Critical Week: You're winding me up

After the Bafta Film Awards on Monday, the final stretch of this year's awards race is as unpredictable as ever. Apart from Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin, most categories are still up in the air. A flurry of awards this weekend will further muddy the water before it all climaxes at Oscar on March 2nd. Meanwhile, movies are still arriving in cinemas, and this week's biggest was The Monkey, another enjoyably creepy film from Osgood Perkins, this time with Theo James as twin protagonists. It's funnier than it is scary. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
I'm Still Here
I Am Martin Parr
Picnic at Hanging Rock
ALL REVIEWS >

From the Netherlands, Invasion is a slickly made thriller set in sunny Caribbean locations as beefy marines take on an unexpected attack from a (fictional) rogue South American nation. It's fun but anticlimactic. The Brooklyn drama Barrio Boy is an involving depiction of Latino subculture with a story that explores homophobia in somewhat elusive ways. From China, the animated epic Chang'An is a spectacular mix of gorgeous imagery, visceral battles and moving poetry. And the entertaining, finely made documentary I Am Martin Parr explores the British photographer's inimitable career. I also attended the programme launch for the 39th BFI Flare film festival (coming 19-30 March), plus the monumental Vollmond at Sadler's Wells and the rhythmic Trash! at the Peacock.

This coming week I'll be watching Woody Harrelson in the underwater thriller Last Breath, Ralph Fiennes in The Return, Toby Jones in Mr Burton, Bruno Dumont's The Empire, Georgian drama April and the documentary Ernest Cole: Lost & Found.

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: Larger than life

It's been a fairly relaxed week at the movies for me, as I've just tried to get caught up on things, posting reviews from autumn festivals and catching up on some films. There are a lot of awards-buzzy movies I haven't seen yet, so there's still a ways to go. One I'd been looking forward to certainly didn't disappoint: Vicky Krieps delivers a wonderfully nuanced performances as Austria's Empress Elisabeth in the inventive and rightfully award-winning biopic Corsage. And a terrific cast brings a more introspective tone to the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a blockbuster that I liked better than the first film, mainly because it dodges the usual Marvel pitfalls. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
No Bears • Wakanda Forever
Homebody • Being Thunder
PERHAPS AVOID:
A Couple • Dear Zoe
ALL REVIEWS >

Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult star in the blackly comical The Menu, which tilts intriguingly from parody into horror. Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek team up with their children Jake Hoffman and Schuyler Fisk in the warmly dramatic romcom Sam & Kate. Romain Duris and Berenice Bejo join director Michel Hazanavicious for the witty and perhaps too-meta zombie movie pastiche Final Cut. Ryan Kwanten goes Blade Runner for the enigmatic futuristic Hong Kong noir Expired. The comedy Homebody creates an unusually knowing body-swap scenario. And the Latin American horror Blood-Red Ox is confusing but packed with clever details.

The Critics' Circle Film Section also held its annual lunch with the British Board of Film Classification, an event that has been virtual for the past two years. It was great to be back in-person again, learning about the BBFC's new endeavours and going through some of the borderline cases over the past year. And it was also nice to be in a room full of critics as well - for the second time in a week after last Thursday's special Critics' Circle all-sections award lunch for Emma Thompson.

Movies to this coming week include Lili Taylor and Jason Schwartzman in the romcom There There, Lukas Dhont's teen drama Close, Costa Rica's drama Clara Sola, the French animated comedy Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and the Indian action epic RRR. I'm also flying out to Southern California to visit my family and friends for a couple of weeks, and of course to watch more movies too.

LFF: Talk it through

The 66th London Film Festival is powering along into its first weekend, and I'm trying to watch it from outside. But of course being in the business I have been sucked into various events and screenings. The best part of this is getting the chance to hang out with filmmakers and actors at various receptions, which ironically is something I've rarely done when I've been press accredited because I was too busy waiting in lines for screenings. This week I've had terrific chats with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Florence Pugh and Letitia Wright, to name three amazing actresses. Here are some more hightlights...

Aisha
dir-scr Frank Berry; with Letitia Wright, Josh O'Connor 22/Ire ****
An almost overwhelming sense of realism floods through this moving drama, which follows a Nigerian refugee facing a series of obstacles as she seeks safety and stability in Ireland. It's clear that writer-director Frank Berry has exhaustively researched these characters and situations, so scenes are able to play out without the need for dialog, pushing the narrative forward through the power of the emotions that churn under the surface. It's an unusually delicate, understated film, and it packs a big punch.

My Father's Dragon
dir Nora Twomey; voices Jacob Tremblay, Gaten Matarazzo 22/Ire ***.
With the same colourfully hand-made quality as her previous animated films, like Wolfwalkers and The Secret of Kells, Nora Twomey's latest fantastical odyssey feels like it came from the mind of a particularly imaginative child. So young viewers are especially likely to enjoy its mix of goofy slapstick and gently thrilling action. There is also quite a bit of wildly outrageous anime-style nuttiness and dazzling visual panache running through this energetic romp.

