Critical Week: Life's a beach

Awards season stuff continues to take up much of my time, with another flurry of nominations and winners released this week, including the biggest nominations of the season: the Oscars. As usual, the news was full of stories about surprise nods and angry snubs, as if this was something new. Meanwhile, I'm in the final 10-day push toward the London Critics' Circle awards, looking forward to having Michelle Yeoh at our ceremony to receive our top honour. It's looking like a properly starry event after two virtual years. Lots still to do to get ready for that!

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Close • The Fabelmans
Concerned Citizen
PERHAPS AVOID:
Maybe I Do • Shotgun Wedding
ALL REVIEWS >

Of course I've also been watching movies, and the Philippines was the main villain in two big Hollywood productions. Filmed in the Dominican Republic, Shotgun Wedding stars Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel as the bride and groom who plan a lush destination wedding that's interrupted by ruthless pirates. Filmed in Puerto Rico, Plane stars Gerard Butler as a pilot who crash-lands on a remote Filipino island overrun with a ruthless militia. Both movies require their stars to step in when the law fails to protect them. And both are plainly preposterous, although Plane just wins the battle by being a bit more fun.

The rest are an eclectic bunch: Maybe I Do has a super-starry ensemble cast that features Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, William H Macy, Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey. And yet the transition from stage to screen feels a bit dull and contrived. From China, the massive blockbuster sci-fi epic The Wandering Earth II takes the breath away with its enormous scale and vast cast of characters, and it's also deliberately funny, which is refreshing. From Australia, Seriously Red is an endearing drama about a woman who becomes a Dolly Parton impersonator to find herself. It's funny and edgy, like Muriel's Wedding. And from Israel, Concerned Citizen is a lovely naturalistic drama about a guy trying to decide whether to improve his Tel Aviv neighbourhood or just move away like everyone else.

Screenings are a bit scant this coming week, although that's because I've already seen the awards-contending films that are coming into cinemas now. Movies to see this coming week include Ryan Philippe in The Locksmith, Nick Moran in Renegades and some straggling awards contenders.

Critical Week: Joy to the world

Happy Christmas from locked-down London! I had a barrage of timed awards-consideration screening links this week that changed what I was planning to watch. This meant that I saw quite a few contenders, and the common adjective to describe highbrow movies this year seems to be: "dour". Thankfully, each has something to recommend in it, usually strong performances that lift the tone. And some of these films have been wonderfully upbeat too.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 

One Night in Miami • Soul 

Promising Young Woman 

News of the World • AK vs AK 

The Dissident • Luz 

ALL REVIEWS >

Hugh Bonneville stars in the Roald Dahl biopic To Olivia (above), a downbeat film that's beautifully played by its cast, including Keeley Hawes as Dahl's wife, the actress Patricia Neal. Tom Hanks gives yet another wonderful performance in Paul Greengrass' earthy Western News of the World, matched by a fierce turn from the wondrous Helena Zengel. Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston yearn for each other in the aching period drama The World to Come. Jude Law and Carrie Coon find cracks in their high-flying life in the insidious 1980s drama The Nest. Sophia Loren shines brightly in the terrific Italian comedy-drama The Life Ahead. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner have a happy life in Let Him Go, until they really, really don't.

There were also a few guilty pleasures this week. Gerard Butler stars in the catastrophic comet strike thriller Greenland, which is far more entertaining than expected. Hilary Swank is downright nasty in Fatale, a dopey noir-style semi-erotic thriller. And Bollywood superstar Anil Kapoor takes on director Anurag Kashyap in the clever pastiche action comedy AK vs AK.

Indie movies included Steven Yeun leading a terrific ensemble in the acclaimed drama Minari, about a Korean family in Arkansas; Boaz Yakin's swirling gender-bending dance-infused drama Aviva; the naturalistic, finely observed immigrant drama Farewell Amor; and the fiercely artful surreal thriller The One You Feed. From Colombia, Luz: The Flower of Evil is a wonderfully stylised horror packed with bonkers touches. And there were two seriously intense documentaries: The Dissident traces the horrific assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudis in Turkey, while the thriller-style Welcome to Chechnya following activists trying to rescue young gay people hunted down in Russia.

