Critical Week: Look at yourself

Things should be quieting down this month, but the screening schedule has continued to be fairly busy with an eclectic collection of movies to watch. Making a very strong debut, writer-director Christian Swegal gives the fact-based drama Sovereign an unusually sensitive spin, centred around smart, thoughtful performances by Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay as a father and son with radical views that lead to tragedy. At the other end of the spectrum is James Gunn's witty, colourful new take on Superman, starring a likably human David Corenswet alongside Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult. It's big and entertaining, but never surprising.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Other Way Around
Sovereign • Baby
Hidden Master
ALL REVIEWS >

The Dardenne brothers are back with Young Mothers, another riveting doc-like Belgian drama that pulls us deeply into a real-life situation, this time with teen girls who have babies. Jonas Trueba's Spanish comedy-drama The Other Way Around is the engagingly clever story of a couple planning to celebrate their separation, with added witty meta-filmmaking touches. From Brazil, Baby is a sensually shot and played drama about a teen just out of detention as he discovers connections in the tough streets of Sao Paulo. I also had an advance screening of the British drama I Swear, based on the involving true story of Tourette's campaigner John Davidson. It stars the always superb Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson and Peter Mullan, with remarkable performances from Scott Ellis Watson and Robert Aramayo in the lead role at two ages (it'll be out in October). 

This coming week is also full. I'll be watching the new Smurfs movie, with Rhianna as Smurfette, Celine Song's new drama Materialists, Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan in Four Letters of Love, Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson in Friendship, the German black comedy Dying and the first chapter in the Oslo Stories Trilogy, Dreams. 
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Critical Week: Generations

Awards season is cranking up for anyone who votes in these things, and yet there are still regular releases opening in cinemas that I need to cover, So the week was a combination of films aimed at very different audiences. As for cinema releases, there was the latest film directed by 94-year-old Clint Eastwood, the old-fashioned dramatic thriller Juror #2, starring Nicholas Hoult, and Toni Collette. It's slow and not nearly as complex as it looks, but enjoyably gripping. Hugh Grant is excellent as the charming-but-shifty villain in Heretic, a rather simplistic horror film that's livened up by deeper theological questions. And Liam Neeson's latest action movie is Absolution, a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on mortality and redemption.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Real Pain • Emilia Perez
Anora • Super/Man
Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives
ALL REVIEWS >

There were also a few more films that showed at the London Film Festival. Pharrell Williams uses Lego animation to tell his life story in Piece by Piece, an uplifting and delightfully original concoction packed with hilarious gags and lots of great music. Cate Blanchett leads the ensemble cast of Rumours, a nutty satire about G7 leaders lost in the woods. The film is a bit lost itself. From Hong Kong, The Last Dance is a beautifully well-made comedy about the tension between tradition and progress. From Britain, Secrets of a Wallaby Boy is a very scrappy hand-made comedy about a delivery boy. And there were two docs: Christopher Reeve is the focus of the fascinating, moving Super/Man, which has some important things to say about curiosity and compassion, and How to Build a Truth Engine is a fascinatingly detailed exploration of the spread of fake news.

As the big movies keep coming, this coming week I'll be watching Paul Mescal in Gladiator II, the adventure comedy sequel Paddington in Peru, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked Part 1, Dwayne Johnson in Red One, Emma Corrin in Nosferatu and the FrightFest Halloween comedy Time Travel Is Dangerous.

Critical Week: Eye of the tiger

It's a busy but short week here in London, and I've been running around catching the usual eclectic variety of movies at press screenings. I've been a fan of Henry Golding since his excellent work in Crazy Rich Asians and Monsoon, so I was willing to set Snake Eye aside and look forward to Assassin Club. Alas, this one's a generic, poorly written thriller. At least he's good in the first act, before things get truly nutty. Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult are gleefully over-the-top from the start of Renfield, and they're the best thing about the movie, which mashes-up horror, comedy, romance and drama in ways we've seen before. But at least it's good fun.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Suzume • Everything Went Fine
Private Desert • Cairo Conspiracy
PERHAPS AVOID:
Assassin Club
ALL REVIEWS >

Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton are of course excellent in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a very British road movie about a man who decides to walk the length of England. Thankfully, it avoids sentimentality for something darker and more resonant. Teyana Taylor is a force of nature in A Thousand and One, an unusually realistic New York drama that traces a mother and son over a decade that's as tumultuous for the city as it is for them. And the Norwegian pitch-black comedy Sick of Myself, which lampoons how everyone is vying for attention, is so bone-dry that it makes us feel uncomfortable in all the right ways.

