Critical Week: I've got a bad feeling

It's been another unusually busy week for this time of year in the screening rooms, with a steady stream, of movies to watch. I'd been hoping to get a break after awards season, but we are powering forward at full speed. So any down time will have to wait. Big releases are screening late these days, with three that are coming out this week: Ayo Edebiri leads the cast of Opus, a blackly comical horror film that isn't very scary. But Edebiri makes it very watchable, as does a scene-chewing John Malkovich. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender sizzle in the snaky, intelligent thriller Black Bag, which refreshingly isn't about what you think it's about. And Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt lead an offbeat ensemble in The Electric State, a retro sci-fi adventure that's watchable but also forgettable.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Last Breath
Black Bag • Throuple
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Day the Earth Blew Up
ALL REVIEWS >

Other films included the perhaps too-emotional drama The Life of Chuck, with a superb ensemble led by Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan. The Parenting is an amusing meet-the-parents horror pastiche with Brian Cox, Edie Falco and Lisa Kudrow. It's funny and grisly, but never frightening. Infused with music, Throuple is an offbeat indie romance that knowingly bends the rules. And there were two Chinese films: the epic animated sequel Ne Zha 2 is visually dazzling, while the blackly comical thriller Brief History of a Family is riveting and surprising.

There were also two festival films. From South by Southwest, there was the sharply made teen comedy She's the He, and from WatchAUT, I enjoyed the offbeat drama of Peacock, starring the superb Albrecht Schuch. And I also caught two stage shows: Dear Martin at the Arcola Theatre and Drum Tao: The Dream at the Peacock Theatre.

This coming week I'll be watching two films with Pedro Pascal, the adventure Freaky Tales and the comedy-drama The Uninvited, plus Disney's live-action Snow White, Michel Hazanavicius' animated The Most Precious of Cargoes, Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia and the artificial intelligence doc The Thinking Game. In addition, the remake of The Wedding Banquet, starring Bowen Yang, opens BFI Flare film fest on Wednesday.

Critical Week: Signature move

Awards season is in full swing now that the actors strike has ended, and I've had a couple of nice Q&A screenings this week (see Insta for pics). Big year-end movies are beginning to appear too. Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James and writer-director Sean Durkin came along to present The Iron Claw, their astonishingly involving, powerfully moving true drama about a family of wrestlers. And Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby and Ridley Scott were on the red carpet for the Leicester Square premiere of Napoleon, a first-rate epic biopic about the French leader that looks properly amazing on the biggest screen possible. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Rustin • Saltburn
May December
ALL REVIEWS >

Meanwhile, Colman Domingo is excellent in the biopic Rustin, about the unsung Civil Rights organiser. Alexander Payne's The Holdovers is a 1970s-style wintry delight starring Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick are fierce in the harrowing Aussie Outback thriller The Royal Hotel. Taika Waititi's true-life comedy Next Goal Wins is a gently witty story about the world's worst football team, starring Michael Fassbender. Jesse Eisenberg turns into a meathead for Manodrome, a very dark drama that doesn't always work but gets us thinking. From New Zealand, the drama Punch is thoughtful and moving. Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron is even more spectacular than expected. Godzilla Minus One is a beefy prequel set in post-war Japan. The doc American Symphony finds surprising emotion while following Jon Batiste as he composes an orchestral piece. And the Powell and Pressburger classic The Red Shoes is even more dazzling in a new restoration. I also caught up with this one...

Dance First
dir James Marsh; with Gabriel Byrne, Fionn O'Shea 23/UK ***
While director James Marsh adds considerable visual flourish to this imaginative biopic about Samuel Beckett, there's a nagging feeling that the story is incomplete, as if it is skipping across the surface of a darkly complex figure. So while the script and performances add nuance in the characters and relationships, everything feels eerily out of reach. Thankfully, superb performances as Beckett from Gabriel Byrne and especially Fionn O'Shea give the film layers of insight and context. 

Films this coming week include Disney's new animated feature Wish, Michael Mann's Ferrari, Tilda Swinton in The Eternal Daughter (a full 15 months after I missed the screening in Venice!), Mexican thriller Lost in the Night, Australian drama A Stitch in Time, deep-fake doc Another Body and arthouse cinema doc Scala!!!, plus LoveTrain at Sadler's Wells and Connor Burns: Vertigo at Soho Theatre.

LFF: Let's get lost

The 67th London Film Festival kicked off last night with a gala screening of Emerald Fennell's Saltburn, although due to the ongoing actors strike, Fennell was the only person representing the film on the red carpet. I had a great chat with her at the after party, which stretched late into the night. It's only Day 2 and I'm already hideously sleep-deprived. But that's how festivals work, so I'll hang in there for the next 10 days catching up with this year's big festival titles. Here are highlights from the first two days...

