Critical Week: Road rage

It's been nearly five months since my normal everyday schedule ended abruptly, and I had a couple of firsts this week that make it feel like there may be light at the end of this long tunnel. I went to a restaurant with table service (outdoors on a gorgeous evening), and on only my third trip into Central London I had my first press screening in an actual screening room (with severe distancing measures). The movie on that big screen was Unhinged, a vicious thriller with Russell Crowe that arrives in cinemas next week.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Most Wanted
Stage Mother • Myth
FULL REVIEWS >

Other movies this week were an above-average mix, including the ripping true story Most Wanted, a Canadian drug-case drama starring the excellent Antoine Olivier Pilon and Josh Hartnett; the wrenchingly personal drama Retaliation, about the fallout from child abuse starring a raw Orlando Bloom; the gritty immigrant drama American Fighter; the ambitiously offbeat hybrid of WWII action and a haunted house in Ghosts of War, starring Brenton Thwaites and Skyler Astin; the corny but topical childbirth comedy Babysplitters, starring Community's Dani Pudi; and the clever guerrilla filmmaking comedy-drama Myth.

My list of films to watch over the coming week includes the animated comedy Animal Crackers, Patrick Stewart in Life With Music, Bella Thorne in Infamous, the indie romance Around the Sun, the backstage TV comedy Casting, the horror movie The Vigil, the arthouse film Last and First Men and the intriguingly titled doc Pornstar Pandemic.

Critical Week: Of skirts and men

I caught up with the ancient-mythology epic Gods of Egypt this week (that's Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites above being tormented by a god-sized Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There's definitely a lot of camp value there, and much of the snarky attitude is intentional. It's definitely smarter that most blockbusters, even if it is swamped by excessive effects work (hint: it's better on a small screen without 3D).

Aside from the Sundance Film Festival London, I had only three other movies this week, and it was a mixed bag: Elvis & Nixon recounts an absurd true story as a vehicle for Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey to chomp merrily on the scenery. There isn't much more to the movie that that, but it might be enough. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a rather darker true story from 1971, with eerie resonance in more recent headline news. It's a very well-made film, sober and pointed, with a terrific cast. And Outings consists of the first three episodes of a proposed British TV series that's unlikely to be commissioned. Basically an amusing but never funny gay variation on Sex and the City, the stories are good and the cast is fresh, but it's just too amateurish to appeal to broader audiences.

As usual this time of year, screenings are rather few and far between. The only one in the diary for the coming week is the London-set sequel The Conjuring 2. Other films might be forthcoming (and I have a few in the diary for the following week), but I'm looking forward to a bit of time to do other things for a change.

LFF 11: Surprise us

The surprise film at this year's London Film Festival was Anomalisa, and directors Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman, plus actor David Thewlis, were on hand to present their film to the audience. Alas, I wasn't able to attend this year, so I'll have to wait until the film is screened to the press prior to its UK release. Meanwhile, the parade on the red carpet is continuing with tonight's awards ceremony, at which Cate Blanchett will be presented the BFI Fellowship. The last day of the festival is tomorrow, and it will be all about Michael Fassbender. Here are a few more highlights...

Truth
dir James Vanderbilt; with Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford 15/US ****
Cate Blanchett's gives yet another storming performance in this smart, enlightening backstage drama about the 2004 scandal at CBS News, which ended the career of iconic newscaster Dan Rather. Like a populist blending of The Newsroom with Good Night and Good Luck, the film is talky and a bit too obvious in the points it makes, but it's also important...  MORE >

Ruben Guthrie
dir Brendan Cowell; with Patrick Brammall, Alex Dimitriades 15/Aus ****
It seems obvious that an Australian filmmaker would make a movie about alcoholism into a blackly hilarious comedy. What's surprising here is that the serious undercurrents are just as pungent, and that the film never slips into the usual simplistic approach to the topic. As a result, it's both entertaining and thought provoking.

Victoria
dir Sebastian Schipper; with Laia Costa, Frederick Lau 15/Ger ****.
German filmmaker Sebastian Schipper took a big risk shooting this epic romantic thriller in a single unbroken take, and the resulting film not only wows the audience with its technical audacity but also fully engages the emotions. This story of a young expat's two-hour odyssey is genuinely terrifying, darkly touching and thumping entertainment.

From A to B
dir Ali Mostafa; with Fadi Rifaai, Fahad Albutairi 14/UAE ****
This is a lively road movie with an unusually sharp script that combines character-based humour, introspective drama and a sharp sense of the political scene as three 25-year-olds drive from Abu Dhabi to Beirut, recreating a trip they were supposed to take five years earlier. It's also cleverly timely, connecting with political realities while keeping the audience laughing, then hitting us with an emotional whammy.

LFF 9: A little chaos never hurt anyone

Alan Rickman turned up at the 58th London Film Festival to present his latest directing effort A Little Chaos, in which he stars alongside Kate Winslet, Matthias Shoenaerts and a scene-stealing Stanley Tucci (is there any other kind?). Also on the red carpet tonight were James McAvoy with The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (which oddly wasn't properly screened for the press) and filmmaker Julius Avery with Son of a Gun (see below). There are just two more days before I sleep. More highlights...

