Critical Week: Love is all around

As the year-end holidays get closer, more and more awards bodies are presenting their nominations. Monday it was the Golden Globes, which I am voting in for the second year. The new collection of 300 international critic voters has seriously shifted the nominations into something very interesting this year. Meanwhile, there's a new romantic comedy in the cinema: What Happens Later, directed by Meg Ryan, who stars alongside David Duchovny as exes who cross paths in an airport. There are no other actors on-screen, and their charisma makes the movie enjoyable if corny. Another actor-turned-director, Eva Longoria shows serious skill with the whizzy, hugely entertaining biopic Flamin' Hot, which tells the story of the janitor who rebooted Frito-Lay, from his colourful perspective.

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More serious fare came from Michael Winterbottom, whose 1940s Israeli drama Shoshana feels almost painfully timely and informative. It's a sometimes odd mix of politics and romance, but is hugely involving. From Poland, Agnieszka Holland's terrific drama Green Border has courted controversy for its honest depiction of heartless right-wing immigration policies, simply by telling an honest story from three wrenching perspectives. From Germany, the drama The Teachers' Lounge skilfully follows a young teacher as her optimism is dealt a blow from a flurry of rumours and accusations. It's riveting and rather scary. From Romania, Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. And I was in the theatre for another panto this week, Puss in Boots at Wonderville.

Movies this week include a trip to the cinema to catch The Three Musketeers: Milady, since I missed the only press screening. And there's more catching up needed to see films before the next voting deadlines. The London Critics' Circle announces our nominations next Wednesday...

Critical Week: Over the borderline

Back in London after a two-week break, I've been catching up on several films, including the sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado (UK title Sicario 2: Soldado), a gritty and intensely gripping thriller following on from the more resonant first film. Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro and Isabel Moner are excellent. Tonal issues make the romcom Ideal Home surprisingly challenging - it feels like a gentle family film, but is packed with more provocative adult elements. Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd are superb at the centre. And Mary Shelley is a fascinating biopic about the author of Frankenstein, although it feels like it has smoothed out the real story. Elle Fanning is terrific in the title role.

A little further afield, My Life With James Dean is a gentle, wry French comedy about a filmmaker on a bizarre odyssey in a sleepy coastal town. It's artful, quirky and hilarious. And Postcards from the 48% is a solidly assembled doc digging into the issue of Brexit. It may be one-sided, but frankly there hasn't yet been a compelling argument in favour of leaving the EU, aside from emotional nationalism. Which makes the film seriously scary.

Coming up this week are screenings of the Dwayne Johnson action Skyscraper, Nick Offerman in Hearts Beat Loud, Emma Thompson in The Children Act, the comedy A Swingers Weekend and probably a few more as I continue to play catchup...

LFF: See the wonder on Day 6

Another busy day at the 61st BFI London Film Festival, with some extra colour in the middle as I attended a meet-the-filmmakers event and got a chance to visit with Takashi Miike (Blade of the Immortals), Anne Fontaine (Reinventing Marvin) and David Batty (My Generation), among others. Here are some more highlights from the festival - note that full reviews will be up on the site as soon as I can get them there. Finding time to write in between films can be a bit tricky...

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
dir-scr Angela Robinson; with Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall 17/US ****
If you've never read about how the Wonder Woman comics were created, you might need to brace yourself for this film. Because in exploring the lives of the Harvard brainiacs behind the first and most popular female superhero, the filmmakers dip into a counterculture lifestyle that would probably have tongues wagging now, let alone in the 1940s. It's also a sharply well written and directed film, with a solid cast that brings depth to the characters.

Thoroughbred
dir-scr Cory Finley; with Anya Taylor-Joy, Olivia Cooke 17/US ***.
Brittle and very bleak, this black comedy takes a rather unnecessary swipe at the vacuous life of privileged teens, as if there's anything else to say on the topic. Even so, it's strikingly written and directed by newcomer Corey Finley, while rising stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke make the most of the twisted dialog. It also explores an aspect of Millennial culture that's rarely depicted on-screen.

Call Me By Your Name
dir Luca Guadagnino; with Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet 17/It ****.
With a sunny dose of nostalgia, this drama traces a pivotal summer in a young man's life. Characters and situations are complex, challenging the viewer to share the experience. And while this may seem to be a film about sexuality, it's actually more potently an exploration of how important it is to embrace our emotions, even the ones that hurt.

Loving Vincent
dir Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman; with Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan 17/UK ***.
Like Richard Linklater's Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, this film was hand animated frame-by-frame from live-action footage, although in this case it was done by some 100 artists working with oil paints. A look into the final days of Vincent van Gogh, the exquisitely rendered imagery is a swirling odyssey through his work, echoing characters and settings while exploring his tragic and mysterious death at age 37 in 1890.

Funny Cow
dir Adrian Shergold; with Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine 17/UK ***
This is a sharply well-made drama about a woman going against the current in her culture. It's beautifully filmed and performed with energy and attitude. On the other hand, for a movie about a stand-up comic, it's relentlessly dour. There are some riotous moments along the way, and the acting is riveting enough to hold the interest all the way through, but the overall tone is seriously grim.

A Prayer Before Dawn
dir Jean-Stephane Sauvaire; with Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang 17/UK ****
Based on Billy Moore's memoir, this is a harrowing true account of a young British man's experience in a Thai prison. There isn't much context, actually no background at all, and therefore no real sense of any of the characters. Still, the film is utterly riveting, as director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire takes the audience on a jarring, unforgettable odyssey that leaves us with some big themes to chew on.

Critical Week: The need for speed

There were two late press screenings for London-based critics of movies coming out this week. Doug Liman's American Made is a lively odyssey starring Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise - no, as real-life smuggler Barry Seal, who got was running arms for the CIA and White House and drugs for the Colombian cartels in the 1980s. It's entertaining, but overwhelmed by Cruise's presence. Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky is a scruffy heist comedy with Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and a scene-stealing, against-type Daniel Craig. There's not much to it, but it's a lot of fun.

Rather more serious, Taylor Sheridan's Wind River stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen in a mystery thriller set on a native American reservation in snowy Wyoming. It looks amazing and has a strong emotional kick. And then there's the goofy comedy Unleashed, which lacks discipline but has a certain charm as a dog and cat are transformed into their owner's idea of boyfriend material. Finally, Loving Vincent is the extraordinary Vincent van Gogh drama made using hand-painted animation. It looks simply dazzling, and features strong, recognisable performances from Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, Chris O'Dowd and Helen McCrory.

This weekend I am catching up on some screeners at home before heading off to Venice for the 74th edition of the film festival on the Lido. Films on offer there include Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Darren Aronofsky's Mother!, George Clooney's Suburbicon, Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete, S Craig Zahler's Brawl in Cell Block 99, Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and many, many more. I'll be updating the blog regularly...

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.