Critical Week: A man and his dog

I jumped straight back into the thick of things in London after my nine days in Venice. There are extra screenings these days for press, running in parallel with film festivals and getting a jump on awards season. There are also the big releases to watch, such as Heart of the Beast, a Brad Pitt survival movie in which he and his faithful dog are stranded in the Alaskan wilderness. It looks amazing, and has strongly vivid ideas running through it, but the story feels very constructed.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Queen at Sea • Knife
April X • Sunny Dancer
The Beast of Mossy Bottom
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Shaun the Sheep is back for The Beast of Mossy Bottom, another silly, hilarious romp involving mischievous barnyard animals and their hapless farmer, this time playing on classic monster movie tropes. Call My Agent! The Movie catches up with the beloved characters from the TV series, now facing many, many obstacles as they make a movie. It's very funny, with some great actor cameos. Bella Ramsay is terrific in Sunny Dancer, a teen camp comedy with a cancer-drama edge to it, plus James Norton, Jessica Gunning and Neil Patrick Harris. Monica Dolan shines in the true Irish drama of The Lost Children of Taum, another grim tale about horrific Catholic homes for unwed mothers. For dance fans, Scottish Ballet have produced These Violent Delights, an inventively cinematic take on Romeo and Juliet. I also saw a stunning live dance production of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Legacy.

Coming up this next week, there's Tom Cruise in Digger, the biopic I Play Rocky, Nick Robinson in Charlie Harper, Laura Linney in Onwards and Sideways, Sophie Thatcher in Her Private Hell, the animated drama In Waves, the German satire Babystar, the Juliette Binoche/Akram Khan collaboration In-I Motion, the conclusion of the two-part biopic De Gaulle: Liberte, and the documentary Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore. I also have a live performance of Blue/Glas.

Critical Week: Generations

Awards season is cranking up for anyone who votes in these things, and yet there are still regular releases opening in cinemas that I need to cover, So the week was a combination of films aimed at very different audiences. As for cinema releases, there was the latest film directed by 94-year-old Clint Eastwood, the old-fashioned dramatic thriller Juror #2, starring Nicholas Hoult, and Toni Collette. It's slow and not nearly as complex as it looks, but enjoyably gripping. Hugh Grant is excellent as the charming-but-shifty villain in Heretic, a rather simplistic horror film that's livened up by deeper theological questions. And Liam Neeson's latest action movie is Absolution, a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on mortality and redemption.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Real Pain • Emilia Perez
Anora • Super/Man
Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives
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There were also a few more films that showed at the London Film Festival. Pharrell Williams uses Lego animation to tell his life story in Piece by Piece, an uplifting and delightfully original concoction packed with hilarious gags and lots of great music. Cate Blanchett leads the ensemble cast of Rumours, a nutty satire about G7 leaders lost in the woods. The film is a bit lost itself. From Hong Kong, The Last Dance is a beautifully well-made comedy about the tension between tradition and progress. From Britain, Secrets of a Wallaby Boy is a very scrappy hand-made comedy about a delivery boy. And there were two docs: Christopher Reeve is the focus of the fascinating, moving Super/Man, which has some important things to say about curiosity and compassion, and How to Build a Truth Engine is a fascinatingly detailed exploration of the spread of fake news.

As the big movies keep coming, this coming week I'll be watching Paul Mescal in Gladiator II, the adventure comedy sequel Paddington in Peru, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked Part 1, Dwayne Johnson in Red One, Emma Corrin in Nosferatu and the FrightFest Halloween comedy Time Travel Is Dangerous.

Critical Week: Baby you're a firework

While most London critics decamp to the South of France for 10 days, I prefer to avoid the chaos of the Cannes Film Festival if I can, as screening rooms get a bit quieter here. But it's not easy to read about all the intriguing films screening over there. While I have a bit more free time, there are still movies to watch! This week's films included the warm and properly inspiring biopic Young Woman and the Sea, starring Daisy Ridley as groundbreaking swimmer Trudy Ederle. This week's big release is IF, a child-friendly movie from actor-filmmaker John Krasinski that's remarkably sweet, warm and funny. And next week's kids' movie is The Garfield Movie, a frenetic animated romp that will keep very, very young children happy.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Tiger Stripes • IF
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A bit more high-brow is the fact-based action romcom Hit Man, starring the terrific Glen Powell as a teacher pretending to be an assassin to help a police sting operation. It's a great story, very well-told by Powell and director-cowriter Richard Linklater. Elizabeth Hurley stars in the sudsy erotic thriller Strictly Confidential, which is so camp that it's hilarious. JK Simmons goes all-in to play a ruthless killer menacing a nice family in the harrowing and rather harsh thriller You Can't Run Forever. From Pakistan, In Flames is an inventive dramatic horror film about women confronting the patriarchy. And I also caught up with Guy Ritchie's new film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a snappy WWII adventure based on a true story. A terrific cast led by Henry Cavill, Eiza Gonzalez, Alan Ritchson and Henry Golding keeps it funny and sometimes thrilling. There was also a live performance by musical stand-up comic Dave Hill with his riotously hilarious Caveman in a Spaceship at the Soho Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Greg Kinnear in both The Present and Sight, the Canadian drama Solo and the animated adventure Deep Sea. Plus on stage I have Pieces of Me at Camden People's Theatre.

