Kindness is a survival skill

An encounter with The Wild Robot
at Annecy Film Festival...

A quiet, absurdly picturesque corner of the French Alps has become the global epicentre of cinematic animation. The Annecy International Animation Film Festival is apparently now more import to studios than ComicCon for launching new projects, while its market is a buzzing hub for aspiring filmmakers from every corner of the globe. Amid a huge range of adventurous animation across the programme, big studio premieres this year included Pixar's Inside Out 2, Illumination's Despicable Me 4, Paramount's Transformers One and two from Netflix: Ultraman: Rising and The Imaginary. There was also short-format work featuring Pokemon, Snoopy & Charlie Brown, Porky Pig & Daffy Duck, Beavis & Butt-head, and Asterix & Obelix.

Sanders on-stage at Annecy

Fans in Annecy were especially delighted to see advance footage from a variety of forthcoming high-profile projects: Disney's Moana 2, Aardman's Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Roald Dahl's The Twits, Richard Curtis' That Christmas, Warner Bros' The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Nickelodeon's Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, Netflix's In Your Dreams, Skydance's Spellbound and DreamWorks' The Wild Robot.

It was this last title that brought me to Annecy for the first time, offering a chance to spend some time with writer-director Chris Sanders and his creative team. Sanders is an animation veteran involved in writing such Disney classics as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan. He also wrote and directed Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods. So it's fascinating to hear him and his cohorts call The Wild Robot the film of their career.

A shared passion

The Wild Robot certainly looks unlike anything we've seen before, with its delicately hand-painted brushstrokes layered together using technology. This creates a dazzling visual style that looks like an oil painting come to life.

A small group of journalists sat down to chat with the film's design team over breakfast on a sunny terrace overlooking Lake Annecy. Sanders begins by speaking warmly about the collaborative artists who have been assembled, and how they embody the spirit of this particular film. "I knew everyone's prior work," he says, "and the people we wanted were available! All of us trained as painters, so the computer is a pencil to us. And we gravitated to a story that doesn't have the obvious heroes and villains. It's about shades of emotions."

Visual effects supervisor Jeff Budsberg says this idea is reflected in the looser style of the imagery. "We wanted the endearing qualities of paintings, because they're more immersive," he says. "And it was important to let the animals be animals."

"I asked that the animals have animal eyes," Sanders notes, "because we usually default to human eyes for everything." This idea extends to using real animal skeletons to guide the structure of foxes, geese, bears, otters and more.

"The animation has to disappear, so you don't think about it," adds Jakob Hjort Jensen, head of character animation. "Because we have a lot of experience, we have more restraint. So we resisted throwing everything at the screen."

"It could have been much more stylised," agrees production designer Raymond Zibach, "but we wanted to find a balance, so we never broke the spell."

"It was important to develop a something specific for the movie," says head of look Baptiste Van Opstal, referring to how digital animation has tended to create a sameness in design and texture across many films, especially with skin, fur and water. "The image doesn't need to be a slave to the technology."

Indeed, The Wild Robot is a story about nature and technology finding a way to coexist. "But it has to be seen on a human level," notes producer Jeff Hermann. "And that's why we are all genuinely inspired by this project and Chris' vision for it."

"The crew has embraced the story completely," Sanders agrees, "and that's why the film is so good. It's thrilling to see audiences connect with the preview footage and see its differences."

"The way people react to the footage makes us know that we that we weren't crazy," says Zibach. "And those scenes still get me!"

A survival story

For a film that features few humans, the premise is unusually resonant, taken from the first in Peter Brown's trilogy of novels about the robot Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o), who finds herself in a very unfamiliar place, a deserted island populated by lively animals.

"I love that Roz wakes up and has no idea what's going to happen to her," Sanders says.

"The opening sequence carries so much weight," says head of story Heidi Jo Gilbert. "It has to reveal key things about her journey as well as the dog-eat-dog nature of the forest. Then she's learning to hear and understand the hate the animals have for her, as well as the violence between them."

"It's important to have bittersweetness in stories for kids," says Jensen.

"That brutality informed the design," Zibach adds. "It's aggressive and sometimes deliberately uneven. It's was a challenge to get the balance right."