Klokkenluider
dir-scr Neil Maskell; with Amit Shah, Sura Dohnke 22/UK 1h24 ***.
Using the Dutch word for whistleblower as its title, this blackly comical British thriller delights in putting its characters into awkwardly intense situations. Actor-turned-filmmaker Neil Maskell finds an array of sharp-edged detail in this collision between an offbeat group of people who are facing a situation that might be quite dangerous. Or maybe not. It's a very well-assembled little film, and its only weakness lies in how it remains so deliberately elusive.

Peter Von Kant
dir-scr Francois Ozon; with Denis Menochet, Isabelle Adjani 22/Fr ****
French filmmaker Francois Ozon returns to German maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this time riffing on his 1972 drama The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Genders and much more are flipped around here, turning the film into a loose biopic about Fassbinder himself. With an eye-catching sense of style, the film is also entertaining for its visual panache, pitch-black wit and a provocatively lacerating look at the movie industry. Plus a collection of unforgettable characters.

Lynch/Oz 
dir-scr Alexandre O Philippe; with Karyn Kusama, John Waters 22/US ****
Taking a journey through American cinematic history, this entertaining documentary explores the resilience and timelessness of The Wizard of Oz, and how its story and iconography have had such a massive impact since its release in 1939. Cleverly weaving in hundreds of clips, filmmaker Alexandre O Philippe finds fascinating parallels everywhere, and especially in the films of David Lynch.

Fragments of Paradise
dir KD Davison; with Martin Scorsese, John Waters 22/US ****
Poet and avant-garde Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas recorded everyday life with his cameras for 70 years, from his arrival in New York in 1949 with his brother Adolfas until his death in 2019. Sifting through this footage, director KD Davison mixes clips with interviews and archival audio to create a striking account of the immigrant experience. And the film also a remarkably intimate look at Mekas himself and an undervalued aspect of the cinematic landscape.

And two films I'd seen earlier...

Living
dir Oliver Hermanus; with Bill Nighy, Alex Sharp 22/UK ****.
With a smart, delicate script by Kazuo Ishiguro and incisive direction by Oliver Hermanus, this remake of Kurosawa's 1952 classic Ikiru is skilfully shot in period style. Sensitive filmmaking and a punchy story tackle themes that feel powerfully relevant 70 years later, and everything is delivered in a subtle, understated way that's carefully tied in with the story's characters and setting. It also offers Bill Nighy a wonderful lead role... FULL REVIEW >

Blue Jean
dir-scr Georgia Oakley; with Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes 22/UK ****
Set in a northern English seaside town during the tumultuous Thatcher years, this drama has an earthy realism that finds timely themes almost 35 years ago. While the personal story is compelling and full of involving detail, it's not always easy to watch a film in which everyone is so miserable. Thankfully, writer-director Georgia Oakley finds moments of humour and joy along the way, and the cast is excellent... FULL REVIEW >

All London Film Festival reviews, once they're uploaded, will be linked to SHADOWS' LFF PAGE >

Critical Week: Go ahead jump

Oscar nominations this week threw the awards season into some chaos, and put some races into focus. There will be lots of conjecture before the ceremony at the end of March. Then after several weeks with a drip-feed of big releases, three come along all at once. All three had late press screenings this week in London just before they opened. The most fun was Uncharted, a lively adventure that just about gets away with its simplistic script because Tom Holland is so ludicrously charming. And Mark Wahlberg almost keeps up with him, which is pretty impressive. Kenneth Branagh is back with another lavish but underwhelming Agatha Christie adaptation, Death on the Nile, which has lovely (mainly digital) Egyptian settings and an all-star cast that includes Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Russell Brand and an underused French and Saunders. And Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson find surprising chemistry in Marry Me, a romcom that never veers form the formula, but has some fun with it.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Flee • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
ALL REVIEWS >

More offbeat films included Johnny Depp in the biopic Minimata, about a noted photojournalist raising awareness of toxic waste in 1970s Japan. It's well-made but a bit dull. Give or Take is a charming little drama about two men who share a grief and little else. Watching them find friendship is nicely underplayed. Small Body is a bold fable from Italy about a woman on an epic quest from the sea to the mountains. It's packed with provocative themes, and is deeply haunting. And I also watched the six short films featured on The French Boys 3, another collection of terrific small dramas that grapple with masculinity.

This coming week I'll be watching Naomi Watts in The Desperate Hour, Zoe Kravitz in Kimi, Jason Isaacs in Streamline, Max von Sydow in Echoes of the Past, the French coming-of-age drama A Night in the Fields and the surreal drama Strawberry Mansion. I'll also be at the press night for the London stage musical production of Saturday Night Fever.

A Year in Shadows: 2020

52 films, in order of appearance: The Gentlemen, 1917, Waves, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Queen & Slim, Parasite, Emma, Greed, True History of the Kelly Gang, Onward, The Wolf Hour, Uncorked, Trolls World Tour, Love Wedding Repeat, Extraction, Bad Education, The Half of It, Capone, Scoob, Snowpiercer, A Rainy Day in New York, Days of the Bagnold Summer, Da 5 Bloods, Fanny Lye Deliver'd, Eurovision Song Contest, The Old Guard, Palm Springs, Stage Mother, Summerland, An American Pickle, Waiting for the Barbarians, Tesla, Tenet, Mulan, The Roads Not Taken, The Devil All the Time, Monsoon, The Glorias, Mangrove, Supernova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, WolfWalkers, The Human Voice, Ammonite, Small Axe, Happiest Season, Nomadland, The Prom, WW84, Soul.