A Little Chaos
dir Alan Rickman; with Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts 14/UK ****
A cracking screenplay and sparky acting go a long ways to making this British period drama, set in 17th century France, thoroughly entertaining. With both spiky politics and swoony romance, the film has something for everyone, but it only works because the writing and directing allow the characters to have their own inner lives. Which makes the silly story surprisingly involving.

Son of a Gun 
dir Julius Avery; with Brenton Thwaites, Ewan McGregor 14/Aus ***.
Rippingly entertaining, this Australian thriller never quite breaks the surface but has strong characters well-played by an eclectic cast. And its pacing is so brisk that it holds the interest even if the plot twists and thematic metaphors are all painfully obvious. But without any subtle subtext, it's still a solid guilty pleasure.

Winter Sleep
dir Nuri Bilge Ceylan; with Haluk Bilginer, Melisa Sozen 14/Tur ****.
The extra-long running time may put some viewers off, especially since the film is essentially made up of a series of issue-oriented conversations, but there's never a dull moment. As it explores the issue of justice and conscience in an increasingly economically divided world, the film is relevant, witty and startlingly moving.

The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom
dir Jacob Cheung; with Fan Bingbing, Huang Xiaoming 14/Chn **
An epic tale of conspiracy and war combined with a sweeping romance, this film has all the elements to be a classic. But filmmaker Cheung rushes through it erratically, leaving the plot nonsensical, the battles incoherent and the love story utterly flat. While it has plenty of energy, the film feels like a 12-hour miniseries roughly chopped down to 103 minutes: overcrowded, rushed and exhausting. And the 3D doesn't help.

Critical Week: A dog's life

One of the quirkier press events critics face is the presentation of footage from an unfinished film. Sometimes this involves chatting with filmmakers and cast members while watching scenes that aren't quite complete, other times they show us essentially an extended trailer. Usually we don't want to see snippets and scenes before we have a chance to see the whole film, but Disney's upcoming animated adventure Big Hero 6 is rather interesting, and they lured us along with promises of a San Fransokyo breakfast (turns out that sushi is rather delicious at 10am) as well as a screening of the completed short film Feast (above), which will accompany the feature. Producer Roy Conli had so much energy that he easily whipped us into a frenzy of anticipation for the movie. The footage we saw (about 30 minutes total) was seriously impressive, and Feast is simply amazing. The film opens in November in the US and January in the UK, so who knows when UK critics will see the whole thing.

As for regular screenings, we were shown two big films just days before they opened in Britain: Magic in the Moonlight is a warm and funny rom-com from Woody Allen with Colin Firth and Emma Stone, while The Giver is yet another teen dystopia thriller with a potent cast including Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Brenton Thwaites. Kevin Costner is terrific in Draft Day, an NFL variation on Moneyball that's likely to struggle to find an audience outside America. The Babadook is a fiercely clever horror film from Australia, layering the terror with deeper meaning. Not Cool is a silly comedy that has a bit of unexpected substance. And there were two dreamy and ultimately rather cold freak-outs: The Scribbler dips into mental illness, while You and the Night touches on sex-obsession.

Press screenings are also underway for the 58th BFI London Film Festival (which runs 8-19 October). I've caught up with a few, including Jason Reitman's Men, Women and Children, Christophe Honore's Metamorphoses, the period Maori action movie The Dead Lands and a new documentary about Hockney. Comments will come during the festival.

Coming this week along with the LFF screenings: Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl, Dakota Fanning in Emma Thompson's Effie Gray, Susan Sarandon in The Calling, Ira Sachs' Love Is Strange, Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy, Michael Bay's take on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more...

Critical Week: Guns out for spring break

Virtually every genre taste was catered to for London critics this past week. We caught up with the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum sequel 22 Jump Street this week, a raucous comedy that has very little plot but keeps the audience in spasms of laughter all the way through, mainly as it pokes fun at sequels and franchises. There was a very late screening of Edge of Tomorrow, the time-loop alien invasion thriller with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. (No one quite knows why a sharply well-made film as entertaining as this was only screened the day before it opened in the UK, but word of mouth should build for this one.) And we only had one more day's notice for Seth MacFarlane's comedy-Western A Million Ways to Die in the West, a relatively amusing vanity project saved by Charlize Theron, superb supporting actors and cameo turns.

Nicole Kidman does what she can with Grace of Monaco, a corny and heavily fictionalised account of one year in the life of the actress-turned-princess. The stylish and intriguing dark thriller Anna stars Mark Strong as a memory detective tasked with investigating a very troubled teen (Taissa Farmiga). A bracingly original twist on the haunted house movie, Oculus stars Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites as siblings confronting an evil mirror. And the terrific Rosamund Pike and David Tennant are upstaged by three gifted child actors in the surprisingly solid British black comedy What We Did on Our Holiday.

This coming week, we have Kevin Costner in 3 Days to Kill, the Scottish musical drama God Help the Girl, the horror movie Home, the French rom-com A Perfect Plan, the Iraq War protest doc We Are Many and quite a few other documentaries that are coming to festivals around Britain this month.