Critical Week: A star is born

As we approach Oscar weekend, there is always a flurry of activity in trying to predict the possible winners. And it's great that this year's race seems much more up in the air than usual. So I'm rooting for some surprises (and I'll post predictions as usual on Saturday). Meanwhile, there have been more new movies to watch, including the finely produced British biopic Mr Burton, which recounts the early days of Richard Burton (played by Harry Lawtey, above) and his English teacher mentor Philip Burton (Toby Jones). Another British true story is set off the Scottish coast: Last Breath is a taut thriller adaptation of the nailbiting 2019 documentary about deep-sea divers (Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole) caught in a terrifying situation. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Last Showgirl • Chang'An
The Summer With Carmen
My Dead Friend Zoe
Superboys of Maleagon
ALL REVIEWS >

Taking on the finale of Homer's Odyssey (and perhaps offering a preview for Christopher Nolan's forthcoming epic), The Return stars Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, arriving home in Ithaca to find chaos presided over by his faithful wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche). It's rivetingly played and a bit stagey. One of Them Days is a very silly but strongly engaging comedy starring Keke Palmer and SZA as best pals on a momentous day in their Los Angeles neighbourhood. Bruno Dumont's The Empire is a wacky alien invasion thriller disguised as an edgy social satire, set in an offbeat French seaside village. And the Georgian drama April follows a doctor on her illicit rounds with audacious visual and thematic style and bizarrely indulgent flourishes.

This coming week I'll be watching Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, John Lithgow in The Rule of Jenny Pen, Bruce LaBruce's new film The Visitor, the drama Throuple, the animated adventure Giants of La Mancha and the documentary Riefenstahl.

Critical Week: It's party season

December is here and festive gatherings have started to pop up, a nicely warming alternative to cold, damp winter nights. I'm still catching up on movies, seeing things for various awards voting deadlines. Nominees start coming in next week. This past week's films included Daniel Levy's warm-hearted Good Grief, an uneven comedy-drama that has some strong things to say about grief (above: Himesh Patel, Levy, Jamael Westman and Ruth Negga). Pierce Brosnan loses none of his charm as a grizzled fixer in Fast Charlie, a predictable crime thriller that's surprisingly engaging.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Poor Things • Wonka
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
The Boy and the Heron
Origin • The Peasants
ALL REVIEWS >

Higher brow films included George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat, which recounts a wonderful true story in an oddly bland way. Ava DuVernay's Origin tackles a massive issue with an involving story and perhaps too much to think about. Kelly Reicherdt reunites with Michelle Williams for Showing Up, a loose but observant comedy about the art world. Juliette Binoche cooks up a storm in the French period drama The Taste of Things, which is overlong and far too mouthwatering. Trace Lysette is magnetic in Monica, a tough and moving drama about a mother and daughter. From Poland, The Peasants is an superb historical drama with a strong kick, animated using oil paintings. And I also saw three live on-stage performances: Lunar Halo at Sadler's Wells, Tossed at Royal Vauxhall Tavern and Gary Starr Performs Everything at Southwark Playhouse.

Movies this week include Jodie Comer in The End We Start From, Eva Longoria's Flamin' Hot, Michael Winterbottom's Shoshana, the Turkish drama The Teachers' Lounge and more that need catching before the next voting deadline.

BFI Flare: Take a shot

The 37th edition of BFI Flare holds its closing night film and party tonight, with tomorrow set aside for screenings of the best LGBTQIA+ films of both the festival and the past year. So I'll have a final report to wrap things up - including short films and my personal favourites. I had hoped to include a report on the festival's new Expanded programme of virtual reality projects, but it was only open for three days and was seriously overcrowded. So while I still have a few features and shorts to watch, here's another offbeat collection of highlights...

Golden Delicious
dir Jason Karman; with Cardi Wong, Chris Carson 22/Can ****
Warm and engaging, this Canadian comedy-drama uses strongly sympathetic characters to encourage the audience to explore big issues relating to family and societal expectations. Asian ethnicity and queer sexuality play a role in the various story threads, which remain resonant even when things get a bit melodramatic in the final act. Throughout the film, director Jason Karman maintains a wonderfully light touch, and the gifted, fresh-faced cast members are easy to root for.

