John Bleasdale
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Toronto Film Festival 2012: Lineup announced
The lineup was recently announced for this year’s 2012 Toronto Film Festival (6-16 September), and it looks like a packed and exciting programme. Opening the festival will be Rian Johnson’s keenly-awaited sci-fi thriller Looper, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a hitman sent to the future to assassinate his future self (played by action icon Bruce Willis).…
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Venice 2012: New trailer for ‘The Master’
After the black slime has settled on the wrecked hopes of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012) has risen to its operatic zenith, the most anticipated film for many cinephiles will still be Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012). In the space of a relatively short career, Anderson has…
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Christopher Nolan Season: ‘Insomnia’
★★★★☆ 2002’s Insomnia, Christopher Nolan’s follow up to his breakout hit Memento (2000), was at first glance a far less ambitious genre piece. Whereas Memento was noted for its radical narrative innovation with a largely unknown cast, Insomnia was a remake of a Norwegian film from 1997 and starred Hollywood legend Al Pacino. Pacino plays Will…
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Film Review: ‘Jaws’
★★★★★ Nearing the surface of most people’s top ten American movie lists would surely come Steven Spielberg’s monster hit Jaws (1975), adapted from the Oxfam-favourite novel by Peter Benchley. This week – following a world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival – the quintessential shark tale returns to cinemas in a new shot-by-shot digital…
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Cannes 2012: Haneke’s ‘Amour’ wins Palme d’Or
After two weeks of screenings, press conferences and red carpets, Austrian director Michael Haneke’s latest film Amour was awarded the coveted Palme d’Or this evening. Haneke joins an elite club of directors to win the prestigious prize twice, having also won in 2009 for The White Ribbon, and fought off competition from Leos Carax, Cristian…
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Cannes 2012: Palme d’Or and other award predictions
As the 65th edition of the Cannes Film Festival draws to a close, predictions are rife about who will win the prestigious Palme d’Or prize, amongst a host of other awards on offer. The field is packed full of former winners (Haneke, Loach, Mungiu and Kiarostami) and each of these all have good claims on…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Holy Motors’ review
★★★★☆ French-born director Leos Carax returns to cinema screens this year with Holy Motors (2012), his first feature film for over a decade (since 1999’s Pola X ), which premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and has since become somewhat of a late favourite for the prestigious Palme d’Or prize. It’s a truly bizarre,…
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Cannes 2012: ‘After Lucia’ review
★★★★☆ Showing in the Un Certain Regard section at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Michel Franco’s After Lucia (Después de Lucía, 2012) is a devastating and harrowing look into high school bullying. Following the death of her mother in a car accident, teenager Alejandra (Tessa Ia) and her father Roberto (Hermàn Mendoza), a successful high-end…
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Cannes 2012: ‘The Hunt’ review
★★★★☆ Danish director Thomas Vinterberg enters the chase for the Palme d’Or with The Hunt (Jagten, 2012), a tense thriller about a primary school teacher unjustly accused of paedophilia. Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a recent divorcee in the midst of a bitter custody dispute over his teenage son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm), who despite this enjoys…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Student’ review
★★☆☆☆ An contemporary re-telling of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Darezhan Omirbaev’s Student (2012) paints a grim portrayal of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, with occasional moments of wry, bitter humour. The film follows a poor, unnamed philosophy student who lives in the basement flat of an old lady’s house, with barely enough money to do anything other than…