Critical Week: 33rd Shadows Awards

Here's my top 10 films of 2013, and my top 5 picks in the other major categories. Full lists and a lot more are on the website...

T O P   1 0   F I L M S  

1. American Hustle (David O Russell)
2. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
3. Filth (Jon S Baird)
4. Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler)
5. Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche)
6. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
7. In a World... (Lake Bell)
8. Blancanieves (Pablo Berger)
9. Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass)
10. Behind the Candelabra (Steven Soderbergh)

D I R E C T O R  

1. Jon S Baird (Filth)
2. David O Russell (American Hustle)
3. Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
4. Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell)
5. Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty)

S C R E E N W R I T E R

1. Lake Bell (In a World...)
2. Asghar Farhadi (The Past)
3. Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha)
4. Eric Warren Singer, David O Russell (American Hustle)
5. Haifaa Al Mansour (Wadjda)

A C T R E S S 

1. Emilie Dequenne (Our Children)
2. Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue Is the Warmest Colour)
3. Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
4. Paulina Garcia (Gloria)
5. Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

A C T O R

1. Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
2. James McAvoy (Filth, Welcome to the Punch, Trance)
3. Matt Damon (Behind the Candelabra, Elysium, The Zero Theorem)
4. Johan Heldenbergh (The Broken Circle Breakdown)
5. Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips, Saving Mr Banks)

S U P P O R T I N G   A C T R E S S  

1. Margo Martindale (August: Osage County, Beautiful Creatures)
2. Kristin Scott Thomas (Only God Forgives, The Invisible Woman, Looking for Hortense)
3. Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)
4. Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy, Stoker, The Railway Man)
5. Pernilla August (Call Girl)

S U P P O R T I N G   A C T O R 

1. James Franco (Spring Breakers, As I Lay Dying, The Iceman, Homefront)
2. Dane DeHaan (Kill Your Darlings, The Place Beyond the Pines, Jack & Diane)
3. Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
4. David Oyelowo (The Paperboy, The Butler)
5. Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)

W O R S T   F I L M 

1. Grown Ups 2 (Dennis Dugan)
2. R.I.P.D. (Robert Schwentke)
3. G.I Joe: Retaliation (Jon M Chu)
4. Bula Quo! (Stuart St Paul)
5. Run for Your Wife (Ray Cooney, John Luton)

I've only seen a couple of documentaries in the past week to fill in some viewing gaps - namely The Square, about the ongoing Egyptian revolution, and The Missing Picture, about the killing fields in Cambodia. I'll have a few more things to catch up with next week, but in the mean time I'm enjoying a bit of a holiday from the movies. or at least the ones that put me in work mode. Happy New Year!

LFF 10: Big finale

The 56th BFI London Film Festival came to a close tonight with the European premiere of Mike Newell's new version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, which brought Helena Bonham Carter back out to the red carpet just a night after she and her partner Tim Burton (himself an LFF red carpet veteran from opening night) attended the glamorous festival awards presentation, where they were each awarded the BFI Fellowship. Here are all of the winners:

• Film: RUST AND BONE
• Documentary (Grierson Award): MEA MAXIMA CULPA
• First Feature (Sutherland Award): BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
• British Newcomer: Sally El Hosaini (MY BROTHER THE DEVIL)
• BFI Fellowship: Tim Burton (FRANKENWEENIE) and Helena Bonham Carter (GREAT EXPECTATIONS)

Here are my own 10 favourites from the festival:

1. RUST AND BONE
2. SIGHTSEERS
3. AMOUR
4. NO
5. OUR CHILDREN
6. KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
7. ERNEST & CELESTINE
8. ARGO
9. MY BROTHER THE DEVIL
10. BEYOND THE HILLS

Saturday also included Silver Linings Playbook as the surprise film (I'm seeing it on Tuesday) - pictured (right) at the surprise screening are David O Russell, LFF director Clare Stewart and Bradley Cooper.

And here are a few final highlights...

Great Expectations
dir Mike Newell; with Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter 12/UK ***.
Charles Dickens' oft-adapted novel is faithfully transferred to the screen barely six months after another BBC television version. And while this film is very nicely made and played, it's impossible not to wonder why they've done it again so soon... REVIEW >

Celeste & Jesse Forever
dir Lee Toland Krieger; with Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg 12/US ***.
With a snappy script and observant filmmaking, this enjoyable rom-com refuses to fit into the standard movie formula. It also offers both Jones and Samberg the chance to give much more layered performances than usual... REVIEW >

Our Children
dir Joachim Lafosse; with Emilie Dequenne, Tahar Rahim 12/Be, ****.
Based on a true story, this film paints a picture of happy but complicated domestic bliss before quietly shifting into something very unsettling. The understatement is likely to annoy some filmgoers, but it allows the cast to deliver devastating performances... REVIEW >

Ernest & Celestine
dir Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner; voices Lambert Wilson, Pauline Brunner 12/Fr ****.
Charming and adorable, but not remotely childish, this animated French adventure has a terrific sense of anarchy that will appeal to adults as much as kids. It's also a superb fable about standing up for yourself even when you challenge society's traditions... REVIEW >

Olympics Day 12: Glory days

London continues to buzz with Olympic energy on Day 12 - even if Britain didn't win any gold medals today, there was plenty to cheer about. In athletics, it seemed like the Americans were winning absolutely everything. And the Brits couldn't even get a break in equestrian showjumping. But the city is packed with happy tourists and fit competitors, and Londoners seem just a tiny but less grumpy than usual.

My day today was a bit dull: I was at home reporting hourly on the Olympics for two four-hour shifts, and in between I had a live radio slot to do. That meant that I only got out of my flat briefly, but I also was able to watch the Games action all day long in the background as I looked for last-minute results and sought out interesting stories.

Tomorrow I'll be back in the thick of things, as I head to the Olympic Stadium early in the morning for the first session of athletics. I applied for these tickets more than 18 months ago, thinking that since it was the only athletics session without a final I had a better chance of getting seats - bingo! Looking forward to being in the Olympic Park again, especially since it's supposed to be a warm, sunny day this time.

CRITICAL WEEK: I haven't had quite as much time for movies this past week, as the Games have kept me busy. But I did manage to catch up with a few things: the all-star action blockbuster The Expendables 2, which I'm embargoed from talking about until Monday; the shockingly unfunny Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn alien comedy The Watch; the creepy/silly independent British horror The Devil's Business; the devastatingly moving Cannes-winning French drama Our Children; and the stunning restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's first Hitchcockian movie, the 1927 silent The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, which has been given a remarkable new score by Nitin Sawhney.

This coming week, there's the shockingly late press screening of The Bourne Legacy, the British indie horror I Against I, the appropriately timely thriller Cockneys vs Zombies, the FrightFest title Sinister, and the music doc Shut Up and Play the Hits.