Critical Week: Camera ready

It's been a ridiculously busy week, with too many film releases and too many screenings as well, perhaps because Venice Film Festival ended last weekend. Eclectic screenings this week have included the terrific Gael Garcia Bernal in the biopic Cassandro, a colourfully well-made biopic about the exotico wrestler. Ken Loach's latest, and perhaps final, film The Old Oak is a triumph, a staggeringly clear-eyed depiction of ugly British attitudes with an emotive glimmer of hope. And Pablo Larrain's El Conde is a viciously inventive satire that depicts Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire with a jaw-dropping mentor.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Golden Delicious • Love Life
Cassandro • Fremont
A Haunting in Venice
ALL REVIEWS >

Kenneth Branagh is back this week with another all-star Agatha Christie adaptation, and A Haunting in Venice is the best one yet, a superbly gothic mystery thriller packed with shifty characters. Michael Jai White directs and stars in Outlaw Johnny Black, an enjoyable 1970s style action-comedy Western. Aaron Pierre lights up the screen in the small Canadian drama Brother, a dark drama celebrating tenacious immigrant mothers. And Pablo Berger's animated Robot Dreams is a pure delight, tracing the complex friendship between a lonely dog and his robot friend.

And there were even more: Bolan's Shoes is a melodramatic British drama that's beautifully acted but deliberately enigmatic. The Latent Image is an inventively freaky meta-thriller about storytelling; 20,000 Species of Bees is a moving Spanish drama about an 8-year-old wondering why he feels so uneasy about his gender; Gurkha Warrior is a skilfully made rah-rah celebration of the military prowess of the Gurkhas; and Samsara is an offbeat experimental drama that takes the audience on an inventive trip between lives. There were two docs: Carlos is a chatty visit with legendary musician Carlos Santana, while Summer Qamp profiles an extraordinary retreat centre for queer kids in rural Canada. There were also live shows Deeper and Deeper and Myra Dubois: Be Well.

Films this coming week include the all-star action sequel Expend4bles, Almodovar's Western A Strange Way of Life, Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson in The Great Escaper, Accused, Relax I'm From the Future, Ballywater, Rebel and the live show The White Factory.

Critical Week: Go ahead jump

Oscar nominations this week threw the awards season into some chaos, and put some races into focus. There will be lots of conjecture before the ceremony at the end of March. Then after several weeks with a drip-feed of big releases, three come along all at once. All three had late press screenings this week in London just before they opened. The most fun was Uncharted, a lively adventure that just about gets away with its simplistic script because Tom Holland is so ludicrously charming. And Mark Wahlberg almost keeps up with him, which is pretty impressive. Kenneth Branagh is back with another lavish but underwhelming Agatha Christie adaptation, Death on the Nile, which has lovely (mainly digital) Egyptian settings and an all-star cast that includes Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Russell Brand and an underused French and Saunders. And Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson find surprising chemistry in Marry Me, a romcom that never veers form the formula, but has some fun with it.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Flee • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
ALL REVIEWS >

More offbeat films included Johnny Depp in the biopic Minimata, about a noted photojournalist raising awareness of toxic waste in 1970s Japan. It's well-made but a bit dull. Give or Take is a charming little drama about two men who share a grief and little else. Watching them find friendship is nicely underplayed. Small Body is a bold fable from Italy about a woman on an epic quest from the sea to the mountains. It's packed with provocative themes, and is deeply haunting. And I also watched the six short films featured on The French Boys 3, another collection of terrific small dramas that grapple with masculinity.

This coming week I'll be watching Naomi Watts in The Desperate Hour, Zoe Kravitz in Kimi, Jason Isaacs in Streamline, Max von Sydow in Echoes of the Past, the French coming-of-age drama A Night in the Fields and the surreal drama Strawberry Mansion. I'll also be at the press night for the London stage musical production of Saturday Night Fever.

LFF: At the movies

Big movies continue to come fast and loose at the 65th BFI London Film Festival, including a couple of films that weren't announced much at all. George Clooney came along for the premiere of his new film The Tender Bar, and the new Joaquin Phoenix drama C'mon C'mon was last night's Surprise Film. Alas I didn't see either one, and will be waiting for regular press screenings in due course. In the mean time, this is what I've been watching...

