John Bleasdale

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CineVue
For 374 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 39% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

John Bleasdale's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Hit the Road
Lowest review score: 20 Victoria and Abdul
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 178 out of 374
  2. Mixed: 189 out of 374
  3. Negative: 7 out of 374
374 movie reviews
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    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    Downsizing
    This is Payne's most political film since Election and refreshingly eschews the gentle social realism of Sideways and Nebraska for something much more subversive. The pointillist normalcy of those films is used well as a context in which to embed the craziness of his Kaufmanesque high concept.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    Bushwick
    There are the occasional moments when Bushwick lets on that it knows that this is all truly awful.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    Dark Night
    In its determined avoidance of sensationalism, it finds itself stranded in an empty space so understated, it is genuinely difficult to understand what, if anything, it is saying.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
    The Seasons in Quincy is most compelling when we and it listens to Berger or captures him listening to someone else.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Berlin Syndrome
    Adapting Melanie Joosten's novel, Shaun Grant has been unable to recapture the grimey darkness of everyday evil of his previous script Snowtown. Instead, we get a sojourn in place of trauma.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    After the Storm
    After the Storm is undoubtedly one of Kore-eda's best.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenüe)
    Serraille avoids every miserablist cul-de-sac and tries for something much more radical: optimism.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    How to Talk to Girls at Parties
    Mitchell's understanding of punk seems to be the brandishing of two or three cliches, shouting a lot and name-checking bands.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    Ismael's Ghosts
    It isn't that it's hard going: it simply can't decide what it wants to be. [Cannes Version]
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 John Bleasdale
    You Were Never Really Here
    Over the years, Phoenix has given us some of the most memorable portraits of dark flawed men from Commodus to Johnny Cash. Here, he is excellent, utterly convincing as a man who has been hammered by the world and so has decided to hammer it back.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Godard Mon Amour
    Garrel and Miller manage to create a credible chemistry.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Jupiter's Moon
    Jupiter's Moon is a highly ambitious and thoroughly entertaining trip and if the politics is more backdrop than subtext, what remains is compelling and occasionally beautiful enough for you to enjoy the flight.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    Happy End
    Happy End may be something of a greatest hits mixtape, but it's also an arresting offering.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 John Bleasdale
    Loveless
    Zvyagintsev is masterfully compiling a cinematic record of suffering, and the indifference surrounding and facilitating it, which will live on.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    Let the Sunshine In
    Bright Sunshine In is a pithily precise portrait of the love life of an artist.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 20 John Bleasdale
    Rodin
    Sculpture is the art of turning lifeless stone into something that looks alive, flesh, living bodies and movement. Jacques Doillon's Rodin, in competition at Cannes, does precisely the opposite, turning living beings - passionate artists, no less - into lumps of lifeless clay.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    In the Fade
    There's something highly familiar about the material and although it is artful and occasionally powerful, Akin and co-screenwriter Hark Bohm have constructed their story without straying far from countless other versions of the same thing.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    A Gentle Creature
    Despite a first half of great promise, the film is ultimately ground down by the endless suffering even as it bloats with a bizarre lurch into satirical fantasy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    BPM (Beats Per Minute)
    Campillo doesn't edit for our comfort and we feel both the tragedy and the boredom of death.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    April's Daughter
    Franco has a hardlined style and a kind of story that play like an apprentice Haneke. However, as each film arrives, the power diminishes, because the stories are now easily predictable.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    The Square
    There is much to enjoy here - especially at the beginning - and Östlund's ambition and vision are to be applauded. However, The Square would have been greatly improved had the director taken his scalpel and his demanding critical eye and applied it to the film itself.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Good Time
    The journey through a nighttime New York is rich in realistic characters, observational details and some original locations.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Radiance
    Fans of Kawase will likely enjoy this delicate tale of people finding their way in the dark.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    The Killing of a Sacred Deer
    In Farrell and Kidman, he has found two performers who are utterly willing to go the whole hog and their performances are brilliant deadpans.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    The Beguiled
    It has a powdery dryness, a sly wit which is indeed beguiling.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
    Baumbach writes his dialogue with a sharp pencil and the film bursts with non-sequiturs, put downs and hilarious lines.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 John Bleasdale
    Wonderstruck
    The fraudulent nature of the mystery makes Wonderstruck feel like a technical exercise: albeit one which is enlivened by some great visuals and excellent performances, particularly the wonderful Millicent Simmonds.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Wind River
    Though it can't bear too much comparison with Sicario, Wind River is far better than its title suggests and a promising directorial debut.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 John Bleasdale
    Okja
    Okja is exuberant and wild filmmaking.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 John Bleasdale
    Rules Don't Apply
    There's a wry comic sensibility that sees Hughes himself as an absurdity who seems half aware of his own ridiculousness.
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