Critical Week: Follow that star

Even though this is a relatively quiet time in the cinematic calendar, with the odd blockbuster arriving in the run up to the Cannes Film Festival, I've had screenings every day and night this week. This has been a bit of a challenge with tube strikes in London, but I've found ways around them. The big movie this week was the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, starring his nephew Jaafar Jackson, who gives a stunningly physical performance (Juliano Valdi also deserves praise as the young Michael). The film is very smooth around the edges, with only the great Colman Domingo allowed to inject some dark complexity into his role.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Rose of Nevada
I Swear • Cherri
ALL REVIEWS >

This week's crowd-pleaser was the festival favourite Power Ballad, a new music-infused comedy-drama from Irish filmmaker John Carney (Once, Sing Street). It stars Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, and has a lot to say about generational music industry issues. It's also packed with great music. John Magaro is excellent in Omaha, a rather downbeat drama about a man who takes his two kids on a grim road trip across the American West. It's beautifully played, and has a strong emotional kick. 

Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen lead the Danish black comedy The Last Viking, as brothers who have repressed their past trauma in very different ways. It's another terrific reteaming with writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen. And Kazunari Ninomiya stars in the claustrophobic Japanese thriller Exit 8, as a man trying to get out of a maze-like metro station. It's utterly riveting and ripples with underlying ideas. I also caught two live dance performances: The Center Will Not Hold at Sadler's Wells and We Caliban at Sadler's Wells East.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching two films with Anne Hathaway: alongside Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and with Michaela Coel in Mother Mary. There's also The Last Spy,  a doc about 100-year-old CIA spymaster Peter Sichel. And I'll travel up to Stratford-upon-Avon for a live performance of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the RSC's Swan Theatre.

Critical Week: On an adventure

It's been another very warm week in London, which has taken its toll on movie box office numbers as we spend rather a lot more time outdoors than usual. I haven't had any theatre to cover, but the movies keep rolling in, with yet another huge blockbuster arriving like clockwork over the next few months. Coming next week, Harrison Ford is back for a sixth adventure in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which was screened for London press earlier this week. It's a hugely crowd-pleasing action romp, nonstop fun and unapologetic about its silly plot. Jennifer Lawrence gets to flex her comical skills in No Hard Feelings, an enjoyably rude comedy with a sweet centre.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Stroll • Sublime
Desperate Souls, Dark City
No Hard Feelings
ALL REVIEWS >

From France, Quentin Dupieux returns with yet another absurdly brilliant comedy: Smoking Causes Coughing is a cleverly bonkers take on superhero movies. The British indie drama To Nowhere is beautifully shot, mixing moving character layers into a simple premise. From Japan, The Tunnel of Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes is a thoughtful and beautifully animated drama about two teens who have a fantastical journey,. And I also saw two documentaries: Name Me Lawand is the moving story of a deaf teen from Iraq who only learns to communicate as a refugee in Britain, and The Last Rider allows cycling champion Greg Lemond to narrate his life story, most notably his incredible comeback after a shooting accident.

I have a few more films to watch before I fly to Seoul next week to begin service on the jury at the 27th Bifan: Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Look for regular updates here.

Critical Week: Take a load off

Bigger movies continue to turn up at the box office each week, signalling a return to the pre-lockdown pattern of one blockbuster per week. And press screenings are also getting a bit more colourful as a result. We had two big screenings this week, starting with the Nicolas Cage pastiche action comedy bromance The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which is even more fun than expected. Going full-method as himself, Cage and up-for-it costar Pedro Pascal dive fully into the ridiculous story, and they keep the audience right with them. There was also Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third chapter in the whizzy but oddly uninvolving Harry Potter prequel franchise. This one is much more momentous, and the actors (notably Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen) make it worth a look. I also caught up with Michael Bay's latest over-the-top action thriller Ambulance, a choppy but very entertaining ride through Los Angeles with the superb Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen and Eiza Gonzalez.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Compartment No 6 • Small Body
Poppy Field • Cow
PERHAPS AVOID:
Agent Game • Sonic the Hedgehog 2
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield were the by-numbers spy thriller Agent Game, which has a strong cast (Dermot Mulroney, Jason Isaacs, even Mel Gibson) but rarely rises above its cliches. French actor-filmmaker Valerie Lemercier's Aline is a fictionalised biopic about Celine Dion, and it's as bonkers as you hope it will be. From Ireland, You Are Not My Mother is a stylish dramatic horror that properly gets under the skin. And from France, Anais in Love is a sunny, chatty comedy-drama that recounts an awkward coming of age.

