Venice 2016: Piuma review
★★☆☆☆ The general rule of thumb is that the best Italian films looking to premier each year go to either Berlin or Cannes, because...
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
Venice 2016: One More Time with Feeling review
★★★★☆ One More Time with Feeling is a music documentary in a minor key, a song sung about grief and loss and trying to...
Venice 2016: The Untamed review
★★★★☆ Imagine if H.P. Lovecraft had written The Joy of Sex, or better still a porn parody of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Neither of these...
Venice 2016: King of the Belgians review
★★★☆☆ Scottish filmmaker Duncan Lloyd (Pieter van der Houwen) has been tasked with the seemingly impossible job of making a documentary on the Belgian...
Venice 2016: Spira Mirabilis review
★★★★☆ In every festival there’s a film where the attrition rate of walkouts is notably high. So far at this year’s Venice, the ignominious...
Venice 2016: Safari review
★★★☆☆ “The killing is only a small part,” says Gerald, one of the subjects of Ulrich Seidl’s new film Safari. By its conclusion you...
Venice 2016: Brimstone review
★★★☆☆ You have to admire the nerve of Dutch director Martin Koolhoven. The title card for his first English language effort reads ‘Martin Koolhoven’s...
Venice 2016: The Blind Christ review
★★★☆☆ “Let me tell you a story,” says Michael (Michael Silva), a spiritually inspired young man in the wastes of the Chilean desert. The...
