Critical Week: The boy is back

There weren't many movies for me this week, as the television show I'm working on had very long days. But I managed to catch three of this week's releases. For the fourth live-action film, Hellboy: The Crooked Man returns to its snarky roots. Skilfully made, this is a snappy, edgy and genuinely horrific film, with a strongly witty central performance from Jack Kesy.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
My Old Ass • Sleep
The Outrun • Megalopolis
ALL REVIEWS >

In the cinema, I saw Francis Ford Coppola's ambitious passion project Megalopolis, which is a real stunner. It's a bit messy and over-reaching, but the scale and artistry are simply glorious, as are the meaty performances from an eclectic cast that includes Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito and Shia LaBeouf, plus key roles for Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne and Talia Shire. And the drama Rez Ball, set in the Navajo nation, is a rousing basketball movie that plays closely by the genre rules. The setting provides strong topicality.

This coming week will be another very busy one working on-set, but I'm also planning to see Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie a Deux, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in La Maquina, Quentin Dupieux's comedy biopic Daaaaaali, the romcom All Kinds of Love, the drama Beauty Grace Malice and the surfing doc Maya and the Wave, plus a couple of live performances if possible. 

 

Critical Week: Ignite the light

My work schedule on a TV crew was a bit lighter this week, so I was able to see a few screenings. These included the documentary Will & Harper, attended by Will Ferrell, Harper Steele and director Josh Greenbaum. It's a gorgeously involving film focussed on a long-term friendship, and its topicality makes it important as well. Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Keegan-Michael Key and director Josh Cooley came along to a screening of Transformers One, the hugely entertaining animated origin story that's packed with comedy and action.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Substance • Will & Harper
Transformers One
Girls Will Be Girls
ALL REVIEWS >

Filmmaker RaMell Ross creates a stunning visual style for Nickel Boys, a powerful drama about a teen reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. It's also beautifully played, unusually vivid and involving. From Britain, Portraits of Dangerous Women is a light-hearted multi-strand drama about a group of people whose lives intersect unexpectedly, while Inherit the Witch is a bonkers horror thriller that enjoyably evokes freaky classics. And Notice to Quit is a likeable but rather too-busy comedy starring Michael Zegen as a single dad at the end of his rope. 

This coming week, I'm planning to see Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, Joseph Gordon Levitt in Killer Heat, Alice Lowe's Timestalker, Hellboy: The Crooked Man and the documentary Rez Ball, plus anything else I can find time to see while working long days. 

Dance: Love beyond barriers

Akram Khan’s
Giselle
director-choreography Akram Khan
dancers Elina Takahashi, James Streeter, Ken Saruhashi, Emma Hawes, Fabian Reimair, Angela Wood, Jung ah Choi, Haruhi Otani, Emily Suzuki, Francesca Celicu
composition/sound Vincenzo Lamagna • score Adolphe Adam
visual/costume design Tim Yip • lighting Mark Henderson
Sadler's Wells, London • 18-28.Sep.24 ★★★★

Akram Khan gives the venerable 1841 ballet a vivid 21st century spin, presenting the noblemen as pompous owners lording it over their down-trodden factory workers. This inventive approach offers new resonance to modern audiences living in a world that's still infused with inequality. Khan's visually punchy staging and choreography also keep us entranced, as does the way Vincenzo Lamagna skilfully weaves Adolphe Adam's original score into the rumbling soundscape. There are elements of this production that are so cinematic that they almost undermine the dancers, but this also makes the show both spectacular and darkly moving.

Clever casting adds additional layers of meaning, as the delicate Elina Takahashi takes the title role as a lowly labourer opposite the beefier James Streeter as the wealthy Albrecht, who is slumming it with the merrily dancing workers when he falls for Giselle. But she already has a suitor in the lean Hilarion (Ken Saruhashi). Then Albrecht's kinsmen turn up in their over-the-top, Hunger Games-style finery, and his intended Bathilde (Angela Wood) calls him out, causing a scene during which Giselle's heart fails her. 

All of this is set against a gigantic door that separates the rich from the poor, and it rotates dramatically to allow people to pass between the realms of the haves and have-nots, as well as the living and the dead. The dances are a beautiful blend of classical fluidity, discipline and strength with more modern expressive touches. This includes some striking group moments, breakout solos and duets, and a superb contrast between the way Albrecht and Hilarion move with Giselle, including eye-catching leaps and spins that are joyful, yearning and sexy. And the way the wealthy control their workers is strikingly depicted in their postured physicality, especially as the painful collision between these worlds claims Giselle's life.

The second act is more like a fever dream, following Giselle to the underworld, where she is adopted by Myrtha (Emma Hawes), the queen of the Wilis, who extract revenge on men who drive women to their deaths. Choreography here is more athletic and emotional, as lighting effects create ethereal settings with deep shadows as the large group of Wilis float en pointe with their pointy sticks. This leads to otherworldly encounters between Giselle and Myrtha, Hilarion and Albrecht, offering each performer a chance to shine radiantly. These pieces also play stunningly with shifting weight and balance.