Saltburn
dir-scr Emerald Fennell; with Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi 23/UK ****
With a story that echoes The Talented Mr Ripley, Emerald Fennell dives into the dark side of Britain's class structure. Wonderfully heightened, the film's deranged vibe is instantly gripping. Vicious swipes are delivered with backhanded relish by an excellent cast in stiff-upper-lip mode. Where the story goes is vivid and unnerving, simply because the storytelling is so full-on. We may have seen it before, but never quite like this.

The Killer
dir David Fincher; with Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton 23/US ***.
Steely and clinical, this stylised hitman thriller plays out in a series of carefully planned set-pieces, reflecting the approach of both Michael Fassbender's eponymous killer and director David Fincher. It looks terrific, churning skilfully through action, intrigue and pitch-black drama, each scene infused with wry wit and icy violence. Yet while the artistry is first-rate, the film lacks an emotional connection that might have pulled us in deeper.

Fingernails
dir Christos Nikou; with Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed 23/US ****
With its understated fantastical premise and a delicate, observant pace, this offbeat romance plays out in beautifully unexpected ways that will reward viewers who can be patient with its hushed tone. Working in North America, Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou is grappling with the awkward impossibility of quantifying love. Sensitive writing and directing provide insight alongside adept, nuanced performances from Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White.

The Eternal Memory
dir-scr Maite Alberdi; with Augusto Gongora, Paulina Urrutia 23/Chl ****
This documentary about the nature of memory works on several powerfully moving layers, exploring the importance of maintaining a truthful account of history through the lens of a couple grappling with the effects of dementia. The film is also a ravishing real-life love story, shot largely by the couple themselves, with extensive new and archival footage. And gifted Chilean director Maite Alberdi assembles it to beautifully offbeat human rhythms.

All full festival reviews will be linked to Shadows' LFF PAGE >

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

Movies I watched this week included the 50-years-later sequel The Exorcist: Believer, which started well then fell apart; the somewhat undercooked relational thriller Fair Play; the witty Dutch animated adventure Oink; and Wes Anderson's witty and stylish four shorts based on Roald Dahl stories, starting with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Films this coming week include Mind-Set and Cat Person. And at London Film Festival I'll be watching Bradley Cooper's Maestro, Todd Haynes' May December, Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers, Saoirse Ronan in Foe, Annette Bening in Nyad, Austin Butler in The Bikeriders and many more.

Critical Week: Feel the roar

I've hit the cinemas in California this week trying to catch up on press screenings I missed while away from London. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a deeply unsatisfying follow-up to Gareth Edwards' 2014 reboot. Millie Bobby Brown (above) is terrific in the best role, but the script is choppy and simplistic. The effects are also rather murky, as they are in Dark Phoenix, the fourth in the X-Men First Class cycle. It feels oddly melodramatic, with a superb cast that livens up a dull script that never quite connects the dots. By contrast, Brightburn is another superhero genre twist from James Gunn (see also The Specials and Super). It's a rare horror movie that's scary and involving, because it takes time to build the characters and situations. And these two documentaries are released this week...

The Lavender Scare

dir Josh Howard; with David Johnson, Lillian Faderman, John D'Emilio, Frank Kameny, Jamie Shoemaker
voices Glenn Close, David Hyde Pierce, Cynthia Nixon, Zachary Quinto, TR Knight
release US 7.Jun.19 • 17/US 1h17 ****

After taking office in 1954, President Eisenhower ordered the firing of all homosexuals working for the government. The worry was that they could be seduced by Russian spies, even though there wasn't a single documented case of this happening. FBI agents aggressively uprooted every aspect of a suspected gay employee's life in invasive investigations, often on the basis of one informant. The accused had no recourse: they were threatened and then fired as "undesirable" by the tens of thousands, their careers ended, often driven to suicide. All of this came as a shock, as society before this had been much more open and accepting. The film carefully traces how this came about, a perfect storm combining McCarthy's communist witchhunt and a fear of homosexuality sparked by Kinsey's report. Director Howard uses a snappy combination of expert interviews, firsthand accounts and archival material. This includes a number of strikingly involving personal stories, including Frank Kameny, the first person who didn't go quietly after he was fired. He formed an activist society in the early 1960s, which led to a series of protests against discrimination and abuse, including the Stonewall riots at the end of the decade. This continued into the 1990s, when Kameny finally saw President Clinton overturn Eisenhower's law. This is a remarkably important documentary, covering an angle of the civil rights movement that is rarely explored with such honesty. The intimate approach, accompanied by a terrific range of archival material, makes it deeply involving and often powerfully moving. It almost ends on a note of triumph, as if all of the nastiness is in the past, which already feels eerily optimistic and perhaps a bit naive in the face of renewed bigotry and persecution around the world. But this also reminds us that there will always be people willing to stand up for what's right.

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This One’s for the Ladies
dir Gene Graham; prd Gene Graham, Paul Rowley
with Momma Joe, Raw Dog, Tygar, Fever, Blaze, Satan, Mr Capable, Young Rider, Poundcake, C-Pudding
release US 7.Jun.19 • 18/US 1h23 ***.

