Critical Week: Somebody's watching

It's been a quiet week as far as press screenings go, but I've been keeping busy with various events, as well as the usual collection of movies to watch using online screening links. BFI Flare held an event to launch the programme for its 36th festival, and it was great to have an in-person event again - although without the usual festival afterparty. The festival runs 16-27 March as a mix of cinema and virtual screenings and events, and I'm looking forward to it as usual. Flare is easily London's most festive film festival.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Strawberry Mansion
Kimi • Uncharted
The Real Charlie Chaplin
ALL REVIEWS >

As for the movies, I watched Steven Soderbergh's superbly involving Hitchcockian thriller Kimi, which stars Zoe Kravitz (above) as a tech worker caught in a properly suspenseful mystery. Naomi Watts is terrific in The Desperate Hour, essentially a one-woman show about a mother panicking to get back to her children. It's emotive but a bit contrived.  From Australia, Streamline is an intriguing but far too gloomy drama about a swimmer (Levi Miller) who goes off the rails. From Greece, Echoes of the Past is a familiar WWII drama elevated by the great Max von Sydow, in his final film role. The surreal adventure Strawberry Mansion is a wonderfully inventive journey into dreamscapes starring Kenrucker Audley, who also cowrote and codirected. And from France, A Night in the Fields is an involving short feature about two teens working out their friendship and more.

I also revisited the sensitive, improv-style 2020 New York drama Cicada before hosting a Valentine's Day Q&A with writer-director-star Matthew Fifer, producer Jeremy Truong, producer Ramfis Myrthil and editor Kyle Sims. The film's UK release was delayed by the pandemic, and it was great to finally get to meet them, welcome them to London and chat to a very receptive audience.

In this coming week, films to see include Channing Tatum in Dog and the Palestinian thriller Huda's Salon. I'm also heading off on a break for a couple of weeks, so blog entries may be a bit sporadic. But I'm hoping to catch up with the Foo Fighters in Studio 666 and, yes, Robert Pattinson in The Batman along the way.