Alexander Walker Dies

One of Britain's longest-serving film reviewers, Alexander Walker, died today at the age of 73. The film critic for the London Evening Standard for over 40 years, Walker was never backward about coming forward with his opinions. In fact, you could pretty much guess that whatever Empire's reviewers loved, Walker would hate. Empire on Battle Royale: ' The censorious might feel a fantasy like this encourages teen violence, but director Fukasaku Kinji actually does a wonderful job of making the horrors alien and degrading.' Walker on Battle Royale: 'The vision of dozens of little girls and boys in identical school uniforms, with the clone-like features of oriental children, wiping each other out becomes unbearably tedious.' Empire on Morvern Callar: ' Morvern Callar is shot through with enough everyday poetry to suggest that Ramsay is fast closing in on the synthesis of Ken Loach and Robert Bresson that seems to be her target. Walker on Morvern Callar: 'A more pointless film I haven't seen this year. Aimless and meandering, thin and bodyless, banal and ingenuous.' 'Alexander Walker was one of the most easily identifiable voices in UK film criticism," says Empire's Ian Freer. "That Ken Russell once hit Walker over the head with a rolled up newspaper for his review of Russell's The Devils is typical of the powerful, often incendiary reactions Walker could engender. He stood in marked contrast to much of the anodyne newspaper film criticism that surrounded him.' A friend of the stars