This next week I'll be watching Eva Green in The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan, Jim Gaffigan in Linoleum, the Polynesian epic Pacification and the Filipino drama I Love You Beksman, which opens the Queer East Film Fest (reviews here soon).

Critical Week: Larger than life

It's been a fairly relaxed week at the movies for me, as I've just tried to get caught up on things, posting reviews from autumn festivals and catching up on some films. There are a lot of awards-buzzy movies I haven't seen yet, so there's still a ways to go. One I'd been looking forward to certainly didn't disappoint: Vicky Krieps delivers a wonderfully nuanced performances as Austria's Empress Elisabeth in the inventive and rightfully award-winning biopic Corsage. And a terrific cast brings a more introspective tone to the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a blockbuster that I liked better than the first film, mainly because it dodges the usual Marvel pitfalls. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
No Bears • Wakanda Forever
Homebody • Being Thunder
PERHAPS AVOID:
A Couple • Dear Zoe
ALL REVIEWS >

Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult star in the blackly comical The Menu, which tilts intriguingly from parody into horror. Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek team up with their children Jake Hoffman and Schuyler Fisk in the warmly dramatic romcom Sam & Kate. Romain Duris and Berenice Bejo join director Michel Hazanavicious for the witty and perhaps too-meta zombie movie pastiche Final Cut. Ryan Kwanten goes Blade Runner for the enigmatic futuristic Hong Kong noir Expired. The comedy Homebody creates an unusually knowing body-swap scenario. And the Latin American horror Blood-Red Ox is confusing but packed with clever details.

The Critics' Circle Film Section also held its annual lunch with the British Board of Film Classification, an event that has been virtual for the past two years. It was great to be back in-person again, learning about the BBFC's new endeavours and going through some of the borderline cases over the past year. And it was also nice to be in a room full of critics as well - for the second time in a week after last Thursday's special Critics' Circle all-sections award lunch for Emma Thompson.

Movies to this coming week include Lili Taylor and Jason Schwartzman in the romcom There There, Lukas Dhont's teen drama Close, Costa Rica's drama Clara Sola, the French animated comedy Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and the Indian action epic RRR. I'm also flying out to Southern California to visit my family and friends for a couple of weeks, and of course to watch more movies too.

Screen: Summer TV Roundup Part 1

Because of these extraordinary times, I've watched rather a lot more series television than usual in between the movies I'm reviewing (obviously, I can't cover theatre or dance these days). So I'm dividing my Summer TV Roundup into two parts. It seems like there's no end of new series popping up involving some serious talent both in front of and behind the cameras. As a result, there are still several intriguing shows on my to-do list, rather like how that pile of books to read just keeps growing...

SOMETHING NEW 

Hollywood

Set in the mid-1940s, this fabulously produced drama roots its story in several little-known facts and then stirs in some fictional twists, until it explodes into a riotously entertaining fantasy in the final episode. The point is very strong: what would have happened if studio moguls had stood up for what was right way back then instead of cowering in the closet? The cast is simply awesome, anchored by by the glorious Patti LuPone and Holland Taylor, plus scene-stealing turns from Jim Parsons and Rob Reiner and a solid cast of newcomers. And not only is it a great "what if" but it also makes us wonder if we're there yet. 

