Critical Week: Hang in there

I've taken it a bit easier this week, film-wise, only watching three movies. Charlize Theron faces off against a villainous Taron Egerton in Apex, a properly ripping guilty-pleasure wilderness survival thriller that Netflix really should have released in cinemas. And then there were two films starring Anne Hathaway: she reteams with Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci in the 20-years-later sequel The Devil Wears Prada 2, which is entertaining even if it's let down by an inconsistent script. And she also stars alongside Michaela Coel in David Lowery's offbeat two-hander Mother Mary, which looks and sounds amazing but kind of loses us with an overly blurred narrative. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Last One for the Road
Departures • Wild Foxes
ALL REVIEWS >

I also ventured out of London for the first time this year, taking the train a few hours north to Stratford-upon-Avon for a live performance of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the RSC's Swan Theatre, starring Mark Gatiss. Set in 1930s gangland Chicago, it's a shattering parody of Hitler's rise to power, staged and performed in a way that feels unusually engulfing.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching the animated adventure Swapped, Leo Woodall in Tuner, Karl Urban in the sequel Mortal Kombat II, the British drama Ish, the Billie Eilish concert doc Hit Me Hard and Soft and two live performances: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at Sadler's Wells and Bullyache's A Good Man is Hard to Find at Sadler's Wells East.

Critical Week: Made for each other

Finally, we reach Oscar weekend after what has felt like an unusually long awards season. My predictions will be here on Saturday as always. Jesse Buckley looks like a sure thing to win Best Actress for Hamnet, and she has a very different film in cinemas right now, which I caught up on the day it opened: The Bride! is Maggie Gyllenhaal's ambitious reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein, costarring Christian Bale, Annette Bening and Penelope Cruz. It's enjoyably outrageous, but also badly uneven. Screening this week just before it opens, Reminders of Him is a slushy romantic drama with Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers that lays on the sentimentality rather thickly. And the story is too simple to carry the emotional weight. But it looks great.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Everybody to Kenmure Street
The Love That Remains • Scarlet
PERHAPS AVOID:
How to Make a Killing
Reminders of Him
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield, I caught up with Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers, a smart and thoughtful art-world comedy-drama with excellent roles for Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel. Callum Scott Howells has fun chewing the scenery in the eye-catching Madfabulous, an involving and surprisingly moving tale based on a true story from the British aristocracy. And then there was Ferzan Ozpetek's lavishly gorgeous Diamonds, an involving multi-strand love letter to 1970s Italian costume designers. I also saw six movies in the Cinema Made in Italy season at BFI Southbank. 

Outside the theatre, I had a couple of Project Hail Mary experiences: After briefly meeting Ryan Gosling and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in London, I took a wonderful trip to the Pinewood Studios Creature Shop, where I got to meet Ryan's on-screen alien buddy Rocky, his vocal and puppet performer James Ortiz and creature maestro Neal Scanlan (full report with pics to come). Finally, there was also a live performance of Sam Morrison's witty one-man show Sugar Daddy at Underbelly Boulevard. It's basically about grief, but he's a gifted comic and he makes it very, very funny too.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Aneurin Barnard in Past Life, Irish drama Abode, German drama Miroirs No 3, the Marianne Faithfull doc Broken English, staying up all night to see the Oscars on Sunday night and watching lots of movies as part of the 40th BFI Flare film fest, which kicks off Wednesday on the Southbank with a documentary called Hunky Jesus. I'll also see a live performance of Where There Is No Time at Seven Dials Theatre.

Screen: Autumn TV Roundup

Even with all the movies I'm watching, I still have a bit more time than usual to catch episodes of series television, mainly because I don't have the normal travel time getting into town for physical screenings. The challenge is finding shows that are a tonic after a heavy film - most series at the moment seem to be so serious! So the rare comedy is hugely welcome. This is what I've been watching over the past couple of months...

Ted Lasso 
The premise for this sitcom looks lame: earnest American football coach is hired to manage a cynical English football (ie, soccer) team. But it stars Jason Sudeikis and several under-the-radar British comedy assassins (Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham, Nick Mohammed), so I decided to take a look. And this is the best surprise so far this year, one of the smartest, funniest shows out there, subverting expectations at every moment with characters who are a lot more than the usual types. It's also a rare show that takes a positive approach to life in general, making you feel empowered even as you laugh at a wicked joke. (Apple) 

Ratched 
A rather unconnected prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this series is beautifully designed, with a fierce cast. It takes awhile to get going, but the story tightens over these eight episodes, as the eponymous nurse (Sarah Paulson) goes on a deeply personal mission and becomes embroiled in several other nasty events. Performances are terrific, particularly from iconic divas Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and Sharon Stone. But the main thing here is the production design, soaked in primary colours, arch architecture and horrific grisliness. The themes feel rather pushy, but it's enjoyably nasty. (Netflix)

