Critical Week: And they called it puppy love

It's been another busy week in awards season, with screenings every night and lots of films to watch at home on links during the day. I also somehow have to find time to write about them all. It was great to catch up with festival breakout hit Pillion, Harry Lighton's offbeat romance starring Harry Melling (above) and Alexander Skarsgard. It's notorious for its dominant-submissive sexuality, but is actually a rather sweet and moving drama. By far the biggest movie was the European premiere of Wicked: For Good and I got to meet Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, along with director Jon Chu, at a reception before the screening. Unsurprisingly, the film is spectacular, much darker and more emotional than the first part. I also saw two gorgeous animated adventures: In Your Dreams is a fabulously colourful trip into the imagination, and Arco skilfully uses hand-drawn style anime to tell a pointed story from the future.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
In Your Dreams
Arco • Jay Kelly
Night of the Juggler
ALL REVIEWS >

At another starry awards screening, Kate Winslet presented her directing debut Goodbye June, alongside costars Toni Collette, Timothy Spall, Andrea Riseborough and Johnny Flynn, plus gifted young screenwriter Joe Anders (who happens to be Winslet's son). It's a funny and moving ensemble film. The Broadway cast of Merrily We Roll Along, including Tony winners Daniel Dadciffe and Jonathan Groff, features in a superbly filmed stage performance of Stephen Sondheim's powerful exploration of art and friendship. 

A bit further afield, Tom Blyth stars in the perhaps too-snappy investment banking comedy Bull Run. Jorma Tommila is back for the entertaining and outrageously grisly Finnish action sequel Sisu: Road to Revenge. The Danish drama Sauna is a darkly thoughtful romance. Hong Kong drama Valley of the Shadow of Death, explores grief and redemption in an involving faith-based story. From Argentina, 300 Letters deconstructs a romance in ways that are sexy, funny and moving. And I finally caught up with the breakout animated hit KPop Demon Hunters, which is a lot of bright-hued fun, packed with great music. On top of all of that, I attended the seriously epic UK premiere of the first episode of Stranger Things season 5.

Coming up this next week, I plan to watch Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme, Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee, Nicolas Cage in The Carpenter's Son, Emma Mackey in Ella McCay, June Squibb in Eleanor the Great, British-Nigerian drama My Father's Shadow, Iraqi drama The President's Cake, French drama Nino and Taiwanese drama Left-Handed Girl, plus a premiere screening of Landman season 2.

SXSW London: Lose yourself

The first SXSW London festival kicked off on Monday night with the world premiere of the Eminem fan doc Stans, and it runs through the week until Saturday with a rather blinding range of music gigs, panel discussions, talks, events and, yes, films. They've packed rather a lot into these six days, using venues scattered across East London, with Shoreditch as the epicentre. I also attended a panel this week, hosted by the Golden Globes, exploring the global nature of storytelling. Participants came from Britain, Turkey and Ukraine, and there was a strong interaction with the audience in attendance, talking about what kinds of stories resonate beyond cultural barriers. I'll also be attending a TV series premiere this week, and several more movies. Here are three film highlights so far...

Stans 
dir-scr Steven Leckart; with Eminem, Dr Dre 25/US ****
Rather than tracing the artist's career or personal life, this documentary explores the interaction between Eminem and his most earnest fans, noting that the term "stan" was coined from his eponymous 2000 hit. This approach makes the film unusually intimate, highlighting how music connects into deeper issues. And because Eminem's music is so soul-baring, it has an unusual resonance that can silence critics who don't quite get it.

Cactus Pears
dir-scr Rohan Parashuram Kanawade; with Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman 25/Ind ****.

Hushed and observational, this beautifully shot Indian drama focusses on a 30-year-old gay man who has escaped his home culture but is now is forced to make peace with it. Packed with local traditions and interpersonal details, the film is powerfully involving as writer-director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade continually finds unexpected layers of resonance. And in a skilfully low-key way, the film offers a strong sense of hope.

Cielo
dir-scr Alberto Sciamma; with Fernanda Gutierrez Aranda, Fernando Arze Echalar 25/Bol ****

Gorgeously shot in spectacular mountain landscapes populated by lively characters, this Bolivian drama opens with a beautiful but darkly disturbing sequence that opens with a young girl swallowing a fish. With vibrant colours, writer-director Alberto Sciamma infuses this fable with offbeat magical realism, pulling us into an odyssey that is packed with moments that are touching, provocative and wonderfully funny.

