John Bleasdale
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Venice 2012: ‘Tai Chi 0’ review
★★★☆☆ Directed by Stephen Fung, choreographed by Sammo Hung and starring a whole host of Kung Fu legends, Tai Chi 0 (2012) is a kinetic frenzy of a movie, whose giddy inventiveness will be far too much for some, but a giggle for anyone who enjoys the frenetic quality of filmed martial arts. Those grasping…
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Venice 2012: ‘Betrayal’ review
★★☆☆☆ Love, obsession and revenge are the themes of Kirill Serebrennikov’s beguilingly strange, yet ultimately flaccid Betrayal (Izmena, 2012). The film is a Crime and Punishment-style morality tale, told via Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Franziska Petri plays a doctor who whilst examining one of her patients (Dejan Lilic), reveals that her husband is cheating with his…
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Venice 2012: Our coverage begins…
The 69th Venice Film Festival kicks off later today (running from 29 August-8 September) with Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist – showing on the Lido and out of competition – starring Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed in what looks to be a handsome adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel. There are some 17 films vying…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Eurocrime!’ review
★★★☆☆ If the titles Milano Calibro 9 (1972), Street Law (1974) and Napoli Violenta (1976) mean anything to you, then you might want to check out Mike Malloy’s new doc Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s (2012), which affectionately documents Italy’s decade-long love affair with the cop film genre. The…
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DVD Review: ‘Eroica’
★★★★☆ Set during the Second World War, Andrzej Munk’s Eroica (1958) is a classic slice of subversive Polish cinema, a dark satire which deconstructs the romantic notions of heroism surrounding the 1944 uprising. Divided into two parts (initially three had been planned) and referencing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Munk’s film tells two distinct stories.The first…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Sightseers’ review
★★★☆☆ Showing in the Directors’ Fortnight strand of the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) follow-up Sightseers (2012) is an unexpectedly lighthearted jaunt – with serial killing of course – but a jaunt nonetheless. Taken from a script developed by its two leads Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, initially intended as a…
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Cannes 2012: ‘On the Road’ review
★★☆☆☆ It’s been a long journey from the original publication of Jack Kerouac’s beat novel On the Road in 1957 to this Walter Salles-directed big screen adaptation. Over half a century has passed, and in the meantime the cultural influence of the ‘Beat Generation’ has inspired music and film on many different levels. Salles’ On…
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Cannes 2012: ‘The Paperboy’ review
★★☆☆☆ Following up on the success of his previous film, Precious (2009), Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy (2012) is a star-studded oddity; an overly-directed pot-boiler unable to decide how seriously it wants to take itself. Narrated by housemaid Anita (Macy Gray), The Paperboy begins with a murder in a small town near Miami. Although everyone else…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Killing Them Softly’ review
★★★★☆ In competition for the Palme d’Or and one of the most anticipated American entries of the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Andrew Dominik returns with Killing Them Softly (2012), a sharp, noirish thriller which gave an already rain-soaked Cannes a slick masterclass in how genre movies should be done. Adapted by Dominik from George V.…
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Venice 2012: Lineup announced
Hot on the heels of the Toronto Film Festival programme announcement earlier this week (there’s beginning to be some serious rivalry brewing between these over-lapping showcases), the lineup for the 69th edition of the Venice Film Festival was announced by new Director Alberto Barbera in Rome yesterday, featuring a slimmed down Official Competition strand.So far,…