"Each sequence in the book has consequences," Hermann notes. "The key message throughout the story is that kindness is a survival skill." Once Roz unlocks their languages, the critters are voiced by an impressive voice cast including Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, Matt Berry and Mark Hamill.

Set in the future, the time and place are intentionally vague, because they are seen through the eyes of the characters. But when they migrate, the geese see the world beyond the island. "It's just landscape to them," says Sanders. "But there are signposts for the audience about where and when this is taking place." As a teaser, one shot in the trailer reveals a submerged Golden Gate Bridge below the migrating geese.

Finding their voice

Working with Lupita to develop Roz was an art, Sanders says. "It involved experimenting, redefining and evolving," he says. "It couldn't be robotic or emotionless, but she starts more cheerful, and then changes as she begins to understand."

"It's like reverse peacocking," notes Jensen. "At the start, Roz is showing off her robotic abilities, but gradually she becomes more natural and connected."

Budsberg agrees that this shift is key to the story. "Roz changes imperceptibly from scene to scene," he says. "At first she looks like an alien metal being, then she gets more and more like the island. She is affected by the island, and she also makes an impact on it."

"They change each other," Sanders says. "It's all about being who they are and being vulnerable."

Some 20,000 people representing 103 countries attended Annecy Festival this year. The top prize went to Australia's Memoir of a Snail, directed by Adam Elliot, who previously won this award in 2009 for Mary & Max (and won an Oscar for the 2003 short Harvie Krumpet). And three other awards were presented to Flow, a feline odyssey by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis.

For more information: ANNECY FESTIVAL >

photos by Marc Piasecki • with thanks to DreamWorks • 10-13.Jun.24

Critical Week: Another nosey novice

Hot on the heels of Sydney Sweeney in Immaculate, here comes Nell Tiger Free investigating another sinister female-centred Catholic conspiracy in The First Omen, a 1971-set prequel that's strong on atmosphere and gothic grisliness but never feels hugely original. The events around setting up the notorious 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew is dramatised in Scoop, an interesting if straightforward account starring Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper and Rufus Sewell.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Evil Does Not Exist
Io Capitano
The Old Oak • Luca
ALL REVIEWS >

And then there's Woody Allen's latest, the sparky French comedy-thriller Coup de Chance, which maintains an entertaining tone even when it gets rather dark. Viggo Mortensen wrote, directed, composed the score for and stars alongside the always-superb Vicky Krieps in the Western dramatic thriller The Dead Don't Die. It's gorgeously shot and strongly involving. The faith-based drama Someone Like You is sunny and beautiful and almost painfully sudsy and predictable. And the Mongolian drama If Only I Could Hibernate is a fascinating glimpse into a complex culture, through the eyes of a stressed-out teen.

This coming week I'll be watching the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, the biblical epic The Book of Clarence, Irish horror All You Need is Death, Spanish mystery Close Your Eyes, Congolese thriller Omen and the Japanese anime Spy x Family: Code White.

Critical Week: A big bromance

I've been taking it a bit easier this week, catching up after the film festival. But there have been a few screenings to attend. First there was the mammoth sequel Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, screened to the press in Imax. Essentially a cartoon with a few humans running around in the margins, this is a movie that will make die hard fans happy, but others might be wise to steer clear. Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway have a lot of fun layering on insinuating intrigue in Mothers' Instinct, a Hitchcock-style slow-burn thriller that's thoroughly entertaining.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Beautiful Game
Disco Boy
PERHAPS AVOID:
Godzilla x Kong
ALL REVIEWS >

Even better is the British feel-good drama The Beautiful Game, about a homeless football team. Thankfully, the on-pitch action is kept in check for more character-based comedy and drama. Liam Neeson and Kerry Condon are terrific in the gritty thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners, set during the Troubles in 1970s Ireland. And the French drama Ama Gloria takes a child's eye view for a slice of life with a couple of momentous moments along the way.

This coming week I'll continue catching up on things, and I have screenings of Scoop, The First Omen, Woody Allen's Coup de Chance, If Only I Could Hibernate and Someone Like You.

