Critical Week: All for one

I've spent the past three weeks in California with my parents, and moviegoing wasn't at the top of the list for things to do. Now back in London, I need to do rather a lot of catching up. This is especially true for TV series, as ballots are due in about 10 days for the Dorian TV Awards. And time is complicated by the arrival of a new film festival in London next week, as SXSW takes over the slot was previously occupied by Sundance London for the past 11 years. As for this past week, I basically got off the plane, took a power nap and then headed to a press screening of Karate Kid: Legends, an enjoyable bit of formulaic entertainment that teams up Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio with newcomer Ben Wang (above).

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Tornado • The Salt Path
The Phoenician Scheme
The Astronaut Lovers
ALL REVIEWS >

The only film I watched in the US was the big one, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, in which Tom Cruise once again impresses us with his stunt skills (plus some acting too) in a story that's a bit heavy on exposition. But it's still a must-see on a large screen. Disney's live-action remake of the animated classic Lilo & Stitch is enjoyably energetic but less anarchic than before. 

Wes Anderson is back with another stylised comedy, the star-packed The Phoenician Scheme, which is a lot of fun even if the plot begins to feel a bit dense. Jesse Armstrong's pointed comedy Mountainhead stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef as tech billionaires. It's talky and rather uneven, but also entertaining and astute. And from Australia, Dangerous Animals is an enjoyably nasty twist on the shark-attack thriller, with Jai Courtney as a deranged killer who uses his victims as bait. Genre fans will love it.

This coming week I'll be watching Ana de Armas in the John Wick spinoff Ballerina and Andrew Rannells in I Don't Understand You, catching up with Natalie Portman and John Krasinski in Fountain of Youth, and attending the first SXSW London film festival.

Critical Week: You look marvellous

After a few days in France, I'm back in action in London, with a mercifully relaxed screening schedule for a change. Raindance Film Festival started here this week, but I'm observing that from a distance this year. Meanwhile, it looks like we're finally in line for some summery weather, so I hope to get out a bit more too! As for the films I've watched, easily the most unforgettable was the Cannes sensation The Substance, which stars Demi Moore as an actor in search of eternal youth in the most nightmarish road imaginable. It's unflinching, crazy and rather brilliant. Russell Crowe is back in demonic mode for The Exorcism, an oddly unscary horror movie that never takes advantage of its witty film-within-a-film premise. And the animated adventure The Imaginary is gloriously hand-drawn, with a wonderfully involving, emotional story, even if it feels a bit old fashioned.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Green Border • Kinds of Kindness
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Exorcism
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I also watched the Aussie war drama Before Dawn, which stars Levi Miller as a young guy who travels from the sunny Outback to muddy World War I France. It's skilfully well-made, but not particularly inventive. From Canada, Queen Tut is a hugely involving and strikingly well-played drama about a young guy from Egypt who finds his voice through Toronto drag queens. And Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash'at put his life on the line to make the stunning doc Hollywoodgate, in which he observes Taliban leaders taking back power. It's unmissable. I also spent a few days at the Annecy Film Festival, where I spent time with the creative team who are making The Wild Robot (MY REPORT IS HERE), and I managed to see two films in my "spare" time...

Rock Bottom
dir-scr Maria Trenor; prd Alba Sotorra 24/Sp  ***.
A Spanish-Polish coproduction in English, this animated musical drama is based on the life of singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt and his partner Alfreda Benge. It's animated in a hand-drawn style using rotoscoped movement from actors, which gives it an eerie real-world feel even as things get rather psychedelic. The story traverses from a drug-infused party in early 1970s Manhattan back to swimming naked amid the rocks around Majorca, hinging on a momentous moment that completely changed Wyatt's life. Writer-director Maria Trenor creates a lovely music-infused vibe that pulls us in, augmented by vivid visual flourishes that are often dazzlingly colourful and imaginative.

The Birth of Kitarō: The Mystery of GeGeGe
dir Go Koga; voices Toshihiko Seki, Hidenobu Kiuchi 23/Jpn ***
Based on the darkly fantastical manga, this prequel story tells a bizarre story set in the 1950s as a businessman heads to a strange isolated village to settle a complex issue, but finds himself in the middle of a wildly bonkers mystery involving supernatural beings. While the animation is artfully rendered with a staggering attention to detail, the story is tricky to follow for the uninitiated, and things move so briskly, with so many colourful characters and inexplicable goings-on that it's not easy to keep up. Fans on the other hand will love the complexity of the storytelling, especially as it tackles some big social issues in rather bleakly inventive ways.

