Critical Week: Stay classy

Over halfway through our month-long Lockdown 2.0, it's clear that everyone is seriously bored with all of this now, longing for a reopening of cinemas, restaurants, pubs, theatres and everything really in time for Christmas. Meanwhile I've had three days and counting without internet, thanks to Virgin Media's astonishing inability to solve whatever the problem is in my neighbourhood. This means that I've had to use my phone's 4G to watch movies this week. And the films were a mixed bag. Ron Howard's new movie Hillbilly Elegy, which stars Glenn Close and Amy Adams. It's watchable but too simplistic to have any kind of kick. David Fincher's biopic Mank, starring Gary Oldman as the screenwriter of Citizen Kane, has equally great performances (especially from Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies), and much more visual panache, although Fincher's perfectionism drains the story of passion.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 

Lovers Rock • Another Round

Mosul • Happiest Season

Possessor

PERHAPS AVOID:

Hillbilly Elegy • Buddy Games

The Ringmaster

FULL REVIEWS >

And then there's the messy romantic comedy Love, Weddings & Other Disasters, a frothy, corny multi-strand affair starring Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons. Jungleland stars the superb Charlie Hunnam and Jack O'Connell as brothers on a road trip with the always excellent Jessica Barden, but the film is too hushed to come to life. Lost at Christmas is an awkward little holiday rom-com from Scotland, with just about enough charm to win us over. Host is a refreshingly original British horror movie set entirely on a Zoom screen, and it's skilfully terrifying. And The Ringmaster is a sickeningly derivative Danish horror movie that's uber-grisly but not very scary.

There were also two docs: Zappa uses extensive archival material to trace the iconic musician's career, while Markie in Milwaukee is about a 7-foot deeply religious trans woman who decides to live as a man again, then has to face her true nature. I also caught Kevin Hart's new stand-up show, Zero F**ks Given, which has a nicely intimate feel in his house, including some very personal jokes. And then there was The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, a giddy bit of Christmas fluff that felt like just what I needed.

This coming week I'll catch up with Red, White and Blue, the third film in Steve McQueen's Small Axe series, as well as the all-star musical The Prom, Viggo Mortensen's Falling, Diane Lane in Let Him Go, Drew Barrymore in The Stand-In, Margot Robbie in Dreamland, the psychological thriller Muscle and the shorts collection The American Boys.

Critical Week: I didn't do it!

Press screenings are slowly starting up again after the holidays, and of the four films I watched in the past week, two featured innocent men on the wrong side of the law. Poker Night stars Beau Mirchoff (above) as a rookie detective whose life takes a horrific twist after he's inducted into the elite cops' secret game. An interesting idea, but the story struggles to hold water amid over-stylised filmmaking and scene-chomping performances. Even wobblier is Taken 3, Liam Neeson's latest work-out as an action star. Everyone on-screen is solid, but the Besson/Kamen script is ludicrous and Olivier Megaton's direction leaves the action scenes incoherent.

The other two films were much more challenging. Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985) is one of cinema's all-time masterpieces, and now he has turned an unused 1975 interview into a new doc The Last of the Unjust, highlighting a side of the Holocaust we've never seen. Low-key and straightforward, it's far too long and academic, but utterly essential. And then there's the Mexican multi-strand drama Four Moons, a sensitive, strikingly honest exploration of four stages of life for men grappling with their own gay identities. The filmmaking is a bit simplistic, but the acting and themes are powerfully involving.

Otherwise I took in some TV, binge-watching to catch up on the current seasons of Scandal (a pure guilty pleasure), Arrow (ridiculous but addictive), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (corny but diverting) and The Walking Dead (starting to wear a bit thin). And then there's the Foo Fighter's doc series Sonic Highways, which inventively delves into the nature of music in society and how songs are written as Dave Grohl and crew travel around America recording songs in key cities. Fascinating, and surprisingly moving too. Plus of course the Christmas finale of Downton Abbey, which was a pure delight, for a change. For a film critic, television is like a great escape: I can actually watch something without working!

This coming week cranks up a bit more with screenings of Cate Blanchett's new film The Turning, Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in the delayed release of the Nigerian drama Black November, Stephen Daldry's Trash, Alex Garland's Ex Machina and the offbeat teen horror thriller It Follows.

Critical Week: There's no place like home

There's nothing like seeing a favourite film on the big screen where it belongs, and this week I got to revisit The Wizard of Oz remastered in Imax 3D. The film is as amazing (and as marvellously deranged) as ever, with an astonishing level of detail in the big-screen digital restoration. This is the way the film should be seen. Even the sepia prologue (with the heart-stopping Over the Rainbow, above) is spectacular.

London critics were also treated to screenings of the energetic and rather wonderful animated adventure The Boxtrolls; the well-acted and involving American ensemble drama About Alex, which is clearly channelling The Big Chill; Agyness Deyn in the artful and somewhat indulgent British drama Electricity; and the strikingly moving Venezuelan drama My Straight Son, which tackles almost too many huge issues but remains personal and resonant.

In the coming week, we'll be watching Denzel Washington in the Equalizer remake, Julianne Moore in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, Sam Claflin in Love Rosie, the award-winning Brazilian drama The Way He Looks, Eric Cantona's erotic romp You and the Night, the Italian drama Human Capital, the Gerry Anderson documentary Filmed in Supermarionation, and the acrobatic doc Born to Fly.