Critical Week: Let it all go

I've been working very long hours on a TV crew these days, so haven't had a lot of time to keep up with film releases. So I only managed to see four movies in the past seven days! (But I am very much enjoying working on set each day.) One of the big releases this week, Speak No Evil stars Scoot McNairy and James McAvoy (above) in a hugely unsettling thriller that starts light and almost comical before twisting the suspense to nail-biting levels in the final act. And then Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield came along for a Q&A with director John Crowley for We Live in Time, a powerfully involving emotional drama that feels bracingly authentic. It's bound to get awards-season attention.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
My Old Ass • In Camera
Speak No Evil • Winner
My Favourite Cake
ALL REVIEWS >

The biopic Winner is the third movie in recent years to tell the story of the whisleblower Reality Winner, this time with a snappy comical edge. Emilia Jones is excellent in the title role, and the film properly gets under her skin. And Dead Teenagers is the third scary film in writer-director Quinn Armstrong's Fresh Hell trilogy, this time cleverly twisting the teenage summer movie into something meta and genuinely creepy.

I'll have a little more time to attend screenings this coming week, so I'm planning to see the animated adventure Transformers One, Will Ferrell's documentary Will & Harper, reform school drama Nickel Boys, British comedy-drama Portraits of Dangerous Women, New York comedy Notice to Quit and British horror Inherit the Witch, plus anything else I can find time to see. 

Critical Week: Holding on...

I've been enjoying hanging out with family in Southern California, not worrying about the rather iffy weather, which turned downright nasty just in time for me to trek across town to see Dune: Part Two on the Warner Bros lot (which was cool - see Insta post below). It was quite surreal to be feeling so wet and soggy while watching such a dry and sandy movie. But of course I loved it; Denis Villeneuve's imagination and attention to detail being this dense story to life in constantly surprising ways. Each shot looks simply spectacular, and the powerhouse acting ensemble gets a lot to do as well.

I also caught Lisa Frankenstein in a cinema, directed by Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin) from a script by Diablo Cody. It's a bit of a messy concoction, but is packed with genuinely hilarious dialog and up-for-it performances from a strong cast that includes Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano and Carla Gugino. Its 1980s setting offers some strong gags as well.

Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls opens this weekend, so I plan to catch that in a local cinema. I am also asking around for contacts for a Kung Fu Panda 4 press screening here, as it opens the week I return to London. There may be some other things that pop up along the way, and I do have some screener links to watch, but am reluctant yo give up family time for that.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rich Jack Cline (@ukcline)

Critical Week: School daze

Well, Britain didn't reopen as planned on Monday, as the mishandling of new variants meant any lightening of regulations has been delayed. Thankfully, the accelerated vaccination programme seems to be making headway, so fingers crossed for any steps we can take back to normality. Cinemas, theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs particularly depend on this. In the meantime, big films are beginning to appear again, some with enormous press screenings. This past week's main offerings included the teen comedy-horror mashup Freaky, an uneven but witty concoction in which serial psycho Vince Vaughn swaps bodies with cute high schooler Kathryn Newton. And those vrooming speedsters were back on the Imax screen for F9 (aka Fast & Furious 9), which is an unusually joyless instalment in the saga but pushes the spectacle to new (ahem!) heights.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Supernova • I Carry You With Me
The Man Standing Next • Bare
ALL REVIEWS >

Smaller movies this week included Harvey Keitel as Lansky, a finely made but familiar biopic tracing the fascinating life of the notorious gangster. The intriguing but never quite provocative The God Committee stars Kelsey Grammer in a serious role, exploring the people who decide who receives an organ transplant, and who doesn't. From Spain, the silly animated romp Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds brings the 1980s 2D cartoon characters to 3D imagery, with mixed results. And the horror comedy Vicious Fun is a snappy and rather cartoonish play on horror movie tropes, centred around a film critic.

Coming up this next week I have Channing Tatum as George Washington in the action pastiche America: The Motion Picture, Timothy Spall in The Last Bus, the fantastical romance Jumbo and the shorts collection Upon Her Lips: Heartbeats. I'll also be heading to a West End theatre to finally catch Everybody's Talking About Jamie ahead of the movie adaptation in the autumn.