I'm taking a few days off from movies around Christmas. Then I'll dive in and watch Judi Dench in a new all-star version of Blythe Spirit, Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit, the comedy Freshman Year, the Greek drama Apples and the Italian documentary The Truffle Hunters. Others are bound to pop up before voting deadlines close in soon.

Critical Week: Against the law

The big movie screened this week for London critics was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, a powerfully riveting drama that, like last week's Dunkirk, unapologetically immerses the audience in a historical event. Plus noteworthy performances from British actors John Boyega (above) and Will Poulter. Lighter fare included the raucous comedy Girls Trip, which is very funny and has a surprisingly soft centre, and the Jack the Ripper style horror whodunit The Limehouse Golem, which is overfamiliar but very well-played.

Slightly outside the mainstream, we had the conceptual underwater horror of 47 Metres Down, which nerve-wrackingly traps two young women at the bottom of the sea surrounded by sharks; Gerard Butler trying to emote in the rather painfully obvious work-life balance drama A Family Man; Michael Winterbottom struggling to find a balance between documentary and fiction in the band tour movie On the Road (Wolf Alice fans should love it); and a sensitive doc tracing a likeable young musician's gender transition in Real Boy.

Coming up this week are the animated comedy The Emoji Movie, Tom Holland in Pilgrimage, Toni Collette in Fun Mom Dinner, Francois Ozon's L'Amant Double, Sundance hit Beach Rats, Berlin winner On Body and Soul, the dark comedy Kept Boy, and the tense drama Insyriated.

Critical Week: Of skirts and men

I caught up with the ancient-mythology epic Gods of Egypt this week (that's Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites above being tormented by a god-sized Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There's definitely a lot of camp value there, and much of the snarky attitude is intentional. It's definitely smarter that most blockbusters, even if it is swamped by excessive effects work (hint: it's better on a small screen without 3D).

Aside from the Sundance Film Festival London, I had only three other movies this week, and it was a mixed bag: Elvis & Nixon recounts an absurd true story as a vehicle for Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey to chomp merrily on the scenery. There isn't much more to the movie that that, but it might be enough. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a rather darker true story from 1971, with eerie resonance in more recent headline news. It's a very well-made film, sober and pointed, with a terrific cast. And Outings consists of the first three episodes of a proposed British TV series that's unlikely to be commissioned. Basically an amusing but never funny gay variation on Sex and the City, the stories are good and the cast is fresh, but it's just too amateurish to appeal to broader audiences.

As usual this time of year, screenings are rather few and far between. The only one in the diary for the coming week is the London-set sequel The Conjuring 2. Other films might be forthcoming (and I have a few in the diary for the following week), but I'm looking forward to a bit of time to do other things for a change.

Critical Week: Pandaemonium

Surprisingly, one of the best films screened to London press in the past week is the animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 3, which takes the saga of reluctant hero Po to a satisfying climax with wit, action and real emotion. Other sequels this week include the visually impressive third Divergent adventure Allegiant, which reverts to explanatory dialog and essentially pointless action. And Gerard Butler's lively follow-up action romp London Has Fallen is absolutely preposterous but thinks it's edgy and real.

It was also a mixed bag for prestige dramas this week. Tom Hiddleston is superb as Hank Williams in the choppy biopic I Saw the Light. Michael Shannon reunites with Jeff Nichols for Midnight Special, a blockbuster story cleverly told as an arthouse drama. Reese Ritchie and Freida Pinto are solid in the uneven Iran-set British drama Desert Dancer. And the ambitious Italian mob drama Suburra beautifully brings its complex plot strands together.

Documentaries included a fascinating look at a corner of cinema history in Peter de Rome: Grandfather of Gay Porn and the perhaps slightly too academic but harrowingly important The Brainwashing of My Dad. And I also caught up with Mexican Men, a collection of five visceral short films by Julian Hernandez and Roberto Fiesco.


Coming up this week, we have Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins, JJ Abrams' alien-attack spin-off 10 Cloverfield Lane, Russell Tovey in The Pass, Tom Sturridge in Remainder, the British gaming action thriller The Call Up, Laurie Anderson's Heart of a Dog and the photographer doc Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures.

