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
ALL REVIEWS >

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.

Out on a limb: Oscar picks & predictions

And so Oscar night rolls around again, much earlier than usual, capping a crazily truncated awards season. Here are who I think has a good chance of winning, and who I hope will win. My track record isn't great here, and this year there are some big questions lingering, mainly how much love Ampas voters will have for a Korean movie. Parasite is undoubtably the best movie of the year, perhaps the decade. But Oscars rarely actually go to the "best", as they're too busy honouring people they like. As always, I'm hoping for upsets and surprises...

BEST PICTURE

Should win: Parasite
Will win: 1917
Dark horse: Once Upon A Time ... in Hollywood

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Should win: Pain and Glory
Will win: Parasite

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Should win: Honeyland
Will win: American Factory
Dark horse: For Sama

ANIMATED FEATURE

Should win: I Lost My Body
Will win: Klaus
Dark horse: Missing Link

DIRECTING

Should win: Parasite - Bong Joon Ho
Will win: 1917 - Sam Mendes
Dark horse: Once Upon A Time ... in Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Should win: The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten
Will win: Little Women - Greta Gerwig
Dark horse: Jojo Rabbit - Taika Waititi

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Should/will win: Parasite - Bong Joon Ho & Han Jin Won
Dark horse: Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Should/will win: Renee Zellweger - Judy

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Should win: Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory
Will win: Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Should/will win: Laura Dern - Marriage Story
Dark horse: Florence Pugh - Little Women

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Should win: Al Pacino - The Irishman
Will win: Brad Pitt - Once upon a Time ... in Hollywood

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Should/will win: 1917 - Roger Deakins

COSTUME DESIGN

Should win: Once Upon A Time ... in Hollywood - Arianne Phillips
Will win: Little Women - Jacqueline Durran

FILM EDITING

Should win: The Irishman - Thelma Schoonmaker
Will win: Ford v Ferrari - Michael Mccusker & Andrew Buckland
Dark horse: Parasite - Yang Jinmo

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Should win: Judy - Jeremy Woodhead
Will win: Bombshell - Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan & Vivian Baker

ORIGINAL SCORE

Should win: 1917 - Thomas Newman
Will win: Joker - Hildur Gudnadottir
Dark horse: Little Women - Alexandre Desplat
Always a contender: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - John Williams

ORIGINAL SONG

Should/will win: (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again -  Rocketman, Elton John & Bernie Taupin
Dark horse: I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away - Toy Story 4, Randy Newman

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Should win: Once Upon A Time ... in Hollywood - Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh
Will win: 1917 - Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales
Dark horse: Parasite - Lee Ha Jun, Cho Won Woo

SOUND EDITING

Should win: 1917 - Oliver Tarney & Rachael Tate
Will win: Ford v Ferrari - Donald Sylvester

SOUND MIXING

Should win: 1917 - Mark Taylor & Stuart Wilson
Will win: Ford v Ferrari - Paul Massey, David Giammarco & Steven A Morrow

VISUAL EFFECTS

Should win: 1917 - Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler & Dominic Tuohy
Will win: Avengers: Endgame - Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Matt Aitken & Dan Sudick

Critical Week: Family time

I've caught up with a few films while I've been out here in Los Angeles, in between binging on food at Thanksgiving time with the family. The best so far is Pixar's Coco, another triumph in both animation and storytelling. It's a riveting adventure with properly pungent emotional undertones and a fantastic sense of Latino culture.

And the other two this week were good as well. Based on the bestselling novel, Wonder is a beautifully made film that grapples with how it feels to be an outsider - a must see for school kids and everyone else too. It features a terrific cast of kids, including Jacob Tremblay and Noah Jupe. And Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird is one of the most honest coming-of-age movies in recent memory, a messy, lively, funny, wrenching tale of a teen (the superb Saoirse Ronan) flexing her wings for the first time. Particularly strong support from Laurie Metcalf.

I'm heading back to London this week, so am not sure what films are in store. Am hoping to catch an early screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, as well as James Franco's The Disaster Artist and the holiday horror Better Watch Out.

