Critical Week: Puppy dog vibes

This has been an unusually busy week for me for a variety of reasons, mainly because there have been pre-Venice screenings in London to give me a jump on the festival, which starts next week. Meanwhile, I also caught up with Gregg Araki's new art-world/sadomasochism comedy I Want Your Sex, which stars Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde. It's colourful, lusty, funny and also a bit silly. Jacob Elordi leads the charge in Ridley Scott's thoroughly entertaining post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars, which has a refreshingly introspective tone interrupted by rather simplistic action and some nutty black comedy (Allison Janney alert!).

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Bitter Christmas • Coyote vs Acme
The Dog Stars • De Gaulle: Resistance
Boorman and the Devil
ALL REVIEWS >

I really loved the Cannes award-winning La Bola Negra, a sweeping Spanish epic directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Using gay themes, it traces three plot threads between 1932 and 2017. Ambitious and hugely involving, there's even a fabulous sequence featuring a scene-stealing Penelope Cruz. The Girl in the River is an underwhelming mystery starring Maggie Grace, Devon Sawa, Tiffany Haddish and every genre cliche imaginable. The jazz pianist biopic Everybody Digs Bill Evans is shimmeringly artful and rather aloof, with a terrific cast that includes Anders Danielson Lie, Laurie Metcalf and Bill Pullman. From French filmmaker Dominik Moll, Case 137 stars Lea Drucker as an investigator looking into police violence after a street protest. Straight from the headlines, it's riveting and urgent. The intriguing Bolivian drama The Condor Daughter follows a young midwife on a riveting journey into the big city. And the doc Super Nature features glorious Super 8 footage of life around the globe.

I also watched films this week that will be at the 27th FrightFest (this weekend in London) or the 83rd Venice Film Festival (next week in Italy). Both festivals will have regular reports right here.

Coming up, I'll be watching quite a few more films for FrightFest and Venice over the long weekend, plus Saoirse Ronan in Bad Apples and the sequel Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, then heading to Italy for Venezia83.