Critical Week: Bugging out

With yet another long weekend in the UK, we're all getting used to the idea of a four-day week. But the next holiday here isn't until the end of August. Between now and then, we'll be getting roughly one enormous studio blockbuster movie per week. Some of these are greatly anticipated, while others induce a feeling of dread. This week I caught up with two that I was actually looking forward to. Sony was very late in screening Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, perhaps so they could treat us to a star-studded blue-carpet premiere experience. The film is even more eye-popping than the first one, and the story is nicely involving amid the visual mayhem. And then there was an early screening of The Flash, easily the best DC movie in years, with a lively sense of humour and two terrific performances from Ezra Miller.

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I also caught up with Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera in the ambitious and intriguing, but ultimately awkward Carmen, which is infused with music and dance. The low-budget Breaking Infinity is an enjoyably brain-bending time-travel romp.  From France, The Innocent is a superb mashup of romcom, heist caper and crime thriller from actor-filmmaker Louis Garrel. And from Italy, The Neighbor is a dark drama about a man grappling with homophobia in his partner's family. 

I also attended three live performances: as a critic for State Shift at Sadler's Wells; as an audience member for Re-Member Me, Dickie Beau's clever but difficult one-man show about Hamlet at Hampstead; and as part of the crowd right in the middle of Guys and Dolls, the wonderfully lively and engaging new version of the classic musical at the Bridge.

This next week I'll be watching the franchise reboot blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Toni Collette in Mafia Mamma, the Canadian drama You Can Live Forever, the series-turned-feature comedy Bridesman, and the Chilean documentary My Imaginary Country. I'll also attend live performances of Inside the Blind Iris / Air de Temps at Sadler's Wells (review here soon) and the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards.

Critical Week: Another day of sun

I'm in Los Angeles this week visiting my parents for Thanksgiving and enjoying the warm late-November sunshine. There were no movies on the flight's entertainment system that even remotely tempted me, so I just watched TV comedies and documentaries.

I've caught up with one film in the cinema - because I missed the press screening in London. Justice League is the latest DC movie, and it has a refreshing comic book tone that some of the more recent films have lacked. It also centres on characters rather than moody violent spectacle, although there is still too much of that. But at least the actors had more to work with this time, and it bodes well for already in-the-works movies to come. I also watched an awards screener (more of these to come)...

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The Hero
dir Brett Haley; with Sam Elliott, Laura Prepon 17/US ***
This gently loping drama never says anything terribly original, but it gives Sam Elliott a terrific role as an ageing actor facing up to both his life and his mortality. It's written and directed in a relaxed style that never challenges the audience, other than the usual cringe at an unlikely romance. But it's nicely shot, beautifully acted, the themes are never overstated, and it ends on a warmly ambiguous note.

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There are a few films I'm hoping to catch in cinemas and at screenings over the next week while I'm here, including Wonder, Coco, The Disaster Artist and Lady Bird. But we'll see if I can tear myself away from the sunshine...

Critical Week: Of skirts and men

I caught up with the ancient-mythology epic Gods of Egypt this week (that's Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites above being tormented by a god-sized Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There's definitely a lot of camp value there, and much of the snarky attitude is intentional. It's definitely smarter that most blockbusters, even if it is swamped by excessive effects work (hint: it's better on a small screen without 3D).

Aside from the Sundance Film Festival London, I had only three other movies this week, and it was a mixed bag: Elvis & Nixon recounts an absurd true story as a vehicle for Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey to chomp merrily on the scenery. There isn't much more to the movie that that, but it might be enough. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a rather darker true story from 1971, with eerie resonance in more recent headline news. It's a very well-made film, sober and pointed, with a terrific cast. And Outings consists of the first three episodes of a proposed British TV series that's unlikely to be commissioned. Basically an amusing but never funny gay variation on Sex and the City, the stories are good and the cast is fresh, but it's just too amateurish to appeal to broader audiences.

As usual this time of year, screenings are rather few and far between. The only one in the diary for the coming week is the London-set sequel The Conjuring 2. Other films might be forthcoming (and I have a few in the diary for the following week), but I'm looking forward to a bit of time to do other things for a change.