A Suitable Boy 
Vikram Seth's acclaimed novel gets the period-epic BBC treatment, directed by the terrific Mira Nair, who always brings a blast of colourful energy to her depictions of Indian culture. Set in the early 1950s shortly after independence, the series recounts a series of interwoven romantic storylines that connect four families, complicated by the fallout from the nation's partition. As usual, Tabu steals the show as a singer of ill repute who falls for a young man played by the magnetic Ishaan Khattar. But the entire cast is frankly gorgeous, beautifully dressed in vivid costumes and bursting with emotion and energy. (BBC)

I Hate Suzie
This provocative British black comedy plays with a number of real-life elements while unflinchingly exploring a tricky issue. Billie Piper stars as a singer-actress whose intimate photos are hacked from her phone, causing mayhem in her personal and professional life. But her reactions often make things worse, which gives her character a startlingly complexity, a famous person who is deeply flawed yet has a public persona to maintain. The approach is inventively stylised, with writing that never takes the usual route for a TV show. And what it says about both society and the industry is astonishing. (Sky)

Hitmen 
The terrific comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins put their snappy chemistry into a goofy sitcom, and the fact that they're playing assassins keeps the humour very black indeed. The writing is random and generally hilarious, although the show is awkwardly directed and edited to flatten some of the more outrageous gags. Still, Mel & Sue are so funny that they keep us watching, and their interaction with a range of side characters, from each episode's target hit to their riotous nemeses/cohorts Charles and Liz (Asim Chaudhry and Tonya Cornelisse) leaves us looking forward to a second season. (Sky)

Five Bedrooms
This Australian comedy-drama centres on five young people on the singles table at a wedding, each of whom is at a different point in his or her life, and they decide to buy a big house together. What follows is pretty ridiculous, really, as episodes progress from one carefully scripted catastrophe to the next, including farcical romance, surprise revelations, bankruptcy and even cancer. What makes it addictive is the cast, who manage to make these neurotic people very likeable, even as they continually sabotage their own lives. The question is whether they'll survive a second season of disasters. (Peacock)

Insatiable: series 2 
Full-on and deliberately over-the-top, this lurid comedy continues to centre more on murder than sex, which is odd considering that it's about the obsessive people who participate in beauty pageants. But even if the snaky plot continually takes the more obvious, often less interesting direction, the relentless pile-up of soapy twists and turns is riotous and often downright hilarious. And the wildly out-of-control characters are oddly endearing, sharply played by the likes of Dallas Roberts, Debby Ryan, Alyssa Milano and Christopher Gorham. It's not smart enough to be a classic, but it's a lot of messy fun. (Netflix)

The New Legends of Monkey: series 2
This insanely cheesy adventure series is oddly addictive, the definition of a guilty pleasure. It's not even particularly well-made, with its cheap sets and costumes, plus actors who never quite seem like they're taking their roles with even a grain of seriousness. But the goofiness is a lot of fun, and there are some sharply witty moments along the way, including genuinely hilarious dialog and plot points, throwaway one-liners and amusing mistakes. The plot is also so freewheeling that literally anything can happen at any moment. So it's impossible to predict what kind of idiocy is coming next. (Netflix)

PLAYING CATCH-UP

The Neighbor (El Vecino)
From Spain, this goofy comedy has a Green Lantern-like plot about the hapless Javier (Quim Gutierrez) who is given superpowers and a whizzy suit and charged with protecting the galaxy. And his dorky neighbour Jose (Adrian Pino) tries to help him become a better superhero. The joke is that everyone in Javier's life would make a better hero than him, and indeed he's a bit too self-involved, so it's no wonder that his relationship with unambitious journalist Lola (Clara Lago) collapses. But watching his transformation is fun. And the show's low-fi special effects make it even more charming. (Netflix)

Chewing Gum: series 1-2
After I May Destroy You, I realised that I had missed Michaela Coel's previous series, an equally complex and clever comedy about a young woman trying to escape her fiercely religious upbringing and explore the previously forbidden real world. It's all a bit broad and sometimes downright manic, but Coel is terrific as the hapless late bloomer Tracey, making witty comments to-camera as she barrels through a series of madcap experiences. And as the series continues, the side roles become better defined, which makes them both funnier and more emotionally involving. (BBC)