Full reviews are coming, and will be linked to Shadows' SXSW LONDON PAGE >

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C R I T I C A L  W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Life of Chuck 
Dangerous Animals • Mountainhead
ALL REVIEWS >

Alongside the festival, I also watched Ana de Armas in the John Wick spinoff Ballerina. It's slickly well-made and entertaining, but oddly unsurprising. Natalie Portman and John Krasinski make an engaging duo in the comical adventure Fountain of Youth. It's a lot of fun, but there's not much to it. Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells star in the black comedy I Don't Understand You, which is enjoyable but never quite bridges the gap between silliness and nastiness.

This coming week I'll be watching the live-action(ish) remake of How to Train Your Dragon, Kerry Washington in Shadow Force, Jonathan Groff in A Nice Indian Boy, the reimagined pop musical Juliet & Romeo and the drama Franklin. I'll also attend the premiere of the third season of Squid Game and the dance show Inside Giovanni's Room.

LFF: Watch and learn

The 67th London Film Festival powers into its first weekend with a flurry of red carpet premieres attended by, well, directors and crew members. It isn't very starry unless you're a fan of people behind the cameras. But thats who audiences seem to be as they're sticking around for post-screening Q&As. And we're having a late autumn heatwave this weekend. Meanwhile, I enjoyed Disney's lunch the other day, celebrating both LFF and their 100th anniversary. And tomorrow is the annual Netflix brunch, no work allowed. Here are some more film highlights...

May December
dir Todd Haynes; with Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore 23/US ****
Layered and provocative, this melodrama is infused with a mystery-thriller sensibility, building tension and intrigue in the interaction between nuanced characters. Director Todd Haynes plays cleverly with perspective to explore the ways we try to understand others, sympathise with them and merge their experiences with our own. It's a fiendishly clever film that gleefully deploys a range of metaphors in ways that both lead and wrongfoot the audience.

The Bikeriders
dir-scr Jeff Nichols; with Austin Butler, Jodie Comer 23/US ***.
Based on a book of photographs and interviews from 1965 to 1973, this artfully crafted film explores motorcycle subculture as a makeshift family. Writer-director Jeff Nichols shapes this material into a strongly involving exploration of masculinity and identity, allowing the sharply drawn characters to exist in remarkable complexity, free from pushy narrative demands. The performances are loose and often lyrical, even as they hold us at an arm's length.

Shortcomings
dir Randall Park; with Justin H Min, Sherry Cola 23/US ****
This Bay Area romantic comedy infuses a naturalistic approach with witty dialog. Much of the humour is sharply pointed in an unusually soft-spoken way, and in his directing debut Randall Park maintains earthy rhythms that hold the interest. So even if it's never terribly flashy, there's a sense of honest depth to the film that makes it resonate far beyond the ethnic issues that simmer meaningfully throughout the script... FULL REVIEW >

Tiger Stripes
dir-scr Amanda Nell Eu; with Zafreen Zairizal, Deena Ezral 23/Mys ****
There's an engaging animalistic tilt to this adolescent body horror from Malaysia, as a young girl taps into her feral nature when puberty makes her feel like she's turning into a monster. Writer-director Amanda Nell Eu maintains a blackly comical undercurrent even as things get very freaky indeed, exploring big themes through lenses of culture, gender and religion. And Zafreen Zairizal shines in a complex and physically demanding role... FULL REVIEW >

In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon
dir Alex Gibney; with Paul Simon, Edie Brickell 23/US ****.
A musician of this stature deserves an epic documentary, and Alex Gibney takes an ambitiously artistic approach to Paul Simon's life and career. At three and a half hours, watching it is like binging a series, but on a big screen it's fully engulfing, thanks to the intimate approach and elaborate sound mix. This is a transcendent film packed with great archive footage, fantastic music and Simon’s raw humanity.

