Critical Week: The winner takes it all

Staying up all night in London to watch the Oscars is a tradition for film fans, who are recognisable the next day by their dazed expressions. The show offered several highlights, including that opening number featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo offering soaring renditions of Wizard of Oz, The Wiz and Wicked belters. The night was a terrific celebration of independent filmmaking, with big love for Anora, for which Sean Baker won a record 4 Academy Awards for a single movie. Other memorable elements included Morgan Freeman's beautiful eulogy for Gene Hackman, Isabella Rossellini honouring David Lynch by wearing a blue velvet dress and bringing Laura Dern as her date, and the powerful appearance of the No Other Land filmmakers as they accepted Best Documentary.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Day of the Fight • Mickey 17
Ernest Cole: Lost & Found
ALL REVIEWS >

I also watched some movies this week, including Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17, a comical sci-fi adventure that's actually remarkably warm. John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush are on fine form in creeky Kiwi horror The Rule of Jenny Pen; Bruce LaBruce is back with The Visitor, yet another provocative, nutty and remarkably inventive satire; the hyperactive animated adventure Giants of La Mancha is enjoyably silly. There were two documentaries: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a riveting, urgent portrait of the South African photographer, while the artful Riefenstahl tells the story of the controversial German filmmaker. I also saw Wayne McGregor's Deepstaria at Sadler's Wells.

This coming week I'll be watching Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in Black Bag, Ayo Edebiri in Opus, Brian Cox in The Parenting, the comedy She's the He, Chinese thriller Brief History of a Family and Peacock at the opening of WatchAut, the Austrian Film Festival. There are also two stage shows: Dear Martin at the Arcola Theatre and Drum Tao: The Dream at the Peacock Theatre.

Critical Week: On a mission

We don't get many big-screen premieres for TV series, but The New Legends of Monkey threw a bash for us, screening the first four half-hour episodes of this cheeky fantasy romp from New Zealand. It's thoroughly cheesy, but also a lot of fun, packed with sarcastic wit and bonkers plot twists. I now feel the need to find the remaining six episodes on Netflix.

Back to cinema releases, this week saw screenings for Andrew Niccol's new film Anon, a noir-style mystery set in an imaginative futuristic setting.  it stars Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried. Anything is a thoughtful, clever drama starring John Carroll Lynch who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a cross-dressing Matt Bomer when he moves to Hollywood. And Born Guilty gives a welcome lead role to Rosanna Arquette, but the film is a bit too shrill to properly engage.

Further afield, Gehenna: Where Death Lives is a cheesy horror movie about a group of property developers who stumble into a scary underground maze of tunnels. Well, more yucky than scary. The Misandrists is another gonzo Euro-drama from Bruce LaBruce, railing against the patriarchy. It's blackly funny and sharply pointed, but pretty nutty. The documentary That Summer explores gorgeous footage from 1972 Long Island, including sequences featuring Big and Little Edie before the Maysles shot Grey Gardens. And Boys on Film 18: Heroes is the latest collection of queer shorts from Peccadillo, featuring quite a few great little films.

Coming up this week, we have Nicole Kidman in How to Talk to Girls at Parties, Gabrielle Union in Breaking In, Rob Brydon in Swimming With Men, the British doc 50 Years Legal, and the star-packed doc Always at the Carlyle.

FLARE 2: Surprising connections

It was a weekend of parties at the 28th BFI Flare film festival - and they show no signs of stopping for the rest of the week. Much of this involves networking with filmmakers, critics and actors, which is great fun, and makes a nice change from the usual day-to-day business of watching movies then spending hours writing about them alone at my desk. But during a festival I have swathes of time to kill between screenings, so I enjoy getting to know people visiting from all over the world. Yesterday I even had a couple of hours to walk along the river in the sunshine and take in a gallery or two at the Tate Modern. Anyway, here are more programme highlights...