The Great

From The Favourite screenwriter Tony McNamara comes another bawdy historical romp, this time centring on Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) and her stormy marriage to Emperor Peter (Nicholas Hoult). This witty approach would be much more engaging in half-hour increments; these hour-long episodes feel rather over-extended. But the dialog sizzles with wit and insight into bigger themes about politics, gender and power. And it also offers a wry slant on real historical events that brings them to life, sometimes in exhilaratingly funny ways. Some of the crudity is a little tiresome, and the rampant sex feels oddly timid, but the cast is excellent across the board. And the production design is fabulous.

Run

There's an underlying nastiness to the premise of this adventure comedy, about two people who escape from their established lives based on a promise made 15 years earlier. Merritt Wever and Domhnall Gleeson are good enough in the central roles to earn our sympathies, but the plotting is too gimmicky for its own good, constantly throwing in contrived obstacles, unnecessarily violent twists and gaping inconsistencies in the plot and characterisations. This means that the show never gets the chance to explore the much more intriguing central idea about dissatisfaction or the yearning for past simplicity.

Never Have I Ever

Gorgeously written, this teen comedy gets under the skin of its characters in a way that pulls the audience right into the hilariously soapy situations. There are layers of meaning here, including clever explorations of ethnicity, gender and sexuality. So even if the entire show feels a bit coy and gimmicky, it helps that the characters are realistically unpredictable, likeable even as they do all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. The cast is terrific across the board, anchored by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as the enjoyably hapless Devi, who muddles her relationships with everyone around her but has a darkly emotive centre.

The Eddy

Damien Chazelle combines his love of jazz with an edgy, verite style of filmmaking for this dramatic musical about the trials of running a groovy nightclub in Paris. The dark tone is a little much for a series, but the music has a loose energy, even if spontaneous jam sessions feel oddly contrived. The cast is excellent, including superb performers like Andre Holland, Amandla Steinberg, Leila Bekhti, Joanna Kulig and (far too little of) Tahar Rahim, but none of the characters are sympathetic, and they're so deliberately awful that they're not hugely believable either. The strong production values kept me watching, but I wouldn't want to spend any more time with these people

Upload

There's a dopey-sexy charm to this high-concept comedy anchored by the hugely likeable Robbie Amell, whose character dies young in 2033 and is uploaded into a virtual afterlife. He can keep in touch with the living world, including his high-maintenance fiancee (Allegra Edwards), who is paying the bills so controls his experience, and his clever-hot upload assistant Nora (Andy Allo), with whom he's falling in love, of course. There's nothing terribly smart about this show, and it never even tries to grapple with issues like mortality or regret. But it's packed with witty gags, great side characters and irresistible emotions. Looking forward to the next season.

Little Fires Everywhere

This insidious drama gets under the skin with its suggestive plotting, and since it takes until about the fifth episode to give anything away, the audience is hooked. The way the shows jumps around in time is very awkward, and the tone feels just a wee bit overwrought. But the cast is terrific, adults and teens alike, led by the adept Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, who rise above their rather typecast roles. So it feels like a shame that the plot felt so obvious and predictable, even though the writers kept trying to throw us off the scent.

Dave

What starts as a rather silly stoner comedy, cleverly deepens into something far more interesting, with astonishing undercurrents that say powerful things about friendships, personal ambition and the surprising nature of raw talent. The series hits its stride in the seventh episode, taking on mental illness before delving into some properly pungent internalised issues about what it takes to become a star. And the final three episodes are simply genius. Dave Burd and his crew are terrific in the roles, plus some fabulous guest stars. It's rare to see a show that's unafraid to be both ridiculous and unapologetically complex at the same time. A must-see.

CARRYING ON

Dead to Me: series 2

Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini are back for more chaotic black comedy as two women who are inexorably linked by a bond of friendship that's entangled with death and murder. Resurrecting James Marsden as the hitherto unknown identical twin brother of the season one villain/victim makes this show feel like a full-on soap opera. Which is of course entertaining, even though there's not much to it. It may be thoroughly ridiculous, hinging on a series of ludicrous coincidences, but the ongoing messiness of the characters and the way they are increasingly intertwined is enjoyable. And the actors manage to add clever subtext.