Festival Days: Where are we?

The East End Film Festival moves into its second week with a remarkably ambitious programme screening at cinemas all over East London. Highlights for me will be attending the world premieres of two British indies: Simon Savory's Bruno & Earlene Go to Vegas (pictured) and Daniel Audritt's The Brightest Colours Make Grey. On Wednesday evening I caught up with Ben Wheatley's latest head trip A Field in England, which is every bit as mind-boggling as expected.

Meanwhile, the 67th Edinburgh International Film Festival  wrapped up over the weekend, and now I have the excitement of catching up with those films as they are released in the UK. I've managed to see one of them this week - Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring had a mixed reception at Cannes, and I can see why: it's probably a bit too timely and prescient for most critics. I found it a clever, insightful exploration of today's fame-driven youth culture.

Other films I've caught up with this week include the animated action-comedy Turbo, about a souped-up speedy snail (comments are embargoed on this one). Gerard Butler's surfing drama Chasing Mavericks is a blanded-down true story that at least features plenty of terrific surfing action. Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger's remarkable Blancanieves will struggle to overcome comparisons to The Artist (it's also silent, black and white) and Hollywood's two takes on Snow White last year. But this is a skilfully well-told story that's essential viewing due to its gorgeous emotional resonance. Renny Harlin's The Dyatlov Pass Incident will also suffer from comparisons to The Blair Witch Project. Despite a dodgy climax, this icy thriller is actually a better film, and it's based on a fascinating true mystery from 1959 Russia (plus added present-day fiction).

The next big movies screening to London critics will be Guillermo Del Toro's alien-invasion epic Pacific Rim and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's apocalyptic pub crawl comedy The World's End.

Critical Week(s): Nine years later...

The most anticipated London press screening in the past 10 days was for Richard Linklater's Before Midnight, the third visit with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy after Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. This time they're on a Greek island at the end of a holiday, and their conversation has shifted yet again with another nine-year interval. It's a marvellously funny, sometimes scary look at relationships. Two rather larger movies starred Saoirse Ronan: Andrew Niccol's The Host (based on a novel by Twilight's Stephenie Meyer) wasn't screened to the press, so I had to attend the first public screening on Friday morning to see it (with just three Twi-hards). Frankly it was pretty good, and would have benefitted hugely from press screenings and opening weekend word-of-mouth. And Ronan also led the charge in Byzantium, Neil Jordan's extremely off-beat vampire thriller, which avoids cliches to create some vivid characters. (29th March cover at right.)

We also had a double dose of Dwayne Johnson, as he rocked two action movies: G.I. Joe: Retaliation is the much more bombastic, inane sequel to the surprise critical hit The Rise of Cobra, with a largely new cast and crew. It's pretty bad. Johnson was also the focus of Snitch, a grittier thriller that required some acting, which he's clearly capable of even when things get a bit silly. And this week's final loud action blockbuster was Olympus Has Fallen, with Gerard Butler in a Bruce Willis/Die Hard role. It's actually good fun, mainly because the script is so ludicrous that you'll laugh all the way through the final act.

Four more random films: in the rude college comedy 21 & Over, Miles Teller and Skylar Astin have an adventure eerily similar to The Hangover, which is no surprise since it's written by the same writers. There are some nice touches, but more originality and fewer cheap jokes would have helped. Family Weekend is a high-concept comedy about a teen who takes her parents (Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Modine) hostage to teach them a lesson in parenting. The actors rescue it. From Britain, All Things to All Men is jarringly hard-to-follow crime thriller starring Rufus Sewell and Toby Stephens. And Audrey Tautou and Gilles Lellouche are solid in Claude Miller's remake of Therese Desqueroux, although it all leaves you a bit cold.

Coming up this next week are Matthew McConaughey's new thriller Mud, the new Almodovar airbourne romp I'm So Excited, Joel Kinnamon in the Swedish underworld remake Easy Money, and the Disney 3D documentary Chimpanzee. Yes after the busy schedule of the past two weeks, I am taking it a bit more quietly this week! (5th April cover at right.)