John Bleasdale
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Special Feature: US TV drama takes on the apocalypse
The world has been ending for some time now, so it’s only right that US TV drama should take note. The ill-fated Jericho didn’t really get going, but now three major series have set out to realise the breakdown of society during the apocalypse/post-apocalypse: The Walking Dead, Falling Skies and Terra Nova. Given the names…
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DVD Review: ‘The Outsiders’ (2 Disc Special Edition)
★★★☆☆ Reeling from the commercial failure of 1982’s One from the Heart and perhaps wary of his growing reputation as an obsessive monomaniac, in 1983 Francis Ford Coppola decided on The Outsiders – starring Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze – as a self-consciously small project. The idea was suggested by a…
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Venice 2011: ‘Contagion’ review
★★★☆☆ Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) – with a large ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet and Jude Law – marks a re-emergence of the old ‘revenge of nature’ genre, but rather than sharks, bees or birds, the enemy to humanity here is much smaller (microscopic in fact) but far more deadly: a…
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LFF 2011: ‘Carnage’
★★★★☆ The cinematic adaptation of a stage play can offer a filmmaker many creative challenges. Either the film can largely ignore its theatrical origins (Casablanca [1942] was based on a pretty unsuccessful production called Everybody comes to Ricks), or then can be preserved in the form of a chamber piece – see Sidney Lumet’s 12…
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LFF 2011: ‘Alps’ (‘Alpeis’)
★★★★☆ In Alps (Alpeis, 2011), Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ follow-up to the sensational Dogtooth (2009), a group of four people – a young gymnast, her coach, a medic and a nurse – have an enterprising idea: when someone dies, they will hire themselves out to the family or friends, substituting for the deceased so that…
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LFF 2011: ‘Dark Horse’
★★★★☆ It’s tempting to say that Todd Solondz’s seventh feature, Dark Horse (2011) – starring Justin Bartha, Selma Blair and Zachary Booth – is something of a departure, but in truth it never really escapes the universe of Planet Solondz. Once again we are planted firmly in a universe of uncomfortable misery, with characters who…
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LFF 2011: ‘Terraferma’
★★☆☆☆ Every European country seems convinced that it is an especial victim of illegal immigration. The UK sees itself as a soft touch, as do Germany and France. For Italy, the geographical proximity to Northern Africa and a long coastline has led to some extremely draconian legislation to deal with the perceived crisis. This is…
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Venice 2011: ‘Texas Killing Fields’ review
★★☆☆☆ Ami Canaan Mann’s (daughter of Michael Mann) debut film Texas Killing Fields (2011) is a run-of-the-mill police procedural, which really has no place this year’s Venice Film Festival. Detectives Souder (Sam Worthington) and Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are investigating a series of abductions and murders of young women. The older detective is gripped by…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Amélie’
★★★☆☆ This week sees the cinematic rerelease (ahead of its Blu-ray release on 17 Oct) of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s modern day fairytale Amélie (2001), the film that launched the career of Audrey Tautou in the role of the eponymous Parisian waitress, Amélie Poulain, a Nutella-eyed innocent with puckish charm who was soon gracing the wall of many…
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DVD Review: ‘Senna’
★★★★☆ You hold a memory clear in your mind and then years later you meet someone who shared the experience with you, a family picnic, a wedding, whatever, but their remember it in such a way as to make you question your own memories, indeed your own capacity to remember. That’s what I felt watching…