There's an intriguing depth to this documentary, which tackles some big issues using firsthand commentary rather than research or expert opinions. The topic is the urban struggle, encompassing racial injustice and poverty, and the filmmakers simply observe people who speak about an unexpected way they've found to escape the cycle of criminality. The setting is Newark, where beefy black men (and one muscled woman) strip down to a, well, single sock for lively audiences. Filmmaker Graham interviews several members of the New Jersey Nasty Boyz, as well as their loyal fans and family members. They speak a lot about their shared childhoods in the projects and their respect for the community, which is expressed through charity work and fundraising shows. They avoided a life of crime by staying in education and relying on their faith and close relationships, tapping into their African tribal roots as they do erotic dance. The film takes a simple, unfussy approach, letting the sassy attitudes emerge in both captured conversations and sweaty, lusty dance routines. "It's not about sex," says Momma Joe, whose sons Raw Dog and Tygar perform as a double act. "It's the illusion of having sex!" When the filmmakers are focussing on the dancers and their work, the energy is riveting. So the film kind of drags when it drifts gently into the larger themes. But the stories these people tell are powerful, as is the insight they can offer into a society that never gave them a chance due to inadequate schools and below-poverty wages. No wonder it's so difficult to avoid crime. And no wonder stripping offers both the dancers and the audience members an escape, a chance to control their fates. "It's therapy," one guy says. "It's our way out."

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I'm heading back to London this weekend, so will be in catch-up mode on films opening over the next few weeks. I have Julianne Moore's Gloria Bell to watch on the plane. And back in London, my diary over the next week includes Danny Boyle's musical Yesterday, the reboot Men In Black International, the indie British drama Bait, and the documentary Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love...

Critical Week: Sister act

It's been nice to only see three films in the three days after the film festival ended (rather than three or four a day). The main event was an epic press screening of Thor: Ragnarok, which is surprisingly funny all the way through while also being packed with eye-catching energy (especially the scene-stealing Cate Blanchett, above), even if the whole Marvel thing is feeling oddly stale, perhaps because there is no suspense left in the formula. But it's a lot of fun. I also caught up with The Snowman, Michael Fassbender's serial killer thriller based on the Jo Nesbo novel, which has deservedly had terrible reviews across the board. There is a huge range of talent on both side of the cameras, yet the script is a mess. And on the smaller side, I caught the British thriller B&B, which touches on some big topics (mainly bigotry) with strong characters and a genuinely unsettling plot. I also had some time for the theatre...

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Young Frankenstein
at the Garrick Theatre
Mel Brooks adapts his own classic film (one of my all-time favourites) into this rather nutty musical, which opened in the West End last week. It's basically the movie with added songs that stretch out some of the more iconic moments, and the characters are all played by a skilled singing-dancing cast exactly like their big screen counterparts. Perhaps the film is so indelible that there's no other way to play these roles - they wouldn't be as funny it they didn't hark back to the great Gene Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Kenneth Mars, Gene Hackman. The material is robust enough to handle this transition - the film's best jokes are still funny on stage. And the emotional kick is here too, even if it's somewhat diluted by the extra razzle dazzle. I'll probably go see it again.

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Graeme of Thrones
at the Charing Cross Theatre
The subject up for satire is obvious, but this fringe show takes an amusingly fresh approach that is actually poking fun at fringe shows themselves. The three-person cast is up for quite a lot of riotous silliness, with physical slapstick, wordplay and lots of sight gags. Their rendition of the series' opening titles is impeccably ridiculous. Fans of the TV show will get all of the jokes, which include spoilers right up to the latest season. And there are plenty of gems thrown in all the way through for a wider audience, especially the performance art pieces that come out of nowhere with their delirious absurdity. Some of the humour strains a bit, but most gags hit the target astutely. And by the end, the sloppy "let's put on a show" vibe means that we're rooting for all three of these scruffy actors (plus one game audience member) to claim the Iron Throne.

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Coming up this next week, we have Nicolaj Coster-Waldau in Shot Caller, Domhnall Gleeson in Crash Pad, British thriller Palace of Fun and Aussie coming-of-age drama Teenage Kicks.

Critical Week: What big hair you have!

A rather vicious bout with food poisoning derailed a few film screenings for me this week, leaving me feeling a bit like the Sun King on his deathbed in The Death of Louis XIV, an achingly slow-moving but mesmerising 18th century drama by Albert Serra. It also has a surprising underlying sense of humour to it, plus a lovely performance from Jean-Pierre Leaud. Terrence Malick's Song to Song is another gorgeous collage of a movie with a plot that was slightly less defiantly elusive than his more recent movies. It also has striking performances from Michael Fassbender, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchet and more. And Maudie is the warm true story of Nova Scotia painter Maud Lewis, sometimes a bit too quirky and quaint for its own good, but Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke add nice textures to their offbeat roles. And then there was this one...

