Critical Week: When the wine runs out

It's been another busy week for screenings, and this year's festival season kicked up a gear with the announcement of the programme at next month's 79th Cannes Film Festival. Already everyone is trying to work out who will feature in next year's awards season. Three of the films I watched this week featured terrific offbeat performances: Charli XCX leads the cast of the improvised romantic comedy Erupcja, which is set in Warsaw. It's rather uneven, but strikingly well shot and performed. Jude Law and Paul Dano are excellent in The Wizard of the Kremlin, Olivier Assayas' expertly crafted fictionalised biopic about Vladimir Putin. And John Magaro shines as legendary pianist Keith Jarrett in Koln 75, based on the true story of an 18-year-old promoter (played by rising star Mala Emde) who organised a groundbreaking concert.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Diamanti • Wasteman • Departures
The Wizard of the Kremlin
Rebuilding • Miroirs No 3
Eagles of the Republic
PERHAPS AVOID: Balls Up
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More in the mainstream, Mark Wahlberg  and Paul Walter Hauser star in the chucklehead comedy Balls Up, which has a sharp script thanks to Deadpool writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. But it's resolutely unfunny. Set in Manchester, the British romcom Finding Emily stars Spike Fearn and Angourie Rice. It's charming and funny and very predictable. Bob Odenkirk is back in action in Normal, which also sticks very closely to the formula but engages us with its quirkiness. The entertaining romantic melodrama Almost Us is a bit awkward, but nicely uses its setting in Phoenix's Black queer community. And the French comedy-drama Colours of Time is an entertaining and astute look at how history echoes in everyday life today. 

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, Paul Rudd in Power Ballad, John Magaro in Omaha, Mads Mikkelsen in The Last Viking and three live performances: The Center Will Not Hold at Sadler's Wells, We Caliban at Sadler's Wells East and Misconduct & Ladykiller at White Bear (Tube strikes notwithstanding).

Critical Week: Summer holiday vibes

It's been a very sticky week in Britain, so I've enjoyed the chance to cool off in some air-conditioned cinemas. Screenings are still a bit thin on the ground, seeing as it's holiday season, but there are plenty of things to be watching. Bob Odenkirk is back in action for Nobody 2, in which the violence is perhaps a bit too gleeful. But it's also hilariously entertaining, expecially when a villainous Sharon Stone is chomping on the colourful scenery. Joaquin Phoenix leads the sprawling cast of Ari Aster's epic Eddington, a very dark satire about us-vs-them attitudes set in the pandemic-era Wild West. It's riveting, complex and very important. Costars include Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Together • Materialists
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Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi and Will Poulter lead the cast of the nuanced romantic drama On Swift Horses, a beautifully made film that explores hidden desires in 1950s America. Orlando Bloom is a tough-guy boxer in The Cut, which rather unevenly shifts from gritty drama to psychological horror. Matilda Lutz leads the charge as Red Sonja in a new take on the comic heroine. Even with flashes of wit, it's too serious for its own good. And the adult-aimed animated comedy Fixed has a lot of fun with its raunchy premise about a dog getting the snip, but there's not much else going on.

This coming week I'll be watching Helen Mirren and an all-star cast in the whodunit The Thursday Murder Club, Peter Dinklage in a new take on The Toxic Avenger, the Irish care-system drama Christy, the fact-based epic Chinese WWII action film Dongji Rescue, and the animated racing-mice action romp Grand Prix of Europe.

Critical Week: On a mission

Well, the 93rd Oscars managed to completely reinvent their ceremony for the pandemic era, although the severely simplified structure left it feeling a bit awkward. A host would have helped provide some humour, context and connectivity. The one comedy bit didn't work at all (aside from Glenn Close's apparently not-so-impromptu jig), and the order shuffle at the end left it ending on a dry note. But the winners were all hugely deserving, and it was great so see people celebrating in one place together.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Limbo • About Endlessness • Laddie
The County • Truman & Tennessee
Heavy Trip • The Outside Story
PERHAPS AVOID:
Without Remorse
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Back to the movies, the big movie this week was Without Remorse, Michael B Jordan's take on the Tom Clancy franchise-launcher. Jordan delivers the goods, but the film is rather tough going. More intriguing is the sci-fi drama Stowaway, with its low-key approach and philosophical themes, plus a terrific four person cast led by Toni Collette and Anna Kendrick. Much bigger still, Mortal Kombat is a big-scale battle epic that holds the interest in a guilty pleasure way, despite the simplistic plot.

A bit higher brow, Benedict Cumberbatch stars in the Cold War biopic The Courier, a tautly written, directed and acted thriller about a normal guy pulled into the spy game. Bob Odenkirk is solid in the derivative but engaging action thriller Nobody. Sebastian Stan and Denise Gough really go for it in the uneven Americans-in-Greece romance Monday. China's maestro Zhang Yimou brings his stunning visual approach to the riveting 1930s spy thriller Cliff Walkers. Veteran filmmaker Agnieszka Holland finds some superb textures in the fact-based 1950s Czech drama Charlatan. The dryly funny and enormously violent Dutch thriller The Columnist has its moments. And the stylish doc Some Kind of Heaven explores the lives of residents in America's most enormous retirement community, basically Disney World for pensioners. Hint: it isn't heaven for everyone.

Films to watch this coming week include the animated adventure The Mitchells vs the Machines, the marital drama The Killing of Two Lovers, the house party comedy The Get Together, the moviemaking action comedy In Action and the horror comedy Fried Barry.

Critical Week: Family values

I've been in America's Deep South for a week and finally managed to get to a cinema yesterday to see Incredibles 2, which opens next month in the UK. I really enjoyed the way Brad Bird recaptures the family dynamic in the superhero genre, deepening the characters of the children in the process (Jack-Jack steals the show). The dialog is hilarious, and the action sequences are hugely thrilling (Marvel take note). Although I wish the plot and the villain were a bit more fully formed. Still, it's enjoyable enough that it makes us hope Bird doesn't wait another 14 years to make the next one.

Last week, I watched two films on the flight over here. Del Shores' Sordid Lives expanded universe has had a place in my heart since I spent two weeks with him at a film festival where the first movie premiered. So I was happy to find A Very Sordid Wedding in the fight's entertainment system. It's as wacky as the previous films and TV episodes, with the same messy humour, depth of feeling and a proper edge of religious and political themes woven through the nutty characters. The awesome Beth Grant was sorely missed (although Dale Dickey was great), but the film is a lot of fun, and actually has something important to say.

The other thing I watched was the two-and-a-half hour conclusion to Netflix's Sense8, basically the third season mashed together. Fans will love this epic adventure, which has plenty of twists and turns and carries on the Wachowskis' staggeringly inventive visual style. Although there's perhaps a bit too much gunplay than was necessary. And the emphasis on violence leaves the more interesting, engaging interpersonal drama feeling kind of wedged in at the end with two massive montage sequences that give the series' devoted followers just what they wanted to see most. More of that ebullience woven throughout each episode might have helped it gain a wider fanbase. But at least cast and crew were able to wrap up the story in style.

There's only one other movie in cinemas here that I'm interested in seeing (the comedy Tag), and only one coming out this weekend (the sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado). But I don't know if I'll have a chance to see them before flying back home to London. Watch this space.