Critical Week: Follow that star

Even though this is a relatively quiet time in the cinematic calendar, with the odd blockbuster arriving in the run up to the Cannes Film Festival, I've had screenings every day and night this week. This has been a bit of a challenge with tube strikes in London, but I've found ways around them. The big movie this week was the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, starring his nephew Jaafar Jackson, who gives a stunningly physical performance (Juliano Valdi also deserves praise as the young Michael). The film is very smooth around the edges, with only the great Colman Domingo allowed to inject some dark complexity into his role.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Rose of Nevada
I Swear • Cherri
ALL REVIEWS >

This week's crowd-pleaser was the festival favourite Power Ballad, a new music-infused comedy-drama from Irish filmmaker John Carney (Once, Sing Street). It stars Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, and has a lot to say about generational music industry issues. It's also packed with great music. John Magaro is excellent in Omaha, a rather downbeat drama about a man who takes his two kids on a grim road trip across the American West. It's beautifully played, and has a strong emotional kick. 

Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen lead the Danish black comedy The Last Viking, as brothers who have repressed their past trauma in very different ways. It's another terrific reteaming with writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen. And Kazunari Ninomiya stars in the claustrophobic Japanese thriller Exit 8, as a man trying to get out of a maze-like metro station. It's utterly riveting and ripples with underlying ideas. I also caught two live dance performances: The Center Will Not Hold at Sadler's Wells and We Caliban at Sadler's Wells East.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching two films with Anne Hathaway: alongside Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and with Michaela Coel in Mother Mary. There's also The Last Spy,  a doc about 100-year-old CIA spymaster Peter Sichel. And I'll travel up to Stratford-upon-Avon for a live performance of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the RSC's Swan Theatre.

Critical Week: When the wine runs out

It's been another busy week for screenings, and this year's festival season kicked up a gear with the announcement of the programme at next month's 79th Cannes Film Festival. Already everyone is trying to work out who will feature in next year's awards season. Three of the films I watched this week featured terrific offbeat performances: Charli XCX leads the cast of the improvised romantic comedy Erupcja, which is set in Warsaw. It's rather uneven, but strikingly well shot and performed. Jude Law and Paul Dano are excellent in The Wizard of the Kremlin, Olivier Assayas' expertly crafted fictionalised biopic about Vladimir Putin. And John Magaro shines as legendary pianist Keith Jarrett in Koln 75, based on the true story of an 18-year-old promoter (played by rising star Mala Emde) who organised a groundbreaking concert.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Diamanti • Wasteman • Departures
The Wizard of the Kremlin
Rebuilding • Miroirs No 3
Eagles of the Republic
PERHAPS AVOID: Balls Up
ALL REVIEWS >

More in the mainstream, Mark Wahlberg  and Paul Walter Hauser star in the chucklehead comedy Balls Up, which has a sharp script thanks to Deadpool writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. But it's resolutely unfunny. Set in Manchester, the British romcom Finding Emily stars Spike Fearn and Angourie Rice. It's charming and funny and very predictable. Bob Odenkirk is back in action in Normal, which also sticks very closely to the formula but engages us with its quirkiness. The entertaining romantic melodrama Almost Us is a bit awkward, but nicely uses its setting in Phoenix's Black queer community. And the French comedy-drama Colours of Time is an entertaining and astute look at how history echoes in everyday life today. 

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, Paul Rudd in Power Ballad, John Magaro in Omaha, Mads Mikkelsen in The Last Viking and three live performances: The Center Will Not Hold at Sadler's Wells, We Caliban at Sadler's Wells East and Misconduct & Ladykiller at White Bear (Tube strikes notwithstanding).

On the Road: Like a rolling stone

I've just spent the last three weeks in Los Angeles where my priority was to spend time visiting friends and family around the Thanksgiving holiday. But of course I also couldn't help catching some films along the way, and I even got to attend a couple of terrific awards-season screenings. The nicest surprise was James Mangold's dazzling A Complete Unknown, starring an impressive Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan with terrific support from Edward Burns (as Pete Seger) and Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez). I also really enjoyed the powerful biopic Unstoppable, starring Jharrel Jerome as Anthony Robles and Jennifer Lopez as his mother Judy (we even got to meet Jharrel, Anthony, Jennifer and Judy after the emotional screening). And Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are excellent in the Halina Reijn's raw, complex drama Babygirl.

And then there was the animated sequel Moana 2, a crowd-pleaser that feels a bit simplistic compared to this year's much more innovative animated movies. That Christmas is another rather easy-going, unchallenging but enjoyable animated adventure. Further afield and far more ambitious, September 5 is a staggeringly well-made real-life thriller with Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro set at the Munich 1972 Olympics. Jack Huston's impressive directing debut Day of the Fight is an unusually personal boxing drama starring Michael Pitt. And Iranian exile Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a riveting dramatic thriller about a family straining against official morality.

And then there were the films I watched on the long flights. Colman Domingo is fantastic in the bracingly authentic prison drama Sing Sing. Tig Notaro's comedy Am I OK is packed with knowing observations and hilarious dialog. Dev Patel is astonishing as writer, director and star of the Indian action thriller Monkey Man. Channing Tatum goes evil for the darkly creepy Blink Twice. Zac Efron and John Cena team up for the rude but entertaining comedy Ricky Stanicky. And the documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero is refreshingly unfiltered as it explores the musician's explosion into the limelight.

This coming week I have more films to catch up with for awards voting, and also some that are coming to cinemas this month, including Jude Law in The Order, Tilda Swinton in The End, the animated epic The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Kerry Washington in The Six Triple Eight, Ralph Fiennes in The Return, Jared Harris in Reawakening, the Hong Kong comedy Love Lies, the comedy sequel Heavier Trip and the French epic The Count of Monte Cristo ... as time allows.

Critical Week: Under pressure

It's been another lightish week film-wise, and we have three big weekends up ahead. First is the May Day holiday, followed by the three-day Coronation weekend, and then there's Eurovision, which Liverpool is hosting on Ukraine's behalf. Meanwhile, I've been watching movies and writing about them this week. Filmmaker Ari Aster is back with Beau Is Afraid, an unhinged three-hour odyssey starring an astonishing Joaquin Phoenix. It's ambitious, indulgent and fairly impenetrable, and its packed with moments of genius. Big George Foreman is a by-the-numbers biopic about the great boxer. Its sanitised, anecdotal, relentlessly inspiring approach is frustrating, but Foreman's story is riveting. And Khris Davis is solid in the demanding role.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Eight Mountains
Love According to Dalva
Little Richard: I Am Everything
ALL REVIEWS >

And then there's Last Sentinel, a nicely contained thriller set in 2063 on an isolated outpost where Kate Bosworth and three men grapple with paranoia and other dangers. It's engaging but a bit thin. From Greece, the drama Broadway looks great, and has a fascinating premise that involves quirky outcasts surviving with a performance art/crime scam. But it's superficial and aimless. For contrast, there was dancer-choreographer Siobhan Davies' mesmerising autobiographical film Transparent, which screened at the Lillian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells, followed by a terrific Q&A with Davies. Also at Sadler's Wells, I covered this spring's stunning performance by the exceptionally talented Nederlands Dans Theater.

This next week, aside from enjoying some downtime over the three-day weekend, I'll be watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Jim Parsons in Spoiler Alert, the small-town comedy-drama 5-25-77, Irish drama Lakelands, French drama Mother and Son and Tunisian drama Harka. And there's also the stage show Supernova at the Clapham Omnibus (review here soon).