, Julian Dennison

Running Time: 2 hours and 5 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10 

Canadian director Dean DeBlois directed the animated film How to Train Your Dragon in 2010 and it was nominated for two Oscars – best achievement in Musical score by John Powell and Best Animated Feature Film.

DeBlois makes the bold and impressive leap to remaking the film as a live action version retaining the excellent services of John Powell for musical score in the visually appealing new film How to Train Your Dragon starring Scottish action hunk Gerard Butler as a menacing Viking Stoick whose wayward son Hiccup played by Mason Thames does not believe all the Viking hype about how evil the dastardly dragons are that keep attacking their remote village on the stark isle of Berk.

The reluctant hero, Hiccup who at the start of this film does not impress his strong and overbearing father is told to join the dragon fighting academy along with a rag tag group of teenagers including Snotlout played by Gabriel Howell who is having the same trouble trying to impress his father Spitelout played by Peter Serafinowicz.

Joining the gang of misfits is the determined and fiercely beautiful Astrid played by Nico Parker (Dumbo) who immediately becomes a source of attraction for the mysteriously naïve Hiccup.

Obviously any narrative containing dragons and Vikings is pure fantasy and in this genre, director Dean DeBlois excels expanding on the success of the original animated version.

How To Train Your Dragon is an action packed fantasy made more interesting by Hiccup’s unlikely friendship with a baby Nightfury dragon forcing him to challenge the long standing village attitude that all dragons are evil. In Stoic’s quest to find the Dragon’s Nest, Hiccup with the help of Toothless, the Nightfury dragon discovers the real source of these mythical creature’s true discontentment.

The visual effects are brilliant and John Powell’s musical score is superb along with the supporting cast including Nick Frost as Gobbler who offers sage parenting advice to Stoick. It’s refreshing to see Gerard Butler take a break from his action roles and star in a fantasy film.

The storyline is essentially how sons can find innovative ways to impress their fathers as Hiccup decides to challenge prejudices against dragons and his father’s stubbornness, changing the village completely.

How to Train Your Dragon is a fun filled fantasy adventure film with fantastic performances by Mason Thames, Nico Parker and Gerard Butler and is definitely worth seeing.

While some of the fight scenes could have been edited, How to Train Your Dragon gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is a suitable film for the whole family. Recommended viewing.

The Shadow Scholars

Director: Eloise King

Cast: Patricia Kingori

Running Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Festival: Encounters Documentary Film Festival, Tribeca, Thessalonki Documentary Film Festival, London Film Festival

Please note this film is a documentary

With Oscar nominated director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) as an executive producer, documentary film maker Eloise King creates a fascinating documentary called Shadow Scholars and poses a very interesting question. What if all the academic writing at colleges and prestigious universities like Harvard and Oxford, was not done by the research scholars but by a group of shadow scholars not based in England or America but in Nairobi, Kenya?

Shadow Scholars follows the fascinating story of the first black female professor at Oxford, Professor of sociology Patricia Kingori, a Kenyan born academic now living in the UK.

Professor Patricia Kingori explores the power dynamic made possible by increasing technological advancements that allowed undergraduates and graduates in British and American universities to use the services of thousands of unemployed yet educated young Kenyans living in Nairobi who write the essays for these graduates and then the European or American graduates take the academic credit for work that isn’t even there. This is known as the Kenyan essay mill which allows a system of contract cheating to exist at universities in which undergraduates at institutions like the University of San Diego, Harvard and others to employ the services of Kenyan ghost writers who would work tirelessly to get academic papers submitted in time for essay deadlines.

Obviously the credibility of these universities is at stake but what makes this documentary so interesting is that Professor Kingori travels to Nairobi to interview these essay writers who are making good money by posting fake European profiles online advertising ghost writing.

Many of these ghost writers, mostly young cannot find jobs in an over-educated yet unemployed Kenyan population so this becomes their livelihood in which not only do they make money but also as a means to support their families.

While documentary film maker Eloise King does veer off the main narrative focusing on British colonialism, post-colonial Kenya including an interview with recently deceased writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and looks at the history of slavery in the American deep South, her film Shadow Scholars highlights an academic flaw in a global industry in which technology has allowed these scholars to flourish and serve the wishes of first world academia.

Then artificial intelligence also starts threatening the livelihood of these Kenyan essay writers along with countries like Australia and America trying to ban ghost writing completely. The University of San Diego even had an international day of action against contract cheating.

