Critical Week: I've got a bad feeling

It's been another unusually busy week for this time of year in the screening rooms, with a steady stream, of movies to watch. I'd been hoping to get a break after awards season, but we are powering forward at full speed. So any down time will have to wait. Big releases are screening late these days, with three that are coming out this week: Ayo Edebiri leads the cast of Opus, a blackly comical horror film that isn't very scary. But Edebiri makes it very watchable, as does a scene-chewing John Malkovich. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender sizzle in the snaky, intelligent thriller Black Bag, which refreshingly isn't about what you think it's about. And Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt lead an offbeat ensemble in The Electric State, a retro sci-fi adventure that's watchable but also forgettable.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Last Breath
Black Bag • Throuple
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Day the Earth Blew Up
ALL REVIEWS >

Other films included the perhaps too-emotional drama The Life of Chuck, with a superb ensemble led by Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan. The Parenting is an amusing meet-the-parents horror pastiche with Brian Cox, Edie Falco and Lisa Kudrow. It's funny and grisly, but never frightening. Infused with music, Throuple is an offbeat indie romance that knowingly bends the rules. And there were two Chinese films: the epic animated sequel Ne Zha 2 is visually dazzling, while the blackly comical thriller Brief History of a Family is riveting and surprising.

There were also two festival films. From South by Southwest, there was the sharply made teen comedy She's the He, and from WatchAUT, I enjoyed the offbeat drama of Peacock, starring the superb Albrecht Schuch. And I also caught two stage shows: Dear Martin at the Arcola Theatre and Drum Tao: The Dream at the Peacock Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching two films with Pedro Pascal, the adventure Freaky Tales and the comedy-drama The Uninvited, plus Disney's live-action Snow White, Michel Hazanavicius' animated The Most Precious of Cargoes, Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia and the artificial intelligence doc The Thinking Game. In addition, the remake of The Wedding Banquet, starring Bowen Yang, opens BFI Flare film fest on Wednesday.

Critical Week: Baby you're a firework

While most London critics decamp to the South of France for 10 days, I prefer to avoid the chaos of the Cannes Film Festival if I can, as screening rooms get a bit quieter here. But it's not easy to read about all the intriguing films screening over there. While I have a bit more free time, there are still movies to watch! This week's films included the warm and properly inspiring biopic Young Woman and the Sea, starring Daisy Ridley as groundbreaking swimmer Trudy Ederle. This week's big release is IF, a child-friendly movie from actor-filmmaker John Krasinski that's remarkably sweet, warm and funny. And next week's kids' movie is The Garfield Movie, a frenetic animated romp that will keep very, very young children happy.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Tiger Stripes • IF
ALL REVIEWS >

A bit more high-brow is the fact-based action romcom Hit Man, starring the terrific Glen Powell as a teacher pretending to be an assassin to help a police sting operation. It's a great story, very well-told by Powell and director-cowriter Richard Linklater. Elizabeth Hurley stars in the sudsy erotic thriller Strictly Confidential, which is so camp that it's hilarious. JK Simmons goes all-in to play a ruthless killer menacing a nice family in the harrowing and rather harsh thriller You Can't Run Forever. From Pakistan, In Flames is an inventive dramatic horror film about women confronting the patriarchy. And I also caught up with Guy Ritchie's new film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a snappy WWII adventure based on a true story. A terrific cast led by Henry Cavill, Eiza Gonzalez, Alan Ritchson and Henry Golding keeps it funny and sometimes thrilling. There was also a live performance by musical stand-up comic Dave Hill with his riotously hilarious Caveman in a Spaceship at the Soho Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Greg Kinnear in both The Present and Sight, the Canadian drama Solo and the animated adventure Deep Sea. Plus on stage I have Pieces of Me at Camden People's Theatre.

Critical Week: Cinematic royalty

Pretty much everything in London this week is centred around Saturday's big coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla. I'm avoiding the crowds, and will catch it on TV. Meanwhile, movie queens Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenbergen return for Book Club: The Next Chapter, a much funnier, more engaging sequel to the corny 2018 hit. An even larger ensemble returns for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, which has had better reviews than it deserves. It's funny, and fans will love it, but there isn't a single exciting or thrilling moment.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Pamfir • The Blue Caftan
Chile '76
ALL REVIEWS >

Jim Parsons stars in the involving romantic drama Spoiler Alert, which infuses real-life humour into a sad story. BlackBerry stars Jay Baruchel as the man who first combined email and mobile phones. It's a fascinating story, skilfully told. Two decades in the making, the witty and rather overlong autobiographical comedy 5-35-77 traces Patrick Read Johnson's journey into filmmaking, via a preview screening of Star Wars. And Still is a gorgeously well-made documentary chronicling Michael J Fox's acting career as well as his experiences with Parkinson's. 