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

Critical Week: On a night like this

As Britain experiences a heatwave during the final week of Wimbledon and the start of the Euro-2022 women's football championship, it's perhaps a bit unlikely that people will be abandoning the sunshine for cinemas. Although Thor is likely to have some pull, smaller films will suffer. And the weather looks like it will continue like this for a couple of weeks (yay!). I saw two very big movies on the big screen this week. The riotously action-packed The Gray Man pairs the fabulous Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as duelling, scene-stealing hitmen, while Ana de Armas (above) almost walks off with the whole film. Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson and Taika Waititi are back for Thor: Love and Thunder, Marvel's first slapstick action comedy. It's a lot of fun, even if the formula is as stale as ever.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Brian and Charles • Cop Secret
The Railway Children (1970)
ALL REVIEWS >

Adrien Brody is terrific in the redemption thriller Clean, although the script (which he cowrote) never has something original to say. The offbeat British drama All Is Vanity is very odd indeed, a great idea that struggles to have some impact. Alan Cumming leads the doc-drama hybrid My Old School, a fascinating and remarkably involving account of an epic deception. And two collections of short films explore issues of identity and sexuality in inventive, sometimes superbly provocative ways. Both Boys on Film 22: Love to Love You and Girls Feels: Into the Blue are well worth a look.

Coming up this week, I'll be watching Daisy Edgar-Jones in Where the Crawdads Sing, Juliette Binoche in Both Sides of the Blade, the Jordanian drama The Alleys, the trans activist doc Donna and the shorts collection Girls Feels: Force of Nature.

Critical week: Life of the party

Even as this year's condensed awards calendar rockets ahead (how about those dull Oscar nominations?), screenings are slow to kick off this year. I've only seen four films this week. (Full disclosure: I did not chase an invite to the one press screening of Bad Boys for Life, as I'm still scarred from Bad Boys II ... 17 years ago). There are plenty of releases in the cinemas, but these are films I saw during the autumn film festival and awards-qualifying seasons. New movies are coming up, so hopefully screenings will materialise soon.

In the meantime, I caught up with Xavier Dolan's The Death & Life of John F Donovan, which premiered to harsh criticism at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival and has since been re-edited. There are issues with the structure, but Dolan is such a fine writer-director that the characters come alive gorgeously. And what a cast: Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Thandie Newton, Michael Gambon! Another Brit, James Norton, stars in the true historical drama Mr Jones, which recounts a fascinating story just before the Second World War as a brainy journalist tries to get the British government to wake up to the threat of Hitler and the lies of Stalin. The British fact-based drama No Fathers in Kashmir is a moving and important story about two teens uncovering the truth in the nasty political situation in northern India. And then there was this one, already a contender for the worst film of 2020...

Jexi
dir-scr Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
with Adam Devine, Alexandra Shipp, Rose Byrne, Michael Pena, Justin Hartley, Ron Funches, Charlyne Yi, Wanda Sykes, Kid Cudi
release US 11.Oct.19 • 19/US 1h24 *. 

Opening as a playful satire of smartphone culture, it becomes quickly apparent that filmmakers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover/Bad Moms) have nothing clever in mind, merely shouting the most obvious jokes rather than digging into the lively premise or characters. There was a chance to actually make a comedy that was cute and astutely pointed. But amid a flurry of strained in-your-face jokes that are actually embarrassing to watch, the plot is painfully predictable.

Working for a listicle website, Phil (Devine) is a loner whose phone is his only friend. One day he meets local bicycle shop owner Cate (Shipp), and in his excitement accidentally smashes his iPhone. The new one comes with an AI assistant called Jexi (voiced by Byrne) who takes over his life and issues instructions, ignoring anything he says. She bullies him into changing his diet, musical preferences and pretty much everything else. Then when his hugely unlikely romance with Cate begins to take off, Jexi gets jealous.

The idea is that Jexi is programmed to make Phil's life better in any way possible, but she does this primarily through foul-mouthed insults. Meanwhile, the filmmakers fill the brief running time with idiotic slapstick, wacky smut and unwarranted sentimentality. All of which makes it almost impossible to care what happens to Phil, even if Devine and Shipp have some genuine charm in between the lines. It's especially galling that after so much relentlessly inane stupidity, the filmmakers have the nerve to awkwardly try and create some sweet moments. And the simplistic finale is insulting.

13.Jan.20

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In the diary for this coming week, I have George MacKay in True History of the Kelly Gang, Kristin Scott Thomas in Military Wives, the Filipino political drama Quezon's Game and the acclaimed Sudanese documentary Talking About Trees.

