Critical Week: On the road again

I'm taking a break from the movies over the next few days, and I've travelled up to Edinburgh to watch some shows in the Fringe. Reviews are incoming - watch this space! But before I left London, I caught a few movies. Nimrods is a rambunctious cross-country road movie following three dopey teens for a rendezvous in Los Angeles with Green Day. It's too messy to be a classic, but will definitely find a cult following. And Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor dive fully into the chaos of The End of Oak Street, as their suburb is invaded by voracious dinosaurs. This is a pure guilty pleasure, worth seeing on a big screen laughing and screaming along with the crowd.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Tony • Nimrods
The End of Oak Street
Songs of Forgotten Trees
ALL REVIEWS >

Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield lead a strong British cast in the colourfully quirky fantasy The Magic Faraway Tree, based on the beloved Enid Blyton novel. A blast of sharp wit makes this a lot more fun than expected. Agniezka Holland's Franz is an impressively artful, fascinating but too-fractured biopic about legendary author Franz Kafka.  The queer Australian horror Leviticus has an unusually romantic undercurrent that evokes very deep emotions amid some terrifying grisliness. And Anuparna Roy's award-winning Indian drama Songs of Forgotten Trees is a beautifully observed story of two young women facing challenges in the big city. 

Finally, there were two more films that are premiering at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this week, including Queen at Sea, a powerfully involving British drama featuring devastating performances from Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay. And the entertaining documentary The Mad World of Harvey Kurtzman traces the life of the creator of Mad magazine. It's also a remarkable look at the emergence of comic books and mid-20th century pop culture.

Coming up this next week, after I get back to London, I'll be watching Hugh Jackman in The Death of Robin Hood, Andrew Scott in Pressure, the comedy Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, the Bolivian drama The Condor Daughter and the documentary Super Nature.

Critical Week: Always say yes

After wrapping up the first SXSW London festival over the weekend, I had a flurry of screenings to keep me busy this week. This included the action comedy Deep Cover, with Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed as improv comics on police business in the London underworld. It's ridiculous but a lot of fun. Even more absurd was the silly action romp Shadow Force, rescued by the sheer charm of Kerry Washington and Omar Sy as parents with secret black ops skills, pulled back into the mayhem. The tired premise nearly sinks it, but the actors make it watchable, including a villainous Mark Strong.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Tornado
Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf
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The week's other big screening was the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, which looked amazing on a huge Imax screen. While not strictly necessary, the film is still rousing enough to be worth a look. Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff star in the romantic comedy A Nice Indian Boy, which is funny, engaging and delightfully pointed. The French romcom Jane Austen Wrecked My Life takes a low-key approach to its engagingly astute story of a blocked writer. Shakespeare's classic is reimagined as a lavishly produced pop musical for Juliet & Romeo, simplifying things in the process, but remaining entertaining too. And the clearly low-budget independent drama Franklin centres on two aspiring actors in Los Angeles as they navigate career and love-life issues.

I also attended the premiere of the third season of Squid Game, which included a terrific on-stage Q&A with stars Lee Jung-Jae, Lee Byung-hun and Park Gyuyoung, plus creator Hwang Dong-hyuk. And the dance show Inside Giovanni's Room, based on the landmark James Baldwin novel, was simply gorgeous at Sadler's Wells East.

This coming week will be rather busy with the Pixar animation Elio, Scarlett Johansson in Jurassic World Rebirth, John Travolta in High Rollers, Harry Melling in Harvest, Naomi Ackie in Sorry Baby, Leonie Benesch in Late Shift and the Tunisian drama Red Path, plus the first week of movies at the 33rd Raindance Film Festival and the annual opening night cabaret for the London Clown Festival.