October is a fairly insane month for a film critic in London, with several overlapping festivals at any given time, plus the onslaught of awards season screenings. The London Film Festival ended on Sunday night, and on Wednesday I was on-stage at the opening ceremony of the London East Asia Film Festival, where I'm heading up the jury. This means I have 16 East Asian movies to watch over the next 10 days, plus the usual releases.
This past week's big movies included the darker-than-usual superhero adventure Black Adam, starring an unusually violent Dwayne Johnson. It's skilfully made, but everything else about the film feels familiar. Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne have meaty roles in The Good Nurse, a wrenching true story that's riveting and very disturbing. And Billy Eichner stars with Luke Macfarlane in Bros, a gay romcom that's a bit smug but also very funny and refreshingly honest about issues of insecurity and self-loathing.
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BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Decision to Leave • Piggy
The Banshees of Inisherin
ALL REVIEWS > |
Kicking off LEAFF was the brisk, adrenaline-pumping Korean thriller
Hunt, starring
Squid Game's Lee Jung-Jae, who also makes an impressive directing debut (I helped present him an honorary award at the opening ceremony). And then there was
Voodoo Macbeth, a fascinating drama about Orson Welles' groundbreaking 1936 all-Black stage production of Shakespeare's Scottish play. Made by a crowd at USC Film School, it's an entertaining romp packed with pointed sideroads. Finally,
Eternal Spring documents Chinese activists who audaciously hijacked state TV using eye-catching animation and powerful first-hand interviews.
Coming this next week are the horror hit
Barbarians, the British drama
Enys Men, animated adventure
The Amazing Maurice and quite a few films from East Asia.
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