Critical Week: London marches on

London critics caught up with a couple of big blockbusters this week. Mortal Engines is a whopping effects extravaganza from Peter Jackson, so it's surprising to find the story so simplistic. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a whizzy animated adventure with lively characters and plenty of thrilling action.

On the awards-worthy front, we had Hugh Jackman as The Front Runner, the true story of Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign scandal, which tells the story in an oddly straight-arrow style. Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe star in Boy Erased as parents who send their son (Lucas Hedges) to gay conversion therapy. It's thoughtful and moving. John C Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix are The Sisters Brothers in Jacques Audiard's refreshing spin on Western vengeance thrillers. And Natalie Portman is terrific as a Gaga-like popstar in the meaty drama Vox Lux.

A bit further afield, Tyrel stars Jason Mitchell as the only black guy on a white dudes weekend in a cabin in the woods. It's superbly insinuating and creepy. Carol Morely's evocative Out of Blue stars Patricia Clarkson as a haunted detective in a film more about her psychology than the serial killer case. All the Devil's Men is a clunky British action thriller starring Milo Gibson as an anti-terror mercenary. And Newly Single is a bracingly abrasive comedy-drama about a hapless filmmaker.

We have a similar mix of genres this coming week, as voting deadlines in the awards I vote for get closer and closer. These include the Transformers prequel Bumblebee, underwater superhero Aquaman, Christian Bale in Vice, the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, topical drama Blindspotting, and rock-climbing doc Free Solo, among others.

Critical Week: Out of the shadows

Amid an unprecedented onslaught of snow and freezing temperatures, London critics caught up with a few big titles this week. Jennifer Lawrence is the main reason to see Red Sparrow, an overlong, rather muddily plotted Russian spy thriller. And Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make the most of a surprisingly smart, funny script in the action-comedy Game Night. Then there were two new sci-fi films by hotshot British filmmakers, released directly to Netflix in the UK: Annihilation is Alex Garland's followup to Ex Machina, and it's a swirling, gripping, smartly obtuse odyssey starring Natalie Portman. Duncan Jones' Mute stars Alexander Skarsgard against type as a shy Amish barman in a Blade Runner-esque Berlin, but the plot gets lost amid its murky gyrations.

Further afield, The Lullaby is a gleefully grisly South African horror film that plays with some deeper, darker themes but never quite digs in to them. From Russian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, A Gentle Creature is a gorgeously shot and cleverly acted Kafkaesque parable about a nation that has lost its own soul. And I tracked down the final two Oscar nominated features I hadn't seen: The Breadwinner is a powerfully moving, flat-out gorgeous Irish-Canadian animated drama set in Taliban-era Kabul, while there was also this best actor nominee...

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Roman J. Israel, Esq.
dir-scr Dan Gilroy; with Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell 17/US ***
Denzel Washington gives one of his most enjoyably textured performances yet in this offbeat legal drama, which tells an intriguing story while grappling with some very big issues. Washington is the title character, a veteran lawyer whose life changes drastically when his more-public partner dies. He ends up going to work for slick hotshot George (Colin Farrell) while trying to help some vulnerable clients and taking some dodgy actions that benefit him personally but also put him in danger. The film is gripping as it follows Roman as he begins to emerge from his shell, breaking rules, ruffling feathers, flirting with an unfeasibly gorgeous charity lawyer (Carmen Ejogo) and, when he discovers that George has both a mind and a conscience, begins mentoring him without him even realising it. As it gets increasingly knotted, writer-director Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) loses control of the overlong narrative, with some over-detailed tangents and undercooked themes. And the side characters never seem to have a life of their own. But the smart script allows Washington to continually add wit and subtext to each scene. And he makes the film worth watching.

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It's Oscar night on Sunday, which here in London means staying up all night to watch the ceremony live from Los Angeles. Naps will be required. And this coming week, I'll catch up with Rooney Mara in Mary Magdalene, Domhnall Gleeson in Peter Rabbit and the documentary Mansfield 66/67, among other things.

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.

Out on a Limb: Oscar picks & predictions

Once again, here are my choices and who I think will win at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday. My track record on this is a bit spotty, but I am a realist, knowing that Oscar voters often award the wrong people for the right reasons.....

