Critical Week: Party season

Well, we're coming up to the end of the year, and awards are pouring in at a rapid pace, with top 10 lists and critics groups announcing their honours. I've been busy with Golden Globes ballots and organising the London Critics' Circle nominations announcement this week (we announce our winners on 4th February). We also announced that we're giving special awards to Jeffrey Wright and Colman Domingo at our 44th ceremony. There have also been a couple of Christmas parties, of course, as we prepare for the holidays this weekend. So I've only seen three films...

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
All of Us Strangers
Society of the Snow
Memory • The Iron Claw
ALL REVIEWS >

The British drama How to Have Sex earned several nominations, and I understood why as I finally caught up with it. Starting as a raucous drunken holiday comedy, it quickly shifts into something much more provocative and important. Debut writer-director Molly Manning Walker is certainly one to watch. And then there was the lavish French swashbuckling adventure The Three Musketeers: Milady, the second part in this all-star adaptation, putting Eva Green's shadowy character at the centre of the mayhem. It looks great, and the cast is terrific, keeping it enjoyable even when the plot bogs down in detail. I also saw the Mexican drama The Trace of Your Lips, a beautifully made and rather intensely erotic drama about isolation and connection.

I won't see many movies this coming week, but I will need to watch the Aaron Eckhart thriller The Bricklayer, the biopic Tchaikovsky's Wife and the immigrant drama Norwegian Dream. 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!