Venice 2015: ‘Go With Me’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Daniel Alfredson’s appallingly bland backwoods drama Go With Me (2015) stars Anthony Hopkins as ex-logger Lester, who comes to the aid of harassed...
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 2015: ‘For Your Love’ review
★★☆☆☆ Following a Malickian break between films – his debut Round the Moons Between Earth and Sea was released in 1997 – Giuseppe M....
Venice 2015: ‘Behemoth’ review
★★★★☆ China is the largest coal consumer in the world. The electricity derived from the coal-fuelled power stations drives the huge economic growth of...
Venice 2015: ‘Light Years’ review
★★☆☆☆ “What do you miss about mum?” Rose (Zamira Fuller) the youngest daughter of three asks her father, Dee (Muhammet Uzuner). “I used to...
Venice 2015: ‘Neon Bull’ review
★★★★☆ Debuting in the Orizzonti sidebar at this year’s 72nd Venice Film Festival, August Winds (2014) director Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull (2015) tells a...
Venice 2015: ‘Heart of a Dog’ review
★★☆☆☆ Heart of a Dog (2015) is the second film in competition at Venice that is essentially an illustrated director’s monologue. Whereas Aleksandr Sokurov’s...
Venice 2015: ‘De Palma’ review
★★★☆☆ Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s unpretentious documentary De Palma (2015) reveals a clear-sighted and fascinating director, who often seems as bemused by the...
Venice 2015: ’11 Minutes’ review
★★★☆☆ Last time he was on the Venice Lido, Jerzy Skolimowski was chasing Vincent Gallo through the snow in 2010’s wordless survival picture Essential...