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A Few Less Men
dir Mark Lamprell; scr Dean Craig; with Xavier Samuel, Kris Marshall, Kevin Bishop, Ryan Corr 17/Aus *
Screenwriter Dean Craig's 2012 comedy A Few Best Men was painfully unfunny, only livened up by Stephan Elliot's subversive direction. No one expected a sequel. But here it is, and the three returning actors at least dive in with gusto. Even so, Craig's script is even more unbearably inane this time, proving that comedies need gags that have something to do with characters or situations. Here, the jokes are random, usually extended set-pieces involving death and/or bodily functions, all with a vile homophobic undertone. And the plot simply makes no sense. It starts where the first film ended, after the wedding of sensible nice-guy David (Samuel), whose idiotic and unlikely English buddies (Marshall and Bishop) are coping with the death of a friend. The hijinks ensue as they try to get the body back to London so camp mobster Henry (Corr) can bury his brother. But they crash-land their private jet and end up carrying the coffin across the Outback on a single day that would need to have about 72 hours in it (Henry flies from London to meet them in Perth while the sun is still in the sky). The actors just about emerge with their dignity intact, simply by never acknowledging how bone-chillingly awful this movie is. There are welcome antics from scene-stealers like Lynette Curran, Deborah Mailman, Shane Jacobson and Sacha Horler. And the closing credits outtakes at least hint they had some fun making it.

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This coming week we have Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the animated antics of Captain Underpants, the Morrissey biopic England Is Mine and the cleverly titled heist thriller The Vault.

Critical Week: Just chilling

Press screenings are starting to crank up again after an early-May lull, perhaps because so many big movies are coming up. Although it's likely to quiet down when most London-based journalists (not me, thankfully) decamp to Cannes 17-28 May.

I enjoyed catching up with the Sundance hit The Big Sick, Kumail Nanjiani's autobiographical comedy, which cleverly depicts multi-cultural America with its awesome ensemble cast. The indie road comedy Folk Hero & Funny Guy was also enjoyable, starring the superb Wyatt Russell and Alex Karpovsky as childhood pals with a surprisingly complex relationship. But of course this week's biggest movie was Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's skilfully made sequel/prequel, which plays out almost like a reimagining of his original 1979 sci-fi horror classic. It's uneven, but entertainingly scary.

A bit further afield, the British-made drama Interlude in Prague focusses on some lusty intrigue for Mozart as he wrote Don Giovanni. It's very nicely shot on location, and the story is involving if a bit dry. Spark is a lively animated adventure with an all-star voice cast, but the animation isn't quite up to big studio standards. Eric Stoltz makes his feature directing debut with Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, a sharply observed comedy-drama that tackles some big themes (religion! sex!) without flinching. And Tomcat starts out as a gentle relationship drama before morphing into something dark and boldly disturbing, which is perhaps unsurprising since it's an Austrian film.

Blockbusters begin arriving over the next week, including the Baywatch movie, Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the Schumer-Hawn adventure Snatched, plus the acclaimed Chinese drama I Am Not Madame Bovary and the documentary Machines.

Critical Week: A boy's best friend

Big movies screened to the press this week include the action romp Monster Trucks, which is a proper guilty pleasure with a solid cast including Luke Till (above), Jane Levy, Rob Lowe, Amy Ryan and Thomas Lennon. The dream team of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt makes Passengers thoroughly engaging as a high-concept sci-fi drama-romance-thriller hybrid. And Assassin's Creed reunites Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard but falls into the usual trap of neglecting to find a coherent plot in a videogame.

James Franco and Bryan Cranston square off in the comedy Why Him?, yet another Meet the Parents-style romp from John Hamburg. It's stupid, but funny. Gold stars Matthew McConaughey in the fascinating true story of a rather dodgy mining operation, but the film isn't easy to engage with. Will Smith is bogged down in syruppy sentiment in Collateral Beauty, which is livened up a bit by Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Michael Pena and Kate Winslet. And the indie drama Retake is an enigmatic and surprisingly moving road trip starring Tuc Watkins.

My last actual screening of the year is Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, but I have several screener discs I need to watch over the next week or so before voting in various awards (I've already voted in the London Critics' Circle Film Awards - we announced our nominations this afternoon). Discs in the pile include Hello My Name Is Doris, Touched With Fire, A Man Called Ove, Aferim!, Zero Days, Before the Flood, Kate Plays Christine and My Scientology Movie. How many will I find time to watch?

LFF 8: Back home again

I entered the press screening of Xavier Dolan's latest film here at the 60th London Film Festival with some trepidation. It was met with harshly mixed reviews at Cannes, booed by audiences, slated by critics and yet winning one of the top awards. I've been a fan of this young filmmaker since the start of his prolific career, and I was happy to immediately feel at home in his twisted, dysfunctional world. I also thought his filmmaking and the amazing cast (Vincent Cassel, Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux and Nathalie Baye, above) were astonishing. This is my best film of the festival so far, and there are only two days to go. Highlights for Friday...

