Critical Week: Winter is coming

Yes, the weather has taken a turn in London, still sunny but much colder, perfect weather for going to the cinema. And holiday movies are starting to turn up as well. But I also saw a few big movies this past week, including House of Gucci, which stars Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in a soapy story of conniving and murder, and it's all true. It's also hugely entertaining. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem play Lucy and Ricky in Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's smart and pointedly topical drama set around the landmark 1950s sitcom. It's rivetingly well-made, and a lot of nostalgic fun too. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
Encanto • House of Gucci
Annette • Rebel Dykes
ALL REVIEWS >

There were also two big animated features: Disney's Encanto is a charming, beautifully crafted bit of magic set in Colombia, while Sing 2 carries on the hilarious music-based antics of a group of animals as they take their show to the big time. I saw two British holiday-themed films: Aml Ameen's Boxing Day is a clever blend of traditional London romcom with a sharp depiction of the city's vibrant Caribbean subculture, while Silent Night is a black comedy starring Keira Knightley with a remarkably dark end-of-the-world edge to it. Less enjoyable was the sentimental drama Not to Forget, although its cast features ace Oscar-winning veterans Louis Gossett Jr, Cloris Leachman, Tatum O'Neal and Olympia Dukakis.

This coming week I'll be watching Javier Bardem in The Good Boss, Colin Firth in Operation Mincemeat, Noomi Rapace in Lamb, Stellan Skarsgard in Hope, the coming-of-age drama I Am Syd Stone and the Turkish drama Beyto.

London Film Fest: Sleep with the fishes

And that's a wrap on my 22nd year covering the BFI London Film Festival. I haven't counted up the number of films I've seen this year, but it will still only be a fraction of the hundreds of movies that are programmed here. The closing night saw the international premiere of Martin Scorsese's new movie, and I actually walked right past Robert De Niro and Al Pacino at one point this afternoon, which was pretty cool. Then I saw all three of them, plus Harvey Keitel and Anna Paquin on the red carpet outside the Odeon this evening, mercifully under clear skies. I'm sure they're having a great party tonight. Here are my final few comments on movies, plus the festival award winners and my favourite films of the festival...

The Irishman 
dir Martin Scorsese; with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino 19/US *****
A thumping cinematic epic, this film deserves to be seen on the biggest screen available as it recounts a staggering true story that stretches over half a century. In addition to the expert writing, direction and acting, this is a pungent look at how American culture and politics have become so thoroughly enmeshed with criminality. This isn't shouted loudly, but it's impossible to miss as the story centres on a singular personal perspective.

The Lodge
dir Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala; with Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell 19/UK ***
There's a staggeringly bleak sensibility to this gothic horror movie. Without being particularly scary, it's a seriously unnerving freak-out simply because it gets under the skin. Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala throw all kinds of nasty things at the screen that add both intrigue and unease. It's skilfully shot and edited, with a terrific sense of the settings and a steady stream of inventive visual and thematic touches.

On a Magical Night [Chambre 212]
dir-scr Christophe Honore; with Chiara Mastroianni, Vincent Lacoste 19/Fr ****
French filmmaker Christophe Honore playfully uses magic (complete with Barry Manilow) to explore the nature of a long-term relationship. The story unfolds like A Christmas Carol played out as a French farce, with a collision of past, present and future that offers a jolt of insight into the way we grow and change (or not) within a relationship. It's surprisingly engaging, anchored by a wonderfully deadpan performance from Chiara Mastroianni.

Happy Birthday [Fête de Famille]
dir-scr Cedric Kahn; with Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Bercot 19/Fr ***
With a real-life mixture of comedy and drama, French filmmaker Cedric Kahn explores a variety of intriguing family dynamics. It's not an each film to connect with, because just as it pulls the audience in with some warm humour it veers off somewhere rather dark and disturbing. The superb actors keep up with these mood shifts, although they can be rather jarring for the audience, especially as characters take turns being the bad guy.

LFF Awards

• Best Film: MONOS
• Documentary: WHITE RIOT
• First Feature: Mati Diop (ATLANTICS)

Rich’s Best of the Fest

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2. The Irishman
3. I Lost My Body
4. The Report
5. Monsoon
6. Marriage Story
7. By the Grace of God
8. Bacurau
9. Luce
10. Monos

ALSO: The Kingmaker, Moffie, Invisible Life, Tremors, Martin Eden, Ema, Earthquake Bird, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, And Then We Danced, The Painted Bird.


Links:
Shadows LONDON FILM FEST homepage (full reviews will be linked here) 
Official LONDON FILM FEST site 

Critical Week: Watch the skies...

Secret Cinema presents Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back hit London this past week, and looks set to be a box office presence until it winds up at the end of September. And rightly so: staged with a mind-boggling level of inventiveness, this is a staggering experience that lets the audience live the final sequences of A New Hope (travelling to Mos Eisley, the rebel base and the Death Star itself) and then watch The Empire Strikes Back as part of an epic six-hour evening. MY REPORT >

Other films screened to UK press this week include the gorgeously creative Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, starring John Cusack, Paul Dano and the great Elizabeth Banks; the corny farce She's Funny That Way, starring Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston; and the arty, mannered character study Manglehorn, starring Al Pacino. Further afield there were three uneven but promising low-budget dramas: American posh boys in Those People, a working class British guy in SoftLad, and three Sao Paulo teens in Boys in Brazil.

