Critical Week: Bust a move

With the warm, sunny weather this past week, it wasn't easy to concentrate on movies, so I spent a bit of time each day outside getting some exercise. And at home I spent more time catching up on TV series (including, after pointlessly resisting it, all of Tiger King). Otherwise, my lockdown routine has been pretty much the same as ever: watch a movie, eat something, watch a TV show, eat something, watch another movie, and so forth. And today they announced at least another three weeks of this.

There were a handful of big movies this week. The Dave Bautista comedy My Spy (above) is a surprisingly engaging action romp, although the comedy is a lot more fun than the thriller side of things. Chris Hemsworth goes all manly in Extraction, a gritty kidnap-rescue action movie that's riveting and violent. And Sam Claflin is at the centre of the farcical goings on in Love Wedding Repeat, a silly and charming romantic comedy with a magical cheat in the plot.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Ema •  Martin Eden
A White, White Day
PERHAPS AVOID:
Abominable • Butt Boy
Behind You

The best I saw this week was the indie comedy Faith Based, which premiered at Santa Barbara Film Festival in February before seeing all of its other festival slots vanish. It's a knowing, affectionate look at both moviemaking and America's religious film industry. Great characters, a funny script and some fabulous cameos too (FULL REVIEW). Two other independent films were a little less impressive: Getaway is an inventive inversion on the woman in danger horror movie, as three women turn the tables on some murderous rednecks; and Abominable is a yeti horror movie with only about half a script and no funds for sets or actual actors - so bad it's rather funny.

Finally, I caught up with 17 short films spread across three collections, released by New Queer Visions between November and February: The Danish Boys, The Latin Boys and The Israeli Boys. All of them are serious short dramas exploring issues of identity and culture relating to the gay male experience. Refreshingly, while the films are a bit of a mixed bag, there isn't a dud in the bunch. And a few of them are mini-masterpieces (REVIEWS).

Coming up over the next week are the action comedy Why Don't You Just Die, the controversial dark drama Cuck, the indie crime thriller Ghost and horror movies 1BR and We Summon the Darkness, plus three more Netflix movies: Wagner Moura in Sergio, the animated comedy The Willoughbys and the documentary Circus of Books.

Critical Week: Face the music

As awards season begins to get serious (less than two weeks until my nominations deadlines begin in three groups), screenings are getting tricky to schedule in amongst the holiday parties! Yes, life is tough! This week's most mainstream offering was Jessica Chastain's drama Miss Sloane, an entertainingly twisty look at Washington DC lobbying. Kelly Reichardt's much more challenging Certain Women focuses tells three separate, very subtle stories about intriguing women (Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern). And the much more low-brow Office Christmas Party is also essentially female-centred, led by Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn and scene-stealing genius Kate McKinnon alongside costars Jason Bateman and TJ Miller. It's not quite as awful as it looks.

The most serious contenders were two docs with linked subject matter relating to race and justice. Ava DuVernay's 13th is a passionate, powerful exploration of America's prison system, exploring how it was essentially designed to continue slavery based on a clause in the 13th Amendment. And at nearly eight hours, O.J.: Made in America will stretch most viewers' patience, but it's a riveting exploration of a fallen superstar told in parallel with the checkered history of the LAPD and the weaknesses in the American judicial system. Both films are must-sees.

Films coming up this next week include this year's most anticipated blockbuster Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Martin Scorsese's Silence, Ben Affleck's Live by Night, Taraji P Henson in Hidden Figures, Michael Keaton in The Founder and the thriller The Eyes of My Mother.

Critical Week: Pitch-slapped

The most raucous screening last week was for the musical comedy Pitch Perfect - it's rare to hear film critics laughing so loudly all the way through a film. It stars Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson as members of a very competitive a capella university singing group. Less hilarious was goofy infertility comedy The Babymakers, which has a terrific lead couple in Olivia Munn and Paul Schneider but gets lost in a lame caper subplot. The tense British horror-thriller Tower Block also has a terrific cast led by Sheridan Smith, Russell Tovey and Jack O'Connell, but falls apart due to a hole-ridden script.

Foreign-language-wise, we had Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner Amour, a staggeringly well-observed drama about a couple facing their mortality; Xavier Dolan's Toronto award winner Laurence Anyways, an ambitious gender-bender starring the terrific Melvil Poupaud and Suzanne Clement; and the genial Swedish political rom-com Four More Years. There was also one doc: Hungarian Rhapsody, which includes rare interviews with Queen followed by a gorgeously shot film of their 1986 Budapest concert. And I caught up with two classics: Pier Paolo Pasolini's stunning version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Steven Spielberg's timeless adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was simply fabulous to revisit on the Imax screen.

This coming week we have Mike Newell's take on Great Expectations, Liam Neeson in Taken 2, the Ferrell-Galifianakis comedy The Campaign, the Aussie crowdpleaser The Sapphires, the animated horror-comedy Hotel Transylvania, the Polish hip-hop drama You Are God and the British indie drama Love Tomorrow. And on Monday morning, press screenings begin for the 56th BFI London Film Festival (10-21 Oct), so I'll be catching up with the likes of the comedy Celeste & Jesse Forever, the Cannes-winner The Hunt, and the doc West of Memphis, among many others.