Returning home to London from Venice, I arrived in a nation in mourning, with a new monarch and prime minister. Meanwhile, I'm grappling with a backlog of festival reviews. Most are written in rough form, so I'm working to get them online bit by bit. And there are also new releases to keep up with.
Confess, Fletch is
the first film featuring the quick-thinking reporter since those two Chevy Chase movies in the '80s. This one is closer in tone to Gregory McDonald's Fletch novels (I've read a few of them), with Jon Hamm creating a more enjoyably deadpan and less silly take on the character. But the film is perhaps a bit underpowered to launch a new franchise.
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BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Athena • In From the Side
Blonde • Strawberry Mansion
Funny Pages • Casablanca Beats
ALL REVIEWS > |
I also caught up with Oliver Hermanus' superb
Living, an inventive remake of Kurosawa's
Ikiru with a terrific lead role for Bill Nighy as a 1950s London businessman who begins to see things from a new perspective. There was another offbeat offering from Peter Strickland with the pointedly amusing
Flux Gourmet, about musicians who mix sound with food. Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie lead a terrific ensemble cast. Finally, there was the gonzo horror of
The Retaliators, an increasingly violent revenge thriller that gleefully preaches a seriously unhelpful message.
Lined up to watch this next week are Viola Davis in
The Woman King, George Clooney and Julia Roberts in
Ticket to Paradise, Lesley Manville in
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, the British drama
It Is In Us All, New Zealand drama
The Justice of Bunny King, Korean drama
In Front of Your Face, Japanese animation
Inu-Oh and the movie club doc
A Bunch of Amateurs.
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