The Conners: series 2b

There aren't many shows that are tapping into the current zeitgeist as adeptly as this does, poking gentle fun at everyday annoyances linked to much more profound truths about how the current global economy and right-wing governments are crushing the working class. There are quiet comments on immigration, social services, entrepreneurialism, ageing and pop culture scattered among these terrific characters, finely performed across the board (just give Laurie Metcalf all the Emmys). And the way the storylines continually catch reality is both entertaining and brave.

Insecure: series 4

I've had problems with this show from the start. I keep watching because of the terrific cast, but the characters just get more and more self-absorbed, with increasingly insulting storylines. This doesn't serve any of the actors well, because it's just too pushy and contrived for the characters to engage with the audience. It's odd that Issa Rae writes this herself, undermining her own character's integrity (and wasting the terrific Jay Ellis in the process). Although other side roles fare better. And the way it's structured to stretch out plot strands over multiple seasons is cynical and annoying. I give up.

WAVING FAREWELL 

Bless this Mess: series 2b

Essentially a ridiculous updating of Green Acres, this is the kind of show I would never stick with if it weren't for the actors in it. They manage to not only deliver hilarious comical performances, but are continuing to deepen their characters even as the show seems unable to figure out where it's heading. There are moments when Lake Bell and Dax Shepard seem to tap into something genuinely funny and relevant, but most scenes opt for the dumb gag rather than the smart one. Thankfully, there are sharp jokes too, but not enough to make me miss it now that it's been cancelled. 

Homeland: series 8

Claire Danes returned for one last hurrah as the brilliant but unstable Carrie in this tightly scripted final season. Cleverly highlighting how the world has changed since this show premiered, the drama is intense, as are the beautifully staged action sequences. And the writers clearly didn't feel constrained to play it safe. Both Danes and Mandy Patinkin are as excellent as ever, surrounded by a terrific supporting cast creating characters with their own stories and interests. So even as the narrative goes way off the rails in the final two episodes, with an implausible lapse for Carrie herself, what this show is dealing with gets more and more urgent, as does what it says about today's global political issues. 

Will & Grace: series 11

After its original eight-year run, this classic sitcom returned 12 years later for three more seasons, leading up to another series finale. It's a shame that the show's creators didn't use these three new series to push things further, or develop the characters in interesting directions. The comedy is amiably entertaining, but it's always far more mindless than the writers think it is. And while there are some great gags (as always for Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes), there were some excruciating bits too, including a bizarrely simplistic I Love Lucy homage. The ending is a bit happier and more open-handed this time, but once again it kind of missed the point.

CATCHING UP

Kim's Convenience: series 1-2

I've only watched two of four seasons so far, but I'm enjoying this show's askance approach to the usual sitcom about a mother, father and two grown kids. There's plenty to like about this show, including its dry humour and spiky interaction. That they're Korean Christians living in Toronto adds amusingly unexpected textures to the show, as do some intriguing wrinkles in their interaction. Although it's a bit of a problem that Paul Sun-Hyung Lee's Appa is simply too mean and self-absorbed to be likeable, even though he's skilfully played for laughs.

Elite: series 1-3

From Spain, this sexy-dopey high school soap is a guilty pleasure largely because of the beautiful, talented 25-year-old actors who play teens at a posh private school where each day seems to consist of an exam, a party and some blackmail. Plots also include murders and other violent nastiness, as the kids treat each other horribly. The first series had a lively vibe, while the second was dark and ugly, and the third continued with contrived, increasingly angry storylines to a gruesome climax and extended emotional finale. But it definitely has its moments, so I'm glad there's more to come.

The House of Flowers: series 1-3

This Mexican soap starts as a snappy-smutty comedy and morphs into a flailing comedy-melodrama about a messy upper-class family. By the middle of the second season, each character has given into his or her most idiotic personality traits, while the clumsy plots become increasingly corny (including a doomsday cult and TV talent competition). And in the third season, the timeline splits, crosscutting with the youthful antics of the older generation in the late-70s while neglecting the core cast. Most of these people are nasty and/or stupid, but they do manage to hold the interest. 

