DVD Review: ‘Village at the End of the World’
★★★☆☆ “If there’s a bright centre to the universe you’re on the planet it’s farthest from,” says the Star Wars Saga’s Luke Skywalker, 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
Film Review: ‘The Iceman’
★★★☆☆ With over one hundred hits to his name, Richard Leonard ‘The Iceman’ Kuklinski was a Mafia contract killer legendary for the coolness which...
Cannes 2013: Kechiche wins Palme d’Or
Last night at a star-studded ceremony in Southern France, the 66th Cannes Film Festival announced the prize winners from its competition strand. Many believed...
Cannes 2013: ‘Venus in Fur’ review
★★★☆☆ Following on from 2011’s raucous American middle-class comedy Carnage – and as we await his long-gestating Dreyfus affair project – Polish director Roman...
Cannes 2013: ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ review
★★★★☆ Director Jim Jarmusch has managed an almost impossible feat with new film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), in competition at this year’s Cannes...
Cannes 2013: ‘Behind the Candelabra’ review
★★★★☆ Władziu Valentino Liberace was a phenomenal success, his recording and performing career spanning four decades. A flamboyant showman and housewives’ favourite, Liberace fought...
Cannes 2013: ‘Like Father, Like Son’ review
★★★★☆ Award-winning Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda lights up this year’s London Film Festival with Like Father, Like Son (2013), a closely-observed family drama which...
Cannes 2013: ‘Blue Is the Warmest Colour’ review
★★★★★ Last year, it was a tale of time-tested amour which ultimately went on to pick up the Palme d’Or. This year, Abdellatif Kechiche’s...
