John Bleasdale

Venice

writer of The Magic Hours, biography of T Malick @variety Host: Writers On Film: https://t.co/kUr3kA8yUT https://t.co/rw0TWkkdk1

Articles

Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Tom Cruise Among the Hollywood Stars to Have Been Feted at Taormina Film Festival

1 day ago | msn.com | John Bleasdale

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Martin Scorsese, Catherine Deneuve, Michael Douglas Among Star Guests at Taormina Film Festival

1 day ago | variety.com | John Bleasdale

Martin Scorsese, Michael Douglas, Catherine Deneuve, Helen Hunt and Olivia Wilde are among the guests at the 71st edition of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, which runs June 10-14. Scorsese, who will receive a lifetime achievement award, will be honored in the evocative location of the ancient Greek theater, which boasts a view of the currently active volcano Etna. A screening of “Taxi Driver” will celebrate the occasion.
Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Tom Cruise Among the Hollywood Stars to Have Been Feted at Taormina Film Festival

1 day ago | variety.com | John Bleasdale

The Italian mainland boasts a host of film festivals from the giants like Venice, Torino and Rome to the specialist cinephile celebrations like the Bologna Cinema Ritrovato and Pordenone’s annual celebration of silent cinema. But few of them boast as beautiful and historical a setting as the ancient amphitheater that hosts the screenings of the Taormina Film Festival, which celebrates its 71st edition this year.
Pillion review: a feel-good British BDSM drama

1 week ago | bfi.org.uk | John Bleasdale Festivals |John Bleasdale |Sophie Monks Kaufman |Nicolas Rapold

Reviewed from the 2025 Cannes Film FestivalLove comes in all shapes and sizes. For Colin (Harry Melling), a floppy haired traffic warden, it comes in the superhuman form of a leather clad Alexander Skarsgård, playing Ray, a biker who sees something in Colin and decides to take him on an erotic ride of submission and domination. Colin’s job puts him in the firing line of almost daily abuse and opprobrium.
"ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA"

1 week ago | nextbestpicture.com | John Bleasdale

THE STORY – As Hamas tightens control over Gaza, Yahia seeks vengeance for his friend Ossama’s brutal murder. His encounter with the killer alters everything. THE CAST – Nader Abd Alhaym, Majd Eid & Is’haq EliasTHE TEAM – Tarzan Nasser & Arab Nasser (Directors/Writers)THE RUNNING TIME – 87 MinutesWatching films in one of the hubs of the world’s super-rich can often feel incredibly incongruous.
How Gaza struck Cannes

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | John Bleasdale

It’s one of those moments that comes periodically in Cannes. You watch a film that exposes the inequalities of the world, the injustices, or the instances of oppression and unfairness.
The Secret Agent review: Tropical thriller

2 weeks ago | bfi.org.uk | Giovanni Marchini Camia |Mark Asch |Jonathan Romney |John Bleasdale

Reviewed from the 2025 Cannes Film FestivalHaving already proved himself a virtuoso of scene-setting openers with Aquarius (2016) and Bacurau (2019), Kleber Mendonça Filho pulls off a hattrick with The Secret Agent. A vivid yellow VW Beetle drives into a rural petrol station while titles inform us that we’re in Brazil in 1977, “a time of great mischief”. Not far from the pumps, a dead body lies under a sheet of cardboard and a swarm of flies.
When the Light Breaks review: the difference of a day

2 weeks ago | bfi.org.uk | Jonathan Romney |Mark Asch |Giovanni Marchini Camia |John Bleasdale

The Icelandic drama When the Light Breaks – the original, more succinct title is Ljósbrot, ‘refraction’ – is built around a simple question. How can a person deal with the loss of a loved one when circumstances demand that they hide the extent of their emotion? The quandary is especially painful when it affects someone of college age, still beginning to grapple with life’s harsher emotional challenges, even while presenting themselves as mature and unbreakably robust.
Ari Aster’s Eddington is not the great Covid movie we’ve been waiting for

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | John Bleasdale

The Covid-19 pandemic kept us apart and then brought us together. Then, after brief moments of solidarity with others and of celebration when the vaccine emerged, came the side effects. It divided us as communities, created mental health crises, educational shortcomings and uncertainty, increased alienation and fostered an environment where conspiracy theories grew like pustules.
Could Tom Cruise's next mission be the White House?

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | John Bleasdale

“What was I going to do? Retire? Go fishing?” says a character as they face (perhaps) – don’t worry, no spoilers here – certain death in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning. The question could just as easily be posed of the star and producer – “a Tom Cruise Production” – of this final instalment of the colon-rich, sphincter-tightening franchise.