P I C T U R E
Will/should win: La La Land
Dark horse: Moonlight

F O R E I G N   F I L M
Will win: The Salesman
Should/could win: Toni Erdmann
Dark horse: A Man Called Ove

A N I M A T E D   F E A T U R E
Will win: Zootopia
Should/could win:  Kubo and the Two Strings

D O C U M E N T A R Y
Will win: 13th
Should win:  Fire at Sea
Could win: OJ: Made in America

D I R E C T O R
Will win: Damien Chazelle - La La Land
Should win:  Barry Jenkins - Moonlight

A C T R E S S
Will/should win: Isabelle Huppert - Elle
Quite likely: Emma Stone - La La Land
Dark horse: Natalie Portman - Jackie

A C T O R
Will/should win: Casey Affleck - Manchester by the Sea
Quite likely: Denzel Washington - Fences
Dark horse: Ryan Gosling - La La Land

S U P P O R T I N G   A C T R E S S
Will win: Viola Davis - Fences
Should win/dark horse: Naomie Harris - Moonlight

S U P P O R T I N G   A C T O R
Will win: Mahershala Ali - Moonlight
Should win:  Lucas Hedges - Manchester By The Sea
Dark horse: Dev Patel - Lion

O R I G I N A L   S C R E E N P L A Y
Will/should win: Kenneth Lonergan - Manchester by the Sea
Could win: Damien Chazelle - La La Land

A D A P T E D   S C R E E N P L A Y
Will/should win: Barry Jenkins - Moonlight
Dark horse: Luke Davies - Lion

S C O R E
Will win: Justin Hurwitz - La La Land
Should win:  Mica Levi - Jackie

S O N G
Will win: City of Stars - La La Land
Should win:  Audition (The Fools Who Dream) - La La Land

C I N E M A T O G R A P H Y
Will win: Linus Sandgren - La La Land
Should win:  James Laxton - Moonlight

P R O D U C T I O N   D E S I G N
Will win: David Wasco - La La Land
Should win:  Jess Gonchor - Hail, Caesar!

F I L M   E D I T I N G
Will win: Tom Cross - La La Land
Should win:  Joe Walker - Arrival

C O S T U M E S
Will/should win: Madeline Fontaine - Jackie
Could win: Mary Zophres - La La Land

E F F E C T S
Will/should win: The Jungle Book

M A K E - U P   &   H A I R
Will/should win: A Man Called Ove

S O U N D   
Should win:  Arrival
Will win: La La Land

LFF 7: Can't take it anymore

The 60th London Film Festival is charging into its final weekend with a flurry of events and premieres. The red carpets outside the various venues are getting a workout, while the press screenings at Picturehouse Central are packed to overflowing. Here are some highlights from Wednesday and Thursday...

The Rehearsal
dir Alison Maclean; with James Rolleston, Kerry Fox 16/NZ ***.
A clever riff on acting, this drama from New Zealand is packed with terrific actors in complex roles. So even if the bare-boned plot gets a little pushy at times, at least the interaction has a raw honesty to it, exploring some enormous themes through the prism of art. Filmmaker Alison Maclean also injects plenty of jagged humour and understated emotion into the story, which makes it hugely engaging even if the pacing is a little slack.

The Ghoul
dir-scr Gareth Tunley; with Tom Meeten, Dan Skinner 16/UK ****
Moody and riveting, this dark British thriller takes the audience on a surreal journey into the human psyche. It's playful and surprising, with a style clearly inspired by David Lynch as it taps into emotions that the audience might not fully grasp. But we feel it all.

There were also a few films I saw at other festivals. From Venice, three female led dramas: Dakota Fanning and Kit Harington (pictured) in the edgy Western Brimstone, Alice Lowe in the fiendishly clever serial killer comedy Prevenge (pictured at the top), Natalie Portman in the offbeat period drama Planetarium. And from BFI Flare: Russell Tovey in the complex, intriguing football drama The Pass.

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K
Along with LFF movies, I've also had to keep up with the regular releases in cinemas. This week's screenings included a double dose of Tom Hanks: the lacklustre second Da Vinci Code sequel Inferno and the strikingly edgy, well-made Sully, about the amazing real-life landing of a passenger jet in the Hudson River in 2009. And then there was Tom Cruise in the thriller sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Plus a couple of punchy British dramas: Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner I, Daniel Blake, a powerful, uplifting drama about taking on bureaucracy; and Starfish, the dark but moving true story of a man who survived sepsis then struggled to rebuild his life.