Ghost writing as a topic for a documentary feature becomes a three dimensional issue in which Professor Kingori explores the ethical and economic implications of Western university students employing the services of African ghost writers and Kenya allowing this system to flourish without proper interventions. It’s not so much the Kenyan government’s fault as it is more the loopholes of an intricate global digital world in which 24 hour online work can benefit people in several countries simultaneously.

Shadow Scholars is primarily aimed at the academic world and despite its tangential storyline does pose some interesting ethical considerations. From Nairobi to London to San Diego, Shadow Scholars is an important documentary which should be seen. Shadow Scholars gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing.

References: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – Famous Kenyan Post-Colonial Writer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C5%A9g%C4%A9_wa_Thiong%27o

Ballerina

Director: Len Wiseman

Cast: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Lance Riddick, Sharon Duncan-Brewster

Running Time: 2 hours and 4 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Total Recall and Die Hard 4.0 director Len Wiseman returns to directing feature films after a long time in Television as he helms the new John Wick spin off film Ballerina starring Oscar nominee Ana de Armas (Blonde) as ballerina orphan turned assassin who is lethal with a flame thrower.

Audiences need to suspend their disbelief as they re-enter the John Wick universe which is hyper stylized, murky and extremely dangerous. This is a world filled with the Continental Hotels which is basically a B n B for contract killers. Obviously Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick but in Ballerina Ana de Armas firmly takes centre stage in an action film which is incredibly violent and filled with blood lust as the fighting intensifies when Eve travels from the sleek skyscrapers of New York to the bohemian mountains outside Prague to track down the evil tribe responsible for her father’s death.

Ballerina operates on one level as a revenge thriller and on another as a coming of age story of a female assassin who escapes from the beady eyed supervision of The Director wonderfully played with heavy makeup and attitude by Oscar winner Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honour) who adds a level of panache to a film about lethal assassins.

The villain in this piece is The Chancellor played by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne (Vanity Fair, The Usual Suspects) who heads up a cultish tribe whose only mantra is to kill people in a village in the Bohemian mountains.

When The Chancellor’s son Daniel Pine played by Norman Reedus tries to escape the cult with his young daughter, Pine meets up with the Ballerina Eve and literally all hell breaks loose.

Eve fights the whole village and even John Wick is called in to eliminate Eve but she proves to be more than he can contend with. In a bid for her own independence, Eve learns to fight like a girl and use all explosives necessary.

Ballerina is big on lush stylization, dramatic settings like New York nightclubs and snow covered Bohemian villages with killer inhabitants but unfortunately the narrative is a bit weak despite the appearance of a host of John Wick stars including the late Lance Riddick, Ian McShane as Winston and Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Nogi. There is an astonishingly fresh appearance by Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) as Lena the short lived relative, but her screen time like that of Norman Reedus is too short to be savoured. If the screenwriters were clever they would have given these minor characters more of a back story.

Ballerina is heavy on violence and light on plot, saved by great filming, superb fighting scenes and a heroine that proves that female action stars are forces to be reckoned with. It’s an entertaining film with outlandish characters brandishing weapons from samurai swords to hammers, from grenades to guns.

Recommended strictly for fans of the John Wick film franchise, Ballerina gets a film rating of 7 out of 10. Watch this film if you like your ballerina carrying flame throwers and not bouquets.

Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story

Director: Sinead O’Shea

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Gabriel Byrne

Running Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Please note this film is a documentary.

Oscar nominated Irish actress Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) serves as the competent narrator with her clear and quirky commentary on life of Irish novelist Edna O’Brien in Sinead O’Shea’s riveting documentary Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story which is a must see film.

Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story tells the scandalous story of writer Edna O’Brien who was a gifted novelist but got married very young to a much older Irish writer Ernest Gebler and had two small children in 1954. At a time of non-existent women writers that were telling tales of the sexual frankness and desires of young Irish women, Edna O’Brien’s early novels The Country Girls, Girls in their Married Bliss and August is a Wicked Month caused a major stir and were immediately banned in the conservative Ireland of the early 1960’s.

What made her initial fame even more precarious was that her husband took all her royalty checks from the publication of her first couple of novels and kept them himself. He gave Edna an allowance for groceries.

