Critical Week: Peering outsite

As cabin fever sets in with lockdown well into its second month, the longing for human contact is getting intense. But so is a sense of fear about returning to a crowded place like a cinema or pub. At least the weather has turned cold and wet in Britain, which makes going outside not nearly as tempting as it was last week. Meanwhile, watching all of these streaming movies is beginning to weigh me down - especially when even the arthouse films are so mediocre. There were two good ones this week, but the rest left me feeling rather meh. By contrast, TV series are offering a lot more variety and quality at the moment. But here are the movies...

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 
Bad Education • The Assistant
The Roads Not Taken
PERHAPS AVOID:
Endings, Beginnings
Dangerous Lies

Sally Potter's The Roads Not Taken is a very clever film, although its relentlessly slow, introspective style will put off some audiences. The talent-heavy cast is on peak form, including Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Salma Hayek (above with Bardem) and Laura Linney. Julia Garner continues to build on her promise as an actress with the title role in The Assistant, a subtly insightful look at workplace toxicity. Alexandra Daddario and Tyler Hoechlin and a team of shameless scene-stealers make Can You Keep a Secret just about watchable, even though it's a very lazy romcom. Camila Mendes and Jessie T Usher lead the rather obvious thriller Dangerous Lies, which never even tries to grapple with the moral questions it raises.

A spin on the vampire genre, The Shed uses its sunny, rural setting brilliantly, combined with elements from teen movies and family dramas. A spin on the zombie genre, Blood Quantum adds intriguing elements from Canada's indigenous culture to the usual grisliness. The road comedy Vanilla has a nicely loose, improvisational tone to it, but remains a bit silly. And from Israel, 15 Years is an ambitious, alienating drama about a man who sabotages his 15-year romance as well as his closest friendship.

And I have another offbeat collection of things to watch this coming week: Liam Hemsworth in Arkansas, the horror riff Gretel & Hansel, World War II action Enemy Lines,  extortion thriller Cry for the Bad Man, working class drama Working Man, darkly romantic Clementine, evil teen horror Reborn and the documentary Spaceship Earth.

Critical Week: Never surrender

It was a disparate collection of movies this past week. The most obviously prestigious one was Darkest Hour, which chronicles the first month of Winston Churchill's first term as UK prime minister. It's a lavishly made film, anchored by a bullish performance from Gary Oldman. At the other end of the spectrum, Daddy's Home Two reunites Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell (plus Mel Gibson and John Lithgow as their dads) for a holiday comedy that's amusing without doing anything very new. More ambitious, The Dinner features strong performances from Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall, although the film might be too tricky for its own good.

There were also three more true stories. Josh Brolin and Miles Teller lead the firefighting drama Only the Brave, which gets a little too caught up in its heroic machismo. Colin Firth stars in the sailing adventure The Mercy, a riveting tale with an enigmatic core. And The Man With the Iron Heart is a great story of the Nazi resistance, thrown out of balance with its duelling plot-strands starring Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Jack O' Connell and Jack Reynor.

I'm travelling over the next week or so, and not sure what I'll be able to catch up with along the way. Targeted films include Justice League, Wonder, Thank You for Your Service, The Disaster Artist and The Current War. I'll be posting comments whenever I can...

31st Flare: Take 'em down

The British Film Institute's 31st Flare came to a festive conclusion last night with the international premiere of the closing film Signature Move (above) and the expected energetic party afterwards, with dancing long into the night. This is how all film festivals should be: great movies with audiences, journalists and filmmakers all mixing together at a series of enjoyable parties and special events. There are also of course ongoing discussions about whether there is still the need for LGBT-themed film festivals at all, but as long as bigotry and division exist even in supposedly accepting societies, they're vital. And it's nice to see that the films themselves are beginning to reflect a change - most of these are just movies about people getting on with their lives, and the fact that they may be gay or trans is a side note. I still have a bit of catching up to do, but here are some final highlights...

Signature Move
dir Jennifer Reeder; with Fawzia Mirza, Sari Sanchez 17/US ***.
With a sharp sense of humour and a gentle pace, this comedy is set in a multi-cultural corner of Chicago. Expanded from a short, the narrative is rather slight, but the characters are strong enough to hold the attention. And refreshingly, director Jennifer Reeder keeps the deeper themes gurgling strongly under the surface and resists preaching to the audience.

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
dir Jennifer M Kroot; with Armistead Maupin, Laura Linney 17/US ****
A lively and revealing documentary, this film weaves together details from the life and writings of the beloved storyteller who crushed stereotypes and taboos in 70s-80s San Francisco. Armistead Maupin's journey from the conservative South to perhaps overconfident gay icon is fascinating, and it's moving to see how his writings have inspired millions to stand up for themselves and live a more positive life.