Lucifer: series 1-3
I've inched my way through this show, a terrific tonic when I need something mindless. The concept is witty (the devil fights crime in Los Angeles!), and the comical tone keeps it vacuously enjoyable. The preposterous murder-of-the-week plots, on the other hand, are essentially reworked from old episodes of Hart to Hart. It's also one of those shows that pretends to be sexy and raunchy while shying away from anything remotely realistic. But the characters are vivid enough to hold the attention, and their twisted inter-relationships make the show consistently watchable. Let's hope it finds some edge as it moves to Netflix. (Fox)

Eastsiders: series 1-4
This show was recommended for its writing, and it's well worth catching up with because the scripts are unusually strong. Over four seasons, the show focusses on a group of people who live in a queer L.A. bubble (no native Angeleno would ever think of Silverlake as "east"). The characters are siblings, neighbours and couples, many are gay, and all are dealing with the usual crises. But this is written and played with remarkable insight. Not only are the actors honest and messily real, but the dialog pops with lines like: "Let people be who they are, and then they will do for you the same favour." (Netflix)

I GIVE UP

Away: With this talented cast, it's shocking how bad the writing is, a cliched soap full of improbable melodrama. There's no way Nasa would send this bickering crew to Mars, complete with Russian and Chinese disruptors, facing a silly calamity each week. I made it through the second episode before giving up. (Netflix)

Muppets Now: The Muppets are back once again in another format that seems carefully concocted for the times: namely a computer screen. Some segments are amusing, especially offhanded moments with the starry guests. But it's trying too hard, and the writing fails to make anything of these iconic characters. (Disney)

NOW WATCHING: The Boys (2), Fargo (4), Lovecraft Country, The Third Day, The Duchess, The Comey Rule, We Are Who We Are, Long Way Up.

LOOKING FORWARD: The Mandalorian (2), The Crown (4), Star Trek: Discovery (3), Adult Material, NeXt, The Undoing.

Screen: August TV Roundup

As the lines blur between how we watch television and the movies, I continue to use series to break up my feature film watching. Here's what I watched over the past month or so...

The Umbrella Academy: series 2

Kicking off with that same slightly out-of-control tone, this show's second season has almost the exact same plot as the first one did. This time, the siblings have found themselves trapped in 1963 Dallas just before JFK's assassination. But the real problem is another impending apocalypse, and once again they need to learn how to work together and get over their daddy issues. The cast is terrific as ever (Robert Sheehan is still insufferable, Aidan Gallagher still annoying), and the swirling mess of their interrelationships are far more intriguing than the overarching story. But the early-60s setting offers some issue-based humour and drama. And the final two episodes are spectacular. (Netflix)

I May Destroy You 

Complex and challenging, this is a sometimes very bleak drama that plays out with a blast of fresh, authentic humour. It also occasionally feels almost too real to watch, and the scenes crash into each other to keep us on our toes. Actor-writer Michaela Coel is a serious talent, and she plays the central character Arabella so unapologetically that she's often difficult to like, even as we sympathise with her mental anguish after a sexual assault. It's a shattering performance with a lot to say about human connections. The script is sharp and astute, tackling the idea of consent with no holds barred, dropping in pungent references and mind-spinning twists. It's a rare show that refuses to put anything into an easy box. Essential. (BBC)

Snowpiercer

Set a decade before the events of Bong Joon Ho's now-iconic 2013 thriller, this series has a compelling throughline that holds the interest as it shifts from a murder mystery into a class-based revolution. Even so, the plot feels somewhat over-egged, trying a bit too hard to play up the allegorical layers of the premise, which makes the story feel far too dense and abrasive for its own good. But the show is boosted by a razor-sharp cast led by Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly. It also looks terrific, with inventive sets and effects work. And each episode's twists and turns provide terrific wallops, adding layers to the social dynamics at work in the train, which of course are eerily recognisable. (Netflix)

Homecoming: series 2

Expanding on the first season, these seven tightly contained half-hour episodes cover just a few days in the lives of several characters, but they're seriously momentous. Janelle Monae, Hong Chau, Stephan James, Chris Cooper and the awesome Joan Cusack are excellent in complex roles as people coping with the fallout from experiments relating to an all-natural memory-erasing juice. The story starts, then circles back inventively before moving forward to a fiendish conclusion that has massive ramifications, leaving us with plenty to think about. It's finely written and directed, but it's the actors who make it a must-see. (Prime)

The Luminaries

Set in 19th century New Zealand, this show is far more demanding than it needs to be, swirling somewhat erratically between at least three timelines to recount a complex murder mystery. But paying attention pays off, as the characters develop unexpected depth along the way, leading to a fiendishly intelligent conclusion that solves the case with a wink and a nudge. It's also superbly well-played by a cast that includes Eve Hewson, Himesh Patel, Eva Green, Marton Czokas and Ewen Leslie. And in addition to the pitch-black drama and gloriously picturesque settings, the show is packed with pointed observations about imperialism that are still relevant today. (BBC)