Belfast
dir-scr Kenneth Branagh; with Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan 21/UK ****
Kenneth Branagh returns to his hometown to write and direct a warmly involving autobiographical tale about growing up during the Troubles in the late 1960s. The story strikes a nice balance as more of a nostalgic ode to his parents than a dark political drama. The setting adds edge, and gives the strong cast some terrific scenes to play, but what lingers is the warm family connection.

The Phantom of the Open
dir Craig Roberts; with Mark Rylance, Sally Hawkins 21/UK ***.
A likeable crowd-pleaser, this lively British comedy recounts a true story with style. It's the iconic tale of Maurice Flitcroft, who blagged his way into the British Open despite never having played a round of golf. The story's appeal is that it really happened, and the characters spring to life in Craig Roberts' inventive direction. And it's a punchy reminder sieze every opportunity to chase your dreams.

Inexorable
dir Fabrice du Welz; with Benoit Poelvoorde, Melanie Doutey 21/Bel ***.
There's quietly gnawing suspense from the opening shots of this Belgian drama, which slides from earthy realism into full-on horror before its time is up. Director Fabrice du Welz creates a superbly queasy atmosphere, drawing us in with likeable characters and hints of mystery long before revealing any secrets. So even if it feels superficial, the film is a skilful merging of revenge fantasy with haunted house nastiness.

Hit the Road
dir-scr Panah Panahi; with Hassan Madjooni, Pantea Panahiha 21/Irn ****
Despite its sparky sense of humour, a sharp melancholy underscores this Iranian road movie. Writer-director Panah Panahi (son of auteur Jafar) takes the audience on a trip that feels both boisterously rambunctious and darkly momentous at the same time. The four family members stuck together in this car are each revealed to be complex, observant and deeply emotional, even as they maintain their ability to make each other laugh.

Full reviews of festival films will be published as possible and linked at Shadows' LFF HOMEPAGE 
For full information, visit BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 

Critical Week: Secret admirerer

Lockdown continues to loosen here in Britain, with more people taking advantage of the government's August half-price eating out bargain. I even took a three day trip out of London. But the big news (for me at least) was the first major studio blockbuster coming to cinemas in five months: Christopher Nolan's Tenet. I saw the film at a press screening at the BFI Imax on Monday, and then went again to a multiplex on Wednesday with a friend - my first public screening since March. The film isn't the knock-out masterpiece we were hoping for, but it's hugely entertaining and made on a gloriously ambitious scale. For the record, the picture was of course better in Imax, the sound was better in the multiplex, and the movie itself is even more fun the second time around.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Garden Left Behind • Tenet
She Dies Alone • Away
Breaking Fast • Nomad
FULL REVIEWS >

I also saw some films on streaming links. The moody teen drama Chemical Hearts, with Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams (above), looks great but falls apart. The One and Only Ivan is a Disney family movie with above-average effects and a surprisingly witty script. Jessica Chastain turns to action as an assassin in Ava, which is let down by a barrage of cliches. She Dies Tomorrow is a fiercely clever horror movie that plays on some very deep human fears. A Latvian filmmaker working almost on his own reveals impressive talent with Away, an evocative animated fable. And from Greece, the dark fairy tale Entwined is intriguing but somewhat uneven. I also got to attend an online reading of a new play...

Star Man
by James Cole • with Jasper William Cartwright, Harry Edwin, Kim Tatum, Neil Summervile, Jaymes Sygrove, David E Hull-Watters

A hugely emotional drama told with some properly inventive storytelling tricks, James Cole's darkly powerful play centres on Ben (Cartwright) and his step-brother Tony (Edwin), who's also his boyfriend. Ben is struggling to recover from a past trauma, and the audience follows him as he interacts with a variety of people who trigger memories in painful ways. It's a remarkably effective exploration of the reverberations of abuse on the victim as well as everyone around him. Watching this in a zoom performance makes everything feel very serious indeed, leaving us to imagine what sounds like some intricate and very clever staging (described by narrator Hull-Watters). So I'm really looking forward to seeing this in a real theatre at some point.

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No press screenings in the diary this week, but I will probably buy a ticket to see the X-Men spin-off The New Mutants in a cinema this weekend. Streaming films to watch include Disney's epic remake of Mulan, Hugo Weaving in the Shakespeare riff Measure for Measure, the British fantasy Undergods, the Spanish thriller Unknown Origins and the short film collection Right Beside You.

