Critical Week: Where the buffalo roam

As a heatwave sets in around Britain, creating our hottest week of the year so far (in September!), audiences are likely to avoid cinemas in lieu of parks and beaches. So box office data is likely to disappoint come Monday. But there's plenty to see, including one of my very best films of the year, Past Lives. Meanwhile, I finally caught up with Riley Keough and Gina Gammell's award-winning debut War Pony, a strikingly authentic and pointed Native American drama. Nia Vardalos and family are back for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, another charming mess of a movie that wins us over despite ourselves. And Richard E Grant, Julie Delpy and Daryl McCormack have a lot of fun with the arch melodrama of The Lesson, an overwrought thriller that doesn't quite hold water but keeps us entertained.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Past Lives • La Ronde
Rotting in the Sun
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A bit further afield, Carol Morley is back with a bracingly original look at mental illness in Typist Artist Pirate King, which traces an adventurous road trip with under-appreciated British artist Audrey Amiss, powerfully played by Monica Dolan. Rotting in the Sun is a smart and provocatively original mashup of mystery, drama and crime comedy from Sebastian Silva. The British doc A Life on the Farm highlights a true eccentric who made hilariously nutty home movies. And the Australian series (released as a compilation) Single, Out is charmingly awkward as it follows a young guy navigating gay life. I also attended Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at 65 at Sadler's Wells.

This coming week I'll be watching Pablo Larrain's bonkers Pinochet vampire thriller El Conde, Kenneth Branagh's whodunit A Haunting in Venice, British battle epic Gurkha Warrior, Canadian immigration drama Brother, animated adventure Robot Dreams, Spanish drama 20,000 Species of Bees, Laotian monks drama Samsara, Santana doc Carlos, Anselm Kiefer doc Anselm and live shows Deeper and Deeper and Myra Dubois: Be Well.

Critical Week: Stay alert

I've now passed eight weeks of lockdown (the first 10 days were in California), and while watching streaming movies is keeping me busy, I'm getting increasingly bored being stuck at home, staying safe and well even as I'm increasingly suspicious of my hay fever symptoms. Like everyone, I've filled time by going out for the occasional walk, taking on some cooking challenges and binge-watching TV shows. But we're here to talk about the films, and some of these felt like work...

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Socrates • Empathy, Inc.
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Wrong Missy • Redcon-1

David Spade and Lauren Lapkus (above) star in the stupid comedy The Wrong Missy, which has some amusing moments but no actual laughs. Woody Allen's likeable but uneven new comedy-drama A Rainy Day in New York stars Timothee Chalamet and Elle Fanning as a young couple who take separate odysseys leading to superficial self-discovery. Tom Hardy gives a fearsome performance in Capone, as the iconic gangster loses his mind in the last year of his life.

Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield star in the slow and rather thin, but beautifully shot romance The Photograph. Simon Bird's British comedy Days of the Bagnold Summer is wry and endearing, anchored by the superb Monica Dolan and Earl Cave, plus some starry scene-stealing cameos. And Imogen Poots and Alex Wolff lead the mopey, moody drug-addiction drama Castle in the Ground.

The powerful drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always takes on big issues with earthy, provocative honesty. From Italy, Fairytale is a pastiche candy-coloured comedy with a dark kick to it. And New French Shorts 2020 is a strong collection of seven mini-dramas that won acclaim at festivals over the past year.

There's another random collection of streaming movies to watch this coming week, including Nicholas Hoult in Rebel in the Rye, the animated comedy Scoob!, the apocalyptic thriller Edge of Extinction, the Spanish comedy I Love You Stupid, the Mexican drama I'm No Longer Here, the Icelandic comedy The County and the narrative doc The Painter and the Thief.

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