On the Road: Take a ride

I'm out in Southern California once again, catching up with friends and family for a couple of weeks, so my film-watching schedule will be greatly reduced. I hope to see a few things while I'm out here, both press screenings and regular cinema outings, but I also want to enjoy the sunny weather, beachy Orange County vibes and of course fish tacos. Before leaving London I managed to see the new Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu twice - first at a crew screening with a friend who works in special effects, and then at an Imax press screening. It's a lot of fun, but feels oddly slight for the franchise, especially the undercooked dialog. 

On the flight, I only watched one movie, the hilariously ridiculous Downton spoof Fackham Hall, which I had missed when it came out in cinemas. Perfectly mindless airplane entertainment. Then I found the latest series of The Traitors US, and watched three and a half episodes from London to Denver and then one and a half from Denver to Orange County. Need to find the rest of the season now.

While I'm here there are a few films opening that I hope to catch, including Brendan Fraser in Pressure. And I wouldn't mind seeing the new Scary Movie and Masters of the Universe. I have one press screening in the diary, for Olivia Wilde's The Invite with Seth Rogen and Penelope Cruz. And I'm chasing press screenings for both the new Spielberg film Disclosure Day and the drag action comedy Stop! That! Train! Whatever I see, I'll update things here...

Critical Week: Sucker punch

There were three big movies screened to critics this week. Liam Neeson takes on the lead role (as the son of Leslie Nielsen's iconic character) for the reboot/sequel The Naked Gun, which is flat-out hilarious. And as wonderfully stupid as we hoped it would be. Pedro Pascal leads the action reboot The Fantastic Four: First Steps, alongside Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bacharach. Groovy visual stylings and superbly character-rooted comedy make it thoroughly engaging. And Sam Rockwell is back for the animated sequel The Bad Guys 2, which is just as funny and action-packed as the first movie. With some terrific new characters and bigger set-pieces. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Dying • The Bad Guys 2
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield, Fiona Shaw and Katherine Waterston are as good as expected in the mother-daughter drama Park Avenue, which is involving but elusive. Even more the evasive, Gazer is a stylised mystery thriller that intrigues but never quite pays off. Slovenian drama Little Trouble Girls is also somewhat slippery in its coming-of-age story about a teen choirgirl. 

Much more gripping is Love, the second chapter in the Oslo Stories Trilogy, which features fascinating characters on offbeat journeys. I also loved watching the 100-year restoration of Eisenstein's silent masterpiece Battleship Potemkin, with a new score by the Pet Shop Boys. I'd never seen it on a big screen, and it looks and sounds gorgeous. It also feels thoroughly modern. Finally, I attended a special 3D premiere of the new trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash, which looks properly epic. The film itself comes out in December.

This coming week I'll be watching the horror thriller Bring Her Back, British road movie The Ceremony, Dutch coming-of-age drama Young Hearts, the final chapter of the Oslo Stories Trilogy, Sex, and the Ukrainian documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka. I'll also attend the premiere of the second season of the Netflix show Wednesday.

Critical Week: Joy to the world

Happy Christmas from locked-down London! I had a barrage of timed awards-consideration screening links this week that changed what I was planning to watch. This meant that I saw quite a few contenders, and the common adjective to describe highbrow movies this year seems to be: "dour". Thankfully, each has something to recommend in it, usually strong performances that lift the tone. And some of these films have been wonderfully upbeat too.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 

One Night in Miami • Soul 

Promising Young Woman 

News of the World • AK vs AK 

The Dissident • Luz 

ALL REVIEWS >

Hugh Bonneville stars in the Roald Dahl biopic To Olivia (above), a downbeat film that's beautifully played by its cast, including Keeley Hawes as Dahl's wife, the actress Patricia Neal. Tom Hanks gives yet another wonderful performance in Paul Greengrass' earthy Western News of the World, matched by a fierce turn from the wondrous Helena Zengel. Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston yearn for each other in the aching period drama The World to Come. Jude Law and Carrie Coon find cracks in their high-flying life in the insidious 1980s drama The Nest. Sophia Loren shines brightly in the terrific Italian comedy-drama The Life Ahead. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner have a happy life in Let Him Go, until they really, really don't.