Winter Boy [Le Lycéen]
dir-scr Christophe Honore; with Paul Kircher, Juliette Binoche 22/Fr ***
French filmmaker Christophe Honore tells another remarkably intimate story, once again weaving in autobiographical elements that add a powerfully detailed emotionality to the unfolding drama. While the film is overlong and occasionally feels meandering, it has real strength in the way it recounts events from a teen's specific perspective. This offers conflicting thoughts and feelings that force the audience to get involved. And the cast is wonderfully engaging.

Afeminadas [aka: Effeminate]
dir-scr Wesley Gondim; with Igor Willian, Khryz Amusa 22/Br ***.
Compiled from remarkably raw footage, this documentary visits five people around Brazil to explore the experiences of effeminate gay men. While all have their sexuality in common, what's most striking here is that each has such a distinct persona, expressing their thoughts and feelings both in unstructured interviews for the cameras and on-stage as performers on lively stages. The film is infused with life and colour, and it also completely strips away the artifice.

Fierce: A Porn Revolution [Ardente-x-s]
dir Patrick Muroni; with Melanie Boss, Olivia Schenker 22/Swi ***
While this documentary takes on an important topic and is beautifully shot, it never quite seems to get to the story the filmmakers are trying to tell. There's definitely a need for a female gaze in the porn industry, and the Oil collective in Switzerland has developed some clever ways to approach the issue. But the skilled camera crew follows them right off the topic, so the documentary leaves these lively, intelligent women looking like they're merely indulgent. But at least they're having a lot of fun.

BEST OF YEAR
Bodies Bodies Bodies
dir Halina Reijn; with Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova 22/US ****
Gleefully mashing-up genres, this riotous black comedy takes the form of a slasher horror movie, and it's also packed with slapstick mayhem, interpersonal tension and social commentary. It's expertly assembled by the filmmakers and a seriously up-for-it cast to freak us out and make us laugh. But even more intriguing is that the movie pushes us to think about the nature of relationships for today's generation of young people... FULL REVIEW >

FROM THE ARCHIVE
Le Beau Mec [aka: Dude]
dir Wallace Potts; with Karl Forest, Frank Chazal, Philippe Renaud 79/Fr ****
Thought to be a lost film, this vintage French arthouse pornography has been digitally restored, complete with its English overdub narration. Directed by Wallace Potts, Rudolf Nureyev's last lover, it's a sharply well-made movie with eye-catching visual style and some remarkably dark themes. While it's very explicit, the film is also quirky and unexpected, with a range of sequences that catch the viewer by surprise. And it has an unusually personal perspective to even its sexiest moments.

Critical Week: Let's talk about love

Screenings are few and far between at the moment, with most smaller releases running scared from the single big movie that's either coming out this week or is still dominating the box office. But there are still some good things out there - both in cinemas and on streaming services - even as the blockbusters have been merely ok so far this summer. One of the most endearing films of the year is Billy Porter's comedy-drama Anything's Possible, a teen romance that's packed with heart and just enough realistic edge. And the newcomer leads, Eva Reign and Abubakr Ali (above), are terrific. Meanwhile, this week's big release is the animated DC League of Super-Pets, a comically entertaining adventure packed with genuinely smart gags delivered by a scene-stealing vocal cast, even if the superhero formula feels as stale as ever.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Hit the Road • Sharp Stick
Ali & Ava • Hypochondriac
ALL REVIEWS >

More intriguing was The Score, an inventive genre mashup starring the terrific Will Poulter, Naomi Ackie and Johnny Flynn that features romance, comedy, violence and musical numbers. Juliette Binoche stars in master filmmaker Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade, a boldly complex French drama about relationships and regret. And the horror thriller Hypochondriac finds some original, and deeply unsettling, things to say about mental illness while properly freaking us out.

Screenings remain thin next week, but I'll be watching Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, Charlotte Rampling in Juniper, the Predator spin-off Prey, the animated adventure Luck and the refugee doc Fadia's Tree.

Critical Week: Monumental

Screenings have been a bit slow in London during the Cannes Film Festival, so it's perhaps appropriate that I saw two French films this week. Romain Duris plays the eponymous tower-building character in the biopic Eiffel, which injects Hollywood-style melodramatic romance into a fascinating story. And Juliette Binoche is wonderful as always in Between Two Worlds, an earthy doc-style drama about a journalist who joins a community of very low-paid workers.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Luzzu • Cop Secret
The Perfect David • 18½
ALL REVIEWS >

There was also the offbeat Watergate thriller 18½, about two people who discover a copy of that "accidentally erased" tape. It's witty and very clever. And from China, Boonie Bears: Back to Earth is the eighth movie in a 10-year franchise, but only the first to get a UK release. It's a strikingly well-animated romp involving bears and aliens, with some terrific action set pieces and a surprisingly big story too. I also caught up with these two recent streaming releases...

