Wednesday 5 May 2021

Critical Week: Get the party started

There's definitely a sense in London that this lockdown is finally coming to an end, with the promise that we'll soon be able to meet up in person again. Cinemas are re-opening in about 10 days after a long five-month closure, so press screenings will start up as well (I already have a few theatre press nights in the diary). In the mean time, I'm still watching everything using online links. The past week was another extremely mixed bag, from the loose, low-fi fun of the indie drama The Get Together, a messy romantic comedy centred around a chaotic house party, to the fabulous animated adventure The Mitchells vs the Machines, which has vividly developed characters and properly moving themes to add to its nutty action mayhem.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Cowboys • Apples • Undergods
ALL REVIEWS >
Each movie brought its own mood: My New York Year (aka My Salinger Year) is a warmly comical take on the same story as The Devil Wears Prada, but set in a fusty literary agency (with a superb Sigourney Weaver in the scene-stealing role). The Killing of Two Lovers is a gritty independent drama that's somewhat indulgent in its storytelling but has a raw emotionality to it. The Reckoning is unintentionally camp 17th century British horror, riddled with cliches and some painfully awkward makeup and hairstyling choices. From South Africa, Fried Barry is a gleefully squalid odyssey about a junkie who's taken over by aliens. And the extremely low-budget action comedy In Action proves that just about anyone can make a movie if they have imagination and a sense of humour.

Films I need to watch over this coming week include Kelvin Harrison Jr in Monster, Colin Farrell in Voyagers, Melanie Laurent in the thriller Oxygen, the Slovakian drama Servants and the horror comedy Psycho Goreman.


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