Both choreography and performances bring out the narrative with real emotional power, inventively creating both space and intimacy between the characters. So it's a bit frustrating that some of the bigger visual moments overwhelm the stage, while the long dresses and tunics oddly obscure the dancers' physicality. That said, everything looks fantastic, and the range of jaw-droppingly complex movement and interaction has visceral power. 

for details: ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET > 

photos by Laurent Liotardo • 18.Sep.24

Dance: Tempting and triumphant

London City Ballet
Resurgence
choreography Ashley Page, Kenneth MacMillan, Arielle Smith, Christopher Marney
dancers Alina Cojocaru, Cira Robinson, Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla, Arthur Wille, Alejandro Virelles, Joseph Taylor, Isadora Bless, Nicholas Vavrečka, Miranda Silveira, Bárbara Verdasco, Jimin Kim, Nicholas Mihlar, Ayça Anil, Ellie Young
music Jennie Muskett, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, John Adams, Gabriel Fauré
lighting Andrew Murrell • projection Duncan McLean
costumes Emily Noble, Stevie Stewart
Sadler's Wells, London • 11-14.Sep.24 ★★★★

Almost 30 years since it was disbanded in 1996, London City Ballet returns to the stage at Sadler's Wells with an eclectic array of dance. And the programme also includes short documentary films that, like the dance pieces, explore the company's history and look forward to the future. In some ways, this feels like a graduation performance, with students showing off their serious skills on a blank stage that shifts with coloured lights and expressive costumes. It's also a joy to watch, uniformly fluid and buoyant, with moments of sharp impact.

Nearly forgotten, Ashley Page's Larina Waltz was created in 1993 to showcase principal couples during a tribute to Tchaikovsky. The old school choreography is fizzy and bouncy, as five pairs take turns in the spotlight, leaping and twirling, then coming together to make a group impact. Kenneth MacMillan's Ballade is a gorgeous piece for guest artist Alina Cojocaru and three men who are sitting around a table. The guys take turns making her float weightlessly around the stage as they lift her into the air and elegantly pass her between them. The narrative loosely offers each as a possible partner, but there's never a sense of competition, as the tone remains light and playful, and ends on a sweet note.

Arielle Smith's Five Dances is an evocative series of performances that are marked with shifting colours and light, as six dancers appear in various groupings, sometimes in couples or alone. The first piece is classical, and the movement becomes increasingly modern through each dance, creating visceral shapes as the performers run, leap and, in the articulate Arthur Wille's case, slide. The music also becomes increasingly rhythmic, adding kinetic energy to the physicality. There are also some terrific sight gags and group formations, culminating in a fabulous final leap. Concerto (Second Movement) is another piece by MacMillan, as Joseph Taylor and Isadora Bless tentatively approach, then he supports her, lifts and places her in a variety of beautiful positions. It's lyrical and intriguing.

Finally, Eve is choreographed by the company's artistic director Christopher Marney. It begins with a clever use of projection before leading into a new take on Eve's interaction with the serpent. Cira Robinson is spinning alone on stage when the shadowy serpent (Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla) begins bargaining with her. Tender and sensual, their full-bodied dance reveals a fascinatingly complex connection as the story develops vividly. This includes the sudden appearance of an apple, as well as a group of dancers in skin-toned costumes who envelop her. And an inventive use of shadows create moments of dramatic intensity.

While everything here is performed with stunning levels of skill, there's an almost stubbornly dated feeling to the entire programme, partly because of the simplicity of the stage design and also because each number is so resolutely binary, with men leading each dance as they show off their women. But there are breathtaking elements scattered throughout, and hints that the tables are turning. 

For details: LONDON CITY BALLET >

photos by ASH • 12.Sep.24

Critical Week: Let it all go

I've been working very long hours on a TV crew these days, so haven't had a lot of time to keep up with film releases. So I only managed to see four movies in the past seven days! (But I am very much enjoying working on set each day.) One of the big releases this week, Speak No Evil stars Scoot McNairy and James McAvoy (above) in a hugely unsettling thriller that starts light and almost comical before twisting the suspense to nail-biting levels in the final act. And then Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield came along for a Q&A with director John Crowley for We Live in Time, a powerfully involving emotional drama that feels bracingly authentic. It's bound to get awards-season attention.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
My Old Ass • In Camera
Speak No Evil • Winner
My Favourite Cake
ALL REVIEWS >

The biopic Winner is the third movie in recent years to tell the story of the whisleblower Reality Winner, this time with a snappy comical edge. Emilia Jones is excellent in the title role, and the film properly gets under her skin. And Dead Teenagers is the third scary film in writer-director Quinn Armstrong's Fresh Hell trilogy, this time cleverly twisting the teenage summer movie into something meta and genuinely creepy.

I'll have a little more time to attend screenings this coming week, so I'm planning to see the animated adventure Transformers One, Will Ferrell's documentary Will & Harper, reform school drama Nickel Boys, British comedy-drama Portraits of Dangerous Women, New York comedy Notice to Quit and British horror Inherit the Witch, plus anything else I can find time to see. 

Critical Week: Say no more

Working long days as part of a TV series crew doesn't leave a lot of time for watching movies, so I've only seen a handful of films this week - either late at night or on days off. Alicia Vikander stars as Katherine Parr in Firebrand opposite Jude Law as a particularly corpulent Henry VIII. It's a very well made film, if a bit on the dry side for such a, ahem, beefy tale. Michael Keaton is back 35 years later for more ghostly hijinks in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as are Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara. Tim Burton brings a robust energy to the film, although as before there's not much to it.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Apollo Thirteen: Survival
His Three Daughters
ALL REVIEWS >

Ian McKellen gleefully munches the scenery as the title character in The Critic, set in London's theatre world in 1934, with strong support from Gemma Arterton and Mark Strong. The dialog crackles, but the plot gets bogged down in corny twists. Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark are excellent as always in the British folk horror thriller Starve Acre, which is superbly creepy and very yucky, if never terribly scary. And I revisited one of my very favourite films for its 50th anniversary: Young Frankenstein is perhaps Mel Brooks' finest movie, a warm homage that's packed with classic hilarious moments featuring the ace Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Peter Boyle and Madeline Kahn. I could happily watch this movie every day, forever.

This coming week, I'm watching James McAvoy in Speak No Evil, whistleblower biopic Winner, Scottish thriller Kill and teen anime Trapezium, plus anything else I can find time to watch while working long days.