The Hidden Fortress
Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 action adventure The Hidden Fortress belongs to a swashbuckling genre of heroic derring-do: jidaigeki.
Review by John Bleasdale
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Beasts of the Southern Wild
Benh Zeitlin’s exhilarating film mixes poverty with a rich strain of dark Gothic fantasy.
Review by John Bleasdale
Holy Motors
What is this that we are watching? Is it genius? Is it indulgent tosh? Is it a bizarre mixture of the two?
Review by John Bleasdale
Killing Them Softly
Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) is a return to the small-time criminal fraternity that he made his name with.
Review by John Bleasdale
Rumble Fish
Rumble Fish is a film dominated by time.
Review by John Bleasdale
The Fly
Gruesomeness aside, The Fly is a chamber piece, a relationship drama, which infests adolescent hopes of transformation with the corrosive vomit of mutation.
Review by John Bleasdale
Himizu
Located in the midst of the devastation in the aftermath of the tsunami of 2011, Sion Sono’s latest shows a society that is not only physically destroyed but also socially falling to pieces.
Review by John Bleasdale
The Devils
Ken Russell’s 1971 film deliberately sets out to shock and does so with a verve and an integrity of purpose that few films can equal.
Review by John Bleasdale
Gothic
The story of one of the most famous literary friendships in the world is almost too good to make a good film.
Review by John Bleasdale
Altered States
Altered States is Ken Russell’s most Hollywood film in a career that for the most part eschewed conventional and commercial cinema.
Review by John Bleasdale