Senior Year
dir Alex Hardcastle; scr Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, Brandon Scott Jones 
with Rebel Wilson, Sam Richardson, Angourie Rice, Mary Holland, Zoe Chao, Justin Hartley, Chris Parnell, Jade Bender
22/US Paramount 1h51 ***
Refreshingly, this comedy never aspires to be anything more than a goofy romp that keeps us smiling and occasionally laughing. Slick and bouncy, the film's chirpy attitude makes up for a string of cheap jokes and a lack of anything substantial under the surface. The story centres on Stephanie (Wilson), who has just woken up after 20 years in a coma following a cheerleading accident. Now at 37, she wants to finish high school, again as head cheerleader and this time as prom queen. There are the obvious gags about about how the world has changed since Stephanie's heyday, including of course mobile phones, social media and Lady Gaga. Her best friend (Holland) is now the principal, the boy (Hartley) she loved is married to her nemesis (Chao), and the friend (Richardson) who had a secret crush on her is for some reason the school librarian. It's annoying that the writers never dig any deeper, because there's scope for a more layered comedy here. Instead they fall back on simplistic plotting, buckets of sentimentality and oddly vague nostalgia. But because the movie is so happily superficial, it just about does the trick as mindless entertainment.

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers
dir Akiva Schaffer; scr Dan Gregor, Doug Mand
with Andy Samberg, John Mulaney, Will Arnett, KiKi Layne, JK Simmons, Seth Rogen, Keegan-Michael Key, Eric Bana, Dennis Haysbert, Tress MacNeille
22/US Disney 1h37 ***.
Intriguing reviews made me want to check out this new take on the iconic Disney chipmunks, set in a world where cartoon characters live alongside live-action people. Filled to the brim with cameos, it's a meta-comedy about the movie business. Years after their act broke up, Chip and Dale (voiced by Mulaney and Samberg) have gone their separate ways. Chip is selling insurance, while Dale has had "CGI surgery" and wants to reteam with Chip for a reboot of their 30-year-old hit TV show. Along with wildly inventive effects, witty sight gags and a surprisingly strong mystery plot involving bootleg cartoon characters, the film is a steady stream of hilarious pop culture references. There's even a trip to Uncanny Alley, where everyone has those creepy "Polar Express eyes". A deeply irreverent attitude infuses this film, which makes the barrage of gags unusually sharp and surprising, and the action sometimes feels thrilling too. But it's the character details that make this riotous romp unusually involving. 

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Things remain a bit quieter than usual next week as far as screenings go, but I have one rather big film, Baz Luhrmann's epic biopic Elvis, plus a few to watch at home, including the award-winning Italian drama Il Buco, the burlesque doc Baloney, the comical doc A Sexplanation and the shorts collection The Male Gaze: Fleeting Glances.

Critical Week: Just walk away

Lockdown continues in London, as I try to keep my eye on new films that are available on streaming platforms. It's been a very mixed bag this week, with the bigger titles more disappointing than some smaller gems. The main frustration at the moment is that there's nothing else to do but watch a movie, which for me is work. So sometimes I dip into a TV series, and I try to take a walk outside every day or two just to keep my legs from locking up. The weather has improved dramatically this week, so it's not very easy to stay in, especially when movies aren't terribly inspiring.

The Netflix action comedy Coffee & Kareem looked promising, but just never comes together at all, despite valiant efforts from Ed Helms and Terrence Little Gardenhigh (above), plus Taraji P Henson. Universal made the bold decision to release the sequel Trolls World Tour straight to streaming, while all other big releases are being delayed. But the film is perfect for watching at home - less inventive than the first one. And Disney debuted its live-action remake The Lady and the Tramp on its streaming service, again unsurprising since it's not terribly ambitious, although it is good fun.