Flare Shorts

I managed to catch up with only 10 shorts this year. The programmes are increasingly popular with the public, making it tricky to get a ticket. Highlights for me were: The Hares (dir Martin Rodriguez Redondo, 16/Por) is a subtly moving story about a young boy pushed by his father into going on a nighttime hunting trip; An Evening (dir Soren Green, 16/Den) is a beautifully shot, lightly observant exploration of the different reactions two teens have to a sexual encounter; Pria (dir Yudho Aditya, 16/Ina) is a bold look at Indonesia's entrenched culture, as a 16-year-old guy reluctantly prepares for his wedding; and Jamie (dir Christopher Manning, 16/UK) is a sharply well-played, understated odyssey about a young man who opens up to his inner feelings for the first time.

LFF 7: Jumping Jack Flash

The Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronny Woods - were on the red carpet tonight for the world premiere of their new film Crossfire Hurricane at the 56th BFI London Film Festival. People had started lining up by noon for a glimpse of them, as well as premiere guests like Liam Gallagher, Anita Pallenberg, Jeff Beck, Bryan Ferry and Bill Wyman. (I'll try to get a photo for tomorrow.) I had four movies today, so am feeling a bit blurry tonight. Thankfully tomorrow is my last early morning screening, and then this weekend is just catch-up time for me. Here are some more highlights...

Crossfire Hurricane
dir Brett Morgen; with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards 12/UK ***
The Rolling Stones commissioned this film for their 50th anniversary, so it's probably not surprising that it never delves too far beneath the surface. What's really surprising, though, is that it only covers the first two decades before stopping abruptly, leaving us waiting for Part 2. But until then, it's a fast-paced, entertaining trip backstage with the bad-boy band. From the 60s to the 80s, we see the Stones largely through home movies (often shot on Jagger's own camera), cavorting back stage and indulging in the rock-n-roll lifestyle, complete with plenty of sex and drugs. On stage footage is equally intimate, and there's also a collection of vintage TV interviews that show us the bandmates growing up through the years. All of this is overlaid with a recently recorded audio track that's like a DVD commentary, as the surviving musicians offer present-day observations on the events. It's certainly a lot of fun, and covers momentous events like the chaotic free concert in Altamont and Richards' life-changing heroin arrest in Canada. Plus of course the death of Brian Jones. But it never touches on their life outside the band. Perhaps that isn't the point, but it leaves the film feeling incomplete.

Hyde Park on Hudson
dir Roger Michell; with Bill Murray, Laura Linney 12/UK ***
This entertaining film takes us on a breezy journey through a pivotal point in 20th century history without any real sense of perspective. And while some of the characters seem oddly uninteresting, a couple of terrific performances make it worth a look... REVIEW >

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
dir Mira Nair; with Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson 12/US ***
Riz Ahmed stars in another complex, provocative film about terrorism, but this one isn't remotely as funny as Four Lions. No, this is a dead-serious drama that holds us gripped by its characters and situations until the story starts to sag under its own weight. And in the end, it feels oddly unsatisfying, simply because the film's structure undermines the point it's making. Ahmed plays Changez, a young Pakistani who attends Princeton in America and becomes a high-flying Wall Street analyst. But a series of events shake him, including 9/11 and subsequent harassment by police, immigration officials and security agents. Returning to Lahore, he becomes a lecturer specialising in violent uprisings. But is he a terrorist? The film frames this story as Changez narrates it to a journalist (Liev Shreiber) before a tense situation breaks out in Pakistan. But the script never quite connects the dots properly, abandoning characters along the way (such as Changez's parents) or distracting us with roles unnecessarily beefed-up for American actors (Hudson as his artist girlfriend, Keifer Sutherland as his boss). Fortunately, Ahmed is so good in the central role that his journey is both compelling and thought-provoking. But it should have been much punchier than this.

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CRITICAL WEEK: Festival schmestival. In addition to all of the movies I've seen at the LFF, I've had to keep up with all the usual movies coming out in cinemas. In the past week, London critics have had a chance to catch up with Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer's ambitious multi-strand epic in which their cast members play six roles each. It's such a wildly huge undertaking that the high points outweigh the low ones. We saw the new James Bond movie Skyfall, which is startlingly personal, with great action and no main villainous plot; the incomprehensibly frantic Chinese 3D action epic Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, starring Jet Li; and the rather slow-paced American drama The Seminarian. I also got to see the 1954 classic Creature From the Black Lagoon in a sparkling new 3D digital projection - it looked pretty amazing, and wasn't nearly as cheesy as I remember.

Back to normal this coming week, I have screenings of Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, Vanessa Redgrave in Song for Marion and Michelle Pfeiffer in Love Crime, plus a variety of other things I can't recall in my LFF haze.