Critical Week: Let's get weird

After two straight months of film festivals, I made the decision to sit out the 30th Raindance Film Fest, which is underway in London this week. It's always packed with great screenings, unsung films often with filmmaker Q&As. But I've needed some mental health space. I also had to prepare for the annual Critics' Circle Services to the Arts award today, which this year went to Emma Thompson. As chair of the Film Section, I sat next to her for lunch and then delivered a speech about her career before she replied with a fabulous speech of her own about the nature of criticism and its impact on her life. There were about 75 members of the Circle in attendance from across all six sections - film, theatre, dance, music, books and art. A superb afternoon.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Causeway • Living
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Missing • Utama • Neptune Frost
PERHAPS AVOID:
Dear Zoe
ALL REVIEWS >

Movie-wise, the surprising highlight was the pastiche biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe as the king of parody songs. It's a riotously hilarious film, and the screening was accompanied by a lively launch party for Roku in the UK. Other films included the violent and entertaining action drama Medieval, starring Ben Foster, Michael Caine and Sophie Lowe; the superbly unsettling urban horror drama Nanny, with Anna Diop as a Senegalese woman in New York; the remarkable Sadie Sink in the melodramatic and rather slushy drama Dear Zoe; the latest from Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin, the folkloric freak-out Enys Men; and a new inventively nutty mind-bender from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the paranormal adventure Something in the Dirt.

Movies to watch this next week include the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek in Sam & Kate, Romain Duris in Final Cut, Latin American horror in Blood-Red Ox, the Australian romance Expired and the surreal comedy Homebody.

LFF: Talk it through

The 66th London Film Festival is powering along into its first weekend, and I'm trying to watch it from outside. But of course being in the business I have been sucked into various events and screenings. The best part of this is getting the chance to hang out with filmmakers and actors at various receptions, which ironically is something I've rarely done when I've been press accredited because I was too busy waiting in lines for screenings. This week I've had terrific chats with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Florence Pugh and Letitia Wright, to name three amazing actresses. Here are some more hightlights...

Aisha
dir-scr Frank Berry; with Letitia Wright, Josh O'Connor 22/Ire ****
An almost overwhelming sense of realism floods through this moving drama, which follows a Nigerian refugee facing a series of obstacles as she seeks safety and stability in Ireland. It's clear that writer-director Frank Berry has exhaustively researched these characters and situations, so scenes are able to play out without the need for dialog, pushing the narrative forward through the power of the emotions that churn under the surface. It's an unusually delicate, understated film, and it packs a big punch.

My Father's Dragon
dir Nora Twomey; voices Jacob Tremblay, Gaten Matarazzo 22/Ire ***.
With the same colourfully hand-made quality as her previous animated films, like Wolfwalkers and The Secret of Kells, Nora Twomey's latest fantastical odyssey feels like it came from the mind of a particularly imaginative child. So young viewers are especially likely to enjoy its mix of goofy slapstick and gently thrilling action. There is also quite a bit of wildly outrageous anime-style nuttiness and dazzling visual panache running through this energetic romp.

Klokkenluider
dir-scr Neil Maskell; with Amit Shah, Sura Dohnke 22/UK 1h24 ***.
Using the Dutch word for whistleblower as its title, this blackly comical British thriller delights in putting its characters into awkwardly intense situations. Actor-turned-filmmaker Neil Maskell finds an array of sharp-edged detail in this collision between an offbeat group of people who are facing a situation that might be quite dangerous. Or maybe not. It's a very well-assembled little film, and its only weakness lies in how it remains so deliberately elusive.

Peter Von Kant
dir-scr Francois Ozon; with Denis Menochet, Isabelle Adjani 22/Fr ****
French filmmaker Francois Ozon returns to German maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this time riffing on his 1972 drama The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Genders and much more are flipped around here, turning the film into a loose biopic about Fassbinder himself. With an eye-catching sense of style, the film is also entertaining for its visual panache, pitch-black wit and a provocatively lacerating look at the movie industry. Plus a collection of unforgettable characters.

Lynch/Oz 
dir-scr Alexandre O Philippe; with Karyn Kusama, John Waters 22/US ****
Taking a journey through American cinematic history, this entertaining documentary explores the resilience and timelessness of The Wizard of Oz, and how its story and iconography have had such a massive impact since its release in 1939. Cleverly weaving in hundreds of clips, filmmaker Alexandre O Philippe finds fascinating parallels everywhere, and especially in the films of David Lynch.