BEST NEW FILMS THIS WEEK:
Same Boat
Who You Think I Am • Danger Close
PERHAPS AVOID:
Coffee & Kareem • Gold Dust 

Much better is the Curzon release Who You Think I Am, a slinky French thriller with romantic comedy overtones starring Juliette Binoche. Tigertail is a dull but moving drama about a Taiwanese-American man (the great Tzi Ma) reminiscing about choices he made. The Lost Husband is a very gentle downhome romance-novel style story starring Leslie Bibb and Josh Duhamel. Danger Close is a grippingly well-made battlefield movie dramatising a little known battle involving Anzac forces. And The Iron Mask is a bonkers Russian-Chinese coproduction featuring Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, an elaborately staged action fantasy odyssey.

Even further afield, Sea Fever is a claustrophobic horror movie from Ireland set on board a fishing boat. Also at sea, Same Boat is a genuinely hilarious comedy thriller shot guerrilla style on a cruise ship - it's a proper gem of a film. There's more horror in Behind You, a nasty bit of demon ghost grisliness that's creepy if not actually scary. The micro-budget Gold Dust is a not terribly funny comedy romp about treasure hunters in the desert. And Seeing Is Believing is a short film collection featuring high-quality segments from six countries exploring issues of identity and sexuality.

Coming up this week, more lockdown! Films I need to watch include the Sam Claflin romcom Love Wedding Repeat, the pitch-black comedy Why Don't You Just Die, the Baghdad-set terrorism drama Sergio, the sexu thriller Getaway, the monster movie Abominable and more horror 1BR.

BFI Flare: Thinking clearly

The 34th edition of BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival continues to run virtually, via the BFI Player, so I've been watching movies at home in isolation. There's only a very small selection of features from the festival available to review, so I hope the filmmakers have found other ways to get their work out there - I'm happy to give it a boost if I can! There are a lot of shorts online for press to cover, so I'll include a roundup of those in my final post on the festival, plus reviews on the website of everything. My usual Critical Week roundup of non-festival films is below (everything there is currently streaming!). But first, here are three more Flare highlights...

The Lawyer [Advokatas]
dir-scr-prd Romas Zabarauskas; with Eimutis Kvosciauskas, Dogac Yildiz 20/Lit ****
Set in Vilnius, Lithuania, this soft-spoken topical romance explores the nature of attraction with a collection of realistic characters and situations. Filmmaker Romas Zabarauskas never pushes things over the top, maintaining a tight sense of realism while digging into some provocative themes with honest complexity. At its heart, this is a properly touching love story, and as the story develops it works its way deeply under the skin.... FULL REVIEW >

Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story
dir Posy Dixon; with Glenn Copeland, Jeremy Costello 19/UK ****
There's a loose approach to this documentary, which approaches issues of race and gender from the striking perspective of a black trans man who survived the tumultuous cultural climate of the 50s and 60s and, after gaining experience as a musician, recorded his now-iconic eponymous album in 1986. With a fluid style, director Posy Dixon lets the story unfold in a way that's powerfully moving... FULL REVIEW >

Ask Any Buddy
dir-prd Evan Purchell; with Casey Donovan, Al Parker, Jack Wrangler, Peter Berlin 19/US ****
A feature based on the eponymous Instagram feed, this cinematic collage uses clips from 125 theatrical movies from 1968-1986, creating a fascinating depiction of gay life between Stonewall and the Aids epidemic. This isn't about realism, it's about how filmmakers depicted the lifestyle on-screen. Editing together pornographic films that were shot in real-life locations, filmmaker Evan Purchell creates an unusual documentary portrait of the subculture as it expressed its sexual freedom... FULL REVIEW >

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

In the absence of press screenings, I've had a lots of films to watch while home-isolating this week. On the flight from Los Angeles to London, I watched The Wolf Hour, the dark and rather gloomy dramatic thriller starring Naomi Watts. Also this week, there was the Catherine Deneuve/Juliette Binoche drama The Truth, an expertly understated drama by maestro Hirokazu Kore-eda; the oddly muted remake Human Capital, starring Liev Schreiber and Marisa Tomei; the mindless guilty pleasure action of Bloodshot, with Vin Diesel as an indestructible operative; the surprisingly astute political satire The Hunt, which squares off Betty Gilpin against Hilary Swank; and the thin but enjoyable romcom Hooking Up with Brittany Snow and Sam Richardson.

