Critical Week: Play ball

I've been laying low this week, watching few films to recover after the glut of the London Film Festival (42 features in two weeks!). The final weekend of the festival featured a few movies that will be hitting cinemas over the coming months, including King Richard, starring Will Smith in a biopic about Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena. It's a crowd-pleasing movie, but would have been stronger if it was actually the sisters' story. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand lead a strong cast in Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, a retro-style Shakespeare movie that's bold and riveting, even if it's never surprising. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The French Dispatch Dune
The Harder They Fall
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Show
ALL REVIEWS >

Further from the beaten path, Memoria is a surreal Colombian odyssey by Thai filmmaker Apichat Weerasethakul starring Tilda Swinton. It looks and sounds amazing, never mind what it's about. From provocateur filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, Benedetta audaciously mixes religion with sexuality in the true story of a 17th century French nun. Dashcam is a riotously inventive London-set horror thriller as seen through a live-stream camera. Todd Haynes' doc The Velvet Underground traces the story of the iconic New York art scene band with an inventive mix of visuals and music. The terrific Mexican doc A Cop Movie blurs the lines between fact and fiction with its skilfully layered approach. And the British doc Rebel Dykes recounts the important story of 1980s queer activists with the energy and attitude they deserve.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter, the big-budget horror thriller Antlers, the British-Indian horror Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff, the vampire thriller Dead & Beautiful and the Turkish drama Love, Spells & All That.

LFF: If looks could kill

The 65th BFI London Film Festival came to an end tonight with the closing night gala screening of Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth. As always, I've enjoyed catching up with a lot of great films over the past month, and there are some I still need to chase in the coming months. Here are my favourites from this year's festival, and three more highlights...

RICH'S BEST OF THE FEST

• 
  BENEDICTION (Davies, UK)
• FLEE (Rasmussen, Den)
• THE POWER OF THE DOG (Campion, NZ)
• THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Anderson, US)
• A HERO (Farhadi, Irn)
• PLAYGROUND (Wandel, Bel)
• BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Jude, Rom)
• COMPARTMENT NO 6 (Kuosmanen, Fin)
• HIT THE ROAD (Panahi, Irn)
• MEMORIA (Weerasethakul, Col)

The Tragedy of Macbeth
dir-scr Joel Coen; with Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand 21/US ***.
Joel Coen takes a strikingly stylised approach to Shakespeare's Scottish play, shooting it in the style of a 1950s movie adaptation with grand-scaled stage sets and glowering black and white cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel. It looks spectacular, and the fine ensemble cast throw themselves fully into the dialog and action. Although the over-egged sound mix muffles their words, the emotionally energetic performances give the film several strong kicks... FULL REVIEW >

Wild Indian
dir-scr Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr; with Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer 21/US ****
As it grapples with issues of identity and justice, an ethereal tone engulfs this dark indigenous American drama. Drawing on his own Objiwe heritage, writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine add layers to characters and situations that force audience to engage on an especially intense level. It may get a bit melodramatic, but this is a sensitive, thoughtful film that has a lot to say in a short time.

Dashcam
dir Rob Savage; with Annie Hardy, Amar Chadha-Patel 21/UK ****
Shot as live-stream footage, this horror romp makes The Blair Witch Project look like it was made for the Hallmark Channel. With relentless action, raucous violence and a continuous stream of hilarious gags, this is another fantastic genre reinvention from Host filmmaker Rob Savage, who is clearly a flan of classic horror movies. This is hugely enjoyable filmmaking that delights in both shocking the audience and keeping us laughing.

All full reviews of festival films will be published as possible and linked at Shadows' LFF HOMEPAGE

Venezia74: Checking the line-up on Day 4

At the 74th Venice Film Festival, I scheduled today one film lighter to give me a bit of time to catch up on writing, and also hopefully to see a bit of the city. Well, the thunder and lightning prevented me from getting out, but I did catch up on my work. And it was nice not being around the venues all day, as they were heaving. Here's what I saw...

Suburbicon
dir George Clooney; with Matt Damon, Julianne Moore 17/US ****
On the surface, this is a 1950s-tinged noir thriller with comical overtones But it also has a pungent undercurrent of satirical social commentary, which isn't partiularly surprising for a team-up between George Clooney and the Coens. There are so many facets to this film that it can't help but keep us engaged, whether being gripped by the mystery, feeling challenged about the injustice or identifying with one young boy's rather horrific coming of age.

Reinventing Marvin [Marvin]
dir Anne Fontaine; with Finnegan Oldfield, Catherine Salee 17/Fr ****
The thoughtful story of a young artist's journey to self-expression, this film is sometimes brutally honest about the tension between what are known as provincial attitudes and so-called enlightened liberal sensibilities. The film may be in need of some judicial editing, but the material here is resonant and important. And it's also beautifully played by an intriguingly eclectic cast that includes Isabelle Huppert in a witty role as herself.

Martyr
dir-scr Mazen Khaled; with Carol Abboud, Hamza Mekdad 17/Leb ***
An experimental exploration of masculinity and male friendship, this Lebanese film is very tactile as it follows a young man over the course of a fateful day. While touching on some social issues, the main focus is on his friends, who remain by his side through a very detailed ordeal. There isn't much plot, and very little sense of character for the actors to work with, so it never quite resonates emotionally as it should. But it's darkly involving.