I also covered two stage shows this past week: the inventive, insightful Supernova at Clapham Omnibus, and the fiendishly entertaining musical comedy Eurovision: Your Decision at Wonderville

This next week I'll be watching Jennifer Lopez in The Mother, Finnish action film Sisu, 1970s British thriller Dead Shot and Anton Corbijn's doc Squaring the Circle. I also have a couple of catch-up movies to watch.

Sundance London: Keep dancing

Sundance Film Festival: London is back in its usual slot this year, after two disrupted editions. This is a slightly odd festival for the press, as they pack all of the industry screenings into two days before the actual events kick off. Which leaves us feeling like we're finished before anything begins. So I've already seen 10 of the 13 films in the programme, and I'll be catching a couple more at public screenings with cast and crew members in attendance at Picturehouse Central. The actors and filmmakers turned up last night for the opening film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. Here are comments about that one, and a few others, plus my usual Critical Week below... 

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
dir Sophie Hyde; with Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack 22/UK ****
If you can get into this film's theatrical vibe, there are several very strong themes woven through the narrative that make it deeply involving. Essentially three scenes featuring two people in a room, the stagey set-up is echoed in the heightened dialog, which pointedly takes on several big issues. The observations are insightful and sharply important, as are the bravely transparent performances from the two lead actors.

Watcher 
dir-scr Chloe Okuno; with Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman 22/Rom ***.
Writer-director Chloe Okuno creates a superbly unsettling atmosphere in this quietly suspenseful thriller about an American in Romania. The film knowingly plays on the feeling of being a foreigner unable to communicate in an unknown place, while generating scares by twisting a range of cinematic cliches in intriguing directions. It's a shame there's not much more to the film, but it definitely gets our hearts pumping a bit faster.

Free Chol Soo Lee
dir Julie Ha, Eugene Yi; with Chol Soo Lee, KW Lee 22/US  ***.
While this documentary traces a true story in a rather straightforward manner, the important subject matter makes it worth a look. Chol Soo Lee's experience was shocking and sad, but also carries elements of redemption and complex humanity. And it highlights a rarely explored aspect of underlying racism in the American justice system. These ideas emerge strongly, even as the filmmakers remain more focussed on the compelling personal narrative.

We Met in Virtual Reality
dir-scr Joe Hunting; with Jenny, Dust Bunny, IsYourBoi, Toaster 22/UK ***
This extraordinary documentary was somehow shot virtually, as filmmaker Joe Hunting takes the audience into various digital environments to meet people who interact there. It's an extraordinary film, and remarkably personal as it hones in on relationships within VR communities, often spilling out into the real world as well. It's a great introduction to a virtual world, although newcomers may find it tricky to engage with the film's perspective.

Full reviews will be on the site soon. For more information, visit SUNDANCE LONDON >

~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~
C R I T I C A L    W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Listen • All My Friends Hate Me
Il Buco • Moneyboys • Swan Song
ALL REVIEWS >

I've only seen four non-Sundance films in the past week - and each is opening this week in the US or UK. I was unable to attend the single press screening of Jurassic World: Dominion, so caught up with it at a local cinema. It's funny, thrilling and packed with witty nods in various directions, a superb summer blockbuster. The award-winning Italian drama Il Buco is a masterfully assembled exploration of historical progress; the doc A Sexplanation is a witty look at why Americans are so obsessed with sex, and also afraid of it; and Baloney documents rehearsals and performances of a San Francisco queer burlesque with warmth and insight.

Aside from Sundance, this coming week I'll be watching the Pixar prequel Lightyear, Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz in Official Competition, Ethan Hawke in the horror thriller The Black Phone, the British drama It Snows in Benidorm, the restored Satyajit Ray classic The Big City and the theatrical version of the doc George Michael: Freedom Uncut.

Critical Week: Founding fathers

It's my birthday week, so I've been a bit off-schedule, spreading celebrations over three days (as you do!). But I still managed to watch a number of films, including two on the big screen. On Netflix, America: The Motion Picture is a wacky animated mash-up of US history and pop culture silliness. It's utterly idiotic, but the barrage of gags means that some of them elicit laughter. On Prime, The Tomorrow War is a bloated action epic thankfully starring the hugely watchable Chris Pratt as a biology teacher (of course with special ops training) sent to the future to save humanity from spike-shooting aliens. It's utterly idiotic, but cheesy enough to keep us entertained. And on HBO Max, No Sudden Move is a gritty mob thriller expertly directed by Steven Soderbergh, with an superb ensemble led by Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and Jon Hamm. It's snaky and involving, but holds onto its best thematic kick too long.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Man With the Answers
Another Round • Summer of Soul
Freaky • No Sudden Move
PERHAPS AVOID: Voyagers
ALL REVIEWS >

As for cinema screenings, there were The Last Bus, an involving and never sentimental drama with Timothy Spall as a very old man travelling the length of Great Britain on public busses, and Jumbo, an inventively well-made French romance based on a provocatively offbeat true story. I also watched The God Committee, a dark morality drama starring a serious Kelsey Grammer; the Argentine dramatic horror Rock, Paper and Scissors, which scarily pits siblings against each other; and the glorious Summer of Soul, beautifully documenting a shamefully forgotten Harlem concert series from 1969.

I also returned to a West End theatre to finally catch up with the musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie, a triumphantly engaging story about a teen who wants to be his colourful self. It has properly great songs too, which bodes well for the film adaptation that's due in the autum.

This coming week, I am looking forward to in-cinema screenings of Black Widow with Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, and The Duke with Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. Other films to watch include Emile Hirsch in Son and Nicolas Cage in Pig. I'm also taking a couple of days off, getting out of London for the first time in a year.

Critical Week: The plane! The plane!

That'll be me tomorrow - flying off to paradise. Well, to see my parents, who happen to live in Los Angeles (not tropical, but can't complain). Anyway, that's a photo from the new film adaptation of the classic 1970s TV series Fantasy Island. Although the filmmakers seem unsure what they wanted to achieve, including some of the show's cheesy humour alongside corny melodrama and grisly horror. It never settles into one thing, and the story never comes together. A real waste of a solid cast that includes Michael Peña, Maggie Q, Michael Rooker and Austen Stowell. But hopefully the cast and crew had a nice holiday on that lovely island.

Much better was Onward, Pixar's new brother-centred animated adventure that's packed with comedy, action and, yes, emotion. It's simply gorgeous, perhaps more aimed at boys than girls. Daniel Radcliffe continues to eschew Hollywood with Guns Akimbo, a bonkers action movie from New Zealand that has great energy and rather a lot of gratuitous gore. Showing at Cinequest and Outfest Fusion over the next week or so, Breaking Fast is a superbly thoughtful comedy-drama about a gay Muslim who finds love unexpectedly.

I didn't have time to watch any other films this past week - other than revisiting Orlando (1992), for the first time on a big screen. It was screened at BFI Southbank as part of the Tilda Swinton season, and it was introduced on-stage by Swinton and writer-director Sally Potter, who offered a hilarious unscripted stream-of-conscience commentary (see below). A real joy. And the film hasn't aged at all - it still feels bracingly present-day.

There are several films I'm hoping to catch up with in cinemas while in California, including Emily Blunt's A Quiet Place Part II, Ben Affleck's The Way Back, Annette Bening's Hope Gap, Javier Bardem's The Roads Not Taken, and the cycling comedy The Climb. Whether I'll have time for any of those is yet to be seen...

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Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton provide priceless entertainment before last night’s screening of the eerily timeless masterpiece #Orlando

A post shared by Rich Jack Cline (@ukcline) on Mar 3, 2020 at 5:40am PST

Critical Week: Body issues

Cinemas are now absolutely jam-packed with awards movies, leaving people unsure what they should watch. The box office is always ruthless, rarely rewarding the films that actually deserve it. And the awards are skewing populist as well this year. After the producers (PGAs) and actors (SAGs) went all over the place, all eyes are on the directors (DGAs) this weekend to restore a sense of order before Bafta and Oscar arrive. But could Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born and Green Book knock the more ambitious, accomplished films out of the spotlight?

Press screenings this week included the much-anticipated Akita: Battle Angel, which James Cameron developed before handing off the directing job to Robert Rodriguez. It's a big, action movie, with lots of action, flashy effects, some cool themes and, erm, bashing robots. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part has huge shoes to fill, and is thankfully relentlessly hilarious as it rockets through its insane plot with engaging, silly characters, outrageous storytelling, inventively crazed visuals and a nonstop peppering of references to everything, including itself.

A little off the beaten path, Untogether is an artful romantic comedy-drama starring Jamie Dornan, Jemima Kirke, Lola Kirke and Ben Mendelsohn. It's sharply made, observant and a little mopey. Lucid is an independent British thriller about a young guy who learns to control his dreams, sort of. It's intriguing and visually stunning. Wretched Things tells three stories linked by themes about sex and morality. It's inventive and beautifully shot and performed, if a little on the nose. He Loves Me is a fiercely artful Greek drama with no dialog (there's a voiceover) about two men on a beach holiday trying to save their relationship.

And finally, I managed to watch the recent American TV production of Rent: Live, which turned out to be the dress rehearsal, and it showed in the low-energy performances and uneven technical quality. But it was also far too frantic, busy and even a bit dated. Surely a stripped-down update would give new life to this awesome musical.

This coming week, I'll buy a ticket to see How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, as I was unable to attend the only press screening. I also have screenings of Liam Neeson in Cold Pursuit, Penelope Cruz in Everybody Knows and two docs: The Gospel of Eureka and The Sunday Sessions.

Critical Week: When the night falls

London critics caught up this week with Whitney, Kevin Macdonald's well-assembled documentary about Whitney Houston, which tells the same story as last year's Nick Bloomfield doc, but with a bit more focus on her family (including one dark new revelation). This week's blockbuster was Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the fifth film in the franchise, which breaks the formula in that it takes place largely on the mainland, in a gothic mansion no less. Otherwise, it's still dinosaurs chasing people, and it's rather good fun thanks to an up-for-it cast and strong filmmaking.

Further afield, we had the Paraguayan drama The Heiresses, a strikingly well-made film about a middle-aged woman discovering that there's more to her than her ancestral home and long-time companion. From France, The Apparition is a fascinating if somewhat rambling mystery that grapples with faith and traumatic stress. And the low-budget indie Sunset Contract is a sharply made, stage-like thriller about a man who begins to realise that he's made a deal with the devil herself.

This coming week we have Sandra Bullock leading the charge in Ocean's 8, Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin in Adrift, Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper in The Escape, Murray Bartlett in Beach House, Pawel Pawlikowski's Cannes winner Cold War and the Portuguese drama Al Berto.

Critical Week: On the horizon

Among the eclectic collection of press screenings in London this week, we caught up with John Hurt's final lead performance in That Good Night. Based on a play, this thoughtful film is rather stagebound, but Hurt is as magical as ever. We also had a seriously enormous screening of Avengers: Infinity War, the seriously enormous climax of this phase of the Marvel movie franchise. It's a big, busy film that has very little in the way of actual plot or characters but will hugely entertain fans.

And then there was Tully, which reteams Charlize Theron with writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman. I liked its bold approach and deep themes, but this is the kind of film that stirs debate and divides opinion. In yet another genre, Sherlock Gnomes is a profoundly ridiculous animated comedy adventure, solidly well made and packed with witty gags, even if it isn't a classic. As for horror, we had The Strangers: Prey at Night, a sort-of sequel about a group of vaguely undefined murders tormenting a family for no real reason. And then there was the quirky British indie drama Pin Cushion, a warm but very dark mother-daughter drama with fairy tale touches.

This coming week, screenings include Rosanna Arquette in Born Guilty, Doug Jones in Gehenna: Where Death Lives, the Mexican drama A Place to Be, the Daesh doc Path of Blood, the Grey Gardens doc That Summer, the Essex doc New Town Utopia, and an adventure movie titled The New Legends of Monkey.

Critical Week: Into the night

Screenings continue to slow down in the run-up to Cannes. But there are things we need to see! It was great to watch Tye Sheridan continues to prove himself as an actor with the lead role in Detour. It's a clever, tricky thriller with an inventively fractured narrative. Of course the big movie this week was the highly anticipated sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which reunites the team for a bigger adventure that lacks the free-spirited tone of the original but is still a lot of fun.

