Critical Week: One last shot

Yes, UK critics saw another of the year's most anticipated films this week, the final instalment in the franchise: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. The A-list cast and Suzanne Collins' terrific source material continue to make this a superior series, with a epic-sized conclusion that's packed with strongly emotional moments in between the action mayhem. Jennifer Lawrence's usual costar Bradley Cooper leads the cast of the super-chef drama Burnt, which never quite sells either the story or the too-fancy food, but it's watchable enough.

Also this past week, we had a look at two prestige films going for awards-season attention: Tom McCarthy's Spotlight is a superb investigative drama about a news team (led byMark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton) looking into Boston's abusive priest scandal; Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies is a stately period thriller starring Tom Hanks as a negotiator navigating the tricky waters of Cold War Berlin.

At the other end of the spectrum, the nonsensical South African action movie Momentum stars a plucky Olga Kurylenko being chased by a scene-chomping James Purefoy. Somewhere in the middle, The Queen of Ireland is a fabulous, inspiring doc about Rory O'Neill and his iconic drag alter ego Panti Bliss; and the earthy, honest Mexican drama Velociraptor centres on two teens exploring their sexuality as the world is about to end.

I'll be in America over the next two weeks, so hope to catch up with several things that are out there but haven't screened here, including The Peanuts Movie, The 33, By the Sea, Love the Coopers and Secret in Their Eyes. We'll see how that goes! Watch this space...

Critical Week: Double trouble

Tom Hardy himself popped up at the press screening for his stylish and entertaining movie Legend, in which he delivers two astonishing performances as the Kray twins, who ran London's gangland in the 1960s. Ed Helms stars in Vacation, a next-generation sequel to the Chevy Chase comedies that's just as rude but more silly than edgy. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte star in the enjoyably earthy comedy A Walk in the Woods, based on the Bill Bryson book. Marcia Gay Harden heads to Costa Rica in the warm comedy-drama After Words, and has a life-altering encounter with a cheeky local. And Josh Hutcherson heads to Colombia in the realistic, gritty thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost, where he becomes entangled with the 1990s drug kingpin, played with disarming charm by Benicio Del Toro.

A little further afield, we had the sequel Sinister 2, which has an extreme embargo on it: until the day it opens. We also saw the beautifully made gentle Los Angeles drama Brahmin Bulls, with Sendhil Ramamurthy and Roshan Seth as father and son; actor-turned-filmmaker Craig Roberts' perhaps too audacious,but skilfully made British coming-of-age movie Just Jim; actor Steve Oram's even more experimental, and rather genius, sociological pastiche Aaaaaaaah!; the rather bleak but moving Australian homophobia drama Drown; and Dishonoured Bodies, a collection of nine somewhat preachy but very cleverly assembled experimental shorts by Spanish filmmaker Juanma Carillo.

This coming week we have the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, Zac Efron in We Are Your Friends, Kevin Costner in McFarland, Rupert Friend in Hitman: Agent 47 and M Night Shyamalan's The Visit.

Critical Week: Bump in the dark

London critics caught up this week with the freak-out sequel The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, set 40 years after the first film, so it has an all-new cast (including Jeremy Irvine and Helen McCrory) facing that eerie ghost at Eel Marsh House. Honestly, why would anyone ever go in there?

The biggest screening this week was for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, the thrilling third film in the series starring Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Elizabeth Banks and so on. It captures the book's intensely grim tone almost too well and is also a terrific exploration of the birth of a leader, setting things up for the more battle-intensive final part, a year from now. The only other starry movie this week was Tommy Lee Jones' The Homesman, a gruelling Wild West road movie in which he stars in alongside Hilary Swank and a number of superb A-list cameo players (Meryl Streep!). It's extremely straight-faced and rather bleak, but always involving.

