Critical Week: Hearing voices

Another week of lockdown, another unusual collection of movies released into the streaming networks. At least the weather has been glorious, tempting me outside in between the films. The best thing I've seen in several weeks, The Vast of Night is a low-budget sci-fi thriller by first-time filmmaker Andrew Patterson that skilfully nods to 1950s classics while echoing present day issues.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Guest of Honour
The Vast of Night • You Don't Nomi
The Uncertain Kingdom
PERHAPS AVOID:
A Clear Shot • The Accompanist
The Dinner Party

The highest profile film was The High Note, starring Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross and Kelvin Harrison in an enjoyable but trite romantic comedy-drama set in the music world. The Last Full Measure has a powerhouse cast and an inspiring story, but is belittled by its over-worthy tone. David Thewlis is superb in Guest of Honour, Atom Egoyan's perceptive drama about identity and connection. And Willem Dafoe gives a full-bodied performance in Tommaso, Abel Ferrara's Rome-set dark drama about a filmmaker who's losing the plot.

Steven Berkoff puts his one-man-show version of Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart on the screen as a moody freak-out. Three micro-budget indies are somewhat underpowered: The Departure is a sharp but abrasive dating drama, The Dinner Party is a bonkers cultish horror romp, The Accompanist is a quirky overserious romantic drama. And for Pride month, HomoSayWhat is a fascinating, provocative doc about the origins of societal homophobia.

Coming up this next week, there's another offbeat collection of movies, including the British comedy Dating Amber, the futuristic thriller The Last Days of American Crime, the award-winning Chilean drama The Prince, the Italian comedy Citizens of the World and the football doc The Australian Dream.

Critical Week: Saluting the holidays

I only had three screenings in my final week of the working year, but then I was rather busy with getting the London Critics' Circle Film Award nominations announced - a terrific event. The films I caught included Pitch Perfect 3, which is being billed as the curtain call for the a cappella franchise, and definitely shows the strain in coming up with something for these talented women to do. It's a shame to go out with such a whimper after the seriously great first two movies. All the Money in the World is notorious for director Ridley Scott's last minute decision to scrub star Kevin Spacey from the movie and replace him with Christopher Plummer. But perhaps future viewers will be able to enjoy this superb true thriller without the baggage. It's one of Scott's best films, a taut drama with terrific performances from Michelle Williams, Charlie Plummer and indeed Christopher Plummer. And Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel also brings some baggage with it, but is notable for Kate Winslet's staggering performance as a desperate housewife in 1950s Coney Island. It's also shot and lit gloriously by veteran cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. And I also caught up with this little gem...

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Faces Places [Visages, Villages]
dir Agnes Varda, JR; with Agnes Varda, JR 17/Fr ****
This quirky documentary teams up 88-year-old filmmaking icon Agnes Varda with 33-year-old artist JR as they travel spontaneously around France taking large-format photos and wallpapering them onto various enormous structures. Watching this is a delight, as these two lively figures spar with each other and explore the nature of art and culture. Agnes talks about her life and friendships, and constantly teases JR about the way he hides from the world, obscuring his name and personal life, and even his eyes behind sunglasses. And the people they photograph along the way capture a spark of life in very clever ways that have a big effect on onlookers. Powerful pictures include workers on different factory shifts reaching out to each other, wives of dock-workers towering above them, and Agnes' eyes and toes on train cars. There is also a clever sense of history, with vintage images posted on appropriate surfaces. It's all a little meandering, and sometimes rather too clever to accept as just a random sequence of encounters. But the way it touches on French culture, the history of cinema and larger issues like globalisation is deeply involving.

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This coming week will be a chance to watch several screeners of films that were nominated in various awards I vote in. On my list are the docs Jane and The Work, the foreign films Raw and Aquarius, and late-in-the-year releases like Irish drama Sanctuary and German thriller In the Fade.

Critical Week: Save your sole

It's been a very odd week for press screenings in London, the lull between the blockbusters. The only big-name movies I saw were a bit lacklustre: Adam Sandler in The Cobbler, an underwhelming comedy-drama with a supernatural touch; Simon Pegg in Kill Me Three Times, an uneven Aussie crime comedy that strains for a wacky Tarantino vibe; Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer in Elsa & Fred, a gentle romantic drama that never quite gets on track; and Justin Long and Emmy Rossum in the artful and evocative romance Comet.

More interesting were two darkly moving movies further from the beaten path, namely the cleverly understated German drama West, set in1978 Berlin, and the intensely introspective rural Hungarian drama Land of Storms. Both films explore societal pressures that can destabilise relationships and make people doubt themselves and their loved ones.

I also caught the extraordinary A Sinner in Mecca, a documentary having its world premiere at HotDocs in Toronto this week. It's about a devout Muslim exploring his faith by performing his hajj, the ritual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, which in his case could be fatal since he is an openly gay filmmaker. A seriously stunning film that will find resonance with anyone who struggles to balance faith with sexuality.

Ahead, it's another long weekend with a short week next week. Screenings coming up include Chris Rock in Top Five, Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the Lights, the zombie horror What's Left of Us, the animated adventure Dino Time and the fashion-world doc Iris.