Critical Week: A family portrait

Three big sequels were screened this week for the press. The big one was the world premiere of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, attended by most of the cast and crew. The film is a worthy farewell to this franchise, and there are no surprises. Which makes it even more cosy and comforting. A lot more fun was Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, continuing the hilarious mock-doc comedy antics of the world's favourite fake British heavy metal band. And then there were Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga back for one more time as the ghostbusting Warrens in The Conjuring: Last Rites, which works best when it centres on the characters rather than the rather silly ghostly creep-out.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
On Swift Horses • Christy
Night of the Juggler
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We also had Benedict Cumberbatch in The Thing With Feathers, an artful exploration of grief that really gets under the skin. Cooper Hoffman leads The Long Walk, based on a Stephen King novel set in a 1970s American dystopia. It's very dark, but also compelling and thought-provoking. The horror thriller Good Boy skilfully unfolds through a dog's-eye-view, which makes it unusual enough to catch us off guard. And the British drama Brides addresses a very thorny issue with engaging characters and a sharp sense of youthful hope.

There are fewer screenings this coming week, largely due to the week-long Tube strikes, but among films I'll be watching are Emma Thompson in Dead of Winter, Michael Chiklis in The Senior, Adam Bessa in Ghost Trail and Justin Kurzel's Warren Ellis doc Ellis Park.

Critical Week: It's the end of the world (again)

Awards season continues to accelerate, this week with the Bafta nominations giving predictions a good spin. I'm the chair of the London Film Critics' Circle, and our awards are announced on Sunday night, so I've been preparing for that all week. And Oscar nominations come next week. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Worst Person in the World
The Eyes of Tammy Faye • Azor
Belle • The Souvenir Part II
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Meanwhile, I had: my first experience in the outrageously all-encompassing rollercoaster of 4DX cinema with Moonfall, Roland Emmerich's latest ridiculous disaster epic, this time pitting Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley against melodramatic family issues as they try to stop the moon from smashing into Earth. More than a decade after the last movie, Johnny Knoxville is back for Jackass Forever, in which the original crew get up to their usual limb-jeopardising antics, although they leave the most violent stuff to some newcomers.

Set in Britain and Mexico, the romantic comedy Book of Love starring Sam Claflin and Veronica Echegui feels fresh and engaging, even as it plays on the usual formula. The horror thriller The Long Night has lots of atmospherics and some slick filmmaking touches, but is oddly disjointed. From Argentina, Azor is a proper stunner, a slow-burn thriller about a man's journey into pure evil. From Spain, Bringing Him Back is a contained, intriguing drama about four people and the shifting dynamic between them. And the documentary The Tinder Swindler is a riveting account of a dating app con man whose scam was mind-bogglingly huge.

This next week I'll be watching Kenneth Branagh's the all-star sequel Death on the Nile, Tom Holland in Uncharted, Jennifer Lopez in Marry Me, Johnny Depp in Minimata, the Cape Cod drama Give or Take and the Italian drama Small Body.

Critical Week: Rock the block

With summer weather finally arriving in Britain (we basically skipped spring this year), it's tricky for us to go back to the newly reopened cinemas or spend time outside in the sunshine. But it's been too long since we were able to watch movies! My screenings this week included In the Heights, the film of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical celebrating New York's Caribbean subculture. It's exuberant and fun, and has a terrific cast. But the songs felt a bit thin to me. And both Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are back for a third go-round with the supernatural in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, a genuinely creepy thriller about demonic possession based on a true story. That narrative is somewhat watered down by rather a lot of effective movie nonsense.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Sublet • The Father
The Dose • Ellie and Abbie
To the Ends of the Earth
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The British comedy-thriller School's Out Forever is a fresh but over-violent take on the genre, as teens go into military mode following a deadly pandemic. From Australia, Ellie & Abbie (and Abbie's Dead Aunