Critical Week: Praying for the help

I only saw three films before leaving London for a brief holiday, and none were the heavy hitters (I'm missing them while I'm away and will be playing catch-up). The best one was the Sundance-winner The Second Mother, a Brazilian drama about the clash between a maid's professional and work families. Oliver Hirschbiegel's 13 Minutes is a riveting story about an unsung German hero who tried to kill Hitler with a bomb in 1939, but the movie is too fragmented to make the story come to life. And the documentary The First Film digs into the last 125 years of film history to discover the truth about the man who made the first moving picture, and that he lived in Leeds, Yorkshire! It's a bit academic, but a great story and an important addition to cinema's narrative.

When I get back, films I'll be quickly catching up with include the anxiously awaited man-candy sequel Magic Mike XXL, the sci-fi action sequel Terminator Genisys, the animated spin-off Minions and the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy.