Critical Week: Don't even think about it, punk

As many of London's critics decamp to Venice for the next 10 days, I'm kind of wishing I was there again this year, but glad I can relax just a little. Although the month is pretty busy with screenings and theatre press nights. The summer blockbusters are behind us, and now we have the usual oddball mix of autumn movies. A bigger one this week was Denzel Washington's return to his vigilante character in The Equalizer 3, which is well made enough to be watchable, but it's still a celebration of brutality. Much higher brow was the festival favourite Past Lives, a simply gorgeous debut for writer-director Celine Song and one of the best films I've seen all year. Then somewhere in between we had Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, an entertaining 1930s-set British comedy based on a bonkers true story and starring Simon Pegg and Minnie Driver,

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The First Slam Dunk • Passages
Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia
Bobi Wine: The People's President
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More offbeat fare included Jennifer Reeder's stylised horror Perpetrator, which inventively explores femininity and gender issues with rather a lot of bloodletting. From Japan, The First Slam Dunk is flat-out one of the best films of the year, an animated basketball drama with great characters and thrilling action. From France, another terrific animated adventure in the lively, music-infused sequel Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia. And I also finally caught up with the 1945 British classic romcom I Know Where I'm Going, which was simply heaven to watch on a big screen. There were also lots of FrightFest films.

This coming week I'll be watching the sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, the Armenian drama Amerikatsi, the British doc A Life on the Farm, and the festival films Big Easy Queens and Summer Qamp.

Critical Week(s): Lights, camera, action!

I've rather enjoyed stepping out of my usual routine over the past month or so, with a long catch-up break visiting friends and family after two years, then two weeks of film festival capped by the all-night mayhem of this year's Oscar ceremony. Whether I'll return to my usual schedule is still up in the air, but I'm definitely re-thinking how I spend my time. For example, I was unable to attend the only press screening of Marvel's latest epic Morbius, and I was fine with that. It's the first one I've missed, and I feel that if the studio doesn't want me to see a movie, that's going to be OK from now on. This post is catching up on about two weeks of regular-release movies I watched between festival films... 

BEST NEW FILMS:
The Worst Person in the World
Poppy Field • Jump, Darling
Mothering Sunday • Down in Paris
PERHAPS AVOID:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
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The most starry of these films was The Bubble, which being a Judd Apatow movie is of course far too long for what it is: a comedy about making a movie during the pandemic. It has its moments, and the cast is up for it, but tighter editing and sharper writing never go amiss. Much more fun was The Lost City, a relentlessly silly romp in the jungle with Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe. On the other hand, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 merely honed in on the most irritating things about the likeable 2020 movie, so this one feels painfully unfunny and manages to waste Jim Carrey as well.

Further afield, Jennifer Reeder's offbeat horror Night's End is witty and very clever, creating a terrific sense of gnawing fear, plus some big jolts. Francois Ozon's expertly made French drama Everything Went Fine is based on a true story about dying with dignity, but manages to avoid politics for something more engagingly personal. The Shakespeare Sisters adapt William Shakespeare's iconic romance into the present-day comedy Much Ado, making the most of a low budget and talented cast. Antony Hickling's thoughtful odyssey Down in Paris is a fascinating night of earthy soul-searching. And the British horror comedy Followers finds a new way to use video-screen imagery to create tension, even if the film feels a bit thin.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching the blockbuster sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Jake Gyllenhaal in Ambulance, Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Dermot Mulroney in Agent Game, the French comedy Anais in Love, the Irish thriller You Are Not My Mother and the quirky biopic Aline.

31st Flare: Take 'em down

The British Film Institute's 31st Flare came to a festive conclusion last night with the international premiere of the closing film Signature Move (above) and the expected energetic party afterwards, with dancing long into the night. This is how all film festivals should be: great movies with audiences, journalists and filmmakers all mixing together at a series of enjoyable parties and special events. There are also of course ongoing discussions about whether there is still the need for LGBT-themed film festivals at all, but as long as bigotry and division exist even in supposedly accepting societies, they're vital. And it's nice to see that the films themselves are beginning to reflect a change - most of these are just movies about people getting on with their lives, and the fact that they may be gay or trans is a side note. I still have a bit of catching up to do, but here are some final highlights...

Signature Move
dir Jennifer Reeder; with Fawzia Mirza, Sari Sanchez 17/US ***.
With a sharp sense of humour and a gentle pace, this comedy is set in a multi-cultural corner of Chicago. Expanded from a short, the narrative is rather slight, but the characters are strong enough to hold the attention. And refreshingly, director Jennifer Reeder keeps the deeper themes gurgling strongly under the surface and resists preaching to the audience.

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
dir Jennifer M Kroot; with Armistead Maupin, Laura Linney 17/US ****
A lively and revealing documentary, this film weaves together details from the life and writings of the beloved storyteller who crushed stereotypes and taboos in 70s-80s San Francisco. Armistead Maupin's journey from the conservative South to perhaps overconfident gay icon is fascinating, and it's moving to see how his writings have inspired millions to stand up for themselves and live a more positive life.

Flare Shorts

I managed to catch up with only 10 shorts this year. The programmes are increasingly popular with the public, making it tricky to get a ticket. Highlights for me were: The Hares (dir Martin Rodriguez Redondo, 16/Por) is a subtly moving story about a young boy pushed by his father into going on a nighttime hunting trip; An Evening (dir Soren Green, 16/Den) is a beautifully shot, lightly observant exploration of the different reactions two teens have to a sexual encounter; Pria (dir Yudho Aditya, 16/Ina) is a bold look at Indonesia's entrenched culture, as a 16-year-old guy reluctantly prepares for his wedding; and Jamie (dir Christopher Manning, 16/UK) is a sharply well-played, understated odyssey about a young man who opens up to his inner feelings for the first time.