John Bleasdale
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Cannes 2013: ‘Honey’ review
★★☆☆☆ Italian-Greek actress Valeria Golino – perhaps most familiar to international audiences as Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in Rain Man – makes her directorial debut at the London Film Festival with Honey (Miele, 2013). Irene (Jasmine Trinca) lives a double life. To her father and her boyfriend she ‘s a university student, endlessly working on her…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Nebraska’ review
★★★★☆ American director Alexander Payne (Election) returns to the LFF this year with his black and white, geriatric comedy Nebraska (2013), which stars veteran screen legend Bruce Dern as world-weary protagonist Woody Grant. We first spy upon Woody on the open road, plodding resolutely – if unsteadily – towards the camera, before the police bring…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Stranger by the Lake’ review
★★☆☆☆ Set during one particularly hot and steamy summer, in Stranger by the Lake (L’inconnu du lac, 2013) French men visit a secluded spot on the shore of the lake to cruise for sex. One individual seems to be there just for conversation, whilst another conceals far more sinister motives. Gay cinema auteur Alain Guiraudie’s…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Shield of Straw’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Cult Japanese director Takashi Miike is often forgiven for the hit-and-miss nature of his output due to the fact that he’s so prolific – occasionally churning out multiple films in a single year. Hopes were high for his new Cannes competition entry after the sublime 13 Assassins (2010) slashed through Venice a couple of…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Jimmy P.’ review
★★☆☆☆ With a recognised force in French cinema, director Arnaud Desplechin, teaming up with major thesps Mathieu Amalric and Benicio Del Toro for a serious English-language film, 2013’s Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) (formerly Jimmy Picard) looked like a strong potential contender for the Palme d’Or. However, though the film certainly has its…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Jeune & Jolie’ review
★★★★☆ Following the success of last year’s In the House (2012), acclaimed French director François Ozon returns to cinema screens this week with Palme d’Or nominee Jeune & Jolie (2013), a stylish, well-crafted and intelligent study of a young woman coming of age through the space of four seasons, and to the soundtrack of four…
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Cannes 2013: ‘The Past’ review
★★★★☆ Asghar Farhadi first burst onto the international scene with his 2011 Silver Bear/Oscar winner A Separation, the most recent of several astute Iranian dramas. Farhadi returns this year with Palme d’Or nominee The Past (Le passé, 2013), a film equally as riveting as those that came before. This nuanced, complex France-set story unwinds and…
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Cannes 2013: ‘Fruitvale Station’ review
★★★★★ Based on the real-life 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California, Ryan Coogler’s feature debut Fruitvale Station (2013) is an uncompromising, original and movingly humane piece of American political cinema. Michael B. Jordan plays Oscar, who, on New Year’s Eve, has already committed himself to fulfilling his annual resolutions a day in advance.…
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Cannes 2013: The Bling Ring review
★★☆☆☆ Opening the Un Certain Regard section of the 66th Cannes Film Festival comes Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring (2013), a teen crime movie/wannabe satire based on the true story of a gang of over-privileged kids (with serious entitlement issues) who burgled a succession of Hollywood celebrity abodes several years back. Marc (Israel Broussard) is…
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Cannes 2013: ‘The Great Gatsby’ review
★★☆☆☆ Everyone understands that a Baz Luhrmann film – from the imagination that brought us Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge and Australia – means bucket-loads of excess, indulgence and, formerly, fun. The collective breath was duly drawn when his plans to tackle F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tight novel of disappointment and decadence, The Great Gatsby,…