This coming week I'll be watching Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One, Julianne Nicholson in Janet Planet, the Indian action thriller Kill, and the art film Dance Revolutionaries, plus the stage show Standing in the Shadows of Giants. I also have a lot of TV to catch up on before Dorian Awards ballots are due on Monday.

Critical Week: Keep an eye out

Battling an eight-hour jetlag from Seoul, I dove straight back into action with screenings and deadlines here in London. It'll take awhile before I feel normal, but I'm getting there. And it's nice to have some intriguing films to fill the space between blockbusters. For example, Shortcomings is a terrific comedy with a superb Asian-American perspective, starring Justin H Lin and Sherry Cola as friends grappling with their own flaws as they seek romance. And then there's Tom Cruise's seventh franchise entry Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, a thunderously entertaining action thriller that holds the attention for nearly three hours with epic stuntwork and a knotted if absurd plot. From Germany, the drama Afire astutely explores the artistic sensibility in an offbeat tale set in a holiday home next to a forest on fire. And from Belgium, Easy Tiger is an almost silent drama about a man trying to work out his own nature.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Damned Don't Cry
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning
Afire • Amanda
Name Me Lawand • Easy Tiger
ALL REVIEWS >

I saw five films on four flights halfway around the world: Return to Seoul is a gorgeous drama about a Korean-American girl trying to come to grips with her ethnic identity; Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson team up for the corny but enjoyable action comedy The Man From Toronto; Adam Driver finds himself in Earth's distant past in the derivative but enjoyable dinosaur thriller 65; a Spanish water polo team battles trite internal rivalries as they head to a rousing gold-medal Olympic match in The Final Game; plus a revisit to a favourite musical Hairspray. Back in London, I also attended the lively press night for Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing.

Coming up this next week are Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig's Barbie, Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus in You Hurt My Feelings, Greta Lee in Joy Ride, the thriller The Dive and the docs Kokomo City and Bobi Wine: The People's President. I'll also attend a couple of events at Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival (reviews here soon).

Critical Week: Old friends

As the weather finally broke, giving us relief from this relentless heatwave, screenings this week for London-based critics were led by Christopher Robin, which was a nice surprise: a sensitive live-action Winnie-the-Pooh sequel starring Ewan McGregor. Although it might be a little slow for children. Much livelier but not nearly as engaging, The Festival has a bright young cast and superb real-world setting, but the story is thin and the jokes simply aren't funny. Featuring an even starrier young cast, including Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton and Jeremy Irvine, Billionaire Boys Club is a slick money-based thriller that feels eerily over-familiar.

A little further afield, there was the superb Irish thriller Black '47, set during the devastating 19th century potato famine and featuring terrific characters in a riveting story. David Tennant chomps on the scenery as a killer in Bad Samaritan, a nasty little thriller with very little in the way of subtext. We the Animals is a simply stunning coming-of-age drama, gorgeously shot and played on every level. And Memoirs of War is a wrenching, slow-burn WWII epic starring Melanie Thierry as author-filmmaker Marguerite Duras.

Still further off the beaten path, Redcon-1 is a crazed British zombie apocalypse adventure that makes very little sense on any level. From Norway, Revenge is a, well, revenge thriller that's insinuating and involving as its story twists and turns. The sensitive German drama Paths traces the dissolution of a long-term relationship in a quietly meaningful way. And the documentary Nureyev is perhaps a little too ambitious for its own good, with a lot going on with the imagery, sound and voiceovers, but a too-"official" narrative.

This coming week we have Idris Elba's directing debut Yardie, Australian thriller I Am Vengeance, acclaimed Italian drama Dogman, the German thriller The Year I Lost My Mind and three documentaries: Hot to Trot about ballroom dancing, Gun No 6 tracing the life of a firearm and the, ahem, self-explanatory American Circumcision.

Requisite Blog Photo: Enjoying the sunshine