Further afield there were four foreign films: essentially a filmed stage play, the drama Diplomacy chronicles the touchy negotiations between German and French officers at the end of WWII, hinging on terrific performances by Andre Dussolier and Niels Arestrup; also from France, Eastern Boys is an uneven but intriguing drama about the strange relationship between a businessman and a Ukrainian working the streets for money; from Switzerland, The Circle uses documentary and drama to reconstruct the relationship between two men in a rapidly closing free society; and Snails in the Rain is a darkly thoughtful but ultimately simple Israeli drama about a young man whose girlfriend notices that something is up.

This coming week, we have the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything, the Jim Carrey-Jeff Daniels sequel Dumb and Dumber To, the black comedy The Mule, the holiday comedy Home for Christmas, the Mexican drama Four Moons, the Roger Ebert doc Life Itself, and the French foreign-student doc School of Babel

Critical Week: The Quarter Quell

The big screening this past week for UK critics was, of course, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second chapter in the saga, which ramps up the stakes considerably with its beefier story, potent cast and bigger effects budget. We were all pretty stunned afterwards - in a good way. Jude Law stars in Dom Hemingway, an offbeat British crime comedy-drama that starts extremely well but takes a mopey turn about halfway in. And I also caught up with Dallas Buyers Club, starring a gaunt Matthew McConaughey in the true story of a man subverting government and pharmaceutical inaction during the 1980s Aids epidemic - an involving, important story.

Further afield, the Italian comedy Tell No One is a warm and engaging coming-out story, while the Aussie drama Monster Pies is a much darker teen drama that also grapples with sexuality issues. And there were two docs: the colourful, fascinating Exposed features full-on burlesque artists, while the clever This Ain't California fictionalises the real story of skaters rebelling against East German control.

Shadows is on holiday over the next two weeks, but I plan to see some films while I'm in America. On my to-see list are Oldboy, Frozen, The Book Thief and Charlie Countryman, and I am also working on possible awards-consideration screenings of things like American Hustle, August: Osage County and others. Watch this space for updates!

In the mean time, below are the Shadows covers for the next two weeks...

Critical Day: Hunger Games bootcamp

When you're invited to a special press day in the Capitol for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, you might be put off by a bootcamp programme that includes fashion, beauty and fitness. But there's also breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea in the schedule. And face it, you're in dire need of a day away from the computer screen. And today the Capitol is located in a swanky suite at the Soho Hotel in central London.

First thing you see when you walk in is a tiered tray of branded cupcakes surrounded by pastries - it's all very promising already. Cup of coffee in hand, you wander around looking for another male in the room (there are a precious few so you're not alone), then discover the Lionsgate press team Jess and Lorna dolled up like Effie with glammed-up faces, gigantic wigs and vertiginous heels. The pastries taste great until you start listening to the almost pathologically fit workout-wear designer to the stars talking about the high-tech outfits she made for the film (and for superfit clients like Madonna and Gwyneth). The brand is Lucas Hugh, and you know you could never afford any of it. But you want it anyway.

Continuing in fashion mode, you try on a range of bling and admire a range of wacky shoes and gowns in the style of Capitol City fashionistas. Nothing would ever fit you, because you're a full-sized man. And far from Effie or (wishful thinking) Finnick, you know that the Hunger Games character you most resemble is actually President Snow. The beauty section also includes a chance to have your face layered with glitter, but you pass on that because trays of lunch delicacies have arrived, and someone has replaced the looping Catching Fire trailer with the original Hunger Games movie, which we all become glued to like zombies. Because it's actually rather good.

After lunch it's fitness time, and we meet strength coach James, who explains that he will be putting 12 of us through our paces in a 12-week training programme leading up to a mock Hunger Games event right before the 11th November world premiere of Catching Fire in London. You are tempted to throw your hat in the ring. Even though James (below with Lorna) is obscenely healthy, he seems like a nice guy who wouldn't hurt you too much. 

When I ask whether anyone will actually die in these mock games, everyone laughs. But I sense a sinister tone in the air, as if there's a secret plan afoot to purge the ranks of London's film critic population. Well, The Independent on Sunday has just axed its entire arts critic line-up. Doom is in the air. I'd better get training....