Critical Week: Find a reason to smile

Denzel Washington's directing debut Fences screened to the press this week, with an eye on awards season. August Wilson's text is simply glorious. Washington reprises his Tony-winning stage role opposite a devastating turn by Viola Davis. And there's more awards-worthy acting in 20th Century Women, with Annette Bening giving a beautifully textured turn in Mike Mills' latest engaging autobiographical drama. And then there's Nicole Kidman as Dev Patel's emotive adoptive mother in Lion, a powerful true story of a young man's search for the past he literally lost.

Other films included the enjoyably camp but rather uneven mystery Kiss Me, Kill Me, the sumptuously animated castaway fable The Red Turtle, Kirsten Johnson's astoundingly revelatory memoir Cameraperson, and a sobering exploration of food waste in the lively doc Just Eat It.

This coming week, as voting deadlines loom for various awards, there are screenings of Office Christmas Party with Jennifer Aniston, Miss Sloane with Jessica Chastain, Certain Women with Kristen Stewart and Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th. I also need to tackle the eight-hour doc OJ: Made in America.

Sundance returns to London

After taking a break for a year, Sundance returns to London for 2016, this time in a much more accessible venue at the gorgeous Picturehouse Central in Piccadilly. Over the weekend, the 4th Sundance Film Festival: London is bringing 11 premiere features and a number of shorts, plus lots of events for aspiring filmmakers. It all kicked off tonight with Sian Heder's Tallulah (on-set pic above). Here are comments on the nine features I've seen...

Tallulah
dir Sian Heder; with Ellen Page, Allison Janney 16/US ****.
Skilfully written and directed by Sian Heder, this astute drama explores issues of parenthood from a variety of unexpected angles. The story is complex and gripping, and the characters are deeply engaging as they struggle to make the right decisions in tricky situations. Thankfully, Heder never resorts to glib answers, which makes the film both involving and powerfully moving.

Goat
dir Andrew Neel; with Ben Schnetzer, Nick Jonas 16/US ***.
Based on real events, this grim exploration of frat-house culture would be difficult to watch if it weren't for the strikingly realistic characters at the centre. Ben Schnetzer and Nick Jonas deliver involving performances as brothers with complex reactions to the unbridled masculinity they find themselves in the middle of. And they both provide a strong emotional kick.

Wiener-Dog
dir Todd Solondz; with Greta Gerwig, Ellen Burstyn 16/US ****
Arthouse veteran Todd Solondz continues to slice through the artificiality of human interaction with a series of vignettes that centre around an adorable dachshund. The connections between the episodes kind of fall apart as the film continues, but the characters and relationships are startling all the way through. As are the film's observations about the nature of intelligence.

The Intervention
dir Clea DuVall; with Melanie Lynskey, Cobie Smulders 16/US ***
An engagingly twisted story and especially strong acting bring this ensemble comedy-drama to life, sparking a continual sense of uncomfortable recognition for the viewer. So even if the themes never seem particularly complex, and the gyrations of the plot never terribly revelatory, the film is thoroughly entertaining as it explores some nagging truths about relationships.

Other People
dir Chris Kelly; with Jesse Plemons, Molly Shannon 16/US ****
Themes of mortality and repression make this drama rather heavy-going, but there's a freshness to the ensemble cast that injects jagged humour into every scene. And filmmaker Chris Kelly keeps the tone awkward, which gives the film an improvised atmosphere to help avoid any obvious sermonising.

Indignation
dir James Schamus; with Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon 16/US ***.
Based on the Philip Roth novel, this tightly controlled film is an intriguing directing debut for writer-producer James Schamus. It certainly doesn't mirror the more free-spirited earthiness of his usual collaborator Ang Lee; this is a blackly pointed drama with intense characters whose actions carry punchy consequences. Which is the story's central theme.

The Greasy Strangler
dir Jim Hosking; with Michael St Michaels, Sky Elobar 16/US *.
With its relentlessly crude filmmaking, this gonzo horror-comedy feels like Beavis and Butt-Head tried to make a mash-up homage to John Waters and David Lynch. Except that the movie is never remotely funny or scary. And director James Hosking spends too much time wallowing in grotesque nudity and repeated catch-phrases to give the premise any kick.