There were also a few more documentaries. Going Clear is a staggeringly strong doc about Scientology, taking only one side (no one else would talk) but still offering a rare glimpse into the workings of the mysterious religion. The Yes Men Are Revolting furthers the activists' cause with more lively pranks, this time calling attention to the urgency of climate change. And the still ahead-of-its-time experimental 1929 Soviet classic Man With a Movie Camera gets a digital restoration that reminds everyone why it's consistently named one of the 10 best films ever made.

This coming week I only have a couple of screenings before I take a week off, including the WW2 thriller 13 Minutes, the Brazilian drama The Second Mother, the British indie thriller 51 Degrees North and the supernatural gay thriller Angels With Tethered Wings.

Critical Week: They're baaack...

Screenings in London this past week included two very late-screening films coming out this week: Poltergeist (pictured above) is a remake of the 1982 Spielberg/Hooper classic. It's nicely shot and acted but feels rather exactly like other ghost movies being made at the moment (most notably Insidious). Tomorrowland is a relentlessly optimistic Disney movie starring George Clooney with a strongly positive message, a solid cast and some lovely effects, although it's a bit too simplistic to be something special.

Two other films featured veterans in a relaxed mood: Al Pacino is an ageing rocker in Danny Collins, a chilled-out comedy-drama with strong support from Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Christopher Plummer and Bobby Cannavale. Dustin Hoffman is a master conductor in The Choir (aka Boychoir), an enjoyable if somewhat too-earnest coming of age movie.

Further afield: Olivia Colman leads the ensemble (which includes Tom Hardy) in the artfully offbeat musical London Road, using actual transcripts to explore a community's reaction to a serial killer. Everyone's Going to Die is an underpowered British drama about a connection between two extremely mismatched strangers. Unhallowed Ground is a rather cheesy British horror movie that has some terrific freak-out moments along the way. Infini is an underwritten Aussie sci-fi horror that looks cool but fails to develop its characters. And Seek is a scruffy-charming Canadian indie about a geeky journalist looking for his dream man on the nightclub scene in Toronto.

This coming week we have screenings of: Slow West with Michael Fassbender, Mr Holmes with Ian McKellan, Return to Sender with Rosamund Pike, Results with Guy Pearce and the festival favourites Eden and Les Combattants. Plus another three-day weekend!

Critical Week: Eek! A mouse!

London critics caught up this week with the clever black comedy Life of Crime, based on an Elmore Leonard novel and starring Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def). It's offbeat and very funny, but not quite as hilarious as the week's biggest movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, a riotously entertaining sidestep in the Marvel universe that may be the comic studio's best film yet.

Other high-profile films this week included Dwayne Johnson and Brett Ratner's new take on Hercules, a surprisingly enjoyable adventure that's a lot smarter than it looks. One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's final performances lifts the slow-burning political thriller A Most Wanted Man into something rather amazing. And random cast members from a range of the previous four films are back for Step Up: All In, another corny story punctuated by great dance numbers.

Further afield, we had the terrific small-town drama Tiger Orange, about estranged brothers who both happen to be gay. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden is a riveting documentary about a shocking event from the early 1930s. You'll want to read more about it, and hopefully someone will make a dramatic thriller. And Al Pacino offered two movies: Salome is his film of his recent staging of the scandalous Oscar Wilde play, while Wilde Salome documents the process of doing the play and film, as well as tracing Wilde's life. The mesmerising staging of Salome is oddly stilted and over-the-top at the same time, with Jessica Chastain riveting in the title role. The doc is even more interesting, a bit padded out but packed with remarkable observations.

This coming week we'll be subjected to Sylvester Stallone and crew in The Expendables III, Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson in The Rover, Nat Wolff and Selena Gomez in Behaving Badly, the indie drama 4 Minute Mile, Leo Leigh's ping pong hustler doc Fact or Fiction, the episodic architectural doc Cathedrals of Culture, Agnes B's road movie My Name is Hmmm, and Secret Cinema's immersive Back to the Future event.

Critical Week: Fields of gold

London-based critics finally had a chance to catch up with last year's Terrence Malick film To the Wonder, a deeply personal meditation on relationships and faith starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams (pictured), plus Olga Kurylenko. It's a swirling, virtually dialog-free drama that kind of spirals out of control in the final third, but leaves us thinking. The only real mainstream film last week was the enjoyable geriatric caper romp Stand Up Guys, with the all-star trio of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. I also had the chance to catch up with Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, an unhinged style-over-substance comedy-drama clearly based on elements from the life of star Charlie Sheen.

Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral is an exercise in style and substance, a gleamingly yucky futuristic tale of fandom taken to life-threatening extremes. Sammy's Great Escape is a sequel to 2010's A Turtle's Tale, and keeps us entertained with a slightly deranged script and a gloriously excessive use of 3D. Aussie filmmaker Cate Shortland's unnerving dramatic thriller Lore is so gorgeously well shot and naturalistically acted that we almost forget that it's set in Nazi Germany. The Argentine anthology Sexual Tension: Volatile is an intriguing collection of six shorts exploring unexpected attraction between men. And bringing things full circle, Muzaffer Ozdemir's loosely plotted Home (Yurt) is a deeply personal meditation on the effects of progress on nature in the mountainous wilds of Turkey.

Coming this week: Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard, the gothic teen romance Beautiful Creatures, Danny Dyer in Run for Your Wife, Elijah Wood in Maniac, Barry Levinson's found footage thriller The Bay and Hirokazu Koreeda's I Wish.