Critical Week: Executive action

This has been a quiet week for press screenings, so I've enjoyed having some time to catch up on other things that have been pressing. It also helps that the weather has been sunny and nice, our first proper London spring in three years. The biggest film I watched this week was a bit of wishful thinking. In the action thriller G20, Viola Davis plays a no-nonsense US president fighting some nasty baddies. Essentially a revamped Die Hard, the movie is familiar and very silly, but also a solid guilty pleasure.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Holy Cow • Warfare
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Other films this week included two offbeat music documentaries: Kevin Macdonald's One to One: John & Yoko follows a couple of pivotal years for the artists in protest-filled New York, adding a skilfully kaleidoscopic context to the music. And The Extraordinary Miss Flower is a beautifully swirling concoction exploring how Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini was inspired by a letters that revealed another woman's passion-filled past.

There were also a few things outside the regular release schedule. I attended a terrific screening and Q&A for the new Black Mirror episode Hotel Reverie, with Charlie Brooker, Emma Corrin and others. It's a gorgeously surreal love letter to classic movie romance. I finally caught up with Pedro Almodovar's involving, beautifully made Western short Strange Way of Life, starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as cowboys who can't admit they love each other. And I attended two stage shows: lockdown drama Jab at the Park and the raucous Jane Austen adaptation Plied & Prejudice at the Vaults.

This coming week, the films I'll be watching include Michael B Jordan in Sinners, the tennis drama Julie Keeps Quiet, Norwegian horror movie The Ugly Stepsister and the sailing documentary Wind, Tide & Oar.

Critical Week: Look over there

While critics have had plenty to watch, the cinemas still feel oddly quiet this summer, with fewer big releases than usual due to last year's strikes. And longer-gestating blockbusters are also still caught in the fallout from the pandemic. But there were two studio films screened this week. Zachary Levi stars in the lively kids' movie Harold and the Purple Crayon, which is colourful, funny and very silly. Also pretty silly, Deadpool & Wolverine teams up Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman for more fast-talking, hyper-violent, highly referential meta-jokiness. It's a lot of fun, but a bit uneven.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Echo • Didi
Mothers' Instinct
Deadpool & Wolverine
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Further afield was the offbeat comedy Between the Temples, starring Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane in a quirky crisis of the Jewish faith. Christianity features heavily in Mysterious Ways, a moving and intimate Kiwi drama about a vicar and his rugby coach boyfriend. The bracingly authentic Swedish drama Paradise Is Burning focusses on three sisters trying to survive on their own. Gorgeously shot and edited, the Mexican doc The Echo is so beautifully assembled that it feels like a narrative drama about agrarian life in a small village. And the powerful, urgently important narrative doc No Other Land follows two journalists, Palestinian and Israeli, as they cover the harrowing destruction of homes and lives in the occupied West Bank.

This coming week I'll be watching animated adventure Oz: Voice of the Forest, psychological thriller Detained, French coming-of-age drama Red Island, Finnish drama Sebastian, Chinese mystery thriller Only the River Flows and the Saint Helena doc A Story of Bones. I also have stage shows Amaze and Frankie Goes to Bollywood this week.

LFF: The usual suspects

The 66th London Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday night with the European premiere of Glass Onion, the Knives Out sequel. Most of the cast was on-stage to introduce the film and have a post-screening Q&A along with filmmaker Rian Johnson. This was follows by the first LFF closing party I've ever been invited to (thanks, Netflix!) - a huge event themed around the movie. In the end, I saw 40 festival films, which isn't bad at all for not being press accredited. And I have several more screening over the coming weeks. Here's a final list of highlights, plus the award winners and my favourites from the festival...

Glass Onion
dir-scr Rian Johnson; with Daniel Craig, Janelle Monae 22/US ****
After the gleeful chaos of Knives Out, writer-director Rian Johnson returns with another fiendishly well-constructed whodunit for Daniel Craig's lively sleuth Benoit Blanc. This film isn't quite as camp, but it's even funnier as the plot crashes through its crazy twists and turns, subverting the mystery genre itself before giving in to its more enjoyable pleasures: make everyone a suspect before unpeeling a satisfyingly thumping conclusion.

The Inspection
dir-scr Elegance Bratton; with Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union 22/US ****.
There's striking artistry in the way filmmaker Elegance Bratton recounts an autobiographical narrative about a Black gay man in US Marines boot camp during the "don't ask, don't tell" years. Never preachy, the film has an earthy, intensely internalised tone that puts its complex characters into a razor-sharp perspective. And its knowing authenticity adds both deep emotion and a textured, vital comment on the nature of bigotry

My Policeman
dir Michael Grandage; with Harry Styles, Emma Corrin 22/UK ***
Because there's such a compelling story at the centre of this British drama, it is packed with strikingly emotional and provocative moments. But the filmmaking is oddly timid, thinning the material in a way that makes it feel soapy. Set in two intriguing periods, the premise raises important issues that deserve attention. So more nuance in the characters and storytelling could have provided an even more potent kick... FULL REVIEW >

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande
dir Tim MacKenzie-Smith; with Patrick Patterson, Sam Kelly 22/UK ***.
Unsung and hugely influential, the British group Cymande is overdue for a documentary, and this beautifully assembled film is a superb overview. Shot and edited with the same soulful groove the band injected into the music industry, the movie features an entertaining collection of interviews, music and archival film. Director Tim MacKenzie-Smith clearly has a lot of affection for the band. And so do we after watching his film.

A W A R D S

• Best Film: CORSAGE
• Audience Award: BLUE BAG LIFE
• Documentary: ALL THAT BREATHES
• First Feature: 1976
• Immersive: AS MINE EXACTLY
• Short Film: I HAVE NO LEGS AND I MUST RUN
• Audience Award - Short: DROP OUT
• Surprise film: THE MENU

R I C H ’ S   B E S T   O F   F E S T

1. NO BEARS
2. CAUSEWAY
3. DECISION TO LEAVE
4. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
5. LIVING
6. THE INSPECTION
7. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED
8. TRIANGLE OF SADNESS
9. BLUE JEAN
   
10. GLASS ONION

As I have time, full reviews of London Film Festival films will be linked to SHADOWS' LFF PAGE >