Critical Week: Camera ready

It's been a ridiculously busy week, with too many film releases and too many screenings as well, perhaps because Venice Film Festival ended last weekend. Eclectic screenings this week have included the terrific Gael Garcia Bernal in the biopic Cassandro, a colourfully well-made biopic about the exotico wrestler. Ken Loach's latest, and perhaps final, film The Old Oak is a triumph, a staggeringly clear-eyed depiction of ugly British attitudes with an emotive glimmer of hope. And Pablo Larrain's El Conde is a viciously inventive satire that depicts Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire with a jaw-dropping mentor.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Golden Delicious • Love Life
Cassandro • Fremont
A Haunting in Venice
ALL REVIEWS >

Kenneth Branagh is back this week with another all-star Agatha Christie adaptation, and A Haunting in Venice is the best one yet, a superbly gothic mystery thriller packed with shifty characters. Michael Jai White directs and stars in Outlaw Johnny Black, an enjoyable 1970s style action-comedy Western. Aaron Pierre lights up the screen in the small Canadian drama Brother, a dark drama celebrating tenacious immigrant mothers. And Pablo Berger's animated Robot Dreams is a pure delight, tracing the complex friendship between a lonely dog and his robot friend.

And there were even more: Bolan's Shoes is a melodramatic British drama that's beautifully acted but deliberately enigmatic. The Latent Image is an inventively freaky meta-thriller about storytelling; 20,000 Species of Bees is a moving Spanish drama about an 8-year-old wondering why he feels so uneasy about his gender; Gurkha Warrior is a skilfully made rah-rah celebration of the military prowess of the Gurkhas; and Samsara is an offbeat experimental drama that takes the audience on an inventive trip between lives. There were two docs: Carlos is a chatty visit with legendary musician Carlos Santana, while Summer Qamp profiles an extraordinary retreat centre for queer kids in rural Canada. There were also live shows Deeper and Deeper and Myra Dubois: Be Well.

Films this coming week include the all-star action sequel Expend4bles, Almodovar's Western A Strange Way of Life, Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson in The Great Escaper, Accused, Relax I'm From the Future, Ballywater, Rebel and the live show The White Factory.