Critical Week: Hey, bruv

I've been busy this week organising the forthcoming London Critics' Circle Awards, and also voting in both Online Film Critics Society awards and the Dorian Awards. And we also had the Bafta Film Awards nominations today, which is the biggest awards alongside the Oscars. Those nominations come next week. So there's been plenty to do along with watching a few movies... 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The End We Start From
The Holdovers • The Kitchen
ALL REVIEWS >

The British drama Gassed Up won the audience award at the London Film Festival, and is a stylish and impressively made film until it's taken over by a standard crime thriller. The cast is packed with rising stars, led by Stephen Odubola. Another British thriller was also very slickly made: Jackdaw stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen as a motocross rider who gets entangled with a crime boss who happens to be his estranged father. Strong performances make it enjoyable, including a tough Jenna Coleman and a scene-chewing Thomas Turgoose. 

More highbrow, the Swedish drama Opponent stars the always excellent Peyman Maadi as an Iranian refugee grappling with his inner demons. The charming Italian romance Fireworks gets very dark indeed as it explores prejudice in a 1980s small-town. And the offbeat comedy The Civil Dead playfully subverts the ghost story genre with its likeably sad sack characters

This coming week is also a bit slower than usual at the cinema, but I have a lot to do. I'll be watching three British films: Ian McShane in American Star, Diana Quick in Forever Young, and the offbeat drama-documentary hybrid This Blessed Plot. And I have two stage shows to cover as well.

The Best of 2023: 43rd Shadows Awards

The year-end ritual is complete, as I compile my lists of the best of the year. This post is merely a preview - there is so much more on the website if you dare! Meanwhile, my voting continues in various awards (Golden Globes, London Critics, Online Critics, Galeca Dorian Awards), bearing only passing resemblance to these lists due to eligibility rules. And I'll add my usual Critical Week note below...

BEST FILM:

1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
2. Past Lives (Celine Song)
3. Joyland (Saim Sadiq)
4. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
5. Reality (Tina Satter)
6. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
7. The First Slam Dunk (Takehiko Inoue)
8. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
9. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
10. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)

DIRECTOR:

1. Celine Song - Past Lives
2. Tina Satter - Reality
3. Andrew Haigh - All of Us Strangers
4. Jonathan Glazer - The Zone of Interest
5. JA Bayona - Society of the Snow

SCREENWRITER:

1. Celine Song - Past Lives
2. Andrew Haigh - All of Us Strangers
3. Saim Sadiq - Joyland
4. Molly Manning Walker - How to Have Sex
5. Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach - Barbie

ACTRESS:

1. Sandra Huller - ​​Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest
2. Emma Stone - Poor Things
3. Sydney Sweeney - Reality
4. Teyana Taylor - A Thousand and One
5. Lily Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon

ACTOR:

1. Ali Junejo - Joyland
2. Andrew Scott - All of Us Strangers
3. Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
4. Koji Yakusho - Perfect Days
5. Colman Domingo - Rustin, The Color Purple

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1. Da'Vine Joy Randolph - The Holdovers, A Little White Lie, Rustin
2. Rosamund Pike - Saltburn
3. Danielle Brooks - The Color Purple
4. Jodie Foster - Nyad
5. Claire Foy - All of Us Strangers

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1. Paul Mescal - All of Us Strangers, Foe, God's Creatures, Carmen
2. Robert Downey Jr - Oppenheimer
3. Mark Ruffalo - Poor Things
4. Alessandro Borghi - The Eight Mountains
5. Aaron Pierre - Brother, Foe

WORST FILM:

1. Expend4bles (Scott Waugh)
2. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (Rhys Frake-Waterfield)
3. Hunt Club (Elizabeth Blake Thomas)
4. Haunted Mansion (Justin Simien)
5. Assassin Club (Camille Delamarre)

TV SERIES:

1. The Bear (FX)
2. Lessons in Chemistry (Apple)
3. Ted Lasso (Apple)
4. Dave (FX)
5. Succession (HBO)

POP SINGLE:

1. People Pleaser - Cat Burns
2. Flowers - Miley Cyrus
3. Heaven - Niall Horan
4. Padam Padam - Kylie
5. Chemical - Post Malone

C R I T I C A L  W E E K : 
Everything’s new

I've been in catch-up mode, but have limited my viewing, preferring to take a bit of time off for a change. Watching movies is work for me! But I caught up with Wim Wender's wonderful drama Perfect Days, a pointed observation about life through the eyes of a hugely likeable Japanese toilet cleaner. And then there was Franz Rogowski giving another staggering performance in the thoughtful French drama Disco Boy, Ferzan Ozpetek's nostalgic and involving personal drama Nuovo Olimpo, the familiar but effective immigrant romance Norwegian Dream and two very strong docs: Beyond Utopia, a riveting look at a pastor who helps people escape from the North Korea, and 20 Days in Mariupol, a devastating account of Russia's horrific siege on the Ukrainian port city.

This coming week I will continue catching up with films for voting purposes, because there are still a lot of those! New screenings kick off with Jodie Comer in The End We Start From.