In addition to the BFI Flare movies, arthouse gems included the German social services drama System Crasher and Saudi Arabia's astonishing The Perfect Candidate - both are entertaining, surprising and unmissable. And also on the flight, I watched the Bollywood action comedy The Man Who Feels No Pain starring the painfully likeable Abhimanyu Dasani (pictured). The title kind of explains it all, but it's solid corny entertainment.

BFI Flare continues through this weekend, and this coming week I'm hoping things aren't quite so busy. Films I need to watch include Billy Crystal in Standing Up Falling Down, Ben Affleck in The Way Back, Disney's remake of The Lady and the Tramp, the entertainment industry drama Tape, the thriller From Iceland to Eden, the black comedy Dogs Don't Wear Pants and the football doc The Australian Dream.

Critical Week: Charm the camera

It's been another week with a random collection of London press screenings. Thankfully, the winter weather has suddenly turned summery, just in time for the four-day Easter weekend. The biggest movie for me this week was the Sundance hit Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, in which Zac Efron delivers an unusually layered performance as notorious killer Ted Bundy. Thankfully the film isn't chronicling his murders or the police investigation; instead it's a clever take from a more easily identifiable perspective. Claire Denis' foray into science-fiction High Life stars Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche as crew members on a deep space mission. It's of course beautiful, evocative and rather challenging. And Julianne Moore plays an opera singer in the offbeat Bel Canto, based on a true story about a hostage situation in South America. It's a mix of drama and thriller, impeccably played by the cast. But it's an odd concoction.

Further afield, we had Sergei Loznitsa's pitch-black political comedy Donbass, about the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine. It's brilliantly shot and edited, and the doc-style acting makes it both funny and harrowing. The Skin of the Teeth is a quirky drama set in New York that explores identity through a very unusual drug trip. Set in rural Argentina, the strikingly well made and darkly involving Marilyn is about a young man harshly harassed for questioning the idea of masculinity. Hagazussa is a freak-out horror from Germany, full of 15th century superstitious nastiness. And Doozy is a part-animated experimental documentary about comic icon Paul Lynde, a little too arty to offer much in the way of information, but still fascinating. And then there was this music-based movie, dropped online last weekend...

Guava Island!
dir Hiro Murai; scr Stephen Glover
with Donald Glover, Rihanna, Letitia Wright, Nonso Anozie, Betiza Bistmark Calderon, Yansel Alberto Monagas Perez, Ayensi Amilgar Jardines Delgado, Karla Talia Pino Piloto
19/US ***.

This short feature is set out as a mythological story of love and war, set around an island called Guava at the centre of the world. The opening, beautifully animated in the style of a children's book with intricate colours and textures, recounts how the Red family seized control of the silkworms, industrialising production and destroying paradise. Generations later in a poverty-stricken suburb, Kofi (Rihanna) grows up hearing this story, dreaming about a life far away. Her childhood boyfriend is musician Deni (Glover), who dreams of writing a song that will unite the island's people and remind them of what this place could be. From here the film shifts into beautifully shot live-action, with Rihanna and Glover in the roles. They bristle with wit and personality in the vibrant, sundrenched-island setting (it was filmed in Havana). While Kofi works in a garment factory with her friend Yara (Wright), Deni is planning a secret concert to feature his new songs, which have begun being played on local radio. Deni sings about how Guava is essentially America, since the only way to get rich is to make someone else richer. As a result, he's grabbed by officials and taken to the boss Red Cargo (Anozie). "How do you know what's best for everyone?" Deni asks him, as he declares the concert cancelled. As the story continues, there's a terrific mixture of music and song, including variations on Childish Gambino hits This Is America and Summertime Magic. And the drama shifts seamlessly from personal and warm to edgy and intense. The story takes several turns, sometimes a bit obvious (Kofi has just found out that she's pregnant) and sometimes darkly surprising (Red Cargo's reaction is vicious when Deni defiantly decides to go on with his performance). Where the story goes is sobering and sometimes shocking. What it says about human resilience in the face of oppression is powerful, while the pulsing fusion of music and culture adds a visceral kick. So while it feels a bit slight, it's a badly needed cry of hope in an unjust world.

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After Easter weekend, we have screenings of the year's biggest blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, Lin Shaye in Room for Rent, the Scottish indie drama Beats, the Dutch drama Just Friends, and a collection of short films screening at the forthcoming Tribeca Film Festival.

