Critical Week: Ready to run

Awards season continues in full swing, with screenings every day of the week. Things will only escalate this month as voting deadlines begin to approach around the first of December. So I have a lot that I still need to see, especially since I also have to watch TV shows and podcasts for the Golden Globes. This week's big films included Glen Powell in Edgar Wright's entertainingly fast-paced remake of The Running Man, based on the Stephen King novel. There are big issues in here, but it never goes very deep. At least Colman Domingo is having a blast. And there was also the lavishly well-made post-war epic Nuremberg, starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek in a thought-provoking exploration of political morality. Leo Woodhall very nearly steals the show.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Belen • Train Dreams • Odyssey
Peter Hujar's Day • The Choral
The Marbles • Love + War
ALL REVIEWS >

One of the most delightful surprises was Song Sung Blue, an emotional rollercoaster of a true story starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a Neil Diamond experience. Yes, lots of great music too. Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner also have fun in the existential romantic-triangle comedy Eternity, which finds serious emotions along the way. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall are riveting in Peter Hujar's Day, a mundane/momentous conversation between two artists in 1970s New York. The artful French romance Eden & Charlie is simply gorgeous to look at, and carries a wistful kick. The documentary The Marbles is an entertaining, enlightening exploration of why museums have a duty to repatriate antiquities. And the interactive thriller The Run takes the audience on a wild ride, all while we choose where it goes next. I also attended a gala screening of the hilarious and sharply pointed short Burn Your Gays. And there was a live performance of the dazzling Figures in Extinction at Sadler's Wells.

Coming up for this next just-as-busy week, I'll be watching Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked: For Good, Alexander Skarsgard in Pillion, Kate Winslet's film Goodbye June, Tom Blyth in Bull Run, the animated adventure In Your Dreams, the action sequel Sisu: Road to Revenge, Hong Kong crime thriller Valley of the Shadow of Death, and the anti-romcom 300 Letters, plus a premiere screening of the first episode of Stranger Things season 5.

LFF: Chin up

While it's packed to the brim with an astonishing array of high-profile movies and small gems from all over the world, the 65th BFI London Film Festival will probably be remembered just as much for all of the queuing involved. Today I got caught in a brief rainshower standing in a urine-soaked alleyway outside a cinema waiting to get into a press screening - which is something I've had to do for two to three hours each day between films. The things we do to watch movies we've read about but haven't had a chance to see yet! And in most but not all cases, it's well worth the effort...

The French Dispatch
dir-scr Wes Anderson; with Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand 21/Fr ****.
Wes Anderson creates yet another offbeat, fully realised universe in this witty homage to old-school journalism. With a fabulous cast of hundreds, including at least two dozen A-list stars, the film has a sprawling feel to it but remains engagingly intimate as it traces a series of contained stories. Mainly set in the 1970s, it's even more gorgeously designed than expected, packed with hilarious touches and audaciously inventive storytelling... FULL REVIEW >

Ron's Gone Wrong
dir Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine; voices Zach Galifianakis, Jack Dylan Grazer 21/US ***.
Lashings of goofy charm, wildly coloured imagery and frantic action make this resolutely silly animated romp enjoyable. And it even has a decent message buried under all the usual guff about the importance of family and friends. The filmmakers perhaps try a bit too hard to keep the jokes firing throughout the slapstick narrative. But it's ultimately impossible to resist a movie that's this warm and funny... FULL REVIEW >

Last Night in Soho
dir Edgar Wright; with Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy 21/UK ***
A luridly over-the-top sensibility makes this crazed London drama compulsively watchable. And while it looks terrific, the film becomes rather exhausting in the way it depicts a young woman's struggle with madness. Filmmaker Edgar Wright pours style into each scene, skilfully using real locations to playfully mirror the present day with the swinging '60s. And the superb ensemble is fully committed to even the most outrageous moments... FULL REVIEW >

True Things
dir Harry Wootliff; with Ruth Wilson, Tom Burke 21/UK **
Like an indulgent autobiographical first film, this British drama is so insular that that it becomes increasingly difficult to identify with the characters. Director-cowriter Harry Woodliff is actually adapting a novel, which adds an odd sense of distance to the material. It looks gorgeous with its swirly cinematography and dreamy editing, and Ruth Wilson gives a tremendous central performance. But the pushy filmmaking leaves it feeling empty.

