Critical Week: On the warpath

Since I've seen most of movies that were screening to the press this past week, I've been catching up on awards season films like Steven Soderbergh's The Laundromat, a bizarrely comical farce circling around the Panama Papers scandal. The material is strong, but even an A-list cast (led by Meryl Streep, above) can't ground this kind of overambitious approach. Also somewhat uneven, Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote boasts great performances from Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce and fabulously freewheeling production design, with deep themes running under a meandering narrative.

The low-budget Spell was a nice surprise, a scruffy horror romp about a quirky American in Iceland. From Netherlands, Bloody Marie is an internalised drama that takes place during a freaky crime thriller. From Brazil, the bracingly naturalistic Copa 181 explores people who live on the fringe of decency, and are quite happy there. There were also three docs: packed with awesome archival material, Sid & Judy is a lovely look at Judy Garland's life through the eyes of third husband Sid Luft; American Factory is a striking exploration of the cultural collision between China and the US in Ohiol and Anton Corbijn's Depeche Mode: Spirits in the Forest is a superbly engaging blend of concert film and fan doc.

Coming up next week are screenings of Paul Feig's holiday rom-com Last Christmas, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen in The Good Liar, Shia LaBeouf in Honey Boy, the all-star war action Midway, Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life, the British drama Into the Mirror, the rather self-explanatory The Amazing Johnathan Documentary and a reissue of the landmark 1985 Aids drama Buddies.