For this coming week I have no press screenings in the diary, but I do have some links to watch at home, for films including Eva Longoria in the comedy Unplugging, James Duval in the comedy I Challenger and the Japanese triptych Sexual Drive. I also hope to see Alexander Skarsgard in The Northman, most likely buying a ticket for a regular cinema.

Critical Week: Killer heels

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Amid growing covid-related issues in the UK, London-based critics have had our first press screening of 2022: a masked-up full house enjoying pre-film cocktails, popcorn and photo ops before watching the globe-hopping action movie The 355 on a huge Leicester Square screen. The movie has its moments, thanks to the far above-average cast (above are Penelope Cruz, Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o and Diane Kruger), although the lazy script and choppy-shaky action scenes let it down rather badly.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Hero • Writing With Fire
Licorice Pizza • Ailey
Munich: The Edge of War 
ALL REVIEWS >

Other films seen this week were an eclectic bunch. Minyan is a thoughtful, insightful drama set in 1980s Brooklyn as a teen struggles with the tension between his tight Russian-Jewish family and his newfound homosexuality. From Kosovo, Hive is a superbly understated true story of a woman taking on her sexist society. Mads Mikkelsen is terrific as a burly soldier in Riders of Justice, an unusually smart and engaging Danish variation on the Taken vengeance formula. Quentin Dupieux is back with another endearingly bonkers adventure, Mandibles, about two chuckleheads who find a gigantic housefly. And from Spain, More the Merrier is a multi-strand comedy set around a club for swingers. Sometimes very sexy, the film struggles to escape from the usual prudish attitudes.

This coming week I'll finally catching up with Ben Affleck in The Tender Bar, Shawn Ashmore in Free Fall, the Swiss drama La Mif, and the documentary Taming the Garden.

LFF: Light the way

The strangest London Film Festival in memory is heading into its final weekend, and I still have yet to have any physical evidence that anything has actually taken place - no printed programme, press badge, not even a single in-person screening. But I've watched a lot of amazing films over the past couple of weeks (two of the best so far are below). I did get out of the house again yesterday for a theatre press night, which was good fun (watch for that review once this LFF blog ends on Sunday). In the meantime, here are four more highlights...

Nomadland

dir-scr Chloe Zhao; with Frances McDormand, David Strathairn 20/US *****

A hybrid between drama and fly-on-the-wall doc, this astonishing film takes a journey through an unseen segment of US society, chronicling the thousands of Baby Boomers whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the 2008 Great Recession. Almost everyone on-screen is playing themselves. Filmmaker Chloe Zhao, Frances McDormand and gifted cinematographer Joshua James Richards create a powerful portrait of a vast community on the move around the American West.

Another Round

dir Thomas Vinterberg; with Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen 20/Den ****

With his usually realistic approach, filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg takes a deep dive into Denmark's heavy drinking culture. Even with the high-concept premise, the film is beautifully character-based, centring on four middle-aged men on a frankly ridiculous quest to prove that humans achieve optimal performance with alcohol in their system. So as warning signs begin to appear, the shift from warm comedy to dark drama is astute, complex and provocative... FULL REVIEW >

Limbo

dir-scr Ben Sharrock; with Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai 20/UK ****

An offbeat approach to storytelling sets this film apart as it recounts the experiences of a refugee. Writer-director Ben Sharrock sees the narrative through a cheeky, artful eye, catching tiny absurdities and deeper resonance. With snappy production design, bleak landscapes and expectant faces, this is a wonderfully human approach to an important topic. And it worms its way under the skin, surprising us with laugh-out-loud humour and strong emotions.