Costa Brava, Lebanon
dir-scr Mounia Akl; with Nadine Labaki, Saleh Bakri 21/Leb ***.
With an earthy pace, this film set on the outskirts of Beirut is both a sparky family drama and a lament for a nation engulfed in corruption. It's skilfully shot in a terrific location, with a few surreal touches that reveal the characters' internal journeys. And its universal themes about justice, regret and expectation carry a nice kick, as the politics are deliberately drowned out by the personal story... FULL REVIEW >

Full reviews of festival films will be published as possible and linked at Shadows' LFF HOMEPAGE 
For full information, visit BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 

Sundance London: You do you

It's suddenly rainy and cool in London, which is the perfect weather for a film festival. Sundance London brings a collection of 16 films from its Utah festival, along with shorts and special events, all hosted at Picturehouse Central. And many filmmakers are in attendance this year to provide Q&As and masterclasses. I haven't seen everything, as it was impossible to get to every single press screening (there were five per day Monday to Wednesday). But I didn't do too badly, and there are some terrific films this year. Here are some highlights for Friday...

The Sparks Brothers
dir Edgar Wright; with Ron Mael, Russell Mael 21/UK ****
Filmmaker Edgar Wright takes on the documentary form with his usual visual panache, finding witty and inventive ways to explore the career of Ron and Russell Mael. Sparks is a hugely influential but under-appreciated band, and the film highlights how the Maels' refusal to bow to commercial pressure is the real measure of their success. The film is too long, but it's wonderfully engaging, and packed with clever touches... FULL REVIEW >http://www.shadowsonthewall.co.uk/21/7d.htm#spar

Together Together 
dir-scr Nikole Beckwith; with Patti Harrison, Ed Helms 21/US ****
It's remarkable how this comedy finds moments of laugh-out-loud humour alongside warm emotion without ever dipping into sentimentality. With a tightly contained story, writer-director Nikole Beckwith explores parenthood from two distinct perspectives that raise a whole new set of thoughtful questions. And among the way, the film reveals some knowing truths about human connections as two very different people begin to find common ground in their shared purpose.

First Date 
dir-scr Manuel Crosby, Darren Knapp; with Tyson Brown, Shelby Duclos 21/US **.
High energy levels and a couple of engaging characters help to hold interest even as this action comedy becomes too messy for its own good. Set over one hyper-eventful night, the ramshackle scenes are packed with people who are over-the-top nuts, but many of them have sharply funny things to say. Perhaps if there was a point to the insanity, this goofy movie might have become a cult hit.

The Blazing World
dir Carlson Young; with Carlson Young, Udo Kier 21/US ***
Deliberately heightened and utterly bonkers, this fantastical arthouse horror tackles a very serious theme in a lurid, symbolic style. Actor-filmmaker Carson Young is taking the audience on a wildly arch odyssey into the nature of grief, so there are resonant emotions boiling over at every step. It's a slight problem that everything is so relentlessly full-on. But the outrageous flourishes effectively generate some darkly powerful emotions.

• For more festival information: PICTUREHOUSE: SUNDANCE
• Visit Shadows on the Wall's anchor page for SUNDANCE LONDON for links to all reviews.

Critical Week: Trust no one

There were two very different action movies screened to the press this past week. Edgar Wright's Baby Driver is a whizzy thriller packed with gimmicky filmmaking touches and snappy performances from the likes of Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx, Eliza Gonzalez and Jon Hamm (above), plus Kevin Spacey, Lily James and others. Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth in the series, is a cacophonous adventure that looks pretty awesome on Imax 3D but is a painful two and a half hours without a coherent story or characters.

Outside the mainstream, we also had a screening of Phyllida Lloyd's bracingly inventive Julius Caesar, a filmed version of her female-prison set version of Shakespeare's eerily resonant play. Scribe is a Hitchcockian thriller from Belgium starring Francois Cluzet as a man pulled into a political nightmare that seems to be actually taking place right now in the world around us. Tom of Finland is a gripping if somewhat mannered biopic about the unassuming man who completely changed the world's image of masculinity with his hyper-macho illustrations. Risk is Laura Poitras' long-in-the-works doc about Julian Assange, whose enigmatic nature infects this film. And City of Ghosts is the stunning, essential documentary about a group of brave journalists covering Daesh's destruction of their hometown Raqqa, Syria.

As the East End Film Festival continues in London, the Edinburgh Film Festival gets underway in Scotland. And this week's press screenings include the animated sequel Despicable Me 3, Ryan Reynolds in The Hitman's Bodyguard, Armie Hammer in Final Portrait, the French period drama The Death of Louis XIV, the Indian drama Hotel Salvation, and the Baltic road movie You Can't Escape Lithuania.