Critical Week: Lie low

With the big autumn festivals behind us, it feels like awards season kicked off this week, as studios begin jostling for attention with special screenings of their contenders. Channing Tatum gets one of his best roles yet in Roofman, the astonishing true story of a nice-guy criminal. It's entertaining and surprisingly moving too. I also attended a lively Q&A screening with Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt and writer-director Benny Safdie for another true story, The Smashing Machine. It's an unusually realistic mixed martial arts biopic with terrific performances from the whole cast.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Brides • Ellis Park
ALL REVIEWS >

Dylan O'Brien is terrific in Twinless, starring opposite gifted writer-director James Sweeney in an offbeat drama about grief and obsession. Marion Cotillard goes glacial in The Ice Tower, a too-murky fantasy about a teen girl who because fascinated by an actress on a film set. Eddie Marsan and Sam Claflin go very dark in All the Devils Are Here, an intriguing, artful British crime drama set in a gloomy farmhouse on a moor. 

Hong Kong icons Jackie Chan and Tony Leung face off in riveting, fast-paced cops-and-crooks thriller The Shadow's Edge. From Argentina, Kill the Jockey is a skilfully made and very quirky romp infused with dark emotions. And Justin Kurzel's doc Ellis Park beautifully explores the life of musician Warren Ellis and his involvement in rescuing animals in Indonesia. I also attended Acosta Danza's exhilarating A Decade in Motion on stage at Sadler's Wells. 

Films to watch this coming week include Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another (after I was unable to attend the only press screening), Riz Ahmed in Relay, Marlon Wayans in Him, Malcolm McDowell in The Partisan and Hunter Doohan in The Wilderness. There are also live performances of Lacrima at the Barbican and Get Down Tonight at Charing Cross Theatre.

Raindance: Dance the night away

Approaching closing night, the 33rd Raindance Film Festival continues with a range of fascinating independent films. I'm running a bit behind on reviewing them, but I'll catch up this weekend with a final post. Here are three films that take very different looks at love and community. And my Critical Week is below...

Somewhere in Love [Une Vie Rêvée]
dir-scr Morgan Simon; with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Felix Lefebvre 24/Fr ***.
Warm and full of life, this French drama follows a woman who finds herself in a difficult situation but refuses to give up. Writer-director Morgan Simon sets this out as a slice-of-life character study about a mother and son, using a realistically sparky humour and emotions. The narrative structure contrives to create some drama, but there's something more intriguing, and remarkably hopeful, going on under the surface.

If You Should Leave Before Me
dir-scr The Andersons; with Shane P Allen, John Wilcox 25/US ***
While this low-budget comedy-drama feels rather deliberately offbeat, it's also warm and observant as it explores things that remain unspoken between a middle-aged couple. Filmmakers Boyd and Markus Anderson ambitiously use colourful hand-made effects, visual flourishes and goofy jokes to tell interwoven stories that touch on love and death. With its overriding existential afterlife narrative, there's plenty to chew on, even if the movie feels indulgent and overlong.

Flamingo Camp
dir Chris Coats; with Nova, Poe, Cecil, Emmit 25/US ***.
Chronicling life for a group of people who live far off the grid, this openly emotional documentary observes residents of a colourful queer community in the California desert. It starts as a slice of life before turning into something much darker and more intense, as an eerily predictable tragedy strains relationships and opens wounds. This creates a loose narrative that's fascinating, largely because the setting is so unusual.

Full reviews of festival films will be linked here in due course: SHADOWS @ RAINDANCE >

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Sorry, Baby • Ponyboi
Rent Free • Wolf and Dog
ALL REVIEWS >

The big movie this week is F1 starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, a viscerally whizzy blockbuster with a script that never even remotely surprises us. River Gallo and Dylan O'Brien are excellent in the dark drama Ponyboi, even when it turns into a thriller. The indie comedy Rent Free takes an offbeat look at friendship that's funny and thought provoking. I also attended the premiere for the TV series Too Much, complete with a Q&A featuring creator Lena Dunham and stars Megamn Stalter and Will Sharpe, plus a very starry party. And I saw three live performances: Quadrophenia at Sadler's Wells, Jonah Non Grata at Soho Theatre and Botis Seva's Until We Sleep at Sadler's Wells East.