There were also a few guilty pleasures this week. Gerard Butler stars in the catastrophic comet strike thriller Greenland, which is far more entertaining than expected. Hilary Swank is downright nasty in Fatale, a dopey noir-style semi-erotic thriller. And Bollywood superstar Anil Kapoor takes on director Anurag Kashyap in the clever pastiche action comedy AK vs AK.

Indie movies included Steven Yeun leading a terrific ensemble in the acclaimed drama Minari, about a Korean family in Arkansas; Boaz Yakin's swirling gender-bending dance-infused drama Aviva; the naturalistic, finely observed immigrant drama Farewell Amor; and the fiercely artful surreal thriller The One You Feed. From Colombia, Luz: The Flower of Evil is a wonderfully stylised horror packed with bonkers touches. And there were two seriously intense documentaries: The Dissident traces the horrific assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudis in Turkey, while the thriller-style Welcome to Chechnya following activists trying to rescue young gay people hunted down in Russia.

I'm taking a few days off from movies around Christmas. Then I'll dive in and watch Judi Dench in a new all-star version of Blythe Spirit, Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit, the comedy Freshman Year, the Greek drama Apples and the Italian documentary The Truffle Hunters. Others are bound to pop up before voting deadlines close in soon.

Critical Week: Brotherly love

There weren't many press screenings for me over the past week, as I was a bit busy with the London critics' awards. But I did manage to catch up with two coming-of-age dramas. Mid90s is Jonah Hill's writing-directing debut, an involving, realistic drama about a young teen (Sunny Suljic, above right, with Lucas Hedges as his thuggish big brother) who turns to skateboarding to find his place in life. The British film Old Boys has currents of comedy and slapstick as it follows a teen (Alex Lawther) at a posh boarding school caught in a Cyrano-style love triangle. It's a bit goofy, but engaging and inventive.

Even further afield, In Like Flynn is an Australian biopic about Errol Flynn's pre-Hollywood days. Thomas Cocquerel is dashing in the lead role, but the film is far too cliched and corny. The Polish drama Nina is set up as a lesbian coming-of-age drama for a married woman, but the elusive filmmaking leaves the audience on the outside looking in. And ParTy Boi: Black Diamonds in Ice Castles is a gritty documentary about the rise of crystal meth among America's black gay subculture. It's pretty harrowing, cautionary without shying away from telling the whole story.

This coming week we have screenings of the upcoming animated sure-fire hits The Lego Movie 2 and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, plus Christophe Honore's Sorry Angel, and the British independent dramas Lucid, He Loves Me and Wretched Things.

Critical Week: Just chilling

Press screenings are starting to crank up again after an early-May lull, perhaps because so many big movies are coming up. Although it's likely to quiet down when most London-based journalists (not me, thankfully) decamp to Cannes 17-28 May.

I enjoyed catching up with the Sundance hit The Big Sick, Kumail Nanjiani's autobiographical comedy, which cleverly depicts multi-cultural America with its awesome ensemble cast. The indie road comedy Folk Hero & Funny Guy was also enjoyable, starring the superb Wyatt Russell and Alex Karpovsky as childhood pals with a surprisingly complex relationship. But of course this week's biggest movie was Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's skilfully made sequel/prequel, which plays out almost like a reimagining of his original 1979 sci-fi horror classic. It's uneven, but entertainingly scary.

A bit further afield, the British-made drama Interlude in Prague focusses on some lusty intrigue for Mozart as he wrote Don Giovanni. It's very nicely shot on location, and the story is involving if a bit dry. Spark is a lively animated adventure with an all-star voice cast, but the animation isn't quite up to big studio standards. Eric Stoltz makes his feature directing debut with Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, a sharply observed comedy-drama that tackles some big themes (religion! sex!) without flinching. And Tomcat starts out as a gentle relationship drama before morphing into something dark and boldly disturbing, which is perhaps unsurprising since it's an Austrian film.

Blockbusters begin arriving over the next week, including the Baywatch movie, Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the Schumer-Hawn adventure Snatched, plus the acclaimed Chinese drama I Am Not Madame Bovary and the documentary Machines.