Raindance: Making movies

The 29th Raindance Film Festival is heading into its final weekend in London, as audiences get a taste of independent films that are often unlikely to turn up in either cinemas or streaming sites. I'm still watching the films online, but have been meeting filmmakers at the House of Raindance social space as well. My usual weekly routine continues amid the festival, so it's covered below. But first a few more Raindance highlights...

The Rossellinis
dir Alessandro Rossellini; with Alessandro Rossellini, Isabella Rossellini 20/It ***.
There's an offhanded honesty to this documentary, in which Alessandro Rossellini explores his sprawling family and the meaning of his famous grandfather's legacy. Key film clips and extensive archival footage are included that tellingly explore layers of family history. But the filmmaker's goal is to reveal stories that have never been told and find the defining factor that keeps him so closely connected to his aunts, uncles and cousins... FULL REVIEW >

King Car [Carro Rei]
dir Renata Pinheiro; with Luciano Pedro Jr, Matheus Nachtergaele 21/Br ***.
Blackly comical and wildly outrageous, this satirical Brazilian thriller plays on the idea that cars have consciousness and would change the world if they could communicate with humanity. While set in the present, filmmaker Pinheiro cleverly evokes a 1980s vibe, including a terrific Christine-meets-Knightrider kick as the story spins into an epic battle against government oppression. And there are several even more bonkers elements to the story as well... FULL REVIEW >

Against the Current
dir Oskar Pall Sveinsson; with Veiga Gretarsdottir, Gretar S Petursson 20/Ice ****
Beautifully shot in spectacular locations, this introspective documentary traces a daring physical challenge. And as a trans woman, Velga Gretarsdottir's life has been full of challenges. The movie doesn't shy away from bleak elements of her life, but it maintains a sense of positivity, facing each obstacle with dignity and tenacity. Filmmaker Oskar Pall Sveinsson keeps the tone earthy and warm, celebrating a woman who has never followed the crowd... FULL REVIEW >

Zip It
dir-scr Anicee Gohar; with Mohanad "Kojak" Aglan, Nabila Yassin 21/Egy ****
This documentary about rising star Egyptian fashion designer Kojak takes on the thorny issue of being a queer artist in the Middle East with openness and honesty. Filmmaker Anicee Gohar vividly captures Kojak's energy and style, including lots of glitter and glamour. Even at just an hour long, this film provides a remarkably complex portrait of a bright young designer who is quietly determined to change his harshly proscriptive culture.

Full reviews of festival films will be linked at Shadows' RAINDANCE HOMEPAGE 
For full festival information, visit RAINDANCE FILM FEST 

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C R I T I C A L    W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Card Counter • Beans
The Beta Test • A Cop Movie
ALL REVIEWS >

Non-festival films I caught up with this week include Chloe Zhao's Marvel epic Eternals, which has a fantastic ensemble cast led by Gemma Chan and some lovely character touches, but is disappointingly dense and effects-laden. Josh O'Connor and Odessa Young are terrific in the British period drama Mothering Sunday, which is unusually sexy for the genre. The British comedy Pirates bristles with energy even if it feels silly. Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God is a gorgeously autobiographical coming-of-age drama. And the shorts collection The Male Gaze: Celluloid Dreams features a remarkable set of vintage films about masculinity and sexuality.

This next week, in addition to Raindance films, I'll be watching the reunion sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Almodovar's Parallel Mothers, Ryan Reynolds in Red Notice, Tom Hanks in Finch and Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho.

Critical Week: Dog days

With cinemas open again in the UK, things are slowly getting back to normal, and I've had a few press screenings and even a premiere to attend in-person this week. It's great to see movies on the big screen again - I'd begun to forget the joy of being in a darkened room away from distractions. The social distancing guidelines mean the communal experience in audience reaction isn't quite back to normal, but it's getting there. We have another month like this before restrictions will be re-evaluated and perhaps even lifted. Of course, all of this means that freelance critics must now return to negotiating with distributors for precious screening seats, facing seemingly random decisions. For example, despite holding a number of screenings, Disney only offered me an online screening link for the 101 Dalmatians prequel Cruella. I loved the film's subversive approach, its feisty script and characters, and especially the sterling scene-stealing work from Emma Stone and Emma Thompson.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
First Cow • Zebra Girl
A Quiet Place Part II • Cruella
PERHAPS AVOID:
Earwig and the Witch
ALL REVIEWS >

Jason Statham reteams with Guy Ritchie for Wrath of Man, an unusually gritty and bleak movie for both of them. It's very well-made, riveting and darkly involving. Zack Snyder makes his return to the zombie genre with Army of the Dead, an entertaining but overlong rampaging heist epic set in a locked-down Vegas. James Corden is back to voice the title role in Peter Rabbit 2, but the script this time lacks the witty humour. Kids will love the silliness. Director Stephanie Zari and actors Sarah Roy and Tom Cullen attended the premiere of Zebra Girl, a superbly crafted British drama with waves of wit and emotional horror. And I was in heaven finally watching Nomadland on the big screen this week. It was my favourite movie from 2020, but I'd only seen it on my laptop. It's a masterpiece, and looks even more spectacular projected.