This coming week I'll be finishing up Raindance movies and also watching Charlize Theron in The Old Guard 2, Jon Cena and Idris Elba in Heads of State, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, Sam Riley in Islands and a couple of live shows: Otto & Astrid: The Stage Tour at Jackson's Lane and Kiki & Herb Are Trying at Soho Theatre Walthamstow.

Critical Week: All for one and one for all

I'm back in London today after a few weeks in Los Angeles visiting friends and family, celebrating Thanksgiving with them, and catching up with a few films there as well. Jet lag will make the next few days a challenge, as will Britain's icy cold snap, but I have too much going on during awards season to give in to that feeling that I should be sleeping. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Matilda the Musical
The Silent Twins
The Alleys • Hidden Letters
PERHAPS AVOID: The Leech
ALL REVIEWS >

The forthcoming sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continues the lively antics of the swashbuckling cat voiced by Antonio Banderas, alongside Salma Hayek's Kitty Softpaws. It's hilariously entertaining, as expected. Less satisfying is Devotion, based on an inspiring true story about Korean War pilots that's told with far too much earnest reverence. There's enough to hold the interest and stir the emotions, but the film feels like it plays out in slow motion. And then there's the doc All That Breathes, which sneaks up on us with its bracing insights and vividly involving people who rescue traumatised birds in Delhi.

I also managed to catch up with two movies on the flight home. Infinite Storm, directed by Malgorzata Szumowska, stars Naomi Watts, Billy Howle, Denis O'Hare and Parker Sawyers in a contained, often silent story of survival on a snowy mountain. A jaw-dropping true story, it's spectacularly shot to put the audience in the situation with Watts' tenacious rescue worker. Ad The Outfit, directed by Graham Moore, stars Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O'Brien and the fabulous Nikki Amuka-Bird in a 1950s Chicago-set tale of a suit maker who becomes entangled with feuding mob bosses. The twisty plot is great fun, even if the film is rather uneven.

Movies this coming week include the blockbuster sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, Hirokazu Kore-eda's Broker, Ulrich Seidl's Rimini, Pakistani drama Joyland, the Iranian drama Winners, Italian comedy Marscapone, Spanish musical The Phantom of the Sauna and last year's surprise Oscar nominee Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.

Critical Week: Let your colours burst

Pride month kicked off this week, and I had my first few LGBTQ+ movies to watch. Showing at San Francisco's Frameline, Being Thunder is a remarkable documentary about Sherente Harris (above), a two-spirited Native American teen from Rhode Island who is challenging artificial gender roles. It's a gorgeously observant film worth looking for. Offbeat indie comedy-drama The Carnivores takes a loose, skilfully improvised approach as it tells the story of two Texan women with dog and relationship issues. And from Chile, My Tender Matador stars the great Alfredo Castro as a crossdresser who befriends a revolutionary in the Pinochet-era. It's moving and beautifully thought-provoking.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Quiet Place Part II • After Love
My Tender Matador • The Carnivores
Undine • I Am Samuel • Gunda
PERHAPS AVOID:
Introducing Jodea • Gully
ALL REVIEWS >

Closer to the mainstream, Flashback is a swirly thriller starring Dylan O'Brien in his meatiest role yet, although the supernatural elements kind of blur everything. An edgy drama set in inner-city Los Angeles, Gully features another terrific role for Kelvin Harrison Jr, although the movie is too fragmented to ever come into proper focus. The micro-budget comedy Introducing Jodea has some charm as it tells a story in the movie industry, but the cast and crew reveal their inexperience. And finally, I indulged myself in Friends: The Reunion, a couple of hours of shameless nostalgia that felt a bit contrived and over-structured. It was fun to see these six iconic actors in their less orchestrated reactions and interactions. And the celebrity fans were fun (Gaga! Bieber!), although they highlighted a number of recurring cast members who were oddly missing.

Films to watch this coming week both in cinemas and on screener links include Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, Aussie romcom Ellie & Abbie (and Abbie's Dead Aunt), horror comedy School's Out Forever, Spanish romance Carmen and Lola and Hungarian drama Treasure City.