It's Only the End of the World 
dir-scr Xavier Dolan; with Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard 16/Can *****
Few filmmakers are as bold as 27-year-old Canadian Xavier Dolan, who regularly takes on family relationships using bravura filmmaking that brings out unexpected, unfiltered emotions. This film, based on a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce, is a staggering dissection of the dynamic between parents, children and siblings. It's heightened to the point that it's often painful to watch, but it's also urgent, honest and essential.

Trespass Against Us 
dir Adam Smith; with Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson 16/US ***.
Like a slap in the face, this edgy Irish comedy-drama comes at the audience at full tilt and never really lets up. This is a story about a family stuck in a cycle of ignorance and criminality, and writer Alastair Siddons and director Adam Smith take an approach that's unapologetic. The plot isn't hugely developed, and the message is rather muddled, but the sharp cast keeps it entertaining.

The Innocents 
dir Anne Fontaine; with Lou de Laage, Agata Buzek 16/Fr ****
Based on real events, this harrowing true story is told with sensitivity and humanity, making it easy to engage with every step along the way. Even though the setting is somewhat alien - it's a Polish convent at the very end of WWII - the story resonates with themes that are instantly identifiable, especially the choices everyone has to make between following the rules and showing some compassion.

Ethel & Ernest 
dir-scr Roger Mainwood; voices Jim Broadbent, Brenda Blethyn 16/UK ***.
A collection of gentle slice-of-life anecdotes, this is a warm account of 20th century life as a son retraces his parents relationship. Raymond Briggs told their story through drawings in his graphic novel, and now those scenes have been adapted into a movie with refreshing pen-and-ink style animation and a gently involving narrative free of gimmicks.

I saw Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals in Venice, and it was also a big gala presentation here, attended by Amy Adams and Armie Hammer (both of whom also have other films at LFF), as well as Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ford himself.

Venezia 73: Swept away on day 1

Greetings from the end of Day 1 at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. This is my first time at this festival - and my first visit in Venice itself (although I was born in Venice, California, if that counts for anything). I'm staying here on the Lido, not far from the Palazzo, Casino and other rather fabulous venues, but my life consists of attending unglamorous press screenings and scrabbling around for food (there are no cafes nearby) and wifi (which seems like a luxury). Today's films included the festival opener, and I spotted Emma Stone on the red carpet...

La La Land
dir-scr Damien Chazelle; with Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone 16/US ****.
This colourful musical about Los Angeles is both a celebration and a cautionary tale about the city of dreams. Its buoyant tone and fizzy performances make it a joy from start to finish, even when things turn rather dark along the way. Writer-director Damien Chazelle proves that Whiplash was no fluke: this is a bravura display of pure cinematic joy.

The Light Between Oceans
dir-scr Derek Cianfrance; with Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander 16/NZ ***
Fans of sweeping romantic epics will enjoy this florid love story, its emotive performances and picturesque scenery. Those who find tortured melodrama just a touch exhausting will find it a bit of a chore to sit through. But it’s beautifully made and well-acted by a fine cast. An even if it doesn’t have much to say thematically, there’s at least some intriguing moral twistiness. (That's Vikander and Fassbender, above.)

Heartstone [Hjartasteinn]
dir-scr Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson; with Baldur Einarsson Blaer Hinriksson 16/Ice ***., 
Dark and sometimes very grim, this Icelandic teen drama tackles a serious topic in an intensely personal way. Set in a rural area, the small community ramps up the emotions to the breaking point, pulling the audience into the story with serious force.

I'll add to this blog as I get the chance, and upload reviews to the site when possible. Tomorrow's films are Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, Alice Lowe's Prevenge, Gabriele Muccino's L'Estate Addosso and the Filipino drama Pamilya Ordinaryo.

Critical Week: The tipping point

A trio of star-powered movies screened to UK critics this week, starting with George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O'Connell in Money Monster, a ripping thriller that's also a knowing satire of both the media and the banking world. X-Men: Apocalypse rounds off the First Class trilogy with a big, crowded, effects-heavy action movie made entertaining by the presence of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and a solid supporting cast. And Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe go comical for The Nice Guys, an enjoyable noir romp set in a groovy 1977 Los Angeles. Speaking of which, I caught a documentary about the period...

Elstree 1976
dir Jon Spira; with David Prowse, Jeremy Bulloch, Paul Blake, Angus MacInnes 15/UK ***.
Star Wars fans won't want to miss this rather low-key but fascinating documentary about a group of extras, bit players and performers hidden in costumes working at London's Elstree Studios in the summer of 1976 on the movie that changed cinema forever. It's fun to hear how they had inklings that this might be a bit better than the B-movie they were hired to work on, and their reminiscences about being on-set and having the saga take over their lives afterwards are fascinating. Iconic characters include Darth Vader (Prowse), Boba Fett (Bulloch) and Greedo (Blake), and the doc includes plenty of backstage film and snapshots, plus spot-the-extra clips of other background artists. It's a bit too gentle to really thrill audiences, but it's a terrific document of the lesser-known aspects of such a game-changing movie.

