Critical Week: Let's get weird

After two straight months of film festivals, I made the decision to sit out the 30th Raindance Film Fest, which is underway in London this week. It's always packed with great screenings, unsung films often with filmmaker Q&As. But I've needed some mental health space. I also had to prepare for the annual Critics' Circle Services to the Arts award today, which this year went to Emma Thompson. As chair of the Film Section, I sat next to her for lunch and then delivered a speech about her career before she replied with a fabulous speech of her own about the nature of criticism and its impact on her life. There were about 75 members of the Circle in attendance from across all six sections - film, theatre, dance, music, books and art. A superb afternoon.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Causeway • Living
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Missing • Utama • Neptune Frost
PERHAPS AVOID:
Dear Zoe
ALL REVIEWS >

Movie-wise, the surprising highlight was the pastiche biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe as the king of parody songs. It's a riotously hilarious film, and the screening was accompanied by a lively launch party for Roku in the UK. Other films included the violent and entertaining action drama Medieval, starring Ben Foster, Michael Caine and Sophie Lowe; the superbly unsettling urban horror drama Nanny, with Anna Diop as a Senegalese woman in New York; the remarkable Sadie Sink in the melodramatic and rather slushy drama Dear Zoe; the latest from Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin, the folkloric freak-out Enys Men; and a new inventively nutty mind-bender from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the paranormal adventure Something in the Dirt.

Movies to watch this next week include the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek in Sam & Kate, Romain Duris in Final Cut, Latin American horror in Blood-Red Ox, the Australian romance Expired and the surreal comedy Homebody.