NOW WATCHING: Normal People, Mrs America, Snowpiercer, The Plot Against America, What We Do in the Shadows (2), Killing Eve (3), Kim's Convenience (3-4).

COMING SOON: Love Victor, Space Force, Messiah, I Know This Much Is True, A Series of Light, The Umbrella Academy (2), Queer Eye (5).

Critical Week: Creation in isolation

With all film releases being online at the moment, studios are taking a few chances. Made in 2017, the JD Salinger biopic Rebel in the Rye has finally come out in the UK. The delay is surprising considering that it stars Nicholas Hoult (above), even if feels a bit lacklustre. Even more surprising, Bong Joon Ho's 2013 sci-fi action thriller Snowpiercer has never been released in Britain but is finally arriving this month, no doubt due to Bong's Oscar triumph (the delay was a Weinstein debacle). It was fun to revisit this bonkers classic. And Warner Bros released its animated blockbuster Scoob! straight to streaming, which is a shame for audiences who like to see high-quality animation on a big screen. It's a rather contrived corporate product, but fun too.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Boys on Film 20 • The County
Cassandro the Exotico!
ONLY OK:
Scoob! • Frankie
Rebel in the Rye

Lower profile films include the cheesy horror anthology Evil Little Things, which centres on three very creepy dolls; the apocalyptic epic Edge of Extinction is gripping, even if it reveals both the ambition and inexperience of its filmmakers; the Spanish romcom I Love You, Stupid is predictable but pointed and engaging; the hugely involving Mexican drama I'm No Longer Here has a strikingly well-observed sense of style and music; the beautifully made Icelandic drama The County expertly stirs up some righteous rage at corruption; and Peccadillo's 20th short film collection is released to celebrate the distributor's 20th anniversary. Boys on Film 20: Heaven Can Wait is an essential set of LGBT-themed shorts, even if the 11 clips are a mixed bag.

The next movies on my to-watch list are: Issa Rae in The Lovebirds, John Hawkes in End of Sentence, Denis Menochet in Only the Animals, the Argentine thriller Intuition, the Korean thriller The Man Standing Next, and the Thai documentary Krabi 2562.

Critical Week: Lord have mercy

It's been another slow week for screenings, which has been helpful as it's been a crazy one in the movie awards world - both sifting through the big award winners and the way they impact the season as a whole, and organising the London Critics' Circle Film Awards, which take place next week.

The three movies I saw were: The Rhythm Section, an action thriller with a female perspective starring Blake Lively, Jude Law and Sterling K Brown; True History of the Kelly Gang, Justin Kurzel's stylish take on the Aussie folk hero starring a staggeringly good George MacKay, Essie Davis and Nicholas Hoult; and the feel-good British comedy-drama Military Wives, a true story from the director of The Full Monty, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan and Greg Wise.

There was also the launch event for New Nordics Festival, which will be presented by theatre company Cut the Cord 18-21 March at Yard Theatre in East London. It's a clever new initiative that involves six playwrights from six Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands) teaming up with six UK-based directors to bring their work to a British audience for the first time. This is a superb display of Brexit-defying collaboration between northern European countries that share elements of climate, culture and history. And the plays all look intriguing, grappling with social issues, environmental awareness and gender equality. With a bit of Ikea thrown in for good measure. For full details: YARD THEATRE 

In addition to another theatre press night, I also have film screenings of three acclaimed arthouse films this coming week: the Icelandic drama A White, White Day; the Swedish drama Koko-Di Koko-Da; and the housing crisis documentary Push.

Critical Week: In stealth mode

This week's blockbuster press screening was for Spider-Man: Far From Home, a refreshingly enjoyable blockbuster starring the hugely engaging Tom Holland. It continually undermines the usual overserious nonsense of superhero movies, and is relentlessly good fun. Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon and Nicholas Hoult star in the stylish historical drama The Current War, as Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla, respectively. It's a riveting story, nicely told. Alicia Vikander and Eva Green play sisters in Euphoria, a drama about mortality that's beautifully shot and acted, but eerily elusive. And nearly 25 years after Braveheart, Angus Madfadyen returns to the role of Robert the Bruce, a solidly produced film from a choppy script. And Peter Strickland's In Fabric is an enjoyably bonkers stylised horror movie about a murderous dress.