LFF: Do the right thing on Day 11

It's the penultimate day of the 61st BFI London Film Festival, and tonight's gala will see Lynne Ramsay and Joaquin Phoenix walking the red carpet in Leicester Square. There will also be a flurry of celebrities attending tonights awards ceremony, hosted by James Nesbitt, at which Paul Greengrass will receive the prestigious BFI Fellowship. I'll list the winners, as well as my own best of the fest, tomorrow. Here are more highlights...

You Were Never Really Here
dir-scr Lynne Ramsay; with Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts 17/UK *****
This singular thriller by Lynne Ramsay is like a slap across the face, a fresh approach to the genre. It's also unapologetically an arthouse film, demanding a lot from the audience as it presents a swirl of imagery and sound that says a lot about the central character without being obvious about it. Anchored by a burly-bear performance from Joaquin Phoenix, it's definitely not an easy film, but it isn't easy to shake.

Let the Sun Shine in [Un Beau Soleil Intérieur]
dir Claire Denis; with Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois 17/Fr ****
An exploration of the yearning to find that elusive one true love, this astutely observed film is funny, charming, beautiful and sad. But it's never remotely sentimental, thanks to filmmaker Claire Denis' razor-sharp approach. It's also elevated by a sharply honest performance from Juliette Binoche as a woman seeking the love of her life.

Nico, 1988
dir-scr Susanna Nicchiarelli; with Trine Dyrholm, John Gordon Sinclair 17/It ****
This biopic about the final years of the iconic German-born musician-actress strikes an intriguing tone, diving into firsthand accounts of people who worked with her. It feels remarkably personal, with a bold, gritty edge that echoes the intensity of both Nico's singing and Trine Dyrholm's thunderous performance. Some elements feel a little undercooked, leaving the audience perhaps misled about details. But it's an involving film packed with rivulets of emotion... FULL REVIEW >

This Is Our Land [Chez Nous]
dir Lucas Belvaux; with Emilie Dequenne, Andre Dussollier 17/Fr ***.
With an earthy sense of authenticity, this drama takes a controversial approach to French politics. There's an urgency to the premise that shifts this from a gently pointed drama into something rather darker and scarier. All of which makes it perhaps a little muddled, but the film highlights the insidious idea that both politicians and bigots are happy to change strategies if they have a chance of winning, but they'll never change their goals.

Strangled [A Martfüi Rém]
dir-scr Arpad Sopsits; with Karoly Hajduk, Gabor Jaszberenyi 16/Hun ***
Based on a true story, this dark, stylish thriller builds dramatic suspense as it chronicles a serial killer in a small Hungarian town. Revealing the cold-blooded murderer from the start, the film sometimes feels a bit draggy as we wait for the cops to connect the dots, but it's packed with terrific characters who are conflicted and relatable.

The Nile Hilton Incident
dir-scr Tarik Saleh; with Fares Fares, Mari Malek 17/Swe ***.
This Cairo-set police thriller is perhaps too elusive to properly grip the audience, but it's a striking portrait of a culture that seems to ignore every rule of law. Shot in an offbeat style, the story's most momentous moments are shot in an almost throwaway style, which makes it an intriguing challenge to know who or what is important. This also provides some nasty gut-punches along the way to the requisite shocking finale.

Critical Week: Into the night

Screenings continue to slow down in the run-up to Cannes. But there are things we need to see! It was great to watch Tye Sheridan continues to prove himself as an actor with the lead role in Detour. It's a clever, tricky thriller with an inventively fractured narrative. Of course the big movie this week was the highly anticipated sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which reunites the team for a bigger adventure that lacks the free-spirited tone of the original but is still a lot of fun.

From Scotland, Whisky Galore is a remake of the 1949 classic about residents of a remote island who lay claim to the cargo of a wrecked ship during WWII. It's a gentle comedy, amusing but never very exciting. Further afield, Slack Bay is an oddly comical period romp from controversy-courting filmmaker Bruno Dumont. It stars Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini in an enjoyably farcical story involving snobbery, crime and religion. Much darker, The Student is a Russian drama about a teen who becomes a Christian fundamentalist and begins manipulating everyone in his school. It's chilling and very sharp. And from Greece, Suntan follows a shy middle-aged doctor who falls headlong into the hedonistic summer tourist season. It's well-made and involving, but a little too pointed.

