Critical Week: Founding fathers

It's my birthday week, so I've been a bit off-schedule, spreading celebrations over three days (as you do!). But I still managed to watch a number of films, including two on the big screen. On Netflix, America: The Motion Picture is a wacky animated mash-up of US history and pop culture silliness. It's utterly idiotic, but the barrage of gags means that some of them elicit laughter. On Prime, The Tomorrow War is a bloated action epic thankfully starring the hugely watchable Chris Pratt as a biology teacher (of course with special ops training) sent to the future to save humanity from spike-shooting aliens. It's utterly idiotic, but cheesy enough to keep us entertained. And on HBO Max, No Sudden Move is a gritty mob thriller expertly directed by Steven Soderbergh, with an superb ensemble led by Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and Jon Hamm. It's snaky and involving, but holds onto its best thematic kick too long.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Man With the Answers
Another Round • Summer of Soul
Freaky • No Sudden Move
PERHAPS AVOID: Voyagers
ALL REVIEWS >

As for cinema screenings, there were The Last Bus, an involving and never sentimental drama with Timothy Spall as a very old man travelling the length of Great Britain on public busses, and Jumbo, an inventively well-made French romance based on a provocatively offbeat true story. I also watched The God Committee, a dark morality drama starring a serious Kelsey Grammer; the Argentine dramatic horror Rock, Paper and Scissors, which scarily pits siblings against each other; and the glorious Summer of Soul, beautifully documenting a shamefully forgotten Harlem concert series from 1969.

I also returned to a West End theatre to finally catch up with the musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie, a triumphantly engaging story about a teen who wants to be his colourful self. It has properly great songs too, which bodes well for the film adaptation that's due in the autum.

This coming week, I am looking forward to in-cinema screenings of Black Widow with Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, and The Duke with Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. Other films to watch include Emile Hirsch in Son and Nicolas Cage in Pig. I'm also taking a couple of days off, getting out of London for the first time in a year.