Then Edna O’Brien as a novelist who by 1964 was earning enough money from her writing to become independent made the bold decision to leave her husband and move into a house in the fashionable Carlyle Square in SW1 in London. Edna and her dreadful husband were divorced in 1968 after a four year separation.

Edna O’Brien as a controversial novelist who challenged the patriarchy in Anglo-Irish society and also expertly exposed the sexual desires of young women in her ground breaking novels became a cause celeb and was the centre of a bohemian social whirl in the 1960’s that included film stars and celebrities like Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Joan Plowright and even Jackie Onassis.

O’Brien’s popularity as a novelist was cemented in America after the endorsement by prestigious writers like Philip Roth, John Updike and J. D. Salinger in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Heavily influenced by Irish modernist writer James Joyce, Edna O’Brien’s fame as a novelist was firmly established.

Irish documentary film maker Sinead O’Shea creates an impressive and elegant story of the life of Edna O’Brien in her brilliant documentary Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story which had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Unfortunately Edna O’Brien passed away in July 2024 just three months before the release of this fascinating story of her provocative life.

Featuring interviews with famous Irish actor Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, Vanity Fair, Siesta) Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story is an interesting documentary on a female writer whose sexual frankness initially shocked conservative Anglo-Irish society and left a literary legacy which any avid reader should explore more thoroughly.

Documentaries on the lives of writers can be difficult to make but ably assisted with the tantalizing commentary provided by Jessie Buckley, director Sinead O’Shea brings to the cinema the life of a bold independent woman of letters whose novels scandalized the English speaking world and earned Edna O’Brien the moniker Playgirl of the Western World.

If audiences love literary documentaries then Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien story is highly recommended viewing and gets a film rating of 8 out of 10. An insightful film both politically and socially.

Anselm

Director: Wim Wenders

Cast: Anselm Kiefer

Running Time: 1 hour and 33 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Language: German with English Subtitles

Festival: Encounters Documentary Film Festival – Johannesburg, Cape Town

Please note this film is a documentary.

Oscar nominated German film maker Wim Wenders who directed the critically acclaimed Buena Vista Social Club in 1999 returns to the documentary format in his new avant-garde film simply titled Anselm focusing in an unusual way on the work of Neo-Expressionist contemporary German artist and sculptor Anselm Kiefer who will not be very well known in the English Speaking world.

Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945 just as the Third Reich came crashing down and grew up in a post war Germany which was divided and mistrusted by the rest of Europe. His fame grew in the art world when he created these massive mixed media paintings featuring oil, lead, woodcut, shellac and other materials with names like The Brandenburg March 1974 and Painting the Burnt Earth also created in 1974. The artist also produced the beautiful wood carving in 1978 entitled The Way of the World’s Wisdom: The Battle of Tuetoburg Forest.

Becoming extremely famous in Germany in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Anselm Kiefer also represented Germany at the Venice Biennale art fair in 1980 through his Neo-expressionistic works.

What better film director to create a vivid and fascinating documentary about Anselm’s life than Wim Wenders.

Wenders started off his film career making art house classic films like 1984’s Paris, Texas starring Harry Dean Stanton and the fabulous Natassja Kinski and 1987’s Wings of Desire with Bruno Ganz.

After the 1997 film The End of Violence starring Andie Macdowell and Gabriel Byrne, Wenders made the ground breaking Oscar nominated documentary The Buena Vista Social Club and effortlessly switched to documentaries.

In Anselm, Wenders creates a complex portrait of an artist who is now 80 years old and living within his own art installation in Barjac, South of France after initially producing his work in Waldurn in Germany.

Anselm’s preoccupation with Germany’s own post World War II recovery as a country and of restoring a sense of national pride amidst a sense of anger and blame is evident in his conceptually ambitious paintings which all speak to a protest against forgetting. This artist went around Europe and photographed himself doing the Heil Hitler salute in various key European sites. Very brave and contentious.

As a documentary, Anselm is an intriguing post-modern approach to a complicated artist whose life as a young boy, as an emerging artist and now as an established artist is expertly told through the lens of Wim Wenders who creates an elegant tribute to a contemporary German art legend, whose works feature in major galleries around the world from Venice to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Anselm is a beautiful and thought-provoking documentary which is recommended viewing for contemporary art lovers. Anselm gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is worth seeing although I would suggest that potential viewers read up about this artist’s life and work.

As usual auteur director Wim Wenders never disappoints.