Life Is Easy

From New Zealand, this short-form sitcom follows two best friends from school as they navigate young adulthood with a body-swapping twist. It's fast, sexy and enjoyably silly, even if the snappy pacing and multi-screen editing make it tricky to get a grip on it. But scenes are packed with knowing wit as best pals Jamie-Li and Curtis (Chye-Ling Huang and Cole Jenkins) discover themselves in each others' bodies during an eclipse. Since this is a straight woman and gay man, the show is able to explore all kinds of gender and sexuality issues through wacky comedy, including body image, homophobia, racial issues and various kinds of sexual harassment. Which adds a point to the nuttiness. (Revry)

Brave New World

This series drastically simplifies Aldous Huxley's iconic novel. For example, the gender roles, clothing and styling are far more 20th century than 25th, when it's set. (They're wildly misogynistic even by today's standards.) Basically, the writers have taken the concept and created a cool-looking series that pretends to be edgy and sexy, but isn't at all. The unambitious writing is moralistic and almost childish, sidelining any salient ideas about social engineering or control. At least the cast is excellent, led by Jessica Brown Findlay, Alden Ehrenreich and Harry Lloyd, with added Demi Moore. Each provides just enough nuance to their characters to keep us watching. But it's a missed opportunity. (Peacock)

Down to Earth

Zac Efron gallivants around the globe exploring important issues and trying out local food with vegan friend Darin Olien, who can't eat any of it. The main focus is on environmental themes, particularly sustainability, which is somewhat simplified for American audiences, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Efron has a nicely unpolished charm as a host, genuinely enthusiastic about what he's discovering, and he has terrific camaraderie with Olien, the crew and everyone they meet along the way. Each episode is gorgeously shot in a spectacular place that's packed with mind-bending ideas and positive approaches to today's world problems, if only someone will listen. (Netflix)

PLAYING CATCHUP

The Plot Against America

Philip Roth's prescient 2004 novel describes an alternate autobiographical history as Charles Lindbergh becomes US president in 1941 and makes an deal with Hitler not to interfere in the European war. Which effectively roots antisemitism into US society. The show is sharply produced, with a solid cast (led by Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector, Winona Ryder and John Turturro) playing a Jewish Newark family facing this shift in culture. The script is insightful if a bit flabby, padding out each hour-long episode with scenes that don't always feed into the larger story. But it's packed with present-day parallels, and chilling observations about American culture and politics. (HBO)

I Know This Much Is True

Tackling an important topic, filmmaker Derek Cianfrance takes an indulgent storytelling approach with this dark drama, demanding a lot of the audience. It's not easy to watch, as each scene spirals into shouty chaos, often for no apparent reason, and the narrative heaps misery on the characters. That said, Mark Ruffalo is on peak form as twin brothers, one a hothead and the other with schizophrenia, neither of them remotely sympathetic. And the supporting cast is excellent (Rosie O'Donnell is particularly good). But there's barely a moment of peace, as Cianfrance shoots impatient outbursts in gritty close-up. Still, there are undercurrents of raw emotion, and the final episode makes it worth sticking with it. (HBO)

The Witcher

This fantasy series has a fiendishly clever structure that doesn't resolve itself until the final episodes, when the actual timeline comes into focus. It's made up of three connective story strands that have properly epic moments dotted through them. Like Game of Thrones with a sense of humour about itself, it's packed with riveting situations and unusually complex characters, anchored by Henry Cavill in the title role (a deeper performance than it seems on the surface), Anya Chalotra as a rogue mage and Freya Allan as a portentous orphan. It takes the misstep of staging a climactic battle at night, but the show is wonderfully entertaining. Bring on season 2. (Netflix)

UnReal: series 1-4

This show ran for four seasons, but I only just discovered it. It's the kind of premise I love, lifting the curtain on the backstage antics at a lusty reality dating show. The way these producers shamelessly manipulate contestants and each other is probably understated, so every single character is loathsome. The horrible things they do are gripping and blackly funny. Although the show digs into nasty melodrama rather than more entertaining cheesy antics, tipping a cynical nod at some big themes. It's also one of those American series that pretends to be sexy but is actually timid and prudish. (Prime)

NOW WATCHING: A Suitable Boy, Muppets Now, Insatiable (2), You (2), The New Legends of Monkey (2), Eastsiders (1-4).

LOOKING FORWARD: I Hate Suzie, Ratched, The Third Day, Away, The Boys (2).