Gerontophilia
dir Bruce La Bruce; with Pier-Gabriel Lajoie, Walter Borden 13/Can ****
Bruce LaBruce is working dangerously close to the mainstream in this gentle drama with romantic overtones. But even though there isn't a monster in sight, the film includes some of LaBruce's trademark jolts, not least in how the provocative subject matter is treated with unnerving honesty. It's about a young guy named Lake (Lajoie), who is startled to discover that he's attracted to geriatric men, specifically 81-year-old Melvyn (Borden, pictured above with Lajoie during a drunken game of strip poker). Intriguingly LaBruce frames this in an everyday style, focussing more on Lake's voyage of self-discovery than the transgressive sexuality. Even his girlfriend (Katie Boland) feels that this shift makes Lake a revolutionary saint. The film is a bit rough around the edges, but it's beautifully acted and shot and edited in a way that makes it thoughtful and warmly engaging.

The Passion of Michelangelo

dir Esteban Larrain; with Sebastian Ayala, Patricio Contreras 13/Chl ***.
With the aesthetic of a Pasolini film, this Chilean drama tells the true story of 14-year-old Miguel Angel (the astonishing Ayala), who in 1983 became nationally famous for his visions of the Virgin Mary, accompanied by a variety of miracles. But in the shadows he was being manipulated by Pinochet's government, which was trying to distract the populace from street protests. The film slightly muddles the story, forcing us to work to make much sense out of events that feel fragmented and a bit random. But as we think about it, the story worms its way under the skin as a telling exploration of misplaced religious fervour and cynical political manipulation.

The Punk Singer
dir Sini Anderson; with Kathleen Hanna, Adam Horovitz 13/US ***.

Lively and insightful, this biographical documentary traces the life of feminist punk artist Kathleen Hanna, a strikingly strong voice in the music scene from the 1990s until her sudden retirement in 2005. The film kind of races through the story, but is thoroughly engaging and ultimately inspirational in ways we don't expect. What makes it worth a look is the way it tells the story of a musical movement that has never quite been in the mainstream, but has had a major impact on the rest of the pop world. And as its catalyst, Hanna is a staggeringly important figure whose impact is still being felt. There's also a strikingly moving sidestory about Hanna's marriage to Beastie Boy Horovitz, who has been at her side through a very difficult illness that also rarely makes the headlines.

BEST OF YEAR
Kill Your Darlings
dir John Krokidas; with Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan 13/US ***. 
Based on a shocking true story about celebrities before they were famous, this dark drama is strikingly written, directed and acted to recount a series of unnerving events while evoking a mood that would later grow into a movement. It's a clever approach to a complex group of artists, even if it feels somewhat mannered... FULL REVIEW >

Flare Shorts
I saw three shorts programmes over the weekend - 16 films in all ranging from 3 to 30 minutes long. Standouts include: Mathilde Bayle's The Swimming Trunks, a strikingly daring exploration of pre-sexuality; Christophe Predari's Human Warmth, a sensual, inventive look at lingering attraction; Mike Hoolboom's eerily moving Buffalo Death Mask, a nostalgic trip through the Aids epidemic; Stephen Dunn & Peter Knegt's Good Morning, a light morning-after comedy with a warm sting; and Mark Pariselli's Monster Mash, a hilarious riff on horror movies. Honourable mention goes to Laura Scrivano's one-man monologue The Language of Love and Karol Radziszewski's photographer doc Kisieland.

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CRITICAL WEEK
Along with the festival, critics still have the usual releases to watch. Screenings this week included slightly uneven the franchise launcher Divergent, which at least has terrific performances from Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet. Two slightly underwhelming sequels were both sillier and less snappy than the originals: Muppets Most Wanted and Rio 2. And there was also the astonishing high school black comedy The Dirties and the involving but somewhat dense undersea Scandinavian thriller Pioneer.

This coming week, alongside BFI Flare, I'll also be watching Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic Noah, the Greek action epic The Legend of Hercules, the Pierce Brosnan comedy The Love Punch, Juliette Binoche in A Thousand Times Good Night, Kristen Scott Thomas in Before the Winter Chill, the British comedy Downhill and the Mexican drama The Golden Dream.