In addition to getting my second vaccine, this coming week I have Dylan O'Brien in the sci-fi thriller Flashback, Elia Suleiman's acclaimed It Must Be Heaven, the actor doc The Most Beautiful Boy in the World and the war dancer doc Being Thunder.

The Best of 2020: 40th Shadows Awards

To put it mildly, this has been an unusual year. So there has been a wider range of films eligible, as I've included titles released direct to streaming services. I saw all of these in the calendar year 2020, regardless of release dates. My top film of the year is a true original, a blur of drama and documentary that has a lot to stay about the state of the world at the moment. The performances, improvised dialog, camerawork and editing are simply gorgeous. Some of these categories were very difficult to whittle down to 10 - it was often painful cutting the list off there, especially for lead performances.

There is rather a lot more posted on the website, including longer lists and a dazzling array of additional categories and trivia to wrap up the year: 40th SHADOWS AWARDS. Here are the top 10s...

BEST FILM:

1. 
   Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
2. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)
3. The Mauritanian (Kevin Macdonald)
4. System Crasher (Nora Fingscheidt)
5. Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi)
6. The Half of It (Alice Wu)
7. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
8. Soul (Pete Docter)
9. The Perfect Candidate (Haifaa Al Mansour)
10. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)

DIRECTOR:

1. 
   Steve McQueen - Small Axe
2. Kevin Macdonald - The Mauritanian
3. Chloe Zhao - Nomadland
4. Spike Lee - Da 5 Bloods, David Byrne's American Utopia
5. Nora Fingscheidt - System Crasher
6. Florian Zeller - The Father
7. Christopher Nolan - Tenet
8. Haifaa Al Mansour - The Perfect Candidate
9. Sally Potter - The Roads Not Taken
10. Melina Leon - Song Without a Name

SCREENWRITER:

1. 
   MB Traven, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani - The Mauritanian
2. Pete Docter, Mike Jones, Kemp Powers - Soul
3. Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller - The Father
4. Alice Wu - The Half of It
5. Haifaa Al-Mansour, Brad Niemann - The Perfect Candidate
6. Chloe Zhao - Nomadland
7. Alastair Siddons, Steve McQueen - Mangrove
8. Jayro Bustamante, Lisandro Sanchez - La Llorona
9. Eliza Hittman - Never Rarely Sometimes Always
10. James Montague, Craig W Sanger - The Vast of Night

ACTRESS:

1. 
   Julia Garner - The Assistant
2. Helena Zengel - System Crasher, News of the World
3. Jodie Foster - The Mauritanian
4. Elisabeth Moss - The Invisible Man, Shirley
5. Letitia Wright - Mangrove
6. Frances McDormand - Nomadland
7. Joanna Scanlan - After Love
8. Jessie Buckley - Misbehaviour, I'm Thinking of Ending Things
9. Carey Mulligan - Promising Young Woman, The Dig
10. Aubrey Plaza - Black Bear, Happiest Season

ACTOR:

1. 
   Tahar Rahim - The Mauritanian
2. John Boyega - Red, White and Blue
3. Cosmo Jarvis - Calm With Horses
4. Anthony Hopkins - The Father
5. Chadwick Boseman - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Da 5 Bloods
6. Riz Ahmed - Mogul Mowgli, Sound of Metal
7. Lee Byung-hun - The Man Standing Next
8. Sacha Baron Cohen - The Trial of the Chicago 7, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
9. Christopher Abbott - Possessor, Black Bear, The World to Come
10. Robert Pattinson - Tenet, The Devil All the Time, Waiting for the Barbarians

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1. 
   Maria Bakalova - Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
2. Olivia Colman - The Father
3. Amanda Seyfried - Mank
4. Cherry Jones - A Rainy Day in New York
5. Dhay - The Perfect Candidate
6. Lesley Manville - Misbehaviour, Let Him Go
7. Talia Ryder - Never Rarely Sometimes Always
8. Orla Brady - Rose Plays Julie
9. Shailene Woodley - The Mauritanian, Endings Beginnings
10. Laura Linney - The Roads Not Taken, Falling

