Critical Week: Driving me crazy

Screenings continue to be a bit less frequent this time of year, although I somehow found plenty of movies to watch this week. Eddie Murphy is back in action-comedy mode, starring in The Pickup alongside Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer. Their banter is enjoyable even if the plot is almost ridiculously simplistic. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back for Freakier Friday, a hugely enjoyable 20-years-later body-swap comedy sequel. And there were two astonishingly grisly horror movies: Together stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple that's growing eerily close, while Weapons stars Julia Garner as a teacher whose students have mysteriously vanished. Both are stomach-churningly yucky in all the best ways, and both have serious subtext that holds the interest.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Young Hearts • Weapons
Stans • Freakier Friday
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In addition, there was the family adventure Sketch, about a teen whose drawings come to life and menace a small town. It's well-made and engaging. There were two films from France: The Musicians is an engaging and warmly understated comedy about a group of egotistic artists who form a historic quartet. And Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods is a nature documentary adaptation of the classic novel about a young deer growing up. It's beautifully shot, and openly emotive. I also watched Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (arrives on Apple TV on 15th August), which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a lifelong Peanuts fan, the line-art animation was particularly nice. And the catchy songs were fun too. I also attended a live performance of new absurdist comedy Lost Watches at Park Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses, Bob Odenkirk in Nobody 2, Orlando Bloom in The Cut, Matilda Lutz as Red Sonja, the animated comedy Fixed and the Chinese remake of Richard Linklater's Tape.

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
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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.

A Year in Shadows: Vol 38

There was a full set of 52 covers for 2022, featuring the following films in order: Licorice Pizza, Scream, Nightmare Alley, Parallel Mothers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Death on the Nile, Uncharted, The Duke, Ali & Ava, The Batman, Deep Water, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, The Lost City, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Downton Abbey: A New Era, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Benediction, Top Gun: Maverick, Men, Jurassic World: Dominion, Lightyear, Elvis, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Thor: Love and Thunder, The Railway Children Return, Where the Crawdads Sing, DC League of Super-Pets, Bullet Train, Nope, The Feast, Beast, Tar, Don't Worry Darling, Blonde, Ticket to Paradise, The Woman King, Lyle Lyle Crocodile, The Banshees of Inisherin, Triangle of Sadness, Living, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Menu, Bones and All, Glass Onion, Empire of Light, Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon and Corsage. The Oscar cover was the only one not tied to a specific film.

Trivia alert!

Most crowded: 14 for The Menu, and 13 each for Death on the Nile and Licorice Pizza. 

On the most covers: Cate Blanchett (one solo, one shared); Ana de Armas (one solo, one shared); Letitia Wright (two shared); Bradley Cooper (two shared, one drawn); and Keke Palmer (two shared, one as an animated character).

Getting one cover all their own: Jessie Buckley, Austin Butler, Nicolas Cage, Diego Calva, Jessica Chastain, Olivia Colman, Tom Cruise, Benedict Cumberbatch, Annes Elwy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland, Vicky Krieps, Jack Lowdon, Bill Nighy, Brad Pitt and Chris Pratt.

Sharing one cover with one or more other people: Paul Adelstein, Ben Affleck, Jenny Agutter, Adeel Akhtar, Sheila Atim, Angela Bassett, Tom Bateman, Dave Bautista, Vanessa Bayer, Javier Bardem, Annette Bening, Vicki Berlin, Reed Birney, Kenneth Branagh, Russell Brand, Jim Broadbent, Tachel Brosnahan, Sandra Bullock, Zlatko Buric, Warren Burke, Neve Campbell, Aimee Carrero, Jim Carrey, Arturo Castro, Timothee Chalamet, Hong Chau, Jemaine Clement, Madelyn Cline, George Clooney, Michaela Coel, Courteney Cox, Daniel Craig, Penelope Cruz, Jamie Lee Curtis, Willem Dafoe, Hugh Dancy, Viola Davis, Dolly De Leon, Charlbi Dean, Harris Dickinson, Daveed Diggs, Michelle Dockery, Winston Duke, John Early, Idris Elba, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Colin Farrell, Ali Fazal, Winslow Fegley, Ralph Fiennes, Dan Fogler, Dawn FrenchGal Gadot, Brendan Gleeson, Danai Gurira, Kathryn Hahn, Alana Haim, Iyana Halley, Armie Hammer, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Hart, Jessica Henwick, Cooper Hoffman, Nicholas Hoult, Stephanie Hsu, Kate Hudson, Tenoch Huerta, Robert James-Collier, Jameela Jamil, Leah Jeffries, Dwayne Johnson, Daniel Kaluuya, John Krasinski, Zoe Kravitz,  Jude Law, John Leguizamo, Rose Leslie, Judith Light, Phyllis Logan, Diego Luna, Natasha Lyonne,  Emma Mackey, Thuso Mbedu, Scoot McNairy, Janet McTeer, Helen Mirren, Janelle Monae, Edward Norton, Lupita Nyong'o, Leslie Odom Jr, Sophie Okonedo, Robert Pattinson, Sean Penn, Brandon Perea, Dascha Polanco, Florence Pugh, Ke Huy Quan, Eddie Redmayne, Keanu Reeves, Julia Roberts, Claire Rushbrook, Taylor Russell, Zoe Saldana, Jennifer Saunders, Milena Smit, Maggie Smith, Sheridan Smith, Taylor John Smith, Mark St Cyr, Harry Styles, Channing Tatum, Anya Taylor-Joy, Callum Turner, Tom Waits, Christoph Waltz,  Jessica Williams, Penelope Wilton, Sam Worthington, Constance Wu, Rob Yang and Michelle Yeoh (note that a few names from crowded covers are missing).

As an animated character they voiced: Steve Carell, Chris Evans, Shawn Mendes, Colleen O'Shaughnessey,  Ben Schwartz, Peter Sohn, Dale Soules and Taika Waititi.

And there were four drafts of covers that weren't used, bumped out by shifting tides of release dates and press screenings. Here they are: The 355 (Jan), Confess Fletch (Sep), Athena (Sep) and Aisha (Nov).

Critical Week: Take aim

Londoners aren't used to such a long spell of warm, dry weather, so it's especially unusual to see the parks turning golden rather than green. (Although this is something I grew up with in Southern California.) It's been warm enough to welcome trips into air conditioned cinemas to cool off. The bigger films this week were the Predator prequel Prey, an involving and well-made 18th century adventure with some proper suspense, even if some cliches are distracting. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are terrific as siblings in Jordan Peele's Nope, a witty and inventive take on the alien invasion thriller that's involving, surprising and perhaps just a little overcooked. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Fadia's Tree • Luck
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And then there was Brad Pitt, who saunters engagingly through the silly chaos of Bullet Train, a messy action comedy that feels oddly thin despite terrific performances from an ensemble cast that includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King and the great Hiroyuki Sanada. The brightly hued animated adventure Luck has a lively story, with terrific voice work from a starry cast that includes Jane Fonda and Whoopi Goldberg. Charlotte Rampling is of course terrific in the dark, witty and thoughtful Kiwi drama Juniper. And the refugee doc Fadia's Tree tells a vividly personal story of a life diverted by conflict.

This coming week I'll be watching the thriller No Way Out, coming-of-age comedy Funny Pages, India's Forrest Gump remake Laal Singh Chaddha, comedy-drama anime Fortune Favours Lady Nikuko, quirky claymation adventure The Old Man: The Movie and the documentary Bloom Up.