While there are glimpses of a post-pandemic new normal, everything still feels up in the air. The Sundance Film Festival is currently running a virtual edition, while major film releases continue to shift their releases further back to hopefully less turbulent times. Meanwhile, I've been busy putting together the London Film Critics' Circle awards as another virtual ceremony. And press screenings are in a strange phase as well, with very few things in the diary. Aside from a few shorts, the only narrative film I saw this week was a catch-up awards contender, the indie drama
Test Pattern, a pointed, bracingly honest romance that gently takes the audience through some rather enormous tonal shifts.
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BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Compartment No 6
Parallel Mothers • Taming the Garden
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind
the Monster
ALL REVIEWS > |
All the other movies I watched were documentaries. Two looked back on a century of film history, skilfully exploring the lives and careers of cinema icons. Although neither feels like it gets too deep under the skin, fans will love both:
The Real Charlie Chaplin and
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster. The other three are serious awards contenders:
The Rescue is a thrilling, strikingly well-shot doc about the operation to free 12 boys trapped in a flooded Thai cave.
Procession movingly traces a group of men taking inventive action as they try to heal from childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests. And the visually gorgeous
Taming the Garden quietly observes the startling impact a billionaire has on nature, culture and history as he creates a landscaped garden.
Films to see over the coming week include Johnny Knoxville and crew's continuing idiocy in
Jackass Forever, Scout Taylor-Compton in
The Long Night, Sam Claflin in
Book of Love, the Spanish drama
Bringing Him Back, the documentary
The Tinder Swindler, and the shorts collection
The French Boys 3.
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