Critical Week: Man in the mirror

Michael Shannon held our attention at the press screening of his new thriller The Iceman, based on the true story of a mob hitman - a gritty, punchy film with superior performances. The other big movies this week weren't quite as smart: Fast & Furious 6 is the polar extreme, with idiotic action that's enjoyable but starting to feel stale; the animated adventure Epic is visually amazing, with some terrific comical moments and action scenes but an uneven, simplistic tone; and The Moth Diaries is a suitably gothic and creepy drama set in an isolated girls' school that struggles to reach a decent payoff.

From off the beaten path came the Austrian fable The Wall, a kind of female Robinson Crusoe in the mountains story that is too literary for its own good. Blackfish and We're Not Broke are two extremely well-made docs that get our blood boiling about psychological cruelty to animals and corporate collusion with politicians, respectively. And Pasolini's 1968 masterpiece Theorem is a challenging, surreal exploration of class and culture starring a strikingly young and seductive Terence Stamp.

Coming this week is a very late press screening of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (it's timed to coincide with the opening night screening at Cannes), Emma Watson in The Bling Ring, Seth Rogen and James Franco in This Is the End, Robert Redford's political drama The Company You Keep and the comedy A Haunted House.

And no, I'm not going to Cannes, staying in rainy London instead...

EIFF 8: Staring at the sea

Straight from Cannes, the anthology film 7 Days in Havana beings the EIFF back to Cuba again, with segments from a series of top directors. And the Latino seaside theme continues in Chile's The Lifeguard - both films are covered below, along with the world premiere of Peter Strickland's new movie. Last night was the festial's elite party in Edinburgh Castle, to which mere mortal journalists aren't invited. I haven't heard anything about how it went, but it was nice to have a free evening since there are two parties tonight: a tango-themed concert for Future My Love and a later event for the anthology film The Fourth Dimention.

7 Days in Havana
dir Pablo Trapero, Benicio Del Toro, et al; with John Hutcherson, Emir Kusturica 12/Sp ***
There's plenty of colour and culture in this anthology, which could have been titled La Habana Te Amo, to match the similarly uneven Paris Je T'Aime and New York I Love You. It has moments of artistic inventiveness, but barely breaks the surface... FULL REVIEW

Berberian Sound Studio
dir Peter Strickland; with Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco 12/UK ****
Clever filmmaker Strickland (Katalin Varga) aims this film right at movie geeks, mixing comedy, drama and horror to tell the story of a tweedy British sound designer (Jones) who travels to a notorious Italian studio to mix the audio for a grisly 1970s schlock movie. The director insists that this is a serious historical drama, but the voice actors and sound artists all recognise it as a trashy romp about demonic witches. Intriguingly, Strickland only shows us the film within a film's title sequence, evoking the rest of it through a wonderfully detailed sound mix as we see how the audio track is assembled. This is often wickedly hilarious, not to mention an engaging look at analog sound assembly. Then things start to twist and turn, as the gruesome movie starts to merge with real life. Stunningly visual, the film is utterly mesmerising. Well, right up to the slightly unsatisfying coda.

The Lifeguard
dir Maite Alberdi; with Mauricio Rodriguez, Jean Pierre Palacios 11/Chl ****
From Chile, this sundrenched, sand-blown film chronicles a few days in the life of Mauricio, a lifeguard on a busy beach that has a fierce undercurrent. His philosophy is that preventing someone from getting into trouble is better than swimming to their rescue, so he uses his whistle liberally while never going into the water. This puts him at odds with Jean Pierre, the guard the next tower, who seems to do nothing all day long, waiting for someone to get into trouble. That's pretty much the plot of this film, which just follows Mauricio's interactions, including people asking stupid questions, trying to flout the rules, gossiping about each other and tormenting him about his dreadlocks. What makes it compelling viewing is the astounding cinematography, editing and sound mixing, which skilfully and artfully capture the tiniest details. And this includes getting far beneath Mauricio's skin.