DVD Review: ‘Thor: The Dark World’
★★★☆☆ Alan Taylor’s ‘Phase Two’ offering Thor: The Dark World (2013) sees Chris Hemsworth’s thunder god return in his second standalone movie, and provides...
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
Berlin 2014: ‘The Unknown Known’ review
★★★★☆ One of several high profile documentaries screening at this year’s 64th Berlin Film Festival, veteran filmmaker Errol Morris presents The Unknown Known (2013),...
DVD Review: ‘Muscle Shoals’
★★★☆☆ Muscle Shoals, which lends its name to Greg Camalier’s doc, is an Alabama city based on the southern banks of the Tennessee River...
DVD Review: ‘Rush’
★★★☆☆ Roaring onto DVD and Blu-Ray this week comes Ron Howard’s Formula One racing drama Rush (2013), starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as James Hunt...
Blu-ray Review: ‘The Epic of Everest’
★★★★☆ In 1921, the first attempt to scale Everest was launched. The expedition was exploratory in nature rather than a full–on assault, and although...
DVD Review: ‘Leviathan’
★★★★☆ In what could be described as an annus mirabilis for documentaries, Leviathan (2012) stands out as a monstrous marvel; something to inspire terror,...
DVD Review: ‘The Act of Killing’
★★★★★ In Indonesia between 1965 and 1966, and following a failed coup attempt against the Sukharno government, military and paramilitary groups killed over 500,000...
Film Review: ‘Project Wild Thing’
★★☆☆☆ Documentarian David Bond is the worried father of two young children. Like many kids raised in the city, his kids spend most of...