Notturno

dir-scr Gianfranco Rosi; with Ali Ali, Mohamas Ali Monajed 20/It ****.

Shot over three years in Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq and Lebanon, this masterful documentary by the gifted Gianfranco Rosi immediately reminds us of the intensely personal stories behind headlines about war. This film digs deeply beneath the news to recount the human impact of political and religious violence. Shot by Rosi like a particularly beautiful narrative feature, it has elements of family drama, adventure and heart-stopping thriller woven into it.

NB. My anchor page for the LFF is HERE and full reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries. The backlog will start shrinking soon.

On the Road: Far from home

Heading from London to Los Angeles for two weeks in February, you'd rightly expect to have warmer weather. Surprise! It's colder and wetter here in California than it is in England at the moment. But at least it's sunny. I've been busy spending time with family, but managed to catch one movie here: the survival drama Arctic, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a man stranded in an endless snowscape after a plane crash. It's a bare-bones thriller, with no backstory and only one other character (who barely speaks). But it's strikingly well directed by Joe Penna, shot with skill to bring the audience right into the character's odyssey. It's hard not to shiver in the cold during the film, wince at the pain and even panic a little over the hopelessness. Even if you know it can't end as bleakly it looks like it will.

The only other film I've watched in the past week is Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), which I revisited on the plane. It's a personal favourite, and its scrappy charm and pungent emotion hold up, as do the iconic songs. John Cameron Mitchell's writing, direction and acting are masterful. And it's great to see the young Michael Pitt in his breakout role, as well as a very young Miriam Shor (most recently seen in Younger).

I'm now bracing myself for Oscar on Sunday, hoping the winners are a list of surprises and that the ceremony takes some risks to shake things up a bit. It's well worth watching that jaw-dropping opening number from the 1989 ceremony, the last time there wasn't a host - which is so increasingly insane that it almost seems sad something like that could never happen again (google: rob lowe snow white oscars - then settle in for 11 minutes of pure "what were they thinking" joy). I'll post my picks on Saturday...

LFF 4: Strike a pose

The 59th London Film Festival forges ahead with more red carpet mania (that's Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren and John Goodman out last night, for Trumbo). It's only Day 4 and I'm already suffering from burn-out, so tonight I'm taking a break and heading to the theatre! That should help me face the coming eight days, even with those nasty 8.45am press screenings. Thankfully the films have been good enough to (mostly) keep me awake. More highlights...

Bone Tomahawk 
dir S Craig Zahler; with Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson 15/US ***.
A fresh take on the Western genre, this film combines dark drama with snappy wit and grisly horror to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. So while it's riveting and unpredictable, with strikingly bold performances from the entire cast, it's also vaguely ridiculous in its grotesque exaggeration of frontier fears about Native Americans.

The Program
dir Stephen Frears; with Ben Foster, Chris O'Dowd 15/UK ***. 
With a quick pace and steely tone, this drama traces Lance Armstrong's career in a strikingly lucid way. Never simplistic, it sees the events through the cyclist's own perspective, acknowledging the moral issues while carefully exploring why a sportsman would cheat his way to success. Anchored by a bracing performance from Foster, this is also one of the edgiest movies in Frears' eclectic filmography

Couple in a Hole 
dir Tom Geens; with Paul Higgins, Kate Dickie 15/UK **. 
Like something from the Greek new wave, this film takes a surreal look at fundamental human emotions through a premise that feels both fantastical and eerily realistic. On the other hand, this particular parable is far too on-the-nose, never quite coming up with anything very insightful. Still, it's packed with unexpected twists and characters that defy expectations.

Men & Chicken 
dir Anders Thomas Jensen; with Mads Mikkelsen, David Dencik 15/Den **** 
A wickedly grotesque look at family connections, this Danish black comedy is both hugely entertaining and utterly bonkers. A mixture of scientific creepiness and Three Stooges-style slapstick, the film defiantly refuses to fit into a genre. Which makes it gloriously entertaining in all the wrong ways.