From Scotland, Whisky Galore is a remake of the 1949 classic about residents of a remote island who lay claim to the cargo of a wrecked ship during WWII. It's a gentle comedy, amusing but never very exciting. Further afield, Slack Bay is an oddly comical period romp from controversy-courting filmmaker Bruno Dumont. It stars Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini in an enjoyably farcical story involving snobbery, crime and religion. Much darker, The Student is a Russian drama about a teen who becomes a Christian fundamentalist and begins manipulating everyone in his school. It's chilling and very sharp. And from Greece, Suntan follows a shy middle-aged doctor who falls headlong into the hedonistic summer tourist season. It's well-made and involving, but a little too pointed.

Oddly, I have no screenings in the diary over the next seven days. It's the long weekend this month in London, and things always go quiet at this time of year (call it pre-Cannes gloom). I do have screeners to watch at home, and we are awaiting word of press screenings for the soon-arriving Alien: Covenant, Snatched and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, among others.

Critical Week: A boy's best friend

Big movies screened to the press this week include the action romp Monster Trucks, which is a proper guilty pleasure with a solid cast including Luke Till (above), Jane Levy, Rob Lowe, Amy Ryan and Thomas Lennon. The dream team of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt makes Passengers thoroughly engaging as a high-concept sci-fi drama-romance-thriller hybrid. And Assassin's Creed reunites Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard but falls into the usual trap of neglecting to find a coherent plot in a videogame.

James Franco and Bryan Cranston square off in the comedy Why Him?, yet another Meet the Parents-style romp from John Hamburg. It's stupid, but funny. Gold stars Matthew McConaughey in the fascinating true story of a rather dodgy mining operation, but the film isn't easy to engage with. Will Smith is bogged down in syruppy sentiment in Collateral Beauty, which is livened up a bit by Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Michael Pena and Kate Winslet. And the indie drama Retake is an enigmatic and surprisingly moving road trip starring Tuc Watkins.

My last actual screening of the year is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, but I have several screener discs I need to watch over the next week or so before voting in various awards (I've already voted in the London Critics' Circle Film Awards - we announced our nominations this afternoon). Discs in the pile include Hello My Name Is Doris, Touched With Fire, A Man Called Ove, Aferim!, Zero Days, Before the Flood, Kate Plays Christine and My Scientology Movie. How many will I find time to watch?

Venezia 73: Into the sunset on days 10 & 11

The 73rd Venice Film Festival wraps up tonight with a flourish. Everyone is second-guessing what might walk off with the awards. The collateral juries (including mine) announced their winners last night, followed by several parties. But I still made it to this morning's press screening of The Magnificent Seven, which easily kept me awake (that's Vincent D'Onofrio, Martin Sensmeier, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Byung-hun Lee, above). Here are the last few films I've seen, plus my best of the fest...

The Magnificent Seven
dir Antoine Fuqua;  with Denzel Washington,  Chris Pratt 16/US ***
With broad strokes, Antoine Fuqua's remake of the 1960 classic (itself a remake of Kurosawa's 1954 masterpiece Seven Samurai) is big, loud and entertaining enough to hold the interest amid a sea of Wild West cliches. The characters and morality couldn't be any more simplistic, but the actors inves witty energy that helps make up for the predictable plot and glorified bloodshed. In other words, it's utterly unnecessary, but some audiences love this kind of macho fluff.

Boys in the Trees

dir-scr Nicholas Verso; with Toby Wallace, Gulliver McGrath 16/Aus ***.

Dark and intense in both its honesty and its mythical sensibility, this film explores the idea that man is a social animal that sometimes turns on its own. Writer-director Nicholas Verso creates an astonishingly evocative horror movie that gets deeply personal as it grapples with this and other themes. It may feel somewhat gimmicky, but it's also haunting and important.

Never Ever [À Jamais]

dir Benoit Jacquot; with Mathieu Amalric, Julia Roy 16/Fr ***
Based on the Don DeLillo novel The Body Artist, this French drama has a horror-mystery sensibility that's genuinely freaky. Playing with themes of artistic invention, mental instability and loneliness, it's a haunting story of one young woman sliding beyond the realm of reason. So it's a bit frustrating that the plot feels oddly thin, making its points early on and then going in circles before reaching the striking finale.

