Critical Week: Reach out

After the pageantry of last Saturday's coronation event and a national holiday on Monday, it was back to normal for most of us. For me, this week's films included Jennifer Lopez taking on some serious action in The Mother, which thankfully undermines its genre cliches with character detail. Set in 1970s London, Dead Shot is a thoughtful thriller starring Aml Ameen and Colin Morgan. It has a nicely gritty period feel, and while it never quite kicks into gear, it's worth a look.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Still: A Michael J Fox Movie
The Eight Mountains • L'Immensita
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Even more satisfying on the action front, Sisu is a bonkers Finnish thriller about a lone prospector taking on a range of Nazis who are trying to steal his gold as they flee at the end of WWII. In another genre entirely, A Place of Our Own is a lovely drama from India that subtly explores the everyday life yearnings of marginalised trans women. And Anton Corbijn's strikingly visual doc Squaring the Circle traces the work of Hipgnosis, the British design group that created many of the most iconic album covers in the 1970s and 1980s.

This next week I'll be watching Vin Diesel's supposedly penultimate action romp Fast X, the drama Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, Kelsey Grammer in Jesus Revolution and the doc Being Mary Tyler Moore. I'll also attend the press night for Skid/Saaba at Sadler's Wells (review here soon).

Raindance: Get distracted

The 28th Raindance Film Festival kicked off last night with a very small gala screening of the David Bowie biopic Stardust, starring Johnny Flynn (it's not showing to the press until the end of the festival). This year's event will include some live screenings plus a lot of virtual ones. Like the recent London Film Fest, I'll be watching everything at home and writing regular updates here. Here are the first two, plus my usual report on the past week...

A Dim Valley

dir-scr Brandon Colvin; with Zach Weintraub, Whitmer Thomas 20/US 1h32 ***.

There's a loose stoner vibe to this wilderness-set comedy, a gently loping film that generates lots of smiles and a few solid laughs. While nothing much seems to be happening, the way the characters so aimlessly interact is often amusing, as they simply neglect to express what they want, either personally or professionally. It's deliberately quirky, like a joke that's funnier when you're inebriated. But it runs deep.

This Is Cristina [Ella Es Cristina]

dir-scr Gonzalo Maza; with Mariana Derderiaan, Paloma Salas 19/Chile 1h22 ****

With a series of seemingly random scenes shot in a striking monochrome, this clever Chilean comedy-drama traces the rollercoaster trajectory of a friendship between two women who seem unwilling to grow up and take responsibility for their lives. With his directing debut, gifted writer-producer Gonzalo Meza (A Fantastic Woman) cleverly weaves together a coming-of-age story that hinges on this connection. It feels crisp and light, but carries a strong kick.

NB. My anchor page for Raindance is HERE and full reviews will appear in between these daily blog entries. Much more to come...

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK: 

Song Without a Name 

Wolfwalkers • African Apocalypse

The Painter and the Thief

FULL REVIEWS >

I finally caught up with Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks this week, one of my favourite films of the year, a deceptively simple comedy with the perfect double act of Bill Murray and Rashida Jones. I was less excited to catch Ben Wheatley's remake of Rebecca with Armie Hammer, Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas. It's beautifully made, but adds little to Hitchcock's iconic classic. The Secret Garden is a better remake, with a great cast and artful touches. And there were two guilty pleasures: Dylan O'Brian in the surprisingly fresh zombie romp Love and Monsters and Omari Hardwick in the horror freak-out Spell. This past week I also saw: Claes Bang in the intriguing The Burnt Orange Heresy; Jaeden Martell in the cleverly involving The True Adventures of Wolfboy; the artful British drama Philophobia; the action-packed Train to Busan sequel Peninsula; the absolutely stunning Peruvian drama Song Without a Name; the provocative Argentine drama Young Hunter; and the superbly observed doc Boys State.

Aside from Raindance films, This coming week I'll be watching the London street-cat sequel A Christmas Gift From Bob, Eva Green in Proxima, Andrea Riseborough in Luxor, the rom-com Call Me Brother, Jack Lowden in Kindred, Iranian refugee drama Love Child and the Filipino drama 2 Cool 2 Be 4 Gotten.

Critical Week: Inter-connected

In this job, it can be frustrating watching film festivals like Venice and Toronto from afar: clearly these are the movies that will factor in at year-end, yet those of us not at the festival have to wait, and wait, wondering when we'll be able to see them so we can write about them and consider them for the awards we vote in. Clearly I was spoiled by being in Venice for the last couple of years! Anyway, we caught up with one notorious title, a Sundance film that will play at the London Film Festival next month: Assassination Nation is a full-on satire of modern teen culture, playing on social media and toxic masculinity as it heads into its horrific climax.

The rest of the week was eclectic: Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg reteam for another action thriller, Mile 22, and the film feels loud and thin, even for them. The Rider is an exquisite doc-style drama about a South Dakota rodeo cowboy grappling with a new reality. Lucky is a delicate, witty tale about a salty 90-year-old war veteran in rural Arizona, played by the wonderful then-90-year-old Harry Dean Stanton. A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. is a beautifully shot single-take romantic odyssey through nighttime Los Angeles starring Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good. And Lost Child tells a creepy story from the backwoods of the Ozarks, cleverly weaving folklore with current social issues.

A little further afield, José had its world premiere in Venice, and I got to see it in London: it's a powerful drama from Guatemala about a young gay man who finally begins to think he might be able to have a happy life. Complex and beautifully made, it won the Queer Lion. Another gay-themed drama, Sodom is a contained British drama set in Berlin about two strangers whose lives cross momentously. From Palestine, Wajib is a quietly involving look at an estranged father and son going about their family duty before a wedding. And Bisbee '17 is a strikingly original doc that explores events in the Arizona mining town a century ago.

This coming week is a little slower than usual - no idea why that might be, as there are plenty of films on the horizon that I need to see. Anyway, I'll be catching up with Willem Dafoe in Padre, Mischa Barton in The Basement, Sam Sheperd in Never Here and Rory Culkin in The Song of Sway Lake, among other things, no doubt.