Critical Week: Bump in the night

It's been the third heatwave of the summer already, and I've been seeking refuge in air conditioned cinemas. There have been a few big screenings this week. We had a properly blood-soaked screening of the super-violent Evil Dead Burn, which kind of sidesteps the franchise for some gory horror. The live-action remake of Moana, is exactly like the 2016 animated original, but it helps to have actors Catherine Laga'aia and Dwayne Johnson on screen. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Shoot the People
The Last One for the Road
ALL REVIEWS >

As for movies outside the mainstream, Willem Dafoe gets a fantastic lead role in the smart, funny, moving drama Late Fame, costarring a scene-stealing Greta Lee. Sean Bean menaces Mackenzie Foy in the atmospheric, wintry Western The Isolate Thief. Finn Whittrock confronts his past in the thoughtful drama Westhampton. Summer campers get very silly, but also find some deeper meaning in The Floaters. And the doc Shoot the People is a bracing look at the work of British photographer Misan Harriman. 

Meanwhile, I also finally caught up with the brightly lit, extremely creepy Backrooms, complete with the Everything Must Go extra footage. And I finally watched the superb doc Marty: Life Is Short, celebrating the extraordinary life and career of Martin Short. Finally, there was a live performance of a bold Spanish-produced take on Shakespeare's Richard III at the Cockpit.

Coming up this next rather busy week, I'll be watching Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, teen romance Heartstopper Forever, the biopic De Gaulle: Resistance, a film of Hadestown: The Musical, action thriller Son of the Soil, British romance A Year in London, Mexican drama Last First Time, the AI doc Synthetic Sincerity, the designer doc Brunello: The Gracious Visionary and a live performance of Blue Mist at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

Critical Week: Run for your life

The 69th London Film Festival kicked off last night, so things will be very busy over the next 10 days, with pretty much wall-to-wall screenings, meetings and parties. And already, first two days have been pretty glamorous. George Clooney, Adam Sandler and filmmaker Noah Baumbach turned up to present their new film Jay Kelly. It's a smart, witty and moving look at legacy, relationships and regret. And the opening night film on Wednesday was Rian Johnson's Knives Out whodunit Wake Up Dead Man, attended by the entire starry ensemble (see below). It's a wonderfully entertaining film, funny and spooky, with serious underlying themes too.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A House of Dynamite • Urchin
Roofman • I Swear • Plainclothes
ALL REVIEWS >

And then there was the heart-stopping A House of Dynamite, Kathryn Bigelow's smart, complex multistrand nuclear thriller starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez star in the musical remake of Kiss of the Spider Woman. The tone is a bit uneven, but the film is powerful. Hunter Doohan stars in The Wilderness, an outdoor experience drama that feels a bit overly pointed, but has a strong message. And from France, Souleymane's Story is a vividly honest exploration of the challenges facing a young asylum seeker over two momentous days. I also attended a live performance of Ghost Stories at the Peacock Theatre

Reviews of London Film Festival movies are linked to this page: SHADOWS @ LFF >

Films I'm watching this coming week at London Film Fest include Emma Stone in Bugonia, Bradley Cooper in Is This Thing On, Daniel Day-Lewis in Anemone, Julia Roberts in After the Hunt, Jessie Buckley in Hamnet, Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein, Brendan Fraser in Rental Family, Tessa Thompson in Hedda, Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams, . There's also a live performance of Theatre of Dreams at Sadler's Wells.

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