Critical Week: Driving me crazy

Screenings continue to be a bit less frequent this time of year, although I somehow found plenty of movies to watch this week. Eddie Murphy is back in action-comedy mode, starring in The Pickup alongside Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer. Their banter is enjoyable even if the plot is almost ridiculously simplistic. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back for Freakier Friday, a hugely enjoyable 20-years-later body-swap comedy sequel. And there were two astonishingly grisly horror movies: Together stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple that's growing eerily close, while Weapons stars Julia Garner as a teacher whose students have mysteriously vanished. Both are stomach-churningly yucky in all the best ways, and both have serious subtext that holds the interest.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Young Hearts • Weapons
Stans • Freakier Friday
ALL REVIEWS >

In addition, there was the family adventure Sketch, about a teen whose drawings come to life and menace a small town. It's well-made and engaging. There were two films from France: The Musicians is an engaging and warmly understated comedy about a group of egotistic artists who form a historic quartet. And Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods is a nature documentary adaptation of the classic novel about a young deer growing up. It's beautifully shot, and openly emotive. I also watched Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (arrives on Apple TV on 15th August), which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a lifelong Peanuts fan, the line-art animation was particularly nice. And the catchy songs were fun too. I also attended a live performance of new absurdist comedy Lost Watches at Park Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses, Bob Odenkirk in Nobody 2, Orlando Bloom in The Cut, Matilda Lutz as Red Sonja, the animated comedy Fixed and the Chinese remake of Richard Linklater's Tape.

Critical Week: Run away and join the circus

The lockdown continues to slowly ease in Britain, with most museums and cinemas reopening this week. Watching a movie in a mask isn't great, but it's great to see movies on a big screen again. And in addition to a press screening (with others coming up), I also attended a press launch for a museum exhibition. Even so, it's about time we had a silly animated circus adventure to take our mind off all of this. Animal Crackers isn't a great movie, but it's lively, colourful and wacky enough to do the trick.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Shadow of Violence • Casting
Summerland • The Vigil
PERHAPS AVOID:
Unhinged
FULL REVIEWS >

There were also some mid-range movies punching above their weight. Dave Franco's directing debut The Rental is a ripping thriller about a weekend getaway gone very wrong. Survive the Night is a clunky home invasion horror with a stone-faced Bruce Willis. Summerland is a skilfully made exploration of unexpected human connections with a terrific Gemma Arterton. And Life With Music is a rather sudsy drama about nostalgia starring Patrick Stewart and Katie Holmes.

Further from the beaten path, The Vigil is a stunning horror thriller rooted in Hasidic Jewish tradition, while Casting is an inventive improvised German comedy-drama about an attempt to cast a movie. There were also two docs: Pornstar Pandemic is an unstructured collection of footage in which adult actors talk about how they're coping with lockdown, while 2015's Scrum looks at the lives of players on Sydney's gay rugby team. And there's also a collection of four superb football-themed shorts from the UK, Germany and France called The Male Gaze: Strikers & Defenders.

I have one press screening in the diary this coming week, for Seth Rogen's An American Pickle. And on my list to watch at home, there's Roberto Begnini in Pinocchio, Gillian Jacobs in I Used to Go Here, the ensemble thriller What We Found, the horror fantasy Peripheral, the fantasy adventure Mortal, the Algerian memoir Papicha and the dark Guatemalan's drama La Llorona.

Critical Week: Teen spirit

A highlight this week was the Oscar-nominated Mustang, a pointed Turkish drama about five sisters whose strong personalities are at odds with their restrictive culture. It's beautifully made by first-time feature filmmaker Deniz Gamze Erguven (she's a Turk based in France, so it's the French entry for the Academy Awards). The film has such a striking point of view that it's impossible not to be caught up in its earthy, honest narrative. And what it has to say is remarkably timely.

Other movies screened this week include Ryan Reynolds' entertainingly snarky superhero romp Deadpool, which is perhaps too snarky for its own good but will have genre fans overflowing with praise. Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann and Alison Brie grapple with sex and the city in the comedy How to Be Single. Keanu Reeves investigates a perplexing, possibly supernatural-tinged murder in the choppy mystery Exposed. Natalie Dormer seeks her twin in the horror movie The Forest, which is unsettling and creepy until it turns silly. The creepy Austrian drama Goodnight Mommy, which morphs into an original but over-the-top horror thriller as it goes along. And a young junkie throws his life away on the streets of Montreal in the murky, meandering arthouse drama Love in the Time of Civil War.

Coming up over the next week we have a very late screening of Ben Stiller's comedy sequel Zoolander 2, Christian Bale in Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups, Richard Gere in Time Out of Mind, Aidan Gillen in John Carney's Sing Street, and the Belgian comedy The Brand New Testament.

Critical Week: A winter's tale

Quentin Tarantino's latest epic The Hateful Eight has finally bowed to critics, and it's an oddly uneven film - an intriguing idea with moments of skilful inventiveness and a solid cast, but the nagging sense that it's all rather pointless and indulgent.

Also screening this week: Robert DeNiro and Zac Efron in the rude road comedy Dirty Grandpa, Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie in the enjoyably edgy rom-com Sleeping With Other People, Matthias Schoenaerts in the fiendishly clever and unsettling Belgian PTSD drama Disorder, and the irritatingly fragmented Romanian sculptor biopic Brancusi From Eternity.

Meanwhile, I still have a bunch of films to watch before the next round of voting in critics awards. Since I have no more press screenings until January 4th, I should have time to catch up with screeners of awards-worthy movies, plus binge-watching TV series I've been saving up. I'll also be finalising my year-end lists over the next week. So it should be a nice Christmas! Hope yours is good too...