Critical Week: Under attack

There's been some tentative move to ease lockdown, but cinemas are still mainly showing old movies (The Empire Strikes Back is No 1 on the UK box office chart this week). I had my first meal in a restaurant since early March -- well outside it on a distanced table. But the weather has been gloomy, which is more suited for watching movies at home really....

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Sunlit Night • The Painted Bird
Palm Springs
PERHAPS AVOID:
Fatal Affair • Getting It • Divos!
FULL REVIEWS >

The biggest movie I saw this week was the gripping WWII thriller Greyhound, which no doubt would have looked better on a big screen. As always, Tom Hanks is solid as a captain shepherding a convoy of ships through a pack of Nazi submarines in the North Atlantic. Much better is the Andy Samberg comedy Palm Springs, a bit of time-loop madness that's both clever and surprisingly deep. By contrast, Fatal Affair is a simplistic and derivative thriller that wastes excellent actors like Nia Long and Omar Epps.

As for arthouse titles, The Sunlit Night is a very smart comedy-drama about a young American painter (Jenny Slate) working in Arctic Norway for a summer. It's quirky and involving. Carmilla is an atmospheric 19th century gothic freak-out based on a pre-Dracula vampire novel. It looks amazing. From Denmark, Dreambuilders boasts seriously impressive, ambitious animation and some great characters. But the goofy comedy Divos! never lives up to its promise, and Getting It has a solid story but works too hard to praise its writer-director-star. There were also two entertaining, offbeat docs: In Bright Axiom is about a playful secret society that sparks imagination and collaboration, while Superhuman: The Invisible Made Visible explores the untapped power of the mind's connection to, well, everything.

Films to watch this coming week include Elisabeth Moss in Shirley, Brenton Thwaites in Ghosts of War, Josh Hartnett in Most Wanted, underground boxing thriller American Fighter, horror movie Open 24 Hours and the Italian drama Piranhas.

Critical Week: Brotherly love

It's been a meagre week, screening-wise, mainly because I've already seen virtually everything that's being shown to the press at the moment (thanks to autumn film festivals and awards-season screenings and screeners). I did manage to catch up with Owen Wilson and Ed Helms in Father Figures, which wasn't screened to the press, and now I know why. It's a bizarre mix of gross-out comedy and brotherly bromance sentimentality. Another set of fraternal twins feature in The Lodgers, an atmospheric Irish freak-out starring Charlotte Vega and Bill Milner as siblings keeping watch over their collapsing family manor by day, then hiding from marauding nastiness at night. It turns genuinely creepy when two interlopers upset the balance. There was also the sensitive Brazilian drama About Us, which has a ring of autobiography in its introspective exploration of a past, pivotal relationship between a filmmaker and an architect. And I watched this documentary to take part in a rather strong TV panel discussion...

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Saving Capitalism
dir Jacob Kornbluth; with Robert Reich 17/US ***.
One of those blood-boiling documentaries that leaves the audience feeling helpless, this film skilfully holds the attention with its disarmingly gentle tone and likeable central figure. Robert Reich was Labor Secretary under Clinton, and is now travelling around America to understand how average people feel about being squeezed by rising inflation and falling wages. He explains that this is happening because corporations are draining the system, shifting money from workers to top-tier executives while at the same time siphoning off tens of billions from the government in tax breaks and incentives, plus special laws and loopholes as the result of lobbying. Reich argues that this is just another form of regulation, promoting capitalist business with socialist hand-outs. It's hard to fault his logic, because he articulately states the case and backs it up with both clear facts and historical precedent. And filmmaker Kornbluth assembles this in a riveting, entertaining way. Most telling is that this same situation developed in the 1890s and was corrected with extensive limits on corporate power. But Reich admits this will only happen if voters stop putting populists in office and let government do its job to protect people from companies that are literally stealing money then blaming the government for the problem. And without limits on campaign donations, it's only going to get worse. No wonder so few people trust politicians. And no wonder the usual urgent plea to vote and protest feels like a drop in the bucket.

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SHADOWS ON THE STAGE
Strictly Ballroom: The Musical
Based on the 1992 sleeper hit movie, which launched Baz Luhrmann's career, this Australian stage musical is heading for the West End in March. At its launch event this week at the Cafe de Paris, we were treated to a few musical numbers by cast member Will Young, a fiery flamenco performance from veteran actor-dancer Fernando Mira, and lively speeches from director-choreographer Drew McOnie and Oscar-winning designer Catherine Martin. There was also more dancing from the show's stars Jonny Labey and Zizi Strallen and the company. It was a colourful morning, properly whetting the appetite for a show based on a film that lingers in the memory. I don't think I've watched it all the way through since it was in cinemas 25 years ago, so I'm looking forward to seeing this on-stage, with its mixture of deranged Aussie humour and pointed social commentary that feels even more timely today. And of course because it launched a global sequin-bedazzled ballroom craze that's stronger now than ever.
Previews begin at the Piccadilly Theatre on 29th March, more info is HERE.

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Screenings of new movies are still slow, but I have a few things in the diary over the next week, including Toni Collette in Madame, Taraji P Henson in Proud Mary, the Justin Chon drama Gook and the programme launch event for the British Film Institute's Flare: London LGBT Film Festival, which takes place 21 March to 1st April.