LFF 2: Live in the now

The 57th London Film Festival continues at venues all around the city, plus red carpet events in Leicester Square tonight, as filmmakers and stars brave the chilly drizzle. Here are some highlights...

The Spectacular Now
dir James Ponsoldt;  with Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley 13/US ****
Credit to these filmmakers for creating an adolescent comedy-drama that feels bracingly raw and honest. And their willingness to go places most movies shy away from gives the actors a chance to create fresh characters who are engaging even when they do stupid teenager things... [full review to come]

Adore
dir Anne Fontaine; with Naomi Watts, Robin Wright 13/Aus ***.
Infused with a sense of sun-kissed physicality, this drama has a provocative premise that would be hard to take if it weren't shot so beautifully and played with such offhanded authenticity by the solid cast. And despite the Australian surf-community setting, the film has a refreshingly grown-up European sensibility... FULL REVIEW >

Mystery Road
dir Ivan Sen; with Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving 13/Aus ***.
Writer-director Sen captures a vivid sense of life in the Australian Outback in this rural Wild West-style drama. And he cleverly undermines the film's thriller-like plot with low-key pacing and a refusal to indulge in genre cliches. The problem is that this makes the film almost inert, as it never generates even a hint of suspense... [full review to come]

Child's Pose
dir Calin Peter Netzer with Luminita Gheorghiu, Bogdan Dumitrache 13/Rom ***.
Romanian filmmaker Netzer takes a strikingly intimate look at the layers of control within families and society. And while some of the details are a little heavy-handed, witty touches and rippingly honest acting hold our attention. As does the unusually intimate, urgent filmmaking... [full review to come]

The Sarnos: A Life in Dirty Movies
dir Wiktor Ericsson; with Joseph Sarno, Peggy Steffans Sarno 13/Swe ***.
Leave it to a Swedish filmmaker to find the important social relevance in the 1960s sexploitation movies of the legendary Joseph Sarno! But that's exactly what this documentary manages to do while exploring the filmmaker's lengthy career, his enduring marriage and the history of cinema itself since the 1960s... [full review to come]

Critical Week: Summer's last hurrah

London had a flurry of hot summery sunshine last week before the much cooler weekend arrived with rainstorms and more typically chilly autumnal weather. All hope isn't gone for a bit more warmth, but the effect is likely to be pretty dramatic at the box office! Meanwhile, I caught up with the summery Adore, a beach-town drama from Australia starring Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as lifelong friends who fall for each others' sons (Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville). It's a strikingly grown-up, startlingly involving movie by French filmmaker Anne Fontaine.

Not only did it open in the US last week, but it features in the line-up for the forthcoming 57th London Film Festival, which was announced last week at a gala launch event attended by Paul Greengrass, director of the opening night film Captain Phillips. The LFF is a festival of festival, with no significant world premieres but lots of amazing movies from other festivals. It runs 9-20 October, but press screenings begin on 23 September.

Other films viewed by UK press last week include: 42, a hugely involving biopic about groundbreaking baseball icon Jackie Robinson; R.I.P.D., a derivative and unfunny ghostly action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges; Like Father Like Son, a masterful Japanese drama about parenthood from the gifted Hirokazu Kore-eda;  Cal, a darkly dramatic sequel to the Bristol gang-drama Shank; The Broken Circle Breakdown, a gorgeously made and bleakly emotional Belgian drama infused with bluegrass music; and Fire in the Blood, an urgently important documentary about the injustices of Big Pharma when dealing with the global impact of Aids. I also caught up with two stunning restorations: the trippy 1969 ancient Rome odyssey Fellini-Satyricon and the magisterial 1924 expedition doc The Epic of Everest - watching each of these was like having a mystical experience. Very different ones, I should add.

This coming week, we have screenings of: Naomi Watts in the already notorious Diana biopic, Anna Kendrick in the comedy Drinking Buddies, the Danny Trejo in the B-movie sequel Machete Kills, Brie Larson in the acclaimed drama Short Term 12, the Glasgow rom-com Not Another Happy Ending, the British thriller Harrigan, the thriller The Conspiracy, and a restoration of Herzog/Kinski's gonzo classic Nosferatu.