Fragments of Paradise
dir KD Davison; with Martin Scorsese, John Waters 22/US ****
Poet and avant-garde Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas recorded everyday life with his cameras for 70 years, from his arrival in New York in 1949 with his brother Adolfas until his death in 2019. Sifting through this footage, director KD Davison mixes clips with interviews and archival audio to create a striking account of the immigrant experience. And the film also a remarkably intimate look at Mekas himself and an undervalued aspect of the cinematic landscape.

And two films I'd seen earlier...

Living
dir Oliver Hermanus; with Bill Nighy, Alex Sharp 22/UK ****.
With a smart, delicate script by Kazuo Ishiguro and incisive direction by Oliver Hermanus, this remake of Kurosawa's 1952 classic Ikiru is skilfully shot in period style. Sensitive filmmaking and a punchy story tackle themes that feel powerfully relevant 70 years later, and everything is delivered in a subtle, understated way that's carefully tied in with the story's characters and setting. It also offers Bill Nighy a wonderful lead role... FULL REVIEW >

Blue Jean
dir-scr Georgia Oakley; with Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes 22/UK ****
Set in a northern English seaside town during the tumultuous Thatcher years, this drama has an earthy realism that finds timely themes almost 35 years ago. While the personal story is compelling and full of involving detail, it's not always easy to watch a film in which everyone is so miserable. Thankfully, writer-director Georgia Oakley finds moments of humour and joy along the way, and the cast is excellent... FULL REVIEW >

All London Film Festival reviews, once they're uploaded, will be linked to SHADOWS' LFF PAGE >

Critical Week: Take a load off

Returning home to London from Venice, I arrived in a nation in mourning, with a new monarch and prime minister. Meanwhile, I'm grappling with a backlog of festival reviews. Most are written in rough form, so I'm working to get them online bit by bit. And there are also new releases to keep up with.Confess, Fletch is the first film featuring the quick-thinking reporter since those two Chevy Chase movies in the '80s. This one is closer in tone to Gregory McDonald's Fletch novels (I've read a few of them), with Jon Hamm creating a more enjoyably deadpan and less silly take on the character. But the film is perhaps a bit underpowered to launch a new franchise.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Athena • In From the Side
Blonde • Strawberry Mansion
Funny Pages • Casablanca Beats
ALL REVIEWS >

I also caught up with Oliver Hermanus' superb Living, an inventive remake of Kurosawa's Ikiru with a terrific lead role for Bill Nighy as a 1950s London businessman who begins to see things from a new perspective.  There was another offbeat offering from Peter Strickland with the pointedly amusing Flux Gourmet, about musicians who mix sound with food. Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie lead a terrific ensemble cast. Finally, there was the gonzo horror of The Retaliators, an increasingly violent revenge thriller that gleefully preaches a seriously unhelpful message.

Lined up to watch this next week are Viola Davis in The Woman King, George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Ticket to Paradise, Lesley Manville in Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, the British drama It Is In Us All, New Zealand drama The Justice of Bunny King, Korean drama In Front of Your Face, Japanese animation Inu-Oh and the movie club doc A Bunch of Amateurs.

Venezia79: Starting time

The 79th Venice Film Festival kicked off tonight on the Lido with the world premiere of Noah Baumbach's White Noise, just one of the movies I will miss at this year's festival! I arrived too late to catch it, but I'm already facing a full schedule, long days and, for the first time, an extended commute across the Lagoon to where I'm staying. Here's a first batch of highlights...

Living 
dir Oliver Hermanus;  with Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood 22/UK ****
With a smart, delicate script by Kazuo Ishiguro and incisive direction by Oliver Hermanus, this remake of Kurosawa's 1952 classic Ikiru is skilfully shot in period style. Sensitive filmmaking and an incisive story tackle themes that still feel powerfully relevant nearly 70 years later, and everything is delivered in a subtle, understated way that's carefully tied in with the story's characters and setting. It also offers Bill Nighy a wonderful lead role. 

Blue Jean
dir-scr Georgia Oakley; with Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes 22/UK ****
Set in a northern English seaside town during the tumultuous Thatcher years, this drama has an earthy, kitchen-sink realism that finds timely themes in a story set almost 35 years ago. While the personal story is compelling and full of involving detail, it's also not always easy to watch a film in which everyone is so miserable. Thankfully, writer-director Georgia Oakley finds moments of humour and joy along the way, and the cast is excellent.