From abroad, we had The Shiny Shrimps, a French comedy drama based on the true story of a gay water polo team. It's funny and involving, but ultimately uneven. Also from France, Amin is an edgy immigration drama that's very sharply observed. From Mexico, Fireflies also centres on immigrants, this time an Iranian in Veracruz, and his story is strongly moving. From India, Photograph is a beautifully involving love story with some unexpected touches. From Canada, the provocative, engaging Roobha centres on an offbeat relationship between a middle-aged married man and a young trans woman. And there were two from Bangladesh: Saturday Afternoon is a tense and sharply pointed one-take thriller set during a terrorist standoff, while Sincerely Yours, Dhaka is a collection of seven superbly well-made shorts exploring pungent issues that resonate strongly.

I also caught a few documentaries. Memory is especially gripping for film fans, as it traces the origins of Alien, which was released 40 years ago. Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is a fascinating bio-doc about Leonard Cohen centring on his relationship with his muse Marianne Ihlen, with filmmaker Nick Broomfield adding himself into the story as usual. Political activists, not devil-worshippers, are the focus of Hail Satan, a witty doc about how the Satanic Temple exists mainly to provoke and challenge pompous injustice. And the warm, personal Southern Pride follows two bar owners in Mississippi as they try to celebrate LGBTQ culture.

Coming up over the next week, we have Florence Pugh in the horror thriller Midsommar, Colin Firth in Kursk: The Last Mission, Sylvester Stallone back for Escape Plan: The Extractors, the Sundance-winning comedy Brittany Runs a Marathon, the French coming-of-age drama Love Blooms, and the doc Varda by Agnes.

Critical Week: Dress to impress

With another long weekend, it's been a shorter than usual week of screenings. But I still kept pretty busy. The biggest release screened to the press, barely before it opened, was The Hustle, a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. As a comedy it's rather weak, but has some funny moments all the way through. There were also two British period biopics. Tolkien is an impeccably produced look at the early life of JRR Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), although it's a bit dry since it takes place before he wrote anything. The Professor and the Madman follows the tenacious work of James Murray (Mel Gibson) to define the English language and produce the first Oxford English Dictionary, with the help of an in-patient at Broodmoor asylum (Sean Penn). Despite the troubled production, it's a fascinating story, strikingly well acted.

Further afield we had the moving, dark British indie drama Last Summer, about young teens in small-town Wales dealing with a wrenching community crisis. And the even darker American indie drama Just Say Goodbye takes on teen suicide with a perhaps too-provocative story about friendship and parenthood. We also caught the superb documentary XY Chelsea, which closely follows whistleblower Chelsea Manning between two incarcerations. It's involving and even inspiring, taking on those who label her a traitor. And since it's finally out for streaming/etc in the UK, here's a longer take on this doc I saw a few weeks back...

Fahrenheit 11/9
dir-scr Michael Moore; with Michael Moore, Timothy Snyder, Jenifer Lewis, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg 18/US 2h08 ****

Michael Moore was one of the only pundits who predicted the Trump presidency. So this long but watchable and important doc opens with the massive upset of election night 2016, from Clinton supporters' pre-voting revelry turning into gloom to the shocked faces of Team Trump, which clearly didn't expect to win. From here, Moore spins back to look at how Trump accidentally got into the race while trying to increase his profile in contract negotiations with NBC. His racist comments backfired (NBC fired him), but he touched a nerve with a segment of the American public. Masterfully manipulating the media, which was making a fortune from covering his antics, Trump had a long history with Russian mobsters and the media leaders taken down for abusing women. Moore also documents his overt racism and misogyny over many decades, all of which was public knowledge. Similarly, his treasonous behaviour since taking office has also been out in the open.

