Critical Week: Pleased to meet you

It's been another eclectic week at the cinema, with a very, very wide range of movies to watch. Sophisticated audience will love the nuances in Materialists, Celine Song's second film, which plays on the romcom formula. It stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. Rather a lot more low-brow, Smurfs features voice work from Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman and John Goodman. It's very silly, and also occasionally funny.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Unicorns • Friendship
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The sweeping Irish romance Four Letters of Love stars powerhouse actors Helena Bonham Carter, Pierce Brosnan and Gabriel Byrne, but its strongest roles go to the terrific Fionn O'Shea and Anne Skelly. A prickly bromance is at the centre of the provocative black comedy Friendship, starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. Despite its three-hour running time and rather grim title, the German drama Dying is mesmerising, witty and wonderfully thoughtful. The first film in the Oslo Stories Trilogy, Dreams is an astute and involving look at teen longing. And because I'm seeing the sequel this weekend, I finally caught up with the animated action comedy The Bad Guys, which is cool, funny escapism.

This coming week we have Pedro Pascal in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun,  Sam Rockwell in the animated sequel The Bad Guys 2, Fiona Shaw in Park Avenue, the mystery thriller Gazer, Slovenian drama Little Trouble Girls, and the second chapter in the Oslo Stories Trilogy, Love. I'm also looking forward to the 100-year restoration of Eisenstein's iconic Battleship Potemkin, which I've never seen projected. And there's a special 3D premiere of the new trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Critical Week: Driving home for Christmas

I seen many films this week, largely due to work required prior to the announcement of the London Critics' Circle Film Awards nominations yesterday. This involved compiling my own ballot, then counting all the others that came in, tabulating the results, giving nominees a heads-up, working on a press release and preparing the announcement event, which was hosted by young actors Ellie Bamber (Willow) and Fionn O'Shea (Handsome Devil) at the May Fair Hotel as a low-key Christmas party. The nominations are listed HERE if you're interested in comparing them with all the other awards spiralling around at the moment.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Living • Corsage • Women Talking
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Now things are calming down for the holidays. Whew! Of the films I saw this past week, the most ambitious was Noah Baumbach's White Noise, a busy and somewhat unfocussed comedy-drama about a family dealing with a range of big issues. The cast is excellent, led by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, and it ends with a fabulous burst of choreography. Will Smith plays a real-life historical icon in Emancipation, set at the end of the Civil War as an escaped slave faces brutal trackers and ends up fighting on the battlefield. It's ambitious and admirable, but the themes get a bit lost. Christian Bale leads the cast of Scott Cooper's moody period mystery The Pale Blue Eye, playing a detective who works alongside a young Edgar Allan Poe (a superbly wide-eyed Harry Melling) to investigate a murder at West Point in 1830. It's mesmerising but ultimately a bit thin. And the animated adventure The Amazing Maurice, based on the Terry Pratchett novel, has some wonderful thematic depth beneath the usual slapstick wackiness and slick digital imagery.

This coming week I will continue to catch up with movies before writing up my year-end lists. There's quite a pile-up of these, and I have a list of about 10 priority titles, plus eight more if-time ones. A couple of them are forthcoming releases, such as Kore-eda's film Broker and the documentary Wildcat.

Critical Week: Under siege

I'm now 90 days into lockdown and, while things aren't great in the UK the rules are beginning to relax a bit. In between watching movies at home (and quite a few TV episodes), I have been getting out into the streets most days. This week the traffic and crowds seem back to normal levels for the first time, even though many shops remain closed. And while the film industry is getting back into production, the question of opening cinemas is still a big one. Frankly, I can't imagine sitting in a press screening room quite yet!

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Dating Amber • The Australian Dream
Days of the Bagnold Summer
The Surrogate • You Don't Nomi
PERHAPS AVOID:
Darkness Falls
The Ascent/Black Ops
FULL REVIEWS >

Bigger movies in my personal screening room this past week included Artemis Fowl, Disney's lavishly produced fantasy adventure with a cast of young newcomers plus Judi Dench (above), Colin Farrell and Josh Gad. It's colourful and far too busy. But it's a gem compared to the epic The Last Days of American Crime, a near-future heist thriller that's simply loud, violent and stupid. Both films will find their audiences.

Smaller fare included the rude, sassy comedy Banana Split, with Hannah Marks and Liana Liberato; the simplistic, cheesy thriller Darkness Falls, starring Shawn Ashmore and Gary Cole; the charming, inventive Irish comedy Dating Amber, with rising star Fionn O'Shea (Normal People); the darkly engaging dramatic horror 1BR; the provocative, thoughtful parenthood drama The Surrogate; and the creative but rather thin surreal British action thriller The Ascent (US title: Black Ops). Foreign options were the breezy, enjoyably pointed Italian comedy Citizens of the World and the lurid Chilean 1970s prison drama The Prince, a remarkable film that won a top award at Venice last year. And finally, from Down Under the doc The Australian Dream explores the experience of football legend Adam Goodes, making pointed and timely observations about systemic bigotry.

Coming up this next week are Spike Lee's Vietnam drama Da 5 Bloods, Pete Davidson in The King of Staten Island, the supernatural thriller Driven, the timely doc On the Record, and the French dramas Joan of Arc and Young Ahmed.