Critical Week: Duelling divas

Two of the biggest movies this week were released online, so I watched them in my heatwave-warmed home rather than a nicely air conditioned cinema. Charlize Theron takes on a villainous Uma Thurman in The Old Guard 2, a sleek sequel that carries on the saga of a team of immortal mercenaries. But it bogs down in the mythology before a cliffhanger ending. Much stupider, and therefore a lot more fun, is Heads of State, starring John Cena and Idris Elba as bickering leaders of the US and UK forced to work together to save Nato. The starry supporting cast includes a scene-stealing Jack Quaid and hilariously sparky Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Heads of State
Jurassic World: Rebirth
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David Cronenberg's dark mystery The Shrouds is packed with intriguing ideas and striking imagery, plus churning performances by Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. It's also gets more enigmatic as it goes along. And Sam Riley is terrific as a scruffy surfer-like tennis pro in Islands, a provocative drama that inventively subverts its thriller-like plot and characters who never speak the whole truth. All in gorgeous Canary Islands locations. I also caught a couple of live shows: my favourite-ever Edinburgh Fringe act triumphantly hit London for one night only with Otto & Astrid: The Stages Tour at Jackson's Lane, and another iconic duo returned to London after 17 long years with Kiki & Herb Are Trying at Soho Theatre Walthamstow.

This coming week we have James Gunn's new take on Superman, Nick Offerman in Sovereign, Maxine Peake in I Swear, the Dardenne brothers' Young Mothers, Spanish comedy-drama The Other Way Around and a live performance of R.O.S.E. at Sadler's Wells.

Critical Week: Life is like a golgappa

London's heatwave continues, following the driest July in 111 years with an uptick in temperatures that has everyone heading for anywhere that's air conditioned, like a movie theatre. This week I particularly enjoyed India's lovely Forrest Gump remake Laal Singh Chaddha, which adapts the story to make it culturally resonant in unexpected ways while emphasising the epic romance at the centre of the plot. David Cronenberg's latest body horror drama Crimes of the Future has had a mixed reaction since its Cannes debut, but I loved its moody tone, insidious plot and deeper themes. Great cast too, led by Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux and Kristen Stewart.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Fall • Laal Singh Chaddha
Nope • Girl Picture
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And then there was the bracingly original coming-of-age comedy Funny Pages, by filmmaker Owen Kline, starring Daniel Zolghadri as a teen cartoonish. It's in-your-face funny, and emotional too. The thriller No Way Out has some nicely harrowing and sexy touches, but is ultimately too grim. There were two very different animated movies: From Japan, Fortune Favours Lady Nikuko is a dramatic anime with a remarkably strong point of view about its quirky characters. And from Estonia, The Old Man: The Movie sends its characters on a wildly surreal and utterly bonkers adventure. Finally, the finely assembled documentary Bloom Up takes a remarkably straight-faced look at an Italian couple that runs parties for swinging couples.

Films to watch this coming week include Harris Dickinson in this year's Palm d'Or winner Triangle of Sadness, Colin Farrell in After Yang, the splintered-reality comedy Look Both Ways, the horror movie Glorious, the thriller The Runner.

Critical Week: Your biggest fan

I caught up with one of my most-anticipated films of the year this week, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Not only am I an unapologetic Julianne Moore fan, but films by David Cronenberg have been thrilling and tormenting me since I started writing about movies (starting with Scanners and Videodrome). Maps to the Stars challenges audiences with a glamorous and gruesome trawl through Hollywood's inbred underbelly. Cannes Best Actress Moore is of course amazing, as is another favourite of mine, Olivia Williams. There are also offbeat, clever performances from Mia Wasikowska (above), Robert Pattinson, Evan Bird and John Cusack.

It was a busy week, as I got back up to speed after five days off. Big movies included Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua's slick but formulaic The Equalizer, loosely based on the 1980s TV series; the rather off-putting British posh-university drama The Riot Club, which has a terrific rising-star cast including Sam Claflin, Max Irons and Douglas Booth; and Claflin in rom-com mode opposite Lily Collins in Love, Rosie.

There were also two foreign films: the Brazilian drama The Way He Looks, which won the Teddy at Berlin, is an utterly charming coming-of-age movie expanded from the award-winning short I Don't Want to Go Back Alone; and Human Capital is a strikingly bold Italian film that kind of bungles its central theme but thrills with its twisty plot. And there were four docs: Filmed in Supermarionation is the lively and witty story of Gerry Anderson (best known for Thunderbirds); Born to Fly features the goosebump-inducing work of Elizabeth Streb's acrobatic dance/circus group; I'm a Porn Star gets up close and very personal in the gay adult-movie business; and Dick: The Documentary is pretty much what it says on the tin: a group of men photographed from the neck down as they talk about their, ahem, masculinity.

This coming week we have Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight with Colin Firth and Emma Stone; Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children with Adam Sandler and Emma Thompson; The Giver with Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges; the Pittsburgh comedy Not Cool; the Aussie horror movie The Babadook; the multiple-personality thriller The Scribbler; and the British painter documentary Hockney. We're also cranking up for the 58th London Film Festival, which runs 8-19 October - press screenings start next week.

Critical Week: Man candy

This week's big press screening was for Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, the male-stripper drama based on the experiences of Channing Tatum (pictured above with costars Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello and Matthew McConaughey). As if the film's heterosexual emphasis wasn't enough, the UK distributor screened the film to us after showing the England-France Euro2012 first-round match in the cinema, so it smelled like a locker room in there. Alas, comments on the film itself are embargoed for a couple of weeks.

Keeping with the theme here, we also saw heartthrob Robert Pattinson's new film Cosmopolis, a Cannes entry directed by David Cronenberg that's sleek and intriguing but ultimately impenetrable. Cillian Murphy stars in Red Lights, an increasingly strained supernatural debunking thriller costarring Robert DeNiro and Sigourney Weaver. Adrien Brody stars in Detachment, a ranty drama from Tony Kaye about the education system. And from Australia, we had the corny slapstick farce A Few Best Men with rising-star hottie Xavier Samuel.

And to appeal to our minds, we saw two potent docs: Searching for Sugar Man is a fascinating story of a forgotten Detroit musician whose failed recording career wasn't quite as disastrous as he thought, since he was bigger than Elvis and the Stones in South Africa. And Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry vividly chronicles the life and work of the charismatic, outspoken Chinese artist who is notoriously in trouble with his own government.
 

This coming week, London critics are watching Keira Knightley and Steve Carell in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Jean Dujardin and Michel Hazanavicius' next collaboration The Players, the Jo Nesbo thriller Jackpot, the Cannes-contending anthology 7 Days in Havana and the acclaimed Mormo-youth drama Electrick Children.

Finally, I'm heading to Scotland on Monday for the 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival (18 June-1 July), so the blog will reflect what I'm watching there on a daily basis over the next couple of weeks.