My best films of the festival...

1. Jackie (Pablo Larrain)
2. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
3. The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz)
4. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)
5. The Young Pope (Paolo Sorrentino)
6. Heartstone (Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson)
7. Prevenge (Alice Lowe)
8. Frantz (Francois Ozon)
9. Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson)
10. Heal the Living (Katell Quillevere)

Update: The festival's main competition awards were handed out tonight:

• Golden Lion: The Woman Who Left
• Grand Jury Prize: Nocturnal Animals
• Actress: Emma Stone - La La Land
• Actor: Oscar Martínez - The Distinguished Citizen
• Director: Andrei Konchalovsky - Paradise
• Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim - Jackie
• 
Mastroianni Award: Paula Beer · Frantz
• Special Jury Prize: The Bad Batch

I'm sticking around in Venice for a couple of days to visit the city - I'd never been here before this trip, so there's a lot to explore! Then it's back to London, and my usual work deadlines, on Monday.

Critical Week: The boys are back

Three distinct kinds of reboots were screened to UK critics this week. First, there's the movie version of the TV show Entourage, a snappy, energetic movie that perfectly captures the series' dopey macho attitude while depicting the inner workings of Hollywood in a hilariously realistic way. Nearly 15 years after the third movie it's clearly time to reboot that dinosaur franchise. So Jurassic World roars onto the big screen with major expectations it should have no trouble living up to, especially with a swashbuckling Chris Pratt in the lead role. It turns out that Insidious: Chapter 3 is a reboot as well, going back to the beginning to relaunch a franchise around the wonderful Lin Shaye's character Elise. It's also an auspicious directing debut for writer-actor Leigh Whannell.

The only original feature was Accidental Love, a deeply chaotic comedy directed by David O Russell in 2008 but reworked later and released under a pseudonym. Alas, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jessica Biel, Catherine Keener and James Marsden can't remove their names because their faces are recognisable on-screen. Being documentary season on the festival circuit, there were screenings of the lively and startlingly relevant Best of Enemies, which traces the epic 1968 TV debates between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley, and the fascinating but underworked Lord Montagu, which recounts the life of a British baron who has had a rollercoaster life.

This coming week, we have screenings of the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, Al Pacino in Manglehorn, the indie movie Those People and the short film compilation Boys on Film 13: Trick or Treat. There are also three more documentaries: The First Film, The Yes Men Are Revolting and the classic Man With a Movie Camera. And I'm really looking forward to attending this summer's Secret Cinema interactive event on Friday night, because it's themed around a screening of one of my very favourite films, The Empire Strikes Back. 

Critical Week: Eek! A mouse!

London critics caught up this week with the clever black comedy Life of Crime, based on an Elmore Leonard novel and starring Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def). It's offbeat and very funny, but not quite as hilarious as the week's biggest movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, a riotously entertaining sidestep in the Marvel universe that may be the comic studio's best film yet.

Other high-profile films this week included Dwayne Johnson and Brett Ratner's new take on Hercules, a surprisingly enjoyable adventure that's a lot smarter than it looks. One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's final performances lifts the slow-burning political thriller A Most Wanted Man into something rather amazing. And random cast members from a range of the previous four films are back for Step Up: All In, another corny story punctuated by great dance numbers.

Further afield, we had the terrific small-town drama Tiger Orange, about estranged brothers who both happen to be gay. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden is a riveting documentary about a shocking event from the early 1930s. You'll want to read more about it, and hopefully someone will make a dramatic thriller. And Al Pacino offered two movies: Salome is his film of his recent staging of the scandalous Oscar Wilde play, while Wilde Salome documents the process of doing the play and film, as well as tracing Wilde's life. The mesmerising staging of Salome is oddly stilted and over-the-top at the same time, with Jessica Chastain riveting in the title role. The doc is even more interesting, a bit padded out but packed with remarkable observations.

This coming week we'll be subjected to Sylvester Stallone and crew in The Expendables III, Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson in The Rover, Nat Wolff and Selena Gomez in Behaving Badly, the indie drama 4 Minute Mile, Leo Leigh's ping pong hustler doc Fact or Fiction, the episodic architectural doc Cathedrals of Culture, Agnes B's road movie My Name is Hmmm, and Secret Cinema's immersive Back to the Future event.