Three Nights a Week [Trois Nuits par Semaine]
dir Florent Gouelou; with Pablo Pauly, Romain Eck 22/Fr ***.
Beautifully shot with a lush sense of light and colour, this French drama spins around a warm, offbeat relationship that catches two people, and their friends, by surprise. The drawn-out narrative plays a bit like a gay fantasy, as that cute guy isn't as straight as he thinks he is. And the plot points sometimes feel very deliberate. But there are honest feelings running through each scene, finely played by the actors in a naturalistic way. And thankfully director Florent Gouelou isn't afraid to lean right into a feel-good moment.

Casa Susanna
dir-scr Sebastien Lifshitz; with Kate, Diana, Susanna Valenti 22/Fr ****
Illustrated with a wonderful collection of home movies and snapshots, plus scene-setting newsreel footage, this quietly observational documentary offers a glimpse into a secret society from the early 1960s where cross-dressers could gather without fear. Director Sebastien Lifshitz gets out of the way and lets these people and their children tell the story with colourful anecdotes, big feelings and a lovely sense of nostalgia.

Full reviews will be linked at Shadows VENICE FILM FESTIVAL page, eventually! 

On the Road: Staring at the sea

I flew from London to Los Angeles this past week, amid growing global unease about covid-19, so I'm trying to be careful. I've seen one new film since landing here, ironically a British drama set on the English coast: Hope Gap. It's a sensitive marital drama starring Annette Bening, Bill Nighy and Josh O'Conner as a couple and their son going through a shift in the family dynamic. It's refreshing to see a movie tackle these things without resorting to overwrought melodrama, and all three actors are excellent.

I only watched two films on the flight (plus some episodic television). First was the gorgeous Oscar-winning animated short film Hair Love, and then the feature doc Andy Murray: Resurfacing, an intriguing look into the life of a top sporting competitor facing the possible early end of his career. And arriving in Los Angeles, I attended the opening night of the Noir Film Festival, a screening of the rarely seen 1952 Argentine thriller The Beast Must Die, a fabulously melodramatic noir whodunit.

In addition to visiting a few museums, I also spent a rainy day at Disneyland with longtime friends, and of course many of the attractions are based on movies - from the two frankly awesome Star Wars rides Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance to the outrageous gravity-defying hilarity of Guardians of the Galaxy: Breakout and The Incredicoaster. It was also fun to revisit rides based on Indiana Jones, Mr Toad and Pinocchio, as well as two that later became movies: Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise.

There's not much out here this week in cinemas (I'm not particularly tempted by Bloodshot or My Spy, more interested in Sally Potter's The Roads Not Taken if I can find it in a local cinema), but I have a few films I need to watch online for work, including the Lithuanian drama The Lawyer, the German thriller Darkroom and the animated rom-com Top 3.

Critical Week: Against the law

The big movie screened this week for London critics was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, a powerfully riveting drama that, like last week's Dunkirk, unapologetically immerses the audience in a historical event. Plus noteworthy performances from British actors John Boyega (above) and Will Poulter. Lighter fare included the raucous comedy Girls Trip, which is very funny and has a surprisingly soft centre, and the Jack the Ripper style horror whodunit The Limehouse Golem, which is overfamiliar but very well-played.

Slightly outside the mainstream, we had the conceptual underwater horror of 47 Metres Down, which nerve-wrackingly traps two young women at the bottom of the sea surrounded by sharks; Gerard Butler trying to emote in the rather painfully obvious work-life balance drama A Family Man; Michael Winterbottom struggling to find a balance between documentary and fiction in the band tour movie On the Road (Wolf Alice fans should love it); and a sensitive doc tracing a likeable young musician's gender transition in Real Boy.

Coming up this week are the animated comedy The Emoji Movie, Tom Holland in Pilgrimage, Toni Collette in Fun Mom Dinner, Francois Ozon's L'Amant Double, Sundance hit Beach Rats, Berlin winner On Body and Soul, the dark comedy Kept Boy, and the tense drama Insyriated.

Critical Week: Say what?

