Thursday 18 January 2024

Critical Week: Hey, bruv

I've been busy this week organising the forthcoming London Critics' Circle Awards, and also voting in both Online Film Critics Society awards and the Dorian Awards. And we also had the Bafta Film Awards nominations today, which is the biggest awards alongside the Oscars. Those nominations come next week. So there's been plenty to do along with watching a few movies... 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The End We Start From
The Holdovers • The Kitchen
ALL REVIEWS >
The British drama Gassed Up won the audience award at the London Film Festival, and is a stylish and impressively made film until it's taken over by a standard crime thriller. The cast is packed with rising stars, led by Stephen Odubola. Another British thriller was also very slickly made: Jackdaw stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen as a motocross rider who gets entangled with a crime boss who happens to be his estranged father. Strong performances make it enjoyable, including a tough Jenna Coleman and a scene-chewing Thomas Turgoose. 

More highbrow, the Swedish drama Opponent stars the always excellent Peyman Maadi as an Iranian refugee grappling with his inner demons. The charming Italian romance Fireworks gets very dark indeed as it explores prejudice in a 1980s small-town. And the offbeat comedy The Civil Dead playfully subverts the ghost story genre with its likeably sad sack characters

This coming week is also a bit slower than usual at the cinema, but I have a lot to do. I'll be watching three British films: Ian McShane in American Star, Diana Quick in Forever Young, and the offbeat drama-documentary hybrid This Blessed Plot. And I have two stage shows to cover as well.


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