Critical Week: Driving me crazy

Screenings continue to be a bit less frequent this time of year, although I somehow found plenty of movies to watch this week. Eddie Murphy is back in action-comedy mode, starring in The Pickup alongside Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer. Their banter is enjoyable even if the plot is almost ridiculously simplistic. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back for Freakier Friday, a hugely enjoyable 20-years-later body-swap comedy sequel. And there were two astonishingly grisly horror movies: Together stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple that's growing eerily close, while Weapons stars Julia Garner as a teacher whose students have mysteriously vanished. Both are stomach-churningly yucky in all the best ways, and both have serious subtext that holds the interest.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Young Hearts • Weapons
Stans • Freakier Friday
ALL REVIEWS >

In addition, there was the family adventure Sketch, about a teen whose drawings come to life and menace a small town. It's well-made and engaging. There were two films from France: The Musicians is an engaging and warmly understated comedy about a group of egotistic artists who form a historic quartet. And Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods is a nature documentary adaptation of the classic novel about a young deer growing up. It's beautifully shot, and openly emotive. I also watched Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (arrives on Apple TV on 15th August), which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a lifelong Peanuts fan, the line-art animation was particularly nice. And the catchy songs were fun too. I also attended a live performance of new absurdist comedy Lost Watches at Park Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses, Bob Odenkirk in Nobody 2, Orlando Bloom in The Cut, Matilda Lutz as Red Sonja, the animated comedy Fixed and the Chinese remake of Richard Linklater's Tape.

Fringe: BriTANicK - Huge Davies - Apricity

Yes, I'm back in Edinburgh for a week of the Fringe, watching lots of shows and enjoying the buzz of the city. Here are my first three, plus my cinematic Critical Week. Much more to come...

BriTANicK: Dummy

with Brian McElhaney, Nick Kocher

Pleasance Courtyard, Above • Fringe, 2024 ★★★★★

Even if they're big time writers and performers, Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher return to Edinburgh with a new show that turns their previous masterclass (Feb 2023 review) inside out and upside down. This is a staggeringly smart and funny concoction, sketch comedy that spirals and dovetails hilariously into an enormous meta-joke. So even if it kicks off in the usual formulation, with Brian as the nice-guy alongside outrageous and deeply wrong best pal Nick, things quickly begin to turn surreal.

The script begins to shift after Nick confesses his addiction to puppet porn. This show has a sponsor that sells things like "attention from your father 30 years ago", leading to a series of wildly inventive time-twisting gags that are peppered right to the end of the show. Along the way, they interact with the disembodied voice of their director Riley, who appears to be a toddler. And each scene plays on ideas of people being controlled by someone else in a variety of laugh-out-loud ways.

Expertly performed in a way that makes it feel improvised and surprising, the show is a terrific mix of stand-up, sketch comedy and slapstick clownery, with moments that are silly, dreamlike and sometimes rather dark. And where it goes is inspired, exploring ideas about ambition, nature and nurture in ways that are both amusing and sharply pointed. As all of the gags begin to collide in the final stretch, it's impossible not to feel like we've been played by experts. And it's also impossible to imagine quite what they will come up with next.

 details: BRITANIK • 8.Aug.24

Huge Davies: Album For My Ancestors (Dead)

Pleasance Courtyard, Upstairs • Fringe 2024 ★★★★

Quite possibly the most miserable comic at the Fringe, Huge Davies is so relentlessly bleak and tetchy that he keeps the audience in the palm of his hand, taking us through various goofy songs that spiral into raucous rants or demonic chants. He continually notes that this is the worst crowd he's ever played to ("Why aren't you clapping?"), moaning if even one person doesn't join in ("I feel like I'm doing all the work up here"). It's ridiculous, and very funny.

With a keyboard strapped to him, he plays the show as if everything is going wrong, from his tech guy Alec's missed cues to an issue with a section of the keyboard that plays bullet shots instead of notes. Songs range from an account of his poor childhood to a profane ditty about a hot tub and a number passed down through generations of ancestors about trying to maintain an empty seat next to him on the train. Each of these evoke pop culture references that have been warped through his own distinct worldview, often diving in a bit too deeply into big hot-potato topics.

Songs circle around family members, and Davies presents them with deadpan wit underscored with flickers of emotion. He draws knowingly on his Asian heritage throughout the show, noting pointedly that he's the only Asian in the room. "I thought white people would like this," he says about his Friends-based riff. And in the comments about his family, moving and resonant elements undercut the otherwise unhinged and downright abrasive flourishes. In the end we almost feel like we've been assaulted, and yet we leave with a smile.

details: HUGE DAVIES • 8.Aug.24

Apricity

by Casus Creations

Assembly George Square Gardens, Palais du Variété • Fringe 2024 ★★★★

Lyrical and expressive, Apricity is a mix of acrobatics and dance that's unusual because there are no "ta da!" moments; the performers never ask for applause, instead transitioning smoothly into their next piece. So this is a strikingly beautiful show that looks almost effortless but features jaw-dropping feats of strength and balance. And there's an emotional undercurrent created with moody music and open-handed facial expressions, which makes it absolutely magnetic. 

From Australia, this five-person crew features three women and two men of various sizes, but each of them lift others and are lifted themselves higher and higher until they literally touch the ceiling of the spiegeltent. Their fluidity is often astonishing as they transition inventively through whole series of moves without pausing, shifting weight from person to person imperceptibly to a create seamless whole made up of five very gifted parts. 

Along the way there are eye-catching aerial routines with a ring and a rope, a cheeky interaction with a hoop, some playful tumbling and a climactic piece in which they walk on lanterns before building increasingly high towers and throwing shapes atop them. It flows so smoothly that the audience applauds whenever we can, but most of the time we are almost hypnotised by the astounding strength and skill, all delivered with a sense of wonder that reminds us that these performers love what they do. And it's infectious. 

details: APRICITY • 9.Aug.24

For info, EDINBURGH FRINGE >

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

I only had two film screenings this week: the oddly conceived videogame action comedy Borderlands, with a great cast grappling with a ramshackle script, and the superbly uplifting true-life drama Radical with Eugenio Derbez. I also saw the colourful stage musical Frankie Goes to Bollywood and watched lots of FrightFest movies, which I'll cover when the festival is on at the end of the month. This coming week, I will watch Alien: Romulus in a cinema and more FrightFest movies, but mainly I'll be attending shows at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Critical Week: Watch the hands

Actual in-person screenings were back with a vengeance this week, after a recent slow stretch. And yes, it was great to settle into proper cinemas and screening rooms to watch movies on a big screen where they belong. Especially a film as visually astounding as Everything Everywhere All at Once, which stars Michelle Yeoh as a middle-aged woman thrown into parallel-reality craziness. Thankfully, the filmmakers remember that this is about real human emotions rather than wacky science. The big screen also helped with the lavishly designed Downton Abbey: A New Era, a return to the upstairs-downstairs drama with an enormous ensemble of likeable characters, each of whom somehow gets some good screen time. It's just what's expected, which is both comforting and a bit boring.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Casablanca Beats • Firebird
The Feast • Vortex
ALL REVIEWS >

Elsewhere, Mark Wahlberg tells the inspiring true tale of boxer-turned-priest Father Stu. There's only a slight rough edge to what should be a more complex story. Sophie Marceau is terrific in I Love America, a gentle comedy about a French filmmaker who moves to California. And the Moroccan drama Casablanca Beats bristles with life as a rapper teaches a group of lively, politically engaged students to create music.

A little further afield, Nick Cave lets the cameras watch as he and Warren Ellis create music in the gorgeously shot documentary This Much I Know to Be True. Robert Bresson's masterful 1959 morality tale Pickpocket gets a pristine big-screen restoration. And the documentary White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch just about makes sense of the clothing brand's horrible history of employment prejudice, while completely missing the point of why the clothes were so popular (and perhaps aren't so much now).

This coming week features another long weekend, and I'll also be watching a range of films including Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Irish coming-of-age drama The Quiet Girl, the Danish black comedy Wild Men, the chilean romance The Sea, the Iranian drama Atabai, and the Palestinian bombing doc Eleven Days in May.

London Film Fest: Strike a pose

Definitely feeling like a zombie today, needing more sleep and more time to write! But there are only four more days, so I'll try to hold on. The 63rd BFI London Film Festival is such a mind-boggling collection of films that it's impossible to see even half of them. In the queues today, we were chatting about the movies we are missing, even though we're desperate to catch them. But the scheduling makes it impossible (not enough press screenings, overlapping showtimes, etc). It's also fun to compare best and worst films we've seen so far. The bad ones are pretty common between us all, but everyone has a different favourite. My favourite so far is the first film listed here. And down at the bottom is this week's Critical Week...

Portrait of a Lady on Fire [Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu]
dir-scr Celine Sciamma; with Noemie Merlant, Adele Haenel 19/Fr *****
With a staggeringly astute screenplay and sharply observant direction, French filmmaker Celine Sciamma breathes inventive life into this period drama. She fills scenes to the brim with subtext, and not only mines her richly layered story for resonant themes but also creates complex characters the audience can fall in love with. So the film's otherworldly beauty becomes a provocative depiction of both art and romance.... FULL REVIEW >

Knives Out
dir-scr Rian Johnson; with Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas 19/US ****
A bit of silly good fun, this play on the whodunit genre has a fiendishly constructed script packed with clever twists and turns, plus an superb ensemble of nutty characters. Some elements are a bit too broad for their own good, but writer-director Rian Johnson makes a film that's consistently amusing as it keeps the audience on its toes and piles on one surprise after another. It also gently brushes on some topical themes just to keep it relevant... FULL REVIEW >

Greed
dir-scr Michael Winterbottom; with Steve Coogan, Isla Fisher19/UK ***
Steve Coogan and Michael Winterbottom team up for another comedy, although this one is a bit more deliberately pointed then their usual collaborations. Yes, there are still moments of inspired silliness dotted throughout the ambitiously fragmented narrative, and it's expertly played by a strong ensemble cast. Many actors bring their considerable improvisational skills to the screen, although with so many big issues as satirical targets, the film feels heavy handed.

Moffie
dir Oliver Hermanus; with Kai Luke Brummer, Ryan de Villiers 19/SA ****
Strikingly well-made, and carrying a devastating emotional kick, this South African drama tells a deeply personal story that has much wider implications. Writer-director Oliver Hermanus creates gorgeous-looking films, and this one is augmented by beautiful cinematography and clever editing. It gets deep under the skin of a nation still grappling with its past, and offers a remarkably resonant look at issues of racism and homophobia.

Links:
Shadows LONDON FILM FEST homepage (full reviews will be linked here) 
Official LONDON FILM FEST site 

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

I haven't seen any regular press screenings this past week - only 22 London Film Festival movies! This coming week, after the festival ends, it'll be time for Angelina Jolie back in horns for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Ken Loach's Sorry to Bother You, the political thriller Sons of Denmark and the doc Mystify: Michael Hutchence,