Critical Week: No longer silent

Having survived the film festival, I'm looking out for awards-season screenings before voting deadlines. This week there were three of these: Bombshell stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie (with Kate McKinnon, above) in a true drama about the scandal surrounding Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) at Fox News. Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins are brilliantly cast in The Two Popes, based on the true story of the transition from Benedict to Francis. And I caught up with Chiwetel Ejiofor's writing-directing debut The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, an inspirational true story from Malawi.

Back to films out soon (or now), I had to buy a ticket to see Terminator: Dark Fate, because there were no press screenings. It's not bad, and has a nice trio of strong women at its centre. Ewan McGregor stars in Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining faithfully adapted from Stephen King's novel with lots of added Stanley Kubrick. The new animated comedy romp based on the iconic The Addams Family is silly and a bit frantic. Cousins is a lovely, loose-limbed romance from Brazil. And These Peculiar Days is a witty, sexy ensemble piece from Mexico.

There aren't many screenings in the diary for this coming week for some reason, but I've got these films lined up: the Dutch action-thriller Bloody Marie, the steamy Brazilian drama Copa 181, Ecuador's Oscar hopeful La Mala Noche, plus finally catching up with Octavia Spencer in Ma and Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.