Critical Week: Hello sailor

Screenings are slowing down for the holidays, so these were my last movies in screening rooms for the year. Welcome to Marwen is ambitious, an introspective true story augmented with clever effects. So Leslie Mann and Steve Carell (above) play part of their roles as remarkably expressive dolls. It's solid, but more thoughtful than entertaining. All Is True has a hefty cast including Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, intriguingly tracing the final years in Shakespeare's life. It's well-made and a bit offbeat. Papillon is a true story remake about a man (Charlie Hunnam) sent to a vile French penal colony in the 1930s. Beautifully made, finely acted, but a bit stiff. And the Argentine drama My Best Friend tells a quietly involving coming-of-age story about a teen who develops an unexpected crush. And I also caught up with these two...

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Dumplin’
dir Anne Fletcher
scr Kristin Hahn
with Danielle Macdonald, Jennifer Aniston, Odeya Rush, Luke Benward, Harold Perrineau 18/US 1h40 ***.
Warm and not terribly sophisticated, this gently involving comedy-drama has buckets of charm thanks to its cast and a collection of fabulous Dolly Parton songs on the soundtrack (including new ones written for the film). The seriously gifted Danielle Macdonald stars as Willowdean, who signs up for the beauty pageant her mother Rosie (Aniston) won as a young woman and now runs. This is partly to honour her late aunt, partly to annoy her mother and partly to prove to herself that she isn't bothered by people who make fun of her. But of course there are other lessons she needs to learn. And she also needs to work out her messy relationship with her always preoccupied mother: Rosie loves Willowdean, but dismisses her because of her weight. Macdonald offers a detailed portrait of a bright girl with some dark emotional issues. Her complex mix of confidence and insecurity rings refreshingly true, never simplifying her journey. Although her issues with her mom, best friend (Rush) and the cute boy (Benward) who likes her are less nuanced, leading into the usual teen angst. Of course she sabotages every good chance she gets before ultimately learning to be comfortable in her own skin. Thankfully, it's beautifully played by the eclectic cast (including Perrineau as a drag queen mentor) and directed with enough spark to make it earn the sentiment. It will also offer badly needed encouragement to teens who need it most. As Dolly says, "Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose."

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Blindspotting
dir Carlos Lopez Estrada
scr Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
with Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ethan Embry 18/US 1h35 ****.
Set in Oakland, this is a comedy with a razor sharp edge to it. Lively and audacious, it touches on a range of big issues with wry humour and snappy characters. With just three days left on probation, Collin (Diggs) begins to worry about his friend Miles (Casal), whose obsession with guns and drugs threatens his freedom. Then he witnesses a cop shooting an unarmed man. But he doesn't dare say anything because it was after his curfew. And he doesn't dare challenge the police. The tension in certain scenes is powerfully intense, and always meaningful on much deeper levels. Actor-writers Diggs and Casal create terrific chemistry between them as young guys just trying to make a living with their moving van, developing their private lives and struggling with a system that's tilted against them. While the script is very funny, it is constantly underscored with serious topics and populated with complex characters, each of whom feels like he or she has a big life off-screen. And director Estrada maintains a lively vibe that's entertaining and provocative. This is a powerful look at a young man desperate to prove that he is more than what society tells him he is: a convicted felon. And while the script touches pointedly on racial issues, it's perhaps an even more potent comment on the broader effects of toxic masculinity and gun culture. This is a bracingly well-observed film that's both hugely involving and vitally important. The climactic scene is devastating cinematic poetry.

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There are no more screenings for the rest of the year, but I do have a stack of awards-consideration DVDs and streaming links to watch as I navigate the voting season (two sets of nominations down, one to go, then the final voting rounds) and prepare my own year-end list. Things I still need to catch: Private Life, The Kindergarten Teacher, Bad Times at the El Royale, Shirkers, The Other Side of the Wind, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, and so on...

Critical Week: You better not pout

It seems rather early, but the holidays kicked off this week with the first festive movie, A Bad Moms Christmas, a sequel to last year's sweetly gross-out comedy with added grandmothers. More of the same, it's kind of the definition of mindless entertainment. There was also a press screening for Paddington 2, which might actually be better than the wonderful original film. It's a pure delight, a great story with superb characters and a range of silly, surreal and razor-sharp comedy.