Venezia 73: Far from home on day 9

The 73rd Venice Film Festival is entering its final days, so talk is turning to who will scoop up the awards? Will it be an old favourite filmmaker or a rising star? Will a known name like Timothy Spall or Natalie Portman take an acting prize over someone unknown and devastating? Everyone has an opinion. And the first flurry of jury prizes will be handed out tonight, while the rest come tomorrow. Here's what I've seen in the last day or two (that's Charo Santos above)...

The Woman Who Left [Ang Babaeng Humayo]
dir-scr Lav Diaz; with Charo Santos, John Lloyd Cruz 16/Ph ****.
At nearly four hours long, you'd think this Filipino epic would try the patience. But you'd be wrong. This is a riveting odyssey that tells a straightforward story of revenge and redemption with strong echoes of life anywhere on earth. It may feel a bit like binge-watching an entire miniseries, but Lav Diaz's filmmaking is worth experiencing on a big screen, as he shoots in a style that's deceptively rough and old-fashioned, but is packed with skill, wit and some big surprises.

Planetarium
dir Rebecca Zlotowski; with Natalie Portman, Lily-Rose Depp 16/Fr **
A baffling story set just before WWII broke out, this lavishly produced film looks great, and has a lovely central performance by Natalie Portman. Alas, the plot simply never comes into focus, veering all over the place, complicated by flashbacks, framing scenes, dreams and visions, plus a film-within-a-film motif. but none of this resolves itself into anything terribly coherent.

On the Milky Road
dir-scr Emir Kusturica; with Monica Bellucci, Emir Kusturica 16/Ser ***
Veteran Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica is back with another lively, cacophonous romp through his nation's history, this time centring on the 1990s war. The film's first half is a joyous depiction of the experiences of a rather wacky group of characters, including several animals. Then the film takes a hard swerve into violence and fantasy that may gel for Serbian viewers, but leaves everyone else in the dark.

These Days [Questi giorni]
dir Giuseppe Piccioni; with Maria Roveran, Marta Gastini 16/It **
It's not easy to work out what this Italian comedy-drama is all about. It's a road movie that neglects to show us the journey, following a group of lively characters who never do or say anything amusing. Romances are thin and unfocussed, and the plot itself is only a hint. There are some intriguing ideas swirling around, but over two long hours filmmaker Giuseppe Piccioni never quite finds anything to make the movie either meaningful or entertaining.

Only a few films to go now, including Denzel Washington in The Magnificent Seven, Mathieu Amalric in Never Ever and the Aussie drama Boys in the Trees.

Venezia 73: Holding it together on day 8

We're in the final stretch now, and the lack of sleep, long distances of walking, contrasts between hot sunshine and chilly air conditioning are all taking their toll. But the parties are starting up. Our jury decides on its winner today (still two more films to see), and the weekend will see a range of celebrations. Then next week it's back to work as usual. Anyway, here's what I saw on Tuesday (that's Natalie Portman, above, in my best of the fest so far)...

Jackie
dir Pablo Larrain; with Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard 16/US *****
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain takes a clear-eyed approach to this fictionalised account of the days following JFK's assassination. Anchored by a pungent performance by Natalie Portman, the film digs deep into the complexities of grief, with glancing blows to celebrity culture and political expediency. Never slick or sentimental, its layers of resonance are hard to shake.

The Journey
dir Nick Hamm; with Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney 16/UK ***
Anchored by tremendous performances by Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney, this British drama imagines a real-life political conversation in the style of The Queen or Frost/Nixon. Even though it's simplistic and contrived, Colin Bateman's script is snaky and often very funny as it traps mortal enemies Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in a car for an hour or so. The resuly is entertaining, although it could have had a lot more bite.

Voyage of Time
dir-scr Terrence Malick; narr Cate Blanchett 16/US ***
Call this the logical next stage in the evolution of Terrence Malick: his swirling approach to natural history has eschewed even a hint of a plot to instead trace time from drifting bits of matter to, well, drifting bits of matter. With all of Earth's existence in between. It's often breathtakingly gorgeous, and there are some very clever touches. But it's also rather corny, and a bit obvious.

