Critical Week: Isolation blues

It's becoming clear that this extended third lockdown is making Londoners a bit loopy, especially as it has no end in sight. Although we keep hoping that as the pandemic numbers improve slightly, relief is on the horizon. But being able to get back into a cinema seems like a distant hope! I've been rather swamped with preparations for the London Critics' Circle Film Awards on Sunday night, which has involved lots of email communication with Los Angeles - something an eight-hour time shift makes rather tricky. As a result, I only watched four movies this past week.

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By far the biggest film I saw was the Russo brothers' Cherry, starring Tom Holland (above) as an Army veteran who becomes a junkie to deal with his post-traumatic stress. It's 2 hours 20 minutes long, and feels like an operatic epic. It would look amazing on a big cinema screen. Ambitiously taking on the same theme in a very different way, Mike Cahill's Bliss stars Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek in a fantasy-style thriller about a parallel reality. It's provocative and engaging. The Australian remake of the Icelandic gem Rams stars the superb Sam Neill, Michael Caton and Miranda Richardson, and finds earthy humour in a dark situation. And the pitch-black Argentine thriller 4x4 traps lead actor Peter Lanzani inside an SUV, becoming a seriously harrowing ordeal.

Coming up this week, I need to catch up on quite a few films, including the true thriller Murderous Trance, the British comedy Running Naked, the Argentine romcom A Skeleton in the Closet, the Chinese drama Twilight's Kiss and the short film collection Desire in the Dark.

And if you want to watch the 41st London Critics' Circle Film Awards, our virtual ceremony goes live at 7pm Sunday night 7th Feb and will also be rewatchable on the CRITICS' CIRCLE YOUTUBE CHANNEL >

Critical Week: On an adventure

There were some powerful performances in press screenings this past week. The offbeat family drama-cum-thriller The Book of Henry is held together by Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher (pictured) and Jacob Tremblay despite its jarring shifts between genres. The artfully internalised Churchill is anchored by an awards-worthy turn by Brian Cox despite its oddly overfamiliar plot. The WWII drama Alone in Berlin has the terrific Emma Thompson, Brendan Gleeson and Daniel Bruhl to hold the attention even when the pacing gets rather dull. And there was a wonderfully light-hearted role for Isabelle Huppert in Bavo Defurne's enjoyably quirky Belgian musical comedy-drama Souvenir.

Further afield, the small-budget British drama Daphne struggles to maintain its narrative but creates a nice sense of life in multicultural London. And the powerfully moving Australian doc Remembering the Man is an insightful account of the life of Tim Conigrave, whose Holding the Man is a seminal account of the Aids pandemic.

Screening this coming week are Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight, Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Julius Caesar, the French political thriller Scribe, the Finnish biopic Tom of Finland, Laura Poitras' Assange documentary Risk, and the Syrian Civil War doc City of Ghosts.

35th London Critics' Circle Film Awards: words & pics

My third year as chair of the London Critics' Circle Film Awards at times felt like it might do me in, but after all the work, the night was another triumphant celebration of the year in cinema. On Sunday 18th January we gathered at The May Fair Hotel for our annual ceremony and party, joined by a smattering of wonderful guests.

Our ceremony hosts this year were Alice Lowe and Steve Oram (below left), who won our Breakthrough Filmmaker award two years ago for their Sightseers screenplay. They set the tone for the ceremony perfectly: irreverent humour mixed with a love of cinema. After the clatter of the red carpet (above with Miranda Richardson and below right with me and Richard Linklater), the ceremony felt intimate and almost conspiratorial because it was so much fun.

After a couple of introductions (from me and from our Film Section Chair Anna Smith), we were straight on to the awards themselves. Winners included Mica Levi (below left), who won the Technical Achievement Award for her score for Under the Skin, and Dirk Wilutzky and Mathilde Bonnefoy (below right), recently Oscar-nominated producers of the Documentary winner Citizenfour.

Three of our Young British Performer nominees were in the house, left to right: Corey McKinley ('71), Daniel Huttlestone (Into the Woods) and the winner Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game).

And we invited some potential future nominees along as well. Below left, that's Toby Sebastian (soon to be seen in Game of Thrones) and his sister Florence Pugh (star of Carol Morley's upcoming stunner The Falling). Below right are Ferdinand Kingsley (Dracula Untold) and Louise Brealey (Sherlock).

Quite a few British filmmakers were on hand, including Breakthrough Filmmaker nominees, left to right, Hossein Amini (The Two Faces of January), James Kent (Testament of Youth) and Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth (20,000 Days on Earth), here flanking director Jonathan Glazer, whose film Under the Skin won the Attenborough Award for British Film of the Year.

Breakthrough British Filmmaker was won by Yann Demange for '71 - he accepted his award by video (below right), as did Andrey Zvyagintsev (below left), whose Leviathan won Foreign-Language Film of the Year.

More video messages were sent by Michael Keaton (bringing down the house with a trouser-free acceptance of Actor of the Year for Birdman), Rosamund Pike (British Actress of the Year), Patricia Arquette (Supporting Actress for Boyhood) and Wes Anderson (Screenwriter for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Actress of the Year winner Julianne Moore (Still Alice) sent a generous written speech, while Supporting Actor winner JK Simmons (Whiplash) was conspicuously absent.

And Richard Linklater took to the stage twice for Boyhood, winning Director of the Year and Film of the Year (the award I presented). Finally, Stanley Tucci presented our biggest honour to the gorgeous Miranda Richardson - The Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film. Both gave speeches that combined sharp humour, warm friendship and a love of cinema.

Finally, at the after-party I was snapped in perhaps my luvviest picture of all time - with Miranda and our British Actor of the Year winner Timothy Spall. Darlings!

Photos by Dave Bennett