There were also three smaller independent films this week: Rosif Sutherland is terrific in the gripping but slightly contrived River, about a volunteer doctor in Laos who finds himself running for his life. A TV presenter is haunted by his past in the Canadian drama Steel, finding healing in a young man who seems perhaps a bit too perfect to be true. And Godless is a relentlessly low-key drama about two brothers coping with grief while also coming to terms with a deep secret they've held between them for years.

Screenings in London are slow this week, with everyone decamped to Cannes. But we will be watching a couple of effects-based action epics - Warcraft: The Beginning, and Gods of Egypt - plus last year's Cannes-winning performance by Vincent Lindon in Measure of a Man. I've also got a few more theatre trips lined up.

Critical Week: Beardy men unite!

That's Vin Diesel in the photo above. Yes, really. He's going a rather decent Tom Hardy impression in the olde worlde scenes in his new franchise hopeful The Last Witch Hunter, which was screened to London press on Monday only a couple of days before it opens in cinemas. Whether that franchise materialises depends on the audience's appetite for a batty supernatural thriller that mixes Game of Thrones with Underworld. But it got a lot of laughs from the critics!

Most of the films I watched over the previous week were London Film Festival offerings. Some of these have release dates coming up, including Danny Boyle's exhilarating Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet; Jack Black in the manic comedy-horror romp Goosebumps; Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford in the true journalism drama Truth; the artful, surprisingly moving documentary The Fear of 13, about a man on death row; and Jafar Panahi's Taxi Tehran, his superbly mischievous third film as a banned filmmaker in Iran.

Tomorrow comes the first press screening of one of the year's most anticipated movies, Sam Mendes' Spectre, starring Daniel Craig as James Bond. I've also got the British comedy A Christmas Star in the diary, as well as Josh Duhamel in Lost in the Sun and the pre-apocalyptic Mexican buddy movie Velociraptor. I'm also planning to binge watch the entire old series of David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks in preparation for a press trip to The Owls Are Not What They Seem, a themed cafe-club night in a secret London location. Watch this space for a full report!

LFF 12: Sail away

The 59th London Film Festival came to an end this evening with the gala screening of Steve Jobs. But before that, Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier (above) walked off with the award for best film. Annoyingly that was one of the films on my need-to-see list that I didn't manage to see (it's impossible to see everything).

Once again, the LFF proved itself a rather harsh atmosphere for the press - unlike most festivals in the world, we have to pay dearly for our accreditation, and there are no parties, no freebies, just lots of great movies, usually showing five at a time so you have to choose carefully what you see. It's pretty exhausting, but the programme is an excellent compendium of the year's top festivals, so it's a great way to catch up. Here are the prize winners, my favourites, and a couple more highlights...

LFF AWARDS 2015:

Best Film: CLEVALIER
Doc (Grierson Award): SHERPA
First Feature (Sutherland Award): THE WITCH
BFI Fellowship: Cate Blanchett
BFI Ambassador: Tom Hiddleston

MY BEST OF THE FEST:

1. CAROL
2. ROOM
3. VICTORIA
4. TANGERINE
5. STEVE JOBS
6. TAXI TEHRAN
7. TRUMBO
8. OUR LITTLE SISTER
9. THE CLUB
10. A BIGGER SPLASH

Special mention: FROM AFAR. THE LOBSTER. THE ENDLESS RIVER. TRUMAN. QUEEN OF EARTH. SUFFRAGETTE. GRANDMA. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM. HE NAMED ME MALALA. YOUTH.

Steve Jobs
dir Danny Boyle; with Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet 15/US ****.
Whether this film is an accurate portrait of the eponymous Apple founder is frankly irrelevant. This is a storming example of the power of cinema to tell a story with complexity and invention. Every element works together to carry the audience through the narrative using just three key scenes that would actually play well on-stage. But the way it's shot and edited adds layers of depth... MORE >

Goosebumps
dir Rob Letterman; with Jack Black, Dylan Minnette 15/US ***
Like Jumanji on steroids, this action-horror romp packs the screen with animated mayhem swirling around an established comedian and a cast of plucky kids. The breathless pace holds the attention, boosted by surprisingly sophisticated gags peppered all the way through. But while working overtime to keep the audience entertained, it undermines every serious point it pretends to make... MORE >

Critical Week: Full of sound and fury

Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender bring their A-game to Macbeth, the visceral new film screened this week to London critics. It's emotional and strikingly visual, but much of Shakespeare's language is muffled in the process. Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are suave, bickering partners in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a groovy, stylish action romp without a whiff of meaning. The new version of Fantastic Four is a lot more enjoyable than the recent social media storm would suggest, although its final act is deeply flawed. And the surviving members of Monty Python reteamed for the wacky and rather astonishingly terrible sci-fi comedy Absolutely Anything, starring Simon Pegg and the voice of the late Robin Williams.