Paradise
dir Andrey Konchalovsky; with Yuliya Vysotskaya, hristian Clauss  16/Russia ***.
With a bold visual and structural style, Andrey Konchalovsky gives the Nazi deathcamp movie an eternal twist, exploring the actions and motivations of three distinct people in the face of unspeakable horror. It's a difficult film, somewhat simplistic in its morality and pushy in its themes. But it has a visceral power that can't help but strike a chord.

Critical Week: Mr Cool

Don Cheadle's passion project Miles Ahead was screened to UK critics just as it was released in the US. It's a strikingly impressionistic biopic, avoiding the usual structure for a more kaleidoscopic approach that's visually impressive and emotionally tricky. Natalie Portman is terrifically steely in the Western Jane Got a Gun, which kind of loses track of its characters as it becomes more focussed on the action violence. Oddly, both films costar Ewan McGregor.

Also this week, Kevin Costner stars in Criminal, a fiendishly entertaining bit of high-concept action set in London. Rebecca Ferguson is solid in two roles in the rather moody Cold War romance Despite the Falling Snow. And Nicolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares are back for another cold case in the astutely well-made if oddly un-resonant The Absent One.

Even more interesting was the lunch I attended on Thursday at which the Critics' Circle presented Maggie Smith with our annual award for Services to the Arts, voted on by all six sections of the circle (film, theatre, music, dance, art, books). It was a lively event, and a very rare chance to hang out with the national treasure that is Dame Maggie, who was on great form. Alas, I didn't get up the nerve to tell her that I first saw her in person on-stage at a taping of The Carol Burnett Show when I was only 13!

Coming up this week: Disney's live-action remake of The Jungle Book, the British thriller Hard Tide, the British comedy Adult Life Skills, Peter Greenaway's Eisenstein at Guanjuato, the Bollywood blockbuster Fan and the American politician documentary Weiner.

Critical Week: Bafta night 2016

It was a Valentine's theme for this year's Baftas, as the British Academy Film Awards fell on February 14th. The ceremony was eerily subdued, with host Stephen Fry engaging in the same witty erudition he has used in 10 previous ceremonies. There were no musical performances this year to break the monotony, and only a few memorable moments (Rebel Wilson's speech was the comedy highlight). Valentine's touches included an opening Kiss Cam, which yielded the unexpected sight of Leonardo DiCaprio locking lips with Maggie Smith. And Leo reunited with his Titanic costar Kate Winslet - both were winners (above).

Speaking of which, awards themselves took a fairly predictable route, with only a few mild surprises. The Revenant nabbed five (film, director, actor, cinematography, sound); Mad Max: Fury Road won four (costumes, editing, production design, makeup/hair); and Star Wars: The Force Awakens won two (visual effects and rising star for John Boyega, below). The other prizes were scattered between Room, Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Big Short, Brooklyn, The Hateful Eight, Amy, Inside Out, Theeb and Wild Tales.

Frankly, the Bafta ceremony needs a shake-up. First, find a new host who can bring some fresh attitude and a spin on the usual format. Second, broadcast the entire ceremony live rather than on a tape delay with a third of the categories left out. In the Instagram age, the winners are all public knowledge before the show airs, so this archaic approach from the BBC is simply absurd, and it belittles Bafta's impact.


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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

As for films I saw this past week, the biggest was Zoolander 2, a sequel just as silly as the original, which means that it feels like a disappointment. But I laughed. The best of the week was Sing Street, the latest hugely involving music-infused drama from the brilliant John Carney (Once, Begin Again), this time set in mid-80s Dublin. Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups is an evocative, kaleidoscopic exploration of the emptiness of fame. Strikingly photographed and played (by Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman, among others), it feels oddly lacking in insight. Richard Gere is a mopey homeless man in Oren Moverman's beautifully observed but painfully slow Time Out of Mind. And the inventively stylised Belgian drama The Brand New Testament takes a witty premise (God is alive and living in Brussels) and spins it into something involving and thought-provoking.

This coming week we get to catch up with the Coen brothers' all-star Hollywood comedy Hail, Caesar, Robin Williams' final drama Boulevard and the British heist movie Golden Years, among others.