Critical Week: Life's a beach

Awards season stuff continues to take up much of my time, with another flurry of nominations and winners released this week, including the biggest nominations of the season: the Oscars. As usual, the news was full of stories about surprise nods and angry snubs, as if this was something new. Meanwhile, I'm in the final 10-day push toward the London Critics' Circle awards, looking forward to having Michelle Yeoh at our ceremony to receive our top honour. It's looking like a properly starry event after two virtual years. Lots still to do to get ready for that!

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Close • The Fabelmans
Concerned Citizen
PERHAPS AVOID:
Maybe I Do • Shotgun Wedding
ALL REVIEWS >

Of course I've also been watching movies, and the Philippines was the main villain in two big Hollywood productions. Filmed in the Dominican Republic, Shotgun Wedding stars Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel as the bride and groom who plan a lush destination wedding that's interrupted by ruthless pirates. Filmed in Puerto Rico, Plane stars Gerard Butler as a pilot who crash-lands on a remote Filipino island overrun with a ruthless militia. Both movies require their stars to step in when the law fails to protect them. And both are plainly preposterous, although Plane just wins the battle by being a bit more fun.

The rest are an eclectic bunch: Maybe I Do has a super-starry ensemble cast that features Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, William H Macy, Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey. And yet the transition from stage to screen feels a bit dull and contrived. From China, the massive blockbuster sci-fi epic The Wandering Earth II takes the breath away with its enormous scale and vast cast of characters, and it's also deliberately funny, which is refreshing. From Australia, Seriously Red is an endearing drama about a woman who becomes a Dolly Parton impersonator to find herself. It's funny and edgy, like Muriel's Wedding. And from Israel, Concerned Citizen is a lovely naturalistic drama about a guy trying to decide whether to improve his Tel Aviv neighbourhood or just move away like everyone else.

Screenings are a bit scant this coming week, although that's because I've already seen the awards-contending films that are coming into cinemas now. Movies to see this coming week include Ryan Philippe in The Locksmith, Nick Moran in Renegades and some straggling awards contenders.

Critical Week: Fashion victim

This past week, I caught up with Elle Fanning in Nicolas Winding Refn's new horror drama The Neon Demon, the latest slick, lurid, fascinating, infuriating film from the Danish filmmaker. Another stylish thriller, Nerve, stars Emma Roberts and Dave Franco (sorry, comments are embargoed). And then there was some comedy: Ghostbusters entertainingly reboots the franchise with a terrific quartet of comedic actresses, while Ice Age: Collision Course carries on the ridiculous antics of that growing herd of loveable but random prehistoric critters.

Further afield, Pedro Almodovar's Julieta is a fluid, beautifully emotive drama with a twisty story and a terrific cast. The acclaimed Greek comedy-drama Chevalier is a fiercely clever dissection of masculine bravado. K-Shop is a solidly made British horror thriller with blackly comical overtones. And the latest collection from Peccadillo, Boys on Film 15: Time & Tied, features nine strikingly well-made short films addressing issues of gender and sexuality from a variety of astute, personal angles.

This coming week we have the long-awaited Matt Damon-starring sequel Jason Bourne, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG, Disney's remake of Pete's Dragon, Chris Pine in Hell or High Water and the oddly titled journalist doc Jim: The James Foley Story.

Critical Week: High school blues

This week's most impressive debut came from Gia Coppola (Francis' granddaughter), adapting James Franco's internalised short story collection Palo Alto. A strikingly honest exploration of teen life, it also features a star-making lead performance from Jack Kilmer (Val's son) alongside Emma Roberts (pictured), Nat Wolff and Franco himself. The other two big movies shown to London critics this week were colon-wielding sequels. The Purge: Anarchy carries on the lawful carnage one year later from the opposite economical perspective, which drains the premise of the irony that made the first film work so well. And Planes: Fire & Rescue is actually an improvement, a better-written and occasionally enjoyable romp that's still marred by that ropey "World of Cars" premise.

Off the beaten path we had a fearless Gerard Depardieu as a shameless womanising politician in Abel Ferrara's controversial and superbly outrageous Welcome to New York; the charming but cheesy gay romantic comedy Love or Whatever; the edgy but somewhat familiar Danish youth drama Northwest; and two documentaries: Nick Cave's artful, fiercely inventive and vaguely pretentious 20,000 Days on Earth and Charlie Lyne's enjoyable romp through a decade of teen movies in Beyond Clueless.

In the coming week, we'll be catching up with the summer's big Marvel blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy, Dwayne Johnson as Hercules, Jennifer Aniston in Life of Crime, Colin Firth in A Most Wanted Man, the next in the neverending franchise Step Up: All In, the indie sibling drama Tiger Orange, and Al Pacino's take on Oscar Wilde's Salome, plus the making-of doc Wild Salome.