Critical Week: It's showtime

Awards season has cranked up another gear this week with the announcement of the Golden Globes nominations. This is my third year voting in these awards, and it's now 334 voters in 85 countries - a very big change that is reflected in the enjoyably eclectic nominees. Now this weekend is the voting deadline for the London Critics' Circle, which will have its own distinct personality reflected in nominees announced next week. As for movies I've seen lately, one standout was The Last Showgirl, a surprisingly involving ode to old world Las Vegas razzle dazzle anchored by a lovely performance from Pamela Anderson. The two big releases this week are Kraven the Hunter, the Spider-Man adjacent Marvel movie with a cast (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Christopher Abbott) that's far better than the script. But it's more watchable than The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which is beautifully animated in an anime style but has a personality-free, over-earnest screenplay that stretches the patience over two and a quarter hours.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
September 5 • Nickel Boys
The Last Showgirl • Queer
PERHAPS AVOID:
The War of the Rohirrim
ALL REVIEWS >

Intriguing awards-season movies include the earthy thriller The Order, starring a wonderfully grizzled Jude Law; the slightly over-egged but riveting and hugely involving biopic Bonhoeffer; the dark drama Reawakening, with Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson; and the beautiful but eerily humourless Italian drama Vermiglio. I also saw the hilarious comedy show Adam Riches and John Kearns are Ball & Boe for Fourteen Nights Only at the Soho Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching the photo-real animated prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, the action-comedy sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the French epic The Count of Monte-Cristo, the Danish drama The Girl With the Needle, Asif Kapadia's innovative doc 2073 and more...