And I can't remember the last time I was invited to attend a premiere, but tonight I was at the Royal Albert Hall for the world premiere of Kenneth Branagh's remake of the Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient Express. It's a big, classy whodunit with a nice mix of comedy and emotion stirred in to add weight to the characters. The entire cast was at the premiere, including Branagh, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Olivia Colman, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe and Derek Jacobi.

There was also a spin on the zombie genre with the raucous office block black comedy Mayhem, as well as the remarkably straight-faced B-movie style bigfoot thriller Sightings. Plus two foreign films: the involving, mesmerising thriller Thelma from Norway and the movingly personal drama Santa and Andres from Cuba. And two docs: 78/52 gets into lots of enjoyable detail about how Hitchcock created that iconic shower scene, while The Freedom to Marry explores the activists at the centre of the Supreme Court's decision on marriage equality.

This coming week we have screenings of Josh Brolin in Only the Brave, Colin Firth in The Mercy, Richard Gere in The Dinner, Jon Bernthal in Sweet Virginia, Lee Pace in Revolt and Virginia Madsen in Better Watch Out.

Critical Week: Land, sea, air and space

Two big movies this week were passion projects written and directed by top filmmakers. Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is an almost outrageously colourful outer space romp starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne. It's visually fabulous, but never terribly thrilling. By contrast, Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is so viscerally inventive that it pulls us into a cleverly splintered narrative - on land, sea and air - surrounding Britain's epic 1940 evacuation across the channel. Unlike any war movie you've seen, it's perhaps the year's best film so far. And it's especially powerful on the Imax screen.

Much sillier thrills were to be had at Captain Underpants, the riotously rude animated comedy centred on a friendship between two pranksters who convince their principal that he's a superhero. Frenetic but very funny. The Vault is a heist movie with supernatural horror overtones starring James Franco and Francesca Eastwood (comments are embargoed). Killing Ground is more straightforward grisly horror from Australia about two families who face scary locals in the woods. And the 1961 British classic Victim gets a welcome reissue to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality. It's also still a great drama, with powerhouse performances from Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms.

Coming up this next week are Kathryn Bigelow's 1960s riots drama Detroit, Bill Nighy's Victorian whodunit The Limehouse Golem, Jada Pinkett Smith and friends on a comical Girls Trip, Gerard Butler as A Family Man, a couple of women trapped 47 Metres Down, and the festival-winning On Body and Soul.

Critical Week: A family affair

It's been a rather thin week for screenings, or maybe I'm just out of the loop because I've been pre-occupied with organising the Critics' Circle Film Awards. The biggest movie I saw was The Odyssey, the French biopic about Jacques Cousteau starring Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney and Audrey Tautou. It's beautifully filmed and acted, but lacks narrative coherence. The others were independent British oddities: Mindhorn is a somewhat uneven pastiche thriller about an actor asked to re-inhabit his 1980s TV cop character to solve a real murder. It has a terrific cast including Julian Barratt, Russell Tovey, Steve Coogan and Kenneth Branagh. And Spaceship is a swirly arthouse drama about a teen who may have been abducted by aliens, although the plot never quite makes any sense. And then there was a four-hour thriller released next week on DVD in the UK...

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Deep Water
dir Shawn Seet
scr Kym Goldsworthy
with Noah Taylor, Yael Stone, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Craig McLachlan, Danielle Cormack, Ben Oxenbould
16/Aus SBS 3h40 ***.
This four-part Australian TV series may feel somewhat melodramatic, but it taps into some darkly relevant themes. When a Muslim man is found murdered in his flat overlooking Bondi Beach, detective Tori (Orange Is the New Black's Yael Stone) and her partner Nick (Noah Taylor) begin to discover inexplicable links to a series of unsolved murders from the late 1980s. But these were hate crimes involving gay victims, and the officials simply turned a blind eye at the time. The show is assembled with a soapy emotional flair that kind of ignores authenticity in lieu of flashy plot points, hot potato themes and shifty suspects. This makes it feel like a rather standard television procedural, complete with far too many characters to keep straight and lots of shocking revelations. But the underlying issues are solidly engaging, touching on things in society that perhaps haven't improved as much as we'd like to think they have in the past 25 years. And it's strikingly well shot, with engaging performances from the skilled cast.