Raindance: Get distracted

The 28th Raindance Film Festival kicked off last night with a very small gala screening of the David Bowie biopic Stardust, starring Johnny Flynn (it's not showing to the press until the end of the festival). This year's event will include some live screenings plus a lot of virtual ones. Like the recent London Film Fest, I'll be watching everything at home and writing regular updates here. Here are the first two, plus my usual report on the past week...

A Dim Valley

dir-scr Brandon Colvin; with Zach Weintraub, Whitmer Thomas 20/US 1h32 ***.

There's a loose stoner vibe to this wilderness-set comedy, a gently loping film that generates lots of smiles and a few solid laughs. While nothing much seems to be happening, the way the characters so aimlessly interact is often amusing, as they simply neglect to express what they want, either personally or professionally. It's deliberately quirky, like a joke that's funnier when you're inebriated. But it runs deep.

This Is Cristina [Ella Es Cristina]

dir-scr Gonzalo Maza; with Mariana Derderiaan, Paloma Salas 19/Chile 1h22 ****

With a series of seemingly random scenes shot in a striking monochrome, this clever Chilean comedy-drama traces the rollercoaster trajectory of a friendship between two women who seem unwilling to grow up and take responsibility for their lives. With his directing debut, gifted writer-producer Gonzalo Meza (A Fantastic Woman) cleverly weaves together a coming-of-age story that hinges on this connection. It feels crisp and light, but carries a strong kick.

NB. My anchor page for Raindance is HERE and full reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries. Much more to come...

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 

Song Without a Name 

Wolfwalkers • African Apocalypse

The Painter and the Thief

FULL REVIEWS >

I finally caught up with Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks this week, one of my favourite films of the year, a deceptively simple comedy with the perfect double act of Bill Murray and Rashida Jones. I was less excited to catch Ben Wheatley's remake of Rebecca with Armie Hammer, Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas. It's beautifully made, but adds little to Hitchcock's iconic classic. The Secret Garden is a better remake, with a great cast and artful touches. And there were two guilty pleasures: Dylan O'Brian in the surprisingly fresh zombie romp Love and Monsters and Omari Hardwick in the horror freak-out Spell. This past week I also saw: Claes Bang in the intriguing The Burnt Orange Heresy; Jaeden Martell in the cleverly involving The True Adventures of Wolfboy; the artful British drama Philophobia; the action-packed Train to Busan sequel Peninsula; the absolutely stunning Peruvian drama Song Without a Name; the provocative Argentine drama Young Hunter; and the superbly observed doc Boys State.

Aside from Raindance films, This coming week I'll be watching the London street-cat sequel A Christmas Gift From Bob, Eva Green in Proxima, Andrea Riseborough in Luxor, the rom-com Call Me Brother, Jack Lowden in Kindred, Iranian refugee drama Love Child and the Filipino drama 2 Cool 2 Be 4 Gotten.

Critical Week: Size matters

There were two rather underwhelming sequels to see this past week, neither of which came with very high expectations. Kickboxer: Retaliation is the middle part of a rebooted trilogy starring Alain Moussi and the original star Jean-Claude Van Damme, plus assorted massive meatheads. It looks great, so it's a shame so little attention was paid to characters or story. And then there's the Maze Runner trilogy finale, The Death Cure, with its somewhat messy mythology and bland characters. The film has its moments, but never quite comes to life.

Two small British films at least tried something original. Lies We Tell is a rather choppy crime thriller set in Yorkshire starring a mopey Gabriel Byrne. And Gholam is a riveting, slow-burning London thriller starring the excellent Iranian actor Shahab Hosseini. Even further afield, I enjoyed seeing a big-screen press preview of the restored version of Ingmar Bergman's witty film of Mozart's The Magic Flute. And I watched all of the episodes for the snappy, clever web series Dropping the Soap, which is out soon on dvd. As the title suggests, it's a backstage soap opera spoof. And I also greatly enjoyed this doc, which I needed to see for awards voting purposes...