Oddly, I have no screenings in the diary over the next seven days. It's the long weekend this month in London, and things always go quiet at this time of year (call it pre-Cannes gloom). I do have screeners to watch at home, and we are awaiting word of press screenings for the soon-arriving Alien: Covenant, Snatched and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, among others.

On the Road: Going underground

The 33

dir Patricia Riggen; with Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche 15/Chl ***.Based on the true story of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster that captured the world's attention, this film starts out like a rather standard B-movie, with lots of corny melodrama and characters that have clearly been ramped up for dramatic effect. Then the astonishing events kick into gear and the film becomes startlingly gripping. Which is unexpected since the outcome is so well-known. But director Riggen, while never indulging in anything very flashy or inventive, quietly keeps the film grounded in reality, deepening the characters and situations by showing the side of the story the news media never reported. She also cleverly indulges in lots of religious imagery, while letting her starry cast do their thing to create engaging characters we can't help but root for. Banderas, Binoche and Santoro all get a chance to shine, as does a rather underused Lou Diamond Phillips. So even if it feels rather like a by-the-books TV disaster movie, the film works its way under the skin. And the final scenes (plus a black and white coda) carry a solid emotional kick.

Critical Week: Take it to the Supreme Court

I finally caught a late press screening this week for Woman in Gold, the true drama that opened in US cinemas last week and hits the UK this Friday. It's the superb story of a woman fighting for restitution after Nazis stole her family's possessions, and it has a terrific central performance from Helen Mirren, plus strong support from Ryan Reynolds and Daniel Bruhl. Another late screening was for Ryan Gosling's directing debut Lost River, a surreal recession-era drama about a struggling family. Meandering and essentially plotless, it struggles to engage despite notable performances from Christina Hendricks, Iain De Caestecker and Ben Mendelsohn.

Also this past week we had screenings of The Last Five Years, an engaging but fragmented and downbeat romantic musical starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan; the award-winning Clouds of Sils Maria, Olivier Assayas' clever but elusive exploration of celebrity beautifully played by Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart; the dark Irish drama Glassland, which features a turn by Jack Reynor that won the Sundance acting award for his excellent work opposite Toni Collette and Will Poulter; the mesmerising German freak-out thriller The Samurai, about a young cop confronting a cross-dressing, sword-wielding psycho; and Undocumented Executive, a witty, scruffy comedy playing with immigration and class issues in America.

And there were two documentaries that are a must for fans: Lambert & Stamp explores the two guys responsible for The Who, tracing both the band's history and the music, film and art scenes along the way; and A Fuller Life is a remarkable look at the life of iconic filmmaker Sam Fuller in his own words and as reflected in his films.

This coming week we have Tom Hardy's thriller Child 44, Nia Vardalos' comedy Helicopter Mom, the Iranian festival favourite A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the Chinese drama Exit, Mia Hansen Love's rave scene drama Eden, and the acclaimed USSR hockey doc Red Army.

Critical Week: There's gonna be a floody-floody

This past week's big screening for London press was for Darren Aronofsky's biblical flood thriller Noah, which pretty evenly divided critics. While I admired Aronofsky's stunning time-lapse version of creation, I was a bit put off by the fact that these militant vegans wear leather accessories. The other big movies were Arnold Schwarzenegger's gritty cop drama Sabotage and the Emma Thompson-Pierce Brosnan rom-com heist romp The Love Punch, both of which I'm embargoed from discussing quite yet. I also had a chance to interview Arnie and Emma for those films - Arnie was surreally accompanied by British anti-comic Keith Lemon; Emma came with costar Celia Imrie. Both were charming.

Smaller films included Juliette Binoche's storming performance as a photojournalist in the complex Irish drama A Thousand Times Good Night, Kristin Scott Thomas' steely turn opposite Daniel Auteuil in the repressed French drama Before the Winter Chill, and a trio of terrific Guatemalan teens as youngsters trying to travel to California in the astonishingly well-made and rather bleak The Golden Dream. There were also two British comedies: Almost Married is a somewhat under-cooked stag night farce, while Downhill is a superbly telling and very funny doc-style road movie about four middle-aged men walking coast-to coast-across England.

This coming week's movies include Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff in The Motel Life, Gina Carano and Cam Gigandet in the action movie In the Blood, the offbeat drama Concussion, a new 3D animated version of Tarzan, the Lisbon gang thriller After the Night, and the superbly titled Swedish hit The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.