Film Review: Suntan
★★★☆☆ There’s something about the brightness of the Greek sunshine that leaves the blackest of shadows. You can see it in the tragi-comedies of...
Film Reviews & More
Most Recent. In John Bleasdale.
6 September 2024
Film Review: Firebrand
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
26 July 2024
Film Review: About Dry Grasses
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
21 June 2024
Film Review: Green Border
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
John Bleasdale
Film Review: The Transfiguration
★★☆☆☆ A public bathroom. Noises are coming from one of the stalls. Sucking and slurping sounds. A man takes a peek underneath and makes...
Film Review: Rules Don’t Apply
★★★☆☆ Howard Hughes has long been an object of fascination for Hollywood. The reclusive mogul carved a trajectory from youthful genius to self-watering stuff...
Film Review: The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki
★★★★☆ The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is Juho Kuosmanen’s chronicle of a Finnish pugilist. A unique and beautiful boxing movie...
Cannes 2017: Palme d’Or lineup announced
The full competition lineup for this year’s 70th Cannes Film Festival (17-28 May) was announced in Paris earlier this morning. Kicking off the proceedings...
Film Review: Tickling Giants
★★★★☆ The timing could not have been better for Sara Taksler’s new documentary Tickling Giants. Or worse if you think about it. Hosni Mubarak...
Film Review: The Chamber
★★☆☆☆ Not to be confused with the John Grisham adaptation of the same name, The Chamber is a claustro-thriller which hits its beats with...
Film Review: Catfight
★★☆☆☆ Talk about timing. Hillary loses the election, there’s a record-breaking Women’s March in Washington and then the week of a revitalised International Women’s...
