On the Road: Use your head

I'm in Southern California for a couple of weeks, mainly to celebrate my mother's birthday, but also to visit with family and friends and hopefully get some nice weather this time of year. Although the rainy storminess hasn't started off very promisingly. I'm also going to completely miss this weekend's Baftas - the British Academy Awards - and will just have to read about the winners online. Meanwhile, on the flight over here I caught up with three films from last year that I'd missed...

Dumb Money
dir Craig Gillespie; with Paul Dano, Pete Davidson 23/US ***.
The story of the GameStop stock market mayhem is made thoroughly entertaining by lively direction from Craig Gillespie that concentrates on character quirks rather than the dull financial details. That said, some of these details begin to make sense as a group of amateur traders take on the big hedge funds. The terrific over-packed ensemble includes Paul Dano, Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, America Ferrera, Pete Davidson, Sebastian Stan and Shailene Woodley. Some plot threads get lost along the way. But it's consistently entertaining and occasionally engaging too.

She Came to Me
dir-scr Rebecca Miller; with Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway 23/US ***
Writer-director Rebecca Miller creates an intricate, intelligent multistrand narrative using light and nicely offhanded performances and jagged interaction. But the plot never quite grabs hold, as it centres around a blocked opera composer (Peter Dinklage) and a scrappy tugboat pilot (Marisa Tomei) who becomes his muse, while his obsessive wife (Anne Hathaway) spirals. Subplots involve their teen son, his girlfriend, her parents and lots of tangled feelings, bad decisions and messy behaviour. It's all a bit corny, and aside from the general economic realities it's difficult to connect with a central theme. So even with the wonderfully nuanced acting, it ends up feeling cute and a bit simplistic.

Strays
dir Josh Greenbaum; voices Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx ***
The central joke here is that a sweet movie about cute dogs is bursting with profane dialog and outrageously adult jokes. That concept feels stale within minutes, but thankfully the script is loaded with genuinely hilarious humour aimed squarely at grown-up dog lovers. The plot is very simple, as an abandoned pup realises that his owner mistreated him, so vows revenge with a group of fellow strays. Wacky adventures ensue, often involving humping things. So if the general tone is belaboured as it tries desperately to push things rudely over the top, the furry characters win us over, ably voiced by a first-rate cast.

While I'm out here I'm planning to catch up with a few films that are in cinemas here but not yet out in the UK, like Drive-Away Dolls and Lisa Frankenstein, and I'm on the lookout for press screenings of Dune: Part Two and Kung Fu Panda 4. Otherwise, I'm enjoying time with family and friends and not thinking about movies.