Even the smaller films were pretty high-profile this week. The Program is Stephen Frears' take on the Lance Armstrong scandal, and Ben Foster's central performance is the best thing about it. War Book is a riveting boardroom-roleplay drama pondering the fallout from nuclear war. Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism is a frantic and rather annoying British kids' romp with an all-star cast including Emily Watson, Lesley Manville and Dominic Monaghan. And The Curse of Downers Grove Air, cowritten by Bret Easton Ellis, is a bleak teen drama that never quite makes its point.

Coming up this week, we have Tom Hardy as both Kray brothers in Legend, Ed Helms in the Vacation sequel/reboot, Josh Hutcherson in Escobar: Paradise Lost, Marcia Gay Harden in After Words, more horror in Sinister 2, dark drama in Drown, family comedy-drama in Brahmin Bulls and a gonzo freak-out in the beautifully titled Aaaaaaaah!

Critical Week: Praying for the help

I only saw three films before leaving London for a brief holiday, and none were the heavy hitters (I'm missing them while I'm away and will be playing catch-up). The best one was the Sundance-winner The Second Mother, a Brazilian drama about the clash between a maid's professional and work families. Oliver Hirschbiegel's 13 Minutes is a riveting story about an unsung German hero who tried to kill Hitler with a bomb in 1939, but the movie is too fragmented to make the story come to life. And the documentary The First Film digs into the last 125 years of film history to discover the truth about the man who made the first moving picture, and that he lived in Leeds, Yorkshire! It's a bit academic, but a great story and an important addition to cinema's narrative.

When I get back, films I'll be quickly catching up with include the anxiously awaited man-candy sequel Magic Mike XXL, the sci-fi action sequel Terminator Genisys, the animated spin-off Minions and the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy.

Critical Week: Into the wild, wild west

There were several starry films shown to critics in London this past week, as many of our colleagues were still in Cannes watching things we won't see here for a few months. The best one was Slow West, a beautifully shot, cleverly paced drama set in the Wild West and starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender (above). Melissa McCarthy reunites with The Heat filmmaker Paul Feig for Spy, a raucous action comedy that's profane, violent and utterly hilarious. I see a franchise brewing. Dwayne Johnson tackles the biggest earthquake ever in the rather ridiculously over-the-top disaster movie San Andreas, which opens this week. Rosamund Pike is terrific in the rather underdeveloped post-attack drama Return to Sender. And Guy Pearce and Coby Smulders play duelling personal trainers in the witty but ultimately thin Results.

Off the beaten path, we had the beautifully shot Eden, which traces France's club music scene authentically but without much in the way of character or plot. Also from France, the even more loosely structured Love at First Fight (Les Combattants) at least traces a strongly involving personal journey in two young people who join the army to get away from their boring homes. From China, Black Coal, Thin Ice is a gorgeously artful police thriller that leaves its twisty, surprising mystery plot in the background where it belongs. Oriented is a groundbreaking documentary about three gay Palestinians in Tel Aviv that has a lot to say about Israel's political situation. And finally, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Segment) is the conclusion of Dutch filmmaker Tom Six's insane gross-out trilogy, this time set in an American prison. It's over-the-top, clumsy and frankly awful, but makes some strong points with its satirical-comedy tone.

I also caught up with Bessie, the biopic about the iconic blues pioneer Bessie Smith, played beautifully by Queen Latifah. It's a remarkably tough story, directed with flashes of real insight by filmmaker Dee Rees and featuring superb supporting turns by the unstoppable likes of Khandi Alexander, Mo'Nique, Michael Kenneth Williams and Mike Epps, all of whom make their characters startlingly complex. In the end, the structure is a bit tricky to make much sense of, but the characters are so strong that we don't mind much. And the music is simply divine.

This coming week, screenings include Insidious Chapter 3, Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal in Accidental Love, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courteney in their Berlin-winning roles in Andrew Haigh's 45 Years, the horror thriller Cub, the aristocrat doc Lord Montagu, and the Open City Docs highlights Before the Last Curtain Falls and Daniel's World.

Critical Week: This is embarrassing

Big titles are starting to show up at press screenings again, although they're not being shown until very close to release dates, often with phones confiscated and embargoes to sign. One of the late screenings was for Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler's second reunion rom-com Blended, a tonally erratic combination of zany slapstick, offhanded comedy and shameless sentimentality. We got a bit more lead time with X-men: Days of Future Past, the busy double-whammy sequel to both the original trilogy and First Class. It's a bit frantic, but packed with great subtext and entertaining action and drama.

Embargoed until the UK release dates are my comments on Jon Favreau's delicious foodie comedy Chef and Jean-Paul Jenuet's stylised American road movie The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivot. Then there's Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo, another heavily stylised romp by a French filmmaker. It stars the relentlessly charming Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou in a visually manic but thematically moving romance. And Dan Fogler's kaleidoscopic comedy Don Peyote is perhaps even more trippy, with an equally surprising serious edge to it.