As usual, Moore connects this to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder (a Trump buddy) declared a fake emergency to essentially privatise the poor, black city, callously poisoning it then covering up the escalating disaster. This takes up a good chunk of the film, and rightly so. Back to the main topic, Moore's dissection of the US electorate is fascinating: the truth is that liberal '60s values reflect the average American today; the Republicans have only won the popular vote in one presidential election in the last 30 years ("You can't call it a democracy if the person who wins the most votes doesn't win"). Moore also covers the fraud among the Democrats, such as how anyone who breaks from the centrist line is suppressed (as was Bernie Sanders), and how in many ways Obama paved the way for Trump. So it was no wonder people were willing to break the system with a protest vote.

Finally, Moore dives into gun control in the wake of the Parkland shootings an teens who refused to sit quietly and accept "thoughts and prayers". The salient point here is that candidates are representing their donors, not the voters. And Moore's most powerful message is that we need to ignore attempts to divide us against each other, rise up and create the government we deserve. History tells us that the US is becoming less democratic and more despotic by the day. So this film's carefully documented conclusions should chill us to the bone.

---

This coming week, we'll be watching Keanu Reeves in John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell and the documentaries Apollo 11, General Magic, The Lavender Scare and Nomad. Plus a couple of stage shows, just for a change of scenery.

Critical Week: Team America to the rescue

London-based critics caught up with Michael Bay's Benghazi thriller 13 Hours this week. It's skilfully assembled with a strong cast, but bombastic and frustratingly simplistic. There was also a very late press screening for The 5th Wave, the latest teen-dystopia thriller. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, it's a lot better than anyone expected. And then there was Ride Along 2, a lazy sequel reuniting Ice Cube and Kevin Hart for a new buddy-cop action-comedy in Miami.

Charlize Theron and Tye Sheridan are terrific in the creepy thriller Dark Places, which loses its way in melodramatic excess. Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room is one of the sharpest, most original horror thrillers in recent memory, propelling the audience into an unnervingly realistic nightmare. British filmmaker Stephen Fingleton is getting awards for his debut post-apocalyptic drama The Survivalist, a strikingly well-acted, inventive film that kind of gets stuck in its own rut. The Spanish animated moon-race adventure Capture the Flag makes up for its low-tech imagery with a quick-paced story and witty characters. And the understated Brazilian drama Aya Arcos makes up for its super-low budget with realistic, involving characters. I also caught up with a movie that doesn't seem to have a UK release planned at all...

Stonewall
dir Roland Emmerich; with Jeremy Irvine, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers 15/US *.
Director Emmerich really needs to stick to those big, tongue-in-cheek action movies he's so famous for (like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow or my personal guilty pleasure 2012). His last foray into "serious" filmmaking was the appalling revisionist Shakespeare bio Anonymous (2011), and now he has made this even more insulting drama about the roots of the gay pride movement. The film was criticised for not telling the whole story, but that's not the worst thing about it. The problem is that the movie is an endless stream of misguided cliches and trite moralising. There isn't a single scene that rings true, and it's not the fault of the actors (they're actually rather good, including Irvine in the focal role). Not only does Emmerich flatten each dramatic moment with awkwardly pushy direction, but Jon Robin Baitz's script rings false, trivialising what should be some darkly personal events and leaving real-life people lurking pointlessly around the edges of a narrative that tries to be the story of Everyman (or more accurately, every young white man). Please stick to blowing up the White House, Roland.

Coming up next week: Julianne Moore and Ellen Page in Freeheld, Adrien Brody in Backtrack, Blythe Danner in I'll See You in My Dreams, the animated romp Oddball and the Penguins, the cycling doc Battle Mountain, and the Israeli horror movie JeruZalem.

Critical Week: Take the desert by storm

Films don't get much bigger than Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller's return to the franchise 30 years after Thunderdome. Starring Tom Hardy in the title role (that's him as the grille ornament in the photo above), it's a roaringly entertaining action thriller with startling emotional and thematic depth. Speaking of which, Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers an unusually deep performance in Maggie, an involving father-daughter drama with zombie overtones. And Rupert Everett and Emily Watson play the king and queen in the comedy romp A Royal Night Out, an engaging film that's loosely based on real events in London 70 years ago this week.

