Cannes 2014: ‘Charlie’s Country’ review
★★★☆☆ When Aborigine actor, dancer and activist David Gulpipil was just sixteen he starred in Nicolas Roeg’s masterful Walkabout (1971), accompanying the director and...
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
Cannes 2014: ‘Leviathan’ review
★★★★★ Life is “nasty, brutish, and short” wrote Thomas Hobbes, the author of the philosophical and political work from which Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (2014)...
Cannes 2014: ‘Jimmy’s Hall’ review
★★☆☆☆ Veteran British director Ken Loach makes what could to be his narrative curtain call with Irish political period piece Jimmy’s Hall (2014), which...
Film Review: Whiplash
★★★★★ Following on from its hugely successful world premiere at Sundance this year, Damien Chazelle’s second feature, Whiplash (2014), hits the Croisette showing in...
Cannes 2014: ‘The Search’ review
★★☆☆☆ “This isn’t Saving Private Ryan,” a Russian soldier remarks to camera as one of his comrades films the aftermath of a battle and...
Cannes 2014: ‘Beautiful Youth’ review
★★☆☆☆ Screening in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Jaime Rosales’ Beautiful Youth (2014) aspires to a gritty realism...
Cannes 2014: ‘Two Days, One Night’ review
★★★☆☆ With an unprecedented third Palme d’Or firmly in the brothers’ sights, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne return to the Croisette this year with a...
Cannes 2014: ‘The Rover’ review
★★★★☆ Australian director David Michôd made quite the impression with his outstanding first feature, 2010’s Animal Kingdom, so expectations were understandably high for his...
