Critical Week: Phone home

Awards season is properly cranking up, with lots of screenings (and online links) for movies that are coming out in December and January - so we can see them ahead of voting deadlines, which are quickly approaching. It's great to see these films on a big screen when possible. Certainly, two unusually striking films I saw this week deserve that - both are very long movies based on true stories. Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme stars Timothee Chalamet (above) as an aspiring ping pong champ, and it's a singular visual odyssey, high energy and utterly riveting. It's also a little exhausting. And then there's Mona Fastvold's The Testament of Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried as the founder of the Shakers in 18th century England and New England. It's a swirling, mesmerising journey that leaves us thinking. 

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A bit more mainstream, Emma Mackey stars in filmmaking maestro James L Brooks' Ella McCay, a sparky and enjoyable comedy-drama about a family and political ambition. Bill Skarsgard leads the cast of Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire, based on the true story of an unusual 1977 kidnapping. It's a gripping, strikingly well-made film. June Squibb stars in Scarlett Johansson's directing debut Eleanor the Great, a lively and likeable comedy-drama about memories and perception. Nicolas Cage leads The Carpenter's Son, an offbeat horror film based on an apocryphal gospel about the childhood of Jesus Christ (played by Noah Jupe). It's ambitious and creepy, and a little overwrought.

And then there was Park Chan-wook's overlong but sharply observant comedy No Other Choice starring Lee Byun-Hun as a guy who takes desperate measures to find a job. Sope Dirisu stars in the gorgeous British-Nigerian drama My Father's Shadow, as a man who takes his two cheeky sons on a day out in 1993 Lagos. The wonderful Iraqi drama The President's Cake centres on a young girl navigating her way through a restrictive system simply to bake a cake. The moving French drama Nino features yet another astonishingly transparent performance from Theodore Pellerin. And the Taiwanese drama Left-Handed Girl takes a snappy, fresh approach to connections between generations of women. I also attended the British premiere screening of Landman season 2 with Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore and Ali Larter in attendance.

It's another big week coming up, and I'll be watching Jodie Foster in A Private Life, Josh O'Connor in The Mastermind, Lav Diaz's epic biopic Magellan, the Spanish adventure Sirat and the animated films Scarlet and Little Amelie, plus festive live performances of Growled at the RVT and The Magic of Christmas at Brick Lane Music Hall.

Critical Week: On the nose

In a relatively slow week for press screenings, the biggest film shown to the press was Mortdecai, a zany romp starring Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor and Paul Bettany. Opinions are embargoed until Thursday (the movie opens on Friday). I also caught up with Michael Winterbottom's latest Italy-set film The Face of an Angel, a fictional exploration of the Meredith Kercher murder starring Daniel Bruhl, Kate Beckinsale and Cara Delevingne. It's an odd mix of moody drama, creepy mystery and dark emotions - interesting but not hugely satisfying.

Further off the beaten path, we had Alain Resnais' latest Alan Ayckbourn adaptation Life of Riley, a French-language Yorkshire-set comedy-drama shot on stage-like sets. All a bit mannered, but a fascinating exploration of barbed interaction. And there were two documentaries: Dior and I is an entertaining doc about Raf Simons' first show as Dior's creative director - both invoving and surprisingly moving because of the strong characters and powerful narrative. Maidan is rather more difficult, merely putting us right in the middle of the Ukrainian revolution in Kiev's central square - an outrageously sensual onslaught.

This coming week's films include a couple of movies I've been trying to catch up with for weeks: Stephen Daldry's Trash, Gregg Araki's White Bird in a Blizzard and Simon Helberg's We'll Never Have Paris. There's also Kevin Hart in The Wedding Ringer and the British indie Hinterland.

Critical Week: Through the dangerzone

Speed was the name of the game at press screenings this week, as critics boarded Disney's Planes, the spin-off from Pixar's Cars movies; Ron Howard's Formula One drama Rush, about the rivalry-respect between 1970s champs James Hunt and Niki Lauda; Johnny Depp's latest wacky sidekick in The Lone Ranger, which is bloated but more fun than expected; and Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in Michael Bay's Pain & Gain, an over-pumped comedy based on a true story of torture and murder (!).

Our pulses slowed a bit for the all-star sex-addiction comedy-drama Thanks for Sharing, with Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Gad, Tim Robbins and Alecia Moore (better known as Pink); the dark drama Ain't Them Bodies Saints, with Rooney Mara and Dane DeHaan; the warm, funny and extremely telling Saudi drama Wadjda; and two docs: the straightforward biographical Hawking and an exploration of privacy-erosion in Terms and Conditions May Apply. Finally, we were jolted back out of our seats by a horror double bill: Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in the demonic possession chiller The Conjuring, and a family under siege by masked killers in You're Next.

Coming up this week: Hugh Jackman is The Wolverine (again), those all-star retired killers are back for RED 2, Sandra Bullock teams with Melissa McCarthy for The Heat, there's more muscled men in skirts in Hammer of the Gods, Ulrich Seidl closes out his trilogy with Paradise: Hope, The Great Hip Hop Hoax documents Scots pretending to be American rappers, And we get a look at a reissued-remastered version of the 1981 epic Heaven's Gate.