I was able to catch up with the London Film Festival gem Their Finest this week, a lightly handled drama about government-sponsored filmmakers during the Blitz. With a sharp cast anchored by Gemma Arterton, Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin and clever direction by Lone Scherfig, it's a telling story packed with engaging detail. Ben Affleck's Live by Night is a great-looking gangster movie, with another superb cast (including Chris Cooper, Sienna Miller and Zoe Saldana), but it's a bit too glacial to grab hold. And James McAvoy plays a man with multiple personalities in M Night Shyamalan's thriller Split. It's unnerving and sometimes full-on freaky, but rather messy.

Outside the mainstream, Bitter Harvest, a chronicle of the horrific Stalin-forced famine in the Ukraine in 1932-33, starring Max Irons, Samantha Barks and Terence Stamp. And Anna Biller's The Love Witch is a hilariously lurid 1960s-style pastiche of magic, romance and murder. Both films are clearly passion projects, and both feel rather overlong due to their choppy editing and in-your-face messages.

This coming week we have the 20-years-later sequel T2 Trainspotting, Woody Harrelson's real-time adventure Lost in London Live, the resurrected franchise XXX: Return of Xander Cage, the British/Indian drama Viceroy's House, the football icon doc Best and John Waters' long-lost Multiple Maniacs.

Critical Week: The right stuff

It's been another odd collection of screenings for London critics. Julianne Moore and Ellen Page (above) give their usual storming performances in Freeheld, a true story about legal equality that feels a bit simplistic even with such strong characters. Chris Pine and Casey Affleck are excellent as quiet heroes in The Finest Hours, the true story of a 1952 ocean rescue that's told on an impressively grand scale. The British comedy Dad's Army brings the iconic 1970s TV series to the big screen with a terrific A-list cast but almost no comical energy. I'll See You in My Dreams is a nice but mopey and inconsequential romantic drama starring Blythe Danner, Sam Elliott and Martin Starr.

Further afield, Adrien Brody stars in Backtrack, a ghostly Aussie thriller that gets increasingly ridiculous as it goes along. Also from Australia, Oddball and the Penguins is the relentlessly charming and surprisingly important story of a big sheepdog that finds a new calling. From Greece, the acclaimed drama Xenia insightfully explores issues of immigration, community and sexuality through the eyes of two lively brothers. Battle Mountain is a properly inspirational doc about Scottish cycling champ Graeme Obree and his attempt to break a world record at age 48. And Peccadillo's latest collection, Boys on Film 14: Worlds Collide, features nine edgy, inventive short films from around the world, many dealing with political issues like class, homophobia and HIV.

Among this coming week's offerings, we have Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool, the Oscar-nominated Mustang, Freida Pinto in Desert Dancer and the Canadian drama Love in the Time of Civil War.

Critical Week: Who wants off this crazy plane?

The big screening last week was Liam Neeson's latest action blockbuster Non-Stop, costarring Julianne Moore, Downton's Michelle Dockery and Oscar-nominee Lupita Nyong'o. I also caught a very late screening for I, Frankenstein, the rather murky action romp starring Aaron Eckhart as an unusually muscly version of the famous monster battling Bill Nighy's demon prince. And there was also a screening for the 3D animated romp Mr Peabody & Sherman, based on the 1960s cartoon, which is a very different kind of fun for adults than for the kids, thanks to the non-stop visual and verbal gags and riotous pacing.

A bit off the beaten path we had a complete re-imagining of the Mexican cannibal freak-out We Are What We Are - this American version is a horror art-film, extremely well made and very creepy, but are genre fans ready for something this subtle? The Rocket is a gorgeous crowd-pleaser that takes a fable-like turn in its lively story about a cheeky, clever boy in Laos. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia is, like the man himself, no-holds-barred as it explores of Vidal's outspoken approach to art, politics and religion. We don't learn much about the man himself, but we can see why his views are so important. And Beyond the Edge is a strikingly well-shot 3D documentary about the first men who made it to the top of Everest.

This coming week, we have the remake RoboCop, the romance Endless Love (which is not a remake of the notorious 1980s romance), the acclaimed festival film The Motel Life, and a stack of things to catch up with on screener discs. I also have a launch for the TV series Viking. More on that next time...