Further afield, British critics are finally catching up with Song of the Sea, the stunningly beautiful Oscar-nominated Irish adventure based on local mythology. Second Coming is a low-key British drama starring Idris Elba that feels like it only has enough of a plot for a short, but is very nicely made. From Spain, Marshland is a sharply well-shot serial killer drama that's involving but a little dry. And I also caught up with The Last of Robin Hood, an involving drama directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice), which stars Kevin Kline in a story about the final months of of Errol Flynn's life.

Special screenings this week included Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Chuck Workman's superb doc, screened to the press on Welles' actual 100th birthday to launch the BFI's summer season featuring his films and lots of rare material. And one evening I headed to the Soho Revue Gallery for a screening of the short film Eleanor, an ambitious project starring Ruth Wilson that shows on three screens and carries quite an internalised kick (MY SHORT REVIEW).

This coming week we have George Clooney in the Disney epic Tomorrowland, Al Pacino in Danny Collins, Dustin Hoffman in The Choir, Peter Bogdanovich's comedy She's Funny That Way, the acclaimed horror Unhallowed Ground, the indie sci-fi thriller Infini and the Oscar-nominated doc The Salt of the Earth.

Critical Week: Don't read that book!

The week's biggest screening was Evil Dead, a remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 classic about a group of young people who find a sinister book in a cabin in the woods and unleash all sorts of nasty horror. This version has some very nice touches, and gore-hounds will absolutely adore it. We also caught up with Danny Boyle's twisty, gleaming, enjoyably over-complicated hypnosis thriller Trance, starring James McAvoy; Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy in the amusing but pointlessly overcomplicated comedy Identity Thief; Bryan Singer's epic-sized fairy tale action movie Jack the Giant Slayer, in which a lively cast rescues us from digital overload; and Jim Sturgess and Kirstin Dunst in the fantasy-romance Upside Down, which is strong on ideas but short on logic and story.

A bit further off the beaten path were Bernardo Bertolucci's perceptive and remarkably youthful Italian drama Me and You; the astonishing, essential British doc We Went to War, which catches up with Vietnam veterans after filmmaker Michael Grigsby (who sadly died last week) first documented them in 1970; and an intriguing but annoyingly indulgent French actor-director encounter in Unfaithful.

This coming week we have the action sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the comedy 21 and Over, Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan in Byzantium, Eric Bana and Olivia WIlde in Deadfall, the American indie Four and the Filipino-Malaysian drama Bwakaw.

Requisite Blog Photo: Full of beans

Critical Week: Fields of gold

London-based critics finally had a chance to catch up with last year's Terrence Malick film To the Wonder, a deeply personal meditation on relationships and faith starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams (pictured), plus Olga Kurylenko. It's a swirling, virtually dialog-free drama that kind of spirals out of control in the final third, but leaves us thinking. The only real mainstream film last week was the enjoyable geriatric caper romp Stand Up Guys, with the all-star trio of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. I also had the chance to catch up with Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, an unhinged style-over-substance comedy-drama clearly based on elements from the life of star Charlie Sheen.

Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral is an exercise in style and substance, a gleamingly yucky futuristic tale of fandom taken to life-threatening extremes. Sammy's Great Escape is a sequel to 2010's A Turtle's Tale, and keeps us entertained with a slightly deranged script and a gloriously excessive use of 3D. Aussie filmmaker Cate Shortland's unnerving dramatic thriller Lore is so gorgeously well shot and naturalistically acted that we almost forget that it's set in Nazi Germany. The Argentine anthology Sexual Tension: Volatile is an intriguing collection of six shorts exploring unexpected attraction between men. And bringing things full circle, Muzaffer Ozdemir's loosely plotted Home (Yurt) is a deeply personal meditation on the effects of progress on nature in the mountainous wilds of Turkey.

Coming this week: Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard, the gothic teen romance Beautiful Creatures, Danny Dyer in Run for Your Wife, Elijah Wood in Maniac, Barry Levinson's found footage thriller The Bay and Hirokazu Koreeda's I Wish.