Author: The JT LeRoy Story
dir Jeff Feuerzeig; with Laura Albert, Savannah Knoop 16/US ****
Inventively assembled to tell a story with humour and insight, this film documents the astonishing conundrum of hotshot author JT LeRoy, who turned out not to be a real person after his novel and stories had been published and adapted for film to great acclaim. Filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig digs deep to tell the full story from the perspective of the woman at the centre of it all.

Weiner
dir Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg; with Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin 16/US ***.
This is a fascinating documentary about a politician who desperately wants to get past a scandal of his own making. And since we're talking about Anthony Weiner, directors Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg have a seemingly endless supply of wickedly entertaining jokes to work with. Even as the filmmakers remain in fly-on-the-wall mode, the film snaps with energy and wit... FULL REVIEW >



Critical Week: In a haze

It's a film festival week in London, which means a glut of screenings even if the festival in question is only four days long. It's the 4th Sundance Film Festival: London this weekend at Picturehouse Central, and I am seeing nine of the 11 features in the programme. So far, I've caught Ben Schnetzer and Nick Jonas in the hazing drama Goat (above), Jesse Plemons and Molly Shannon in Other People, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Burstyn in Wiener-Dog, plus the documentaries Author: The JT LeRoy Story and Weiner. More to come, with comments about these films later in the week.

As for normal press screenings, we had a special screening of the weepy romance Me Before You, presented by Emilia Clarke herself, with tissues on every seat. Brady Corbet's Venice-winner The Childhood of a Leader is a complex, difficult and fiercely original exploration of the personality of power. The Ghoul is a beautifully made indie British dark thriller. And the Oscar-nominated Colombian odyssey Embrace of the Serpent is staggeringly beautiful and deeply moving.

Sundance films still to come include Ellen Page in Tallulah, Logan Lerman in Indignation, Clea DuVall's The Intervention and the horror-comedy The Greasy Strangler. And I'll also catch up with Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey in Elvis & Nixon and some home screenings I've been putting off.

Critical Week: La dolce vita

There was a nice break from bleak drama, rude comedy and apocalyptic blockbusters this week with Noah Baumbach's wonderfully upbeat comedy Frances Ha, in which Greta Gerwig held her quirkiness in check to play a memorable character trying to get her life going in the right direction. OK, it's shot in black and white, as a clear homage to everyone from Federico Fellini to Woody Allen. But it's a sheer delight compared to the admittedly enjoyable post-apocalyptic blockbuster Oblivion, a well-made sci-fi film starring a nicely haunted Tom Cruise. Even more derivative, The Words is another nicely made film with a terrific cast (including Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde), but it's never quite original enough to come together.

Off the beaten path, we had the small but important British drama Honour, an awkwardly structured message film about honour-killings starring the always terrific Paddy Considine; the shambolic comedy Bula Quo!, which sends the members of Status Quo on a crazy adventure in Fiji about 35 years too late; Rob Zombie's witchy horror The Lords of Salem, which mixes gonzo nuttiness with inventive freak-outs and some nostalgic filmmaking, all to great effect; the indie American drama Nate & Margaret, which is kind of a light Harold & Maude, tracing a gently involving and nicely played friendship; and the oddly unsexy documentary F**k for Forest, about the global movement to save the environment through sex.

I also caught up with two collections of short films: Bafta Shorts 2013 features seven of the eight shorts nominated for this year's Baftas, including the two winners: Lynne Ramsay's Swimmer and Will Anderson's animation The Making of Longbird. And Peccadillo's collection Boys on Film 9: Youth in Trouble features eight edgy shorts dealing with sexuality issues among teens and 20-somethings, with the highlight being Benjamin Parent's essential It's Not a Cowboy Film.

This coming week we have press screenings of 2013's next blockbuster Iron Man 3, Robert DeNiro and Diane Keaton leading the all-star cast of The Big Wedding, Olivier Assayas' Something in the Air, the Spanish drama The Sex of Angels (aka Angels of Sex in the US), the Russian historical drama In the Fog, and the Italian drama Shun Li and the Poet.

There are also two special events: First is the Barbican cinema's special season to tie in with the Critics' Circle's centenary celebrations, in which UK critics introduce "the film that changed my life" - which gives me a chance to catch David Gritten presenting the acclaimed 1966 war drama The Battle of Algiers. And finally, we also start press screenings for the second Sundance London Festival (25-28 April).