Critical Week: You're a superstar

It's still been relatively quiet in London, a short week following the Cannes Film Festival. But things kick off next week with Sundance Film Festival: London; I'm looking forward to this four-day burst of cinematic life at Picturehouse Central. It's a fluke of the releasing schedule that I've seen 17 films that are being released this week in the US and/or UK. These are films I've seen over the course of bout a year and a half (many screened at festivals), but they are for some reason converging now in cinemas or streaming! All of the reviews are on the website. 

BEST OUT THIS BUSY WEEK:
Robot Dreams • The Beast
The Dead Don't Hurt
Big Boys • What You Wish For
A House In Jerusalem
Pandemonium • Hidden Master
The Pilgrimage of Gilbert & George
ALL REVIEWS >

Double Oscar-winners featured in two films I saw this past week. Jessica Lange is radiant in The Great Lillian Hall, a lovely drama about a fading theatre icon costarring Kathy Bates and Jesse Williams (above). And Anthony Hopkins shines in Freud's Last Session, a fictionalised meeting between the iconic psychoanalyst and author CS Lewis (Matthew Goode) that's beautifully written and packed with provocative ideas.

Offbeat films this week include Isabelle Huppert once again delightfully stealing the show in Francois Ozon's skilfully arch mystery comedy The Crime Is Mine; the warm and witty assembled family drama The Mattachine Family, starring the hugely likeable Nico Tortorella and Emily Hampshire; Richard Armitage in the often harrowing true-life WWII survival adventure The Boy in the Woods; the dark, moving British-Palestinian drama A House in Jerusalem; and the eye-opening London artists doc The Pilgrimage of Gilbert & George.

This coming week I'll be watching Will Smith in Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Jennifer Connelly in Bad Behaviour, David Duchovny in Reverse the Curse, Ciaran Hinds in Cottontail, British sci-fi drama Sky Peals, Wyoming-set fantasy Riddle of Fire, Belgian drama Here and road trip drama Summer Solstice, plus lots of movies at the Sundance Film Festival: London. 

Critical Week: At the movies

I saw fewer films this week for a variety of reasons, including extended celebrations of my birthday and a two-day trip to Brighton to visit a friend. It was nice to take a break from the screen and catch some (intermittent) sunshine for a change. But I was glad to be back in cinemas for a couple of high-profile press screenings. Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren star in the crowd-pleasing true story The Duke, which is perhaps fizzier than it should be, but audiences will love it. And Scarlett Johansson is back for her long-awaited lead role in Black Widow, an action movie livened up by deeper-than-expected filmmaking and performances. Florence Pugh particularly shines alongside Johansson, plus scene-stealers David Harbour and Rachel Weisz.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Martin Eden • Black Widow
The Truffle Hunters • The Surrogate
ALL REVIEWS >

More offbeat films included the horror thriller Son, an unnerving exploration of maternal excess that keeps us tense but struggles to stick the landing, and the Spanish romance Carmen & Lola, an involving and remarkably authentic story set in Madrid's Roma subculture. There was also the short film collection Upon Her Lips: Heartbeats, with eight mini-dramas exploring angles on female attraction.

This coming week I'll be watching Ewan McGregor in The Birthday Cake, Robert De Niro in The Comeback Trail, Karen Gillen in Gunpowder Milkshake, the award-winning French comedy Bye Bye Morons, the horror mystery The Boy Behind the Door and the Danish thriller Shorta.

Critical Week: In at the deep end

Passing the 100-day mark in the London lockdown, this week also included my birthday, so I took it a little easier as far as screenings were concerned. There was also continually shifting ground relating to the reopening of UK cinemas. Most are now waiting another month, and won't open until August, because both the cinemas and the distributors need as much capacity for seating as possible in order to pay the bills. Press screenings are much less likely, because these are usually tiny rooms with very few seats, so it's looking like online viewing links will be the only option for us for awhile. I miss going to the movies for a communal experience. But even film festivals are bypassing press screenings, moving everything to streaming. So this may become a permanent change, but I hope not.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A White, White Day
Four Kids and It • Cut Off
PERHAPS AVOID:
The F**k-It List
FULL REVIEWS >

As for the films I watched this past week: The F**k-It List is a well-acted teen comedy-drama (Eli Brown, above, is particularly good), but it's full of badly contradictory messages that sound great but are actually very dodgy. Will Ferrell's passion project Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga really should be more sharp-edged than this. But as an homage to the annual competition, it has some iconic moments of its own, and a great soundtrack. And Four Kids and It is a lively family adventure with some quirky comedy that nicely subverts any sentimentality. It's not terribly complex, but is enjoyable while it lasts.

Further afield, Cut Off is a strikingly well made thriller from Germany with a superbly complicated plot and the always terrific Moritz Bleibtreu. Midnight Kiss is a strongly written slasher comedy about a group of friends on holiday in Palm Springs over New Year when a killer strikes. Black Magic for White Boys is a close-to-the-knuckle freeform comedy with some provocative racial overtones. And for my birthday I revisited a favourite from 1987, that gloriously snarky fairy tale for adults The Princess Bride. Bliss.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Charlize Theron in The Old Guard, Garrett Hedlund in Burden, Tobias Menzies in Carmilla, the romcom Desperados, the thriller Parallax, the comedy Saint Frances, the Japanese musical We Are Little Zombies and the doc Mucho Mucho Amor.

Critical Week: Never grow up

I took it relatively easy this week - only six films! And I neglected all of my screener discs and links to escape London for the rainy weekend. So this coming week will be a bit of a catch-up movie marathon. At screenings, there were several enjoyable surprises. Meryl Streep (above) is of course terrific as an ageing rock chick in the snappy family drama Ricki and the Flash. Tom Cruise (below) is lean and ready for action in the dark and involvingly gritty Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. And the terrific Emily Blunt is lean and tough in the riveting drug cartel thriller Sicario, ably supported by Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro on top form.

Less a horror movie than a dark drama about bullying, The Gift is a solid freak-out starring Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and actor turned promising writer-director Joel Edgerton. Danny Huston, Matthew Goode and Joe Cole do what they can with the waterlogged script of the underwater thriller Pressure. And Ian Ziering and Tara Reid are back for another silly romp in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No, which sees the budget increase but not the filmmakers' skills. At least they keep finding new ways to make us laugh.

Coming up this week, we have Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, Adam Sandler in Pixels, the teen romance Paper Towns, the star-packed doc Unity, the historical British drama Captain Webb and the Russian drama Stand. Plus the aforementioned catching up.