Critical Week: Up to no good

With the distraction of the Paris Olympics on television, and the fact that they're so close we can almost touch them from London, it's easy to lose sight of the movies screening in nice, cool cinemas. But there's a steady stream of releases, and I'm trying to keep up for the moment while anticipating a drastic change in my daily routine over the next few months. The biggest filmI saw this week was The Instigators, a reunion for Matt Damon with both Casey Affleck and director Doug Liman. It's an enjoyably scrappy action comedy with sharp character touches. The cheeky animated adventure Ozi: Voice of the Forest has a starry voice cast that includes Laura Dern, Amandla Stenberg, Djimon Hounsou and the late Donald Sutherland. This helps make up for a sometimes awkward, preachy script. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Kensuke's Kingdom
A Story of Bones • Kneecap
ALL REVIEWS >

Abbie Cornish elevates the low-budget psychological thriller Detained, which is twisty but undercooked. Robin Campillo's 1970s Madagascar coming-of-age drama Red Island is gorgeous to look at, and powerfully involving as it tackles personal and political issues. The British drama Sebastian is an intimate, moving profile of a writer who becomes an escort for research, then has to rediscover himself. The Chinese noir-style thriller Only the River Flows weaves wit and visual style into a darkly resonant odyssey. And the Saint Helena doc A Story of Bones packs a powerfully resonant kick in its exploration of the importance of remembering difficult history. I also saw Jamie Allan's stage magic show Amaze, and published a roundup of TV reviews for the summer, including The Bear, Shogun, The Boys, The Acolyte, Fallout, The Curse and more.

This coming week I'll be watching Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis in Borderlands, Eugenio Derbez in Radical and a whole bunch of films that will be showing at London's FrightFest later in the month. I'm also heading up to Edinburgh for a week to cover the Fringe theatre festival, which I'll be covering here.

The Best of 2022: 42nd Shadows Awards

After the first few months of trailing pandemic chaos, 2022 felt much more normal for film critics, as we saw most major releases on the big screen. Oddly, the same can't be said for audiences, who seem happy to watch movies at home now, reserving cinemas for event blockbusters only. The ripple effects on the industry are already beginning to be felt, and it's scary to think that fewer and fewer truly inventive films will be able to be seen in theatres. No home cinema will ever replicate the feeling of watching something with a crowd immersed together in projection and sound.

So here are my favourites from 2022, a mixed bunch that I saw in cinemas, at home, at festivals and even on airplanes. Much more extensive lists are ON THE WEBSITE >

BEST FILM:

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once 
2. No Bears
3. The Quiet Girl 
4. The Inspection 
5. The Banshees of Inisherin 
6. Living
7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
8. Decision to Leave 
9. She Said 
10. Elvis 

DIRECTOR:

1. Park Chan-wook - Decision to Leave
2. Romain Gavras - Athena
3. Charlotte Wells - Aftersun
4. Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once
5. Sarah Polley - Women Talking
6. Iryna Tsilyk - Rock. Paper. Grenade.
7. Baz Luhrmann - Elvis
8. Georgia Oakley - Blue Jean
9. Maryna Er Gorbach - Klondike
10. Lila Neugebauer - Causeway

SCREENWRITER:

1. Kazuo Ishiguro - Living
2. Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Jafar Panahi - No Bears
4. Marie Kreutzer - Corsage
5. Sarah Polley - Women Talking
6. Elegance Bratton - The Inspection
7. Rian Johnson - Glass Onion
8. Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All at Once
9. Dimitrij Schaad, Alex Schaad - Skin Deep
10. Lena Dunham - Sharp Stick, Catherine Called Birdy

ACTRESS:

1. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. Letitia Wright - Aisha, The Silent Twins, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
3. Ana de Armas - Blonde, Deep Water, ​​The Gray Man
4. Catherine Clinch - The Quiet Girl
5. Penelope Cruz - Official Competition, Immensity, On the Fringe, The 355
6. Cate Blanchett - Tár
7. Danielle Deadwyler - Till
8. Florence Pugh - The Wonder, Don't Worry Darling
9. Zar Amir Ebrahimi - Holy Spider
10. Jessie Buckley - Men, Women Talking

ACTOR:

1. Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin, After Yang, The Batman
2. Bill Nighy - Living
3. Jeremy Pope - The Inspection
4. Paul Mescal - Aftersun
5. Mehdi Bajestani - Holy Spider
6. Brian Tyree Henry - Causeway, Bullet Train
7. Park Hae-il - Decision to Leave
8. Oleksandr Yatsentyuk - Pamfir
9. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
10. Austin Butler - Elvis

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1. Hong Chau - The Whale, The Menu
2. Samantha Morton - The Whale, She Said
3. Nina Hoss - Tár
4. Dolly De Leon - Triangle of Sadness
5. Frankie Corio - Aftersun
6. Gabrielle Union - The Inspection
7. Judy Davis - Nitram
8. Kiyohiko Shibukawa - Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
9. Lashana Lynch - The Woman King, Matilda the Musical
10. Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All at Once, Halloween Ends

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1. Diego Calva - Babylon
2. Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Ben Whishaw - Women Talking
5. Andrew Bennett - The Quiet Girl
6. John Boyega - The Woman King
7. Anthony Bajon - Athena
8. Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
9. Russell Harvard - Causeway
10. Thomas Wodianka - Skin Deep

WORST FILM:

1. Samaritan
2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
3. Padre Pio
4. Dear Zoe
5. Where the Crawdads Sing 
6. The 355 
7. The Bubble
8. Moonfall
9. Mr Malcolm's List
10. Death on the Nile 

N O N - F I L M   D I V I S I O N

TV SERIES:

1. This Is Going to Hurt (BBC)
2. Heartstopper (Netflix)
3. The White Lotus (HBO)
4. Derry Girls (C4)
5. Hacks (HBO)
6. Welcome to Chippendales (Hulu)
7. Acapulco (Apple)
8. Ozark (Netflix)
9. His Dark Materials (BBC)
10. The Great (Hulu)

SINGLE:

1. Break My Soul - Beyoncé
2. Firebabe - Stormzy
3. Boyfriend - Dove Cameron
4. About Damn Time - Lizzo
5. Child of God - Chance the Rapper
6. Lift Me Up - Rihanna
7. Overthinking - Mabel & 24kGoldn
8. Oh My God - Adele
9. Bam Bam - Camila Cabello & Ed Sheeran
10. Psycho - Anne-Marie & Aitch