This coming week we'll be catching up with Angelina Jolie in Maleficent, Nicolas Cage in Joe, the Oscar-nominated Palestinian drama Omar and another Duris-Tautou rom-com Chinese Puzzle. And of course the Cannes Film Festival comes to its conclusion this weekend with a barrage of awards for movies that I will suddenly need to see with some urgency...

Sundance London 3: Tales of deconstruction

The Sundance London Festival is winding down tonight, and it's been a rather crazy weekend at the O2 with films and filmmakers crawling all over the place. The public screenings are always a lot more fun than the press shows, as we get filmmaker intros and Q&As, plus of course lively audiences to watch the movies with. I'll have one last entry tomorrow; in the meantime, here are more highlights...

They Came Together
dir David Wain; with Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler 14/US ***.
A goofy spoof of romantic-comedies, this film sets itself a pretty tricky target, since rom-coms are pretty corny themselves. But cowriters David Wain and Michael Showalter and their up-for-it cast charge on regardless, wringing a lot of laughs from the material. Frustratingly, the hilarious rom-com they create isn't actually very involving. The story plays out in flashback as Joel and Molly (Russ and Poehler, above) recount their movie-like tale to friends (Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper) over dinner. And there isn't a single movie cliche left out, from various montage sequences to a series of best pals to various improbable breakups and reunions. With lesser actors, this could have turned out like a painful cross between Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abrams-Zucker, but Rudd and Poehler add the necessary zing to hold our interest and keep us laughing at the dense onslaught of visual and verbal gags. Not to mention a non-stop flow of hilarious starry cameos. But if the film itself was actually a charmer, that would have been something special.

Frank
dir Lenny Abrahamson; with Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender 14/Ire ****
Loosely based on the life of Chris Sievey (aka Frank Sidebottom), this offbeat comedy continually challenges us both with big ideas and narrative U-turns. It's a remarkably assured comedy with a warm centre underneath a prickly, sometimes maddeningly absurd surface... FULL REVIEW >

Kumiko the Treasure Hunter 
dir David Zellner; with Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube 14/US ***.
An offbeat riff on the Coen brothers' Fargo, this "true story" is packed with witty touches and knowing references, as well as a remarkably complex, surreal performance from Kikuchi. It's also a little bit frustrating in its refusal to let the audience in on the joke, if it is a joke. It opens in Japan with the surly but intriguingly cheeky Kumiko (Kikuchi) following a treasure map to a videotape buried in a seaside cave and a clue pointing to a specific moment in the film, indicating the spot a case of cash is buried in snowy Minnesota. Even though Fargo is clearly a fictional movie, Kumiko becomes obsessed with travelling to the wintry American Midwest to find that cash. The bare bones of the plot are so bonkers that the film has the ring of truth to it, although there's something squirm-inducing about being asked to sympathise with someone who is so delusional - and probably mentally ill. And director-cowriter-costar Zellner somehow manages to create a lightly comical tone while undermining every scene with horror movie touches. Clever, unsettling, unforgettable.

Sundance Shorts

I watched nine shorts at this year's festival, and the best was easily Yearbook, Bernardo Britto's animated tale about a man trying to distill human influence into the historical records before the planet is destroyed. It's a real stunner. Other highlights included Burger, the Iris-produced late-night comedy shot in Cardiff that's a blast of pure energy; The Last Days of Peter Bergmann, an Irish documentary about a man who managed to erase himself from the world; and Life's a Bitch, a staggeringly ambitious and utterly wonderful French short about the romantic entanglements one hapless guy gets into and out of over a year.

Critical Week: A song for Frank

London critics got a chance to catch up with this year's Sundance sensation, Lenny Abrahamson's Frank, starring Michael Fassbender wearing a giant papier-mache head. Yes, it's as offbeat and arty as it sounds, but also surprisingly warm and endearing, with terrific performances from Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Scoot McNairy. The other big movie was Hossein Amini's subtly involving and very twisty thriller  The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristin Dunst and Oscar Isaac, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel.

Only slightly further afield, C.O.G. is a dark, introspective drama starring Looking's Jonathan Goff as a guy trying to run from his own shadow. Khumba is an engaging, colourfully animated South African feature, with a somewhat compromised plot about a geeky zebra. Cheap Thrills is an escalating exercise in finding the audience's breaking point - a very clever, hard-to-watch black comedy. Awful Nice is an awkwardly written comedy with some telling observations. And The Punk Singer is a lively, insightful doc about feminist punk, centring on the iconic Kathleen Hanna.

The big films screening this coming week are the Marvel sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the TV show reunion Veronica Mars and the black comedy A Long Way Down. There are two Irish films - Brendan Gleeson in Calvary and Andrew Scott in The Stag; the Indonesian action-sequel The Raid 2; Chiwetel Ejiofor in Half of a Yellow Sun; the black comedy How to Be a Man; the animated adventure Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and something called Patema Inverted.