Aligarh
dir Hansal Mehta; with Manoj Bajpai, Rajkummar Rao 15/Ind ****
It would be easy to write off this true drama as something that could only happen in India, but the film has striking layers of global resonance. Not only is it a vivid depiction of the struggle for human rights, in this case relating to sexuality, but it's also a subtle indictment of how Western media have created a need for everyone to be put into their appropriate box. And it's written, directed and acted with remarkable sensitivity and insight.

Critical Week: Women on top

Two big films screened to London press this week have strong female voices. Lily Tomlin stars in Grandma, as a sparky 70-year-old on a mission with her granddaughter (Julia Garner). It's a funny, involving film with unexpected depth. Much more overtly political, Suffragette explores the real events a century ago when women demanded that they should no longer be treated like slaves, beginning with the right to vote. It features a blistering performance by Carey Mulligan, plus strong support from Anne-Marie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter, Natalie Press and, in a cameo, Meryl Streep.

Women are also at the centre of the scruffy comedy Addicted to Fresno, starring Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne as sisters who get involved in a silly caper. A Haunting in Cawdor is a moody horror thriller centres on a young woman (Shelby Young) in a summer work-release theatre camp. And the messy British comedy Convenience stars Vicky McClure as a savvy mini-mart clerk dealing with two idiotic robbers.

Both Grandma and Suffragette are screening in the London Film Festival, for which we also had press screenings including: Clemence Poesy and David Morrissey in The Ones Below, Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation, Mads Mikkelsen in Men & Chicken, Deepa Mehta's Beeba Boys, Marco Bellocchio's Blood of My Blood and the British addiction doc Chemsex. More comments on these as the festival gets underway.

Coming up this week we have Ryan Reynolds in Mississippi Grind controversial filmmaker Gaspar Noe's Love, the doc Listen to Me Marlon and the British animated romp The Big Knights. London Film Festival screenings include Truman, The Invitation and James White.

LFF 8: It's all about parenthood

Steve Carell and filmmaker Bennett Miller were on hand at the 58th London Film Festival today to present their new drama Foxcatcher, based on the true story of John du Pont and his rather outrageously creepy sponsorship of the US Olympic wrestling team. Carell is being mentioned as a sure-fire Oscar nominee for the role, which sees him under several layers of facial prosthetics and body padding - but it's also a remarkably understated performance that sends chills down the spine. They were joined on the gala red carpet tonight by Sienna Miller, and also on hand was Xavier Dolan with his Cannes-winning film Mommy. Here are some more highlights from the festival (I've uploaded several reviews, with more to come)...

Foxcatcher
dir Bennett Miller; with Steve Carell, Channing Tatum 14/US ****
After Capote and Moneyball, director Miller turns his hand to another true story, although this one is so unnerving that the film is rather difficult to like. But it's strikingly well made, building an almost unbearable sense of creepy tension through characters who are portrayed bravely by actors working beyond their comfort zones.

Mommy
dir Xavier Dolan; with Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon 14/Can ****.
With his most audacious film to date (which is saying something for the 25-year-old writer-director of films like I Killed My Mother and Laurence Anyway),  Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan creates a whole new cinematic language to explore the astoundingly complex relationship between a mother and son. The film is difficult, confounding and sometimes maddeningly honest.

The Salvation
dir Kristian Levring; with Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green 14/Den ****
A remarkably fresh take on the Western, this Danish film (shot in South Africa) is packed with believable characters in realistic situations. Director Levring captures the genre's recognisable elements without ever falling back on a simplistic cliche, which makes the events eerily easy to identify with, especially where they involve moral dilemmas. FULL REVIEW >

Catch Me Daddy

dir Daniel Wolfe, Matthew Wolfe; with Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, Conor McCarron 14/UK ***

Revealing its story in hints and fragments, and relying on some understanding from a clued-up audience, this dark dramatic thriller is so vividly made that any shortcomings in the uneven cast and jarring narrative are more than made up for in atmosphere. Not only is it genuinely terrifying and emotionally wrenching, but it also touches on a very important current issue.