Critical Week: Long live the king

In in recovery mode following the London Film Festival, but that also means catching up with movies that are coming to normal cinemas. One of these is Zombieland: Double Tap, screened quite late to the critics just a few days before it opens. It's a lot of fun - a guilty pleasure sequel that reteams the original cast and adds some hilarious new characters. By contrast, the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil has superb actors (both returning and new ones) but has such a terrible script that it would be unwatchable without Disney's amazing visual effects extravaganza.

Ken Loach is on fine ranting form with Sorry We Missed You, taking on zero-contract jobs with a terrific fresh-faced British cast. The Danish drama Sons of Denmark is a harrowing trawl into the life of a cop infiltrating Muslim fanatics and, more terrifyingly, nationalist racists. And the sunshiny drama The Third explores the life of a three-way relationship in Palm Springs, maintaining a balance of light romance and very dark drama. And there was also this doc, which I'd missed at LFF...

Mystify: Michael Hutchence
dir-scr Richard Lowenstein
with Michael Hutchence, Bono, Kylie Minogue, Helena Christensen, Tina Hutchence, Rhett Hutchence, Andrew Farriss, Jon Farriss, Tim Farriss, Garry Gary Beers, Kirk Pengilly, Chris Thomas, Martha Troup, Gary Grant, Chris Bailey, Michele Bennett
release Aus Jun.19 sff, UK 18.Oct.19
19/Australia 1h42 ***.

With a superb collection of archival footage, photos and audio recordings, filmmaker Richard Lowenstein presents a chronological narrative documentary about the INXS frontman. It's not a particularly flashy film, but it's elevated by the fact that it's narrated by Michael Hutchence himself using cleverly edited interview clips. And as it continues, it provides never-heard information that should end the rumours that have swirled since his death at age 37 in 1997.

After a childhood spent in Australia and Hong Kong, Hutchence set up INXS with the three Farriss brothers, Beers and Pengilly in 1977, and over the next decade rose to international fame. He is remembered by family and friends as a gentle soul, an artist who became another person in the spotlight. And being a celebrity, his rock god behaviour and romances with the likes of Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen were top fodder for the paparazzi. What no one knows is that in 1992 he suffered a terrible brain injury that changed his personality, leaving him struggling to maintain his identity. Suddenly prone to outbursts of anger, his romance with Paula Yates was passionate and tempestuous.

There's a lot of amazing home movie footage woven in here, revealing both the youthful Hutchence and his own perspective behind-the-scenes on tour, on holidays, at family events and so on. This is so intimate that by the end it's easy to feel like the public image everyone knew was just a mask. In other words, the film demystifies him. It's beautifully assembled by Lowenstein, who lets Hutchence and his friends, family and colleagues recount his story in remarkable detail. And despite his final years of drug abuse and public misbehaviour, Hutchence emerges as a remarkably likeable man who never got the care he needed after his injury. So his suicide takes on a whole new meaning, and becomes even more tragic.

15.Oct.19

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Coming up this next week are screenings of the James Cameron-produced Terminator: Dark Fate, Margot Robbie and Charlize Theron in Bombshell, Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes, Ewan McGregor in Doctor Sleep, a new animated The Addams Family, the British drama Connect, the Ukrainian rom-com Just Sex Nothing Personal, and the Brazilian comedy-drama Cousins.

Critical week: He's behind you!

It's been a busy week catching up with movies here in London. The biggest films were entries in decades-old franchises. Child's Play is a reboot, rather than sequel, updated to the artificial-intelligence era and starring Aubrey Plaza. Toy Story 4 tells another superbly engaging story, again bringing these indelible characters together with action and emotion. And Men in Black International attempts a fresh turn in the saga, with younger stars Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, rather too much digital nuttiness and an only OK plot.

Three small-screen movies will be covered in another blog entry: Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler reunite for the dopey Europe-set comedy whodunit Murder Mystery, Randall Park and Ali Wong star in the snappy-silly rom-com Always Be My Maybe, and Matthew McConaughey plays to type as the stoner title character in the somewhat unfocussed comedy The Beach Bum (out this week on VOD).

As for more arthouse fare, there was Joanna Hogg's new film The Souvenir, another exploration of British upper-class repression, starring Tilda Swinton and her daughter Honor Swinton Byrne, plus Tom Burke. All are excellent, and the film is deeply chilling. Swinging Safari is a wild and woolly Aussie 1970s-set comedy starring Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue and Radha Mitchell. It's a bit over-the-top and chaotic. The American-set British thriller Division 19 is set in a near-future society in which privacy is outlawed. It looks great but makes little sense. From South Africa, the musical Kanarie is a powerful exploration of bigotry and self-acceptance, as a young man goes through his mandatory military service as a member of a choir. From India, Unsaid is a dark drama about deep family secrets, powerfully well played. And the British documentary Are You Proud explores the Pride movement with an intriguingly critical eye.

Coming up this next week, we have Benedict Cumberbatch in The Current War, Alicia Vikander in Euphoria, Angus Macfadyen in Robert the Bruce, the Oscar-nominated drama Never Look Away, the French water polo comedy The Shiny Shrimps, the Indian drama Roobha, and the doc Southern Pride, among others....

Sidewalk to Catwalk: A morning with Jean Paul Gaultier

It's always a blast of fresh air as a film critic when I get to do something that doesn't involve sitting in a dark screening room. Tuesday was the launch of the Barbican's newest exhibition, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, a suitably extravagant collection of clothes, drawings, photos and other goodies from the lively designer's career. The kind of comprehensive exhibition we usually see at the V&A, the Barbican has outdone itself, taking the traveling show from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and expanding it with Gaultier's special love of Britain.

After the opening speeches, Gaultier settled in for a terrific chat with ludicrously dishy curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot (above), during which Gaultier said that he loves London so much that he would have liked to live here if the fashion world would have let him. "I feel more at home here," he said. "The energy and eccentricity is unique maybe because it's an island. But I'm one-eighth English so I will claim it." He wanted this version of the show to be funny, lively and specifically London-slanted, and drew a sketch on the wall (right) at the entrance to launch the exhibition, which runs until 25th August.

And what a show it is! It's packed with iconic clothes we know, from a vast collection of Madonna's cone-bras to memorable outfits for Grace Jones and Boy George (right) as well as Kylie Minogue, Dita Von Teese, Kate Moss and many more. There are also catwalk scenes with eerily animated mannequins showing off both wearable fashions and haute couture (including a metre-high Union Jack mohawk, below).

The show also includes Gaultier's costumes for movies by Peter Greenaway, Pedro Almodovar and Luc Besson, as well as a room dedicated to his special relationship with Britain, including the kitch-classic 1990s series EuroTrash, his Spitting Image puppet and his memorable appearance on Absolutely Fabulous. The show is accompanied by a week of movies in May that influenced Gaultier or feature his work.

The thing that makes Gaultier so singular is, as he puts it, his refusal to accept the stereotype. He designs for all kinds of beauty - any age, ethnicity, size, gender. "I look around and see all kinds of people," he says, "and these characters have an impact on me." He has fun with fashion without ever resorting to satire. "But it's not an abstraction," he adds. "The best thing in the world is seeing people wearing my clothes."

It's hard to imagine another designer who would get a specially made eclair created for him by one of the show's sponsors, Boulangerie-Patisserie Paul (talk about a canny marketing trick!): not only is its design gorgeously simple, but it's also seriously delicious.