TRIVIA ALERT!

• Two solo covers: George MacKay and Tilda Swinton.
• Twice on one cover: John David Washington.
• One solo and one shared cover: Henry Golding, Letitia Wright, Robert Pattinson and the film Mangrove.
• Two shared covers: Elle Fanning.
• Two shared covers, one as himself and one as an animated character: James Corden.
• Most crowded: Trolls World Tour (11), The Gentlemen (7).
• Most films on one cover: Small Axe (5).

Solo on one cover: Bong Joon Ho, Chris Hemsworth, Dev Patel, Frances McDormand, Gal Gadot, Mamoudou Athie, Maxine Peake, Naomi Watts, Rosamund Pike, Sacha Baron Cohen, Seth Rogen, Steve Coogan, Tom Hardy, Yifei Liu.

Sharing one cover: Alexa Demie, Alicia Vikander, Allison Janney, Amarah-Jae St Aubyn, Andy Samberg, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Hunnam, Charlize Theron, Clarke Peters, Colin Farrell, Colin Firth, Cristin Milioti, Dan Levy, Daniel Diemer, Daniel Kaluuya, Delroy Lindo, Earl Cave, Ethan Hawke, Eve Hewson, Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Hugh Grant, Hugh Jackman, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Jacki Weaver, Jeremy Strong, Janelle Monae, Javier Bardem, Jessie Buckley, John Boyega, Johnny Depp, Johnny Flynn, Jodie Turner-Smith, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Kenyah Sandy, Khali Best, Kristen Stewart, Leah Lewis, Luca Marinelli, Mark Rylance, Matthew McConaughey, Matthias Schoenaerts, Meryl Streep, Micheal Ward, Michelle Dockery, Monica Dolan, Norm Lewis, Olivia Munn, Oscar Moreno, Rachel McAdams, Sam Claflin, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Timothee Chalamet, Will Ferrell.

As the voice of an animated character: Amanda Seyfried, Anna Kendrick, Anthony Ramos, Chris Pratt, Eva Whittaker, Frank Welker, Gina Rodriguez, Gustavo Dudamel, Honor Kneafsey, Jamie Dornan, Jamie Foxx, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Kenan Thompson, Kunal Nayyar, Rachel Bloom, Ron Funches, Tina Fey, Tom Holland, Will Forte, Zac Efron ... as elfs, trolls, souls, wolf-girls, a cat and a dog.

And for the first time, here are the covers that were drafted but never used, mainly due to shuffling pandemic release schedules: Just Mercy, Oscar/Parasite, A Quiet Place Part II, All Day and a Night, Can You Keep a Secret, Arkansas, The Wrong Missy, Da 5 Bloods (alternate version), Greyhound, Animal Crackers, The Boys in the Band, The War With Grandpa, Black Box, County Lines. (Note that Mulan was originally designed for 27th March, then revised for 4th September.)

LFF: Power to the people

The 64th BFI London Film Festival kicked off today with a flurry of sold-out screenings around the country for Steve McQueen's film Mangrove. I tried to get a cinema ticket, but they were gone within minutes, which meant I watched the film in an online virtual press screening, the way I'll see all of the festival's movies. Which kind of removes even the slightest sense of this being a festival. There's also no printed programme, no press credential, no parties. Basically it's a two week web-based movie glut. But these are some of the best films of the year, so it's worth the effort. Here are some highlights...

Mangrove
dir Steve McQueen; with Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes 20/UK *****
This British drama recounts the first legal case that acknowledged racial bias in the London police force. With his fine artistic eye, Steve McQueen assembles this in period style, taking an everyday kitchen-sink approach that feels like a vintage soap opera, complete with flashes of sharp wit and dark emotion. This story is urgent and involving, moving at a quick pace as it follows engaging people through a jaw-dropping trial... FULL REVIEW >

Kajillionaire
dir-scr Miranda July; with Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez 20/US ***.
Another absurdly offbeat comedy from Miranda July, this wilfully wacky movie centres on a family of dysfunctional crooks who pull one tiny hustle after another. The plot defiantly refuses to travel in expected directions. And amid the nuttiness, this becomes a remarkably sensitive coming-of-age for a 26-year-old who is only just beginning to understand who she might actually be. This is a bold, bonkers movie with a warm, beating heart... FULL REVIEW >

Honeymood
dir-scr Talya Lavie; Avigail Harari, Ran Danker 20/Isr ***.

Set over one long night, this Israeli romantic-comedy superbly navigates a range of earthy emotions as a couple faces the first hours of their marriage. It's an entertaining, surprising film, shifting from funny to thoughtful as it explores issues of relationships and interconnections from a variety of resonant angles. The plot meanders and is sometimes a bit too pointed, but it's both engaging and provocative.

NB. My anchor page for the LFF is HERE and reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries.