Awards season is cranking up with various bodies chiming in on the best films of 2021. Indeed, the London Critics' Circle announces its nominations tomorrow! As chair, I've had quite a bit of work to do this week to make that happen, so it will be nice to enter the holiday season while the members are considering the nominees for the final round of voting in January. I have a couple of nominees to catch up with myself. In the mean time, there were two big movies screened to critics this past week.
The King's Man is Matthew Vaughn's 100-years-earlier prequel to his
Kingsman films. A great cast helps make it watchable, but the tone varies wildly between hyperviolent action and serious war thriller.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is even more audacious, but manages to stir its chaos into a coherent, entertaining romp through the multiverse with Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zendaya and others. Spoilers abound, so writing that review was tricky.
 |
BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Swan Song • Cyrano
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Lola and the Sea
ALL REVIEWS > |
Even more starry,
Don't Look Up is a smart, funny social satire about two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) trying to warn a wilfully disbelieving world that the planet is about to be obliterated. Mahershala Ali is terrific in the lightly futuristic
Swan Song, an elegant exploration of memory and identity. Comedians come together for
A Clusterfunke Christmas, a silly and occasionally hilarious pastiche of TV holiday movies. Berlin Film Festival winner
Happening is a very serious French drama about a teen in the 1960s, when abortion is illegal. From Belgium,
Lola and the Sea is a thoughtful, observational film about a young trans woman and her deeply bigoted dad. And from Turkey,
Not Knowing is a bracing look at the dangers of self-involvement, tapping into a range of big topics.
This coming week, I'll be watching Paul Thomas Anderson's
Licorice Pizza, Romola Garai's
Amulet, and awards contenders including
The Worst Person in the World, Minyan, Great Freedom and
Mass.
No comments:
Post a Comment