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This coming week we have screenings of another rather thin, offbeat collection of movies, including the British boxing drama Jawbone, Cristian Mungiu's award-winning Graduation and the doc All This Panic.

36th London Critics' Circle Film Awards: in words and pictures

The UK's top film critics held their annual awards ceremony on Sunday night at The May Fair Hotel in London, with a superb lineup of red carpet guests. I happen to be the chair of the 36th London Critics' Circle Film Awards, which we started organising back in June, so it was great to see the evening unfold in such a joyous, celebratory way. The most memorable moment (pictured above) was when Kate Winslet led the audience into a spontaneous standing ovation for beloved actor-filmmaker Alan Rickman, who died on Thursday.

The ceremony was hosted by comic Robin Ince (left), who stepped in at the last minute due to the sudden illness of one of our planned host. He balanced the mood perfectly, with a witty look at movies that included a number of hilarious Brian Blessed anecdotes. On the right are nominated writer Emma Donoghue (Room) and the Critics' Circle Film Section Chair Anna Smith.

We had a new award this year. First, we handed out our inaugural prize for British/Irish Short Film of the Year, which went to Ben Cleary (left) and his lovely, and now Oscar-nominated, short Stutterer. And we rebranded our British/Irish Breakthrough Filmmaker prize as The Philip French Award, in honour of our esteemed colleague who passed away this year. It went to John Maclean (right) for Slow West.

Of course, Kate Winslet was one of the brightest stars on our red carpet, and she also took home the award for Supporting Actress of the Year for Steve Jobs. She also had a mini reunion with Judi Dench - they both played Iris Murdoch in Iris.

Maisie Williams won the Young British/Irish Performer of the Year award, and livened up the red carpet in her Mexican-wrestler themed dress, accompanied by fellow nominee Florence Pugh (left), her costar in The Falling. Along for the party were actor Blake Harrison and his fiancee Kerry (right).

Producer Sygne Byrge Sorensen (left) collected the Foreign-Language Film of the Year award for Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary The Look of Silence, while top producer Stephen Woolley (right) accepted the Technical Achievement Award for Ed Lachman's cinematography in Carol.

Two directors accepted awards on behalf of their actors. Rufus Norris (left) read a thank you message from Tom Hardy, who was named British/Irish Actor of the Year for his body of work in 2015, including Norris' London Road, The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road and Legend. And Brooklyn director John Crowley (right) relayed a hilarious thank you from Saoirse Ronan as British/Irish Actress of the Year.

Andrew Haigh (left) sent a video thank you for British/Irish Film of the Year for 45 Years. Producer Tristan Goligher took to the stage to grab the trophy. Meanwhile, Asif Kapadia (right) was on hand to collect the Documentary of the Year award for Amy.

Mark Rylance sent a surreal video to accept Supporting Actor of the Year, performed in character (left) from the set of the play he's doing in Boston. His Wolf Hall costar Thomas Brodie-Sangster (right) accepted the award for him.

And then there was George Miller, who sent two witty videos to gratefully accept the top awards for Director of the Year and Film of the Year for Mad Max: Fury Road.

And the ceremony wrapped up with the main event of the night, as Judi Dench took to the stage to present the Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film to Kenneth Branagh. Both gave smart, gracious speeches that had the audience laughing and sighing.

Of course, I also have to shamelessly include two collages of photos that I appear in. As chair, one of my many jobs is to welcome all of our guests at the top of the red carpet, so I had a chance to talk with each of them before the event started. Below is a rather ridiculous photobombing session with Dame Judi and Sir Ken.

And I also feel I should share this series of photographs taken while I was chatting to Kate Winslet about the last time I saw her (when she was about to pop with her third child) and her next movie, Triple 9 - I saw it last week but she hasn't seen it yet. Of course she's awesome in it.

And to drop one more name, as I made my way home following the after-party, I received a lovely email from Tom Hardy, who was deeply apologetic that he had been unable to turn up to accept his award and join the party. He's shooting a film in London at the moment, and production ran over. Hopefully he'll make it next year.

Requisite Blog Photo: Disney's newest princess