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Bombshell
dir-scr Alexandra Dean; with Diane Kruger, Robert Osborne 17/US ****
Based around the discovery of a lost interview recorded on cassette tapes in 1990 when she was 76, this documentary traces the extraordinary journey of movie siren and brainy inventor Hedy Lamarr from her childhood in Austria to her reclusive old age in America. Along the way, she shared the screen with all of Hollywood's biggest stars as the most beautiful woman in movies. But she was always aware that no one took notice of her intelligence. "Any girl can look glamorous," she said famously. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." And now it emerges that Lamarr had a secret life of curiosity and scientific ambition, including a working friendship with Howard Hughes and conceiving the idea that would lead to modern communications systems like wifi and bluetooth (the US government never paid her for her patent, which the doc claims would amount to some $30bn today). She also built the first ski resort in Aspen, which was stolen from her by a vindictive ex-husband. Filmmaker Dean assembles this beautifully, using Lamarr's own voice and a wealth of footage and stills. It's a gripping film, packed with emotional kicks and an inspiring final message from Lamarr herself, reminding us that when the world treats us badly, we should give our best anyway.

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Much of my time has been spend working on the impending Critics' Circle Film Awards on Sunday night - I'm the chair, so haven't had much spare time to catch up with press screenings. Maybe next week. I've got the Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon in the diary, as well as the Helen Mirren ghost story Winchester.

Critical Week: She's gonna blow!

Back from Venice, I had a week to recover before being hit by two big film festivals at home - the 24th Raindance starts on Wednesday, and press screenings for the 60th London Film Festival (5-16 Oct) started on Monday. But we also need to watch normal releases coming into cinemas, and the biggest this week was Deepwater Horizon, starring Mark Wahlberg as the super-heroic supervisor who kicks into action mode as the biggest oil spill in US history unfolds off the coast of Louisiana. The film is very well made, but relentlessly celebrates its machismo.

We also had Renee Zellweger in the surprisingly entertaining sequel Bridget Jones's Baby, David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o in the genuinely inspiring true drama Queen of Katwe, Daniel Radcliffe and Toni Collette in the intense undercover thriller Imperium, and Sam Neill in the absolutely delightful Kiwi adventure Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

From Ireland, Emma Greenwell stars in the gently amiable but also nicely pointed gardening drama Dare to Be Wild. And there were three docs: filmmaker Brian De Palma takes us through his career in the aptly titled De Palma, a vivid depiction of the past 60 years of Hollywood. The Guv'nor energetically traces the life of British boxer and enforcer Lenny McLean, largely through the eyes of his son Jamie. And Francofonia is Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov's witty, experimental exploration of the Louvre (it's a companion piece to his 2002 Hermitage drama Russian Ark).

I'll report on London festival films once that event kicks off, and also on Raindance movies I catch up with. Other movies in the diary this week include Emily Blunt in The Girl on the Train, Mel Gibson in Blood Father, Luke Treadaway in A Street Cat Named Bob and Anne Fontaine's The Innocents.

Critical Week: Just hanging around

I took a few days off around the weekend, so had a quieter screening week than usual - but I greatly enjoyed the chance to spend four days doing basically nothing in the countryside. Before and after that, I caught a couple of big movies, including the Maze Runner sequel The Scorch Trials, another clunkily contrived teen-dystopia thriller that has energy and a sharp young cast, but never feels remotely engaging. Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore play lifelong best pals in the London-set comedy-drama Miss You Already, a deeply resonant film that refreshingly dodges cinema's male-centred rules thanks to director Catherine Hardwicke and writer Morwenna Banks.

I also caught up with this year's Woody Allen's movie Irrational Man, a meandering but thoughtful and smart comedy-drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone in a lighter variation on Allen's iconic Crimes and Misdemeanours. A little further afield, Mark Strong and Vera Farmiga star in the Romanian drama Closer to the Moon, based on a fantastic true story but told with an odd mix of jaunty farce and dark tragedy. And the sharp, thoroughly entertaining British indie comedy SuperBob looks at the personal life of a hapless superhero.

This coming week, we have Robert Pattinson and Dane DeHaan in Life, Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley in Everest, Kevin Costner and Maria Bello in McFarland, Rhys Ifans and Charlotte Church in Under Milk Wood and the American indie festival hit Tangerine.