Wednesday, 4 March 2020

Critical Week: The plane! The plane!

That'll be me tomorrow - flying off to paradise. Well, to see my parents, who happen to live in Los Angeles (not tropical, but can't complain). Anyway, that's a photo from the new film adaptation of the classic 1970s TV series Fantasy Island. Although the filmmakers seem unsure what they wanted to achieve, including some of the show's cheesy humour alongside corny melodrama and grisly horror. It never settles into one thing, and the story never comes together. A real waste of a solid cast that includes Michael Peña, Maggie Q, Michael Rooker and Austen Stowell. But hopefully the cast and crew had a nice holiday on that lovely island.

Much better was Onward, Pixar's new brother-centred animated adventure that's packed with comedy, action and, yes, emotion. It's simply gorgeous, perhaps more aimed at boys than girls. Daniel Radcliffe continues to eschew Hollywood with Guns Akimbo, a bonkers action movie from New Zealand that has great energy and rather a lot of gratuitous gore. Showing at Cinequest and Outfest Fusion over the next week or so, Breaking Fast is a superbly thoughtful comedy-drama about a gay Muslim who finds love unexpectedly.

I didn't have time to watch any other films this past week - other than revisiting Orlando (1992), for the first time on a big screen. It was screened at BFI Southbank as part of the Tilda Swinton season, and it was introduced on-stage by Swinton and writer-director Sally Potter, who offered a hilarious unscripted stream-of-conscience commentary (see below). A real joy. And the film hasn't aged at all - it still feels bracingly present-day.

There are several films I'm hoping to catch up with in cinemas while in California, including Emily Blunt's A Quiet Place Part II, Ben Affleck's The Way Back, Annette Bening's Hope Gap, Javier Bardem's The Roads Not Taken, and the cycling comedy The Climb. Whether I'll have time for any of those is yet to be seen...
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