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1. 
   Barry Keoghan - Calm With Horses
2. Lance Henriksen - Falling
3. Leslie Odom Jr - Hamilton, One Night in Miami
4. Jonathan Majors - Da 5 Bloods, Jungleland
5. Benedict Cumberbatch - The Mauritanian
6. Nicholas Hoult - True History of the Kelly Gang, Rebel in the Rye
7. Steve Toussaint - Red, White and Blue
8. Sverrir Gudnason - Falling
9. Harris Dickinson - County Lines
10. Alfredo Castro - The Prince

WORST FILM:

1. 
   Fantasy Island (Jeff Wadlow)
2. Jexi (Jon Lucas, Scott Moore)
3. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)
4. Buddy Games (Josh Duhamel)
5. Love, Weddings & Other Disasters (Dennis Dugan)
6. Fatal Affair (Peter Sullivan)
7. The Last Days of American Crime (Olivier Megaton)
8. Come Away (Brenda Chapman)
9. The Ringmaster (Soren Juul Petersen)
10. Ava (Tate Taylor)

N O N - F I L M   D I V I S I O N

TV SERIES:

1. 
   Schitt's Creek (CBC)
2. The Good Place (Netflix)
3. Ted Lasso (Apple)
4. The Mandalorian (Disney)
5. We Are Who We Are (HBO)
6. Dave (FX)
7. Staged (BBC)
8. Normal People (BBC)
9. I May Destroy You (BBC)
10. Shameless (Showtime)

SINGLES:

1. 
   No Time to Die - Billie Eilish
2. Hurt - Arlo Parks
3. Head & Heart - Joel Corry & MNEK
4. Coffee for Your Head - Powfu & Beabadoobee
5. Cuz I Love You - Lizzo
6. Watch Your Step - Disclosure & Kelis
7. Diamonds - Sam Smith
8. This Is the Place - Tom Grennan
9. Far Away - Jessie Reyez
10. Rainfall - Stormzy & Tiana Major9

LFF: Light the way

The strangest London Film Festival in memory is heading into its final weekend, and I still have yet to have any physical evidence that anything has actually taken place - no printed programme, press badge, not even a single in-person screening. But I've watched a lot of amazing films over the past couple of weeks (two of the best so far are below). I did get out of the house again yesterday for a theatre press night, which was good fun (watch for that review once this LFF blog ends on Sunday). In the meantime, here are four more highlights...

Nomadland

dir-scr Chloe Zhao; with Frances McDormand, David Strathairn 20/US *****

A hybrid between drama and fly-on-the-wall doc, this astonishing film takes a journey through an unseen segment of US society, chronicling the thousands of Baby Boomers whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the 2008 Great Recession. Almost everyone on-screen is playing themselves. Filmmaker Chloe Zhao, Frances McDormand and gifted cinematographer Joshua James Richards create a powerful portrait of a vast community on the move around the American West.

Another Round

dir Thomas Vinterberg; with Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen 20/Den ****

With his usually realistic approach, filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg takes a deep dive into Denmark's heavy drinking culture. Even with the high-concept premise, the film is beautifully character-based, centring on four middle-aged men on a frankly ridiculous quest to prove that humans achieve optimal performance with alcohol in their system. So as warning signs begin to appear, the shift from warm comedy to dark drama is astute, complex and provocative... FULL REVIEW >

Limbo

dir-scr Ben Sharrock; with Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai 20/UK ****

An offbeat approach to storytelling sets this film apart as it recounts the experiences of a refugee. Writer-director Ben Sharrock sees the narrative through a cheeky, artful eye, catching tiny absurdities and deeper resonance. With snappy production design, bleak landscapes and expectant faces, this is a wonderfully human approach to an important topic. And it worms its way under the skin, surprising us with laugh-out-loud humour and strong emotions.

Notturno

dir-scr Gianfranco Rosi; with Ali Ali, Mohamas Ali Monajed 20/It ****.

Shot over three years in Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq and Lebanon, this masterful documentary by the gifted Gianfranco Rosi immediately reminds us of the intensely personal stories behind headlines about war. This film digs deeply beneath the news to recount the human impact of political and religious violence. Shot by Rosi like a particularly beautiful narrative feature, it has elements of family drama, adventure and heart-stopping thriller woven into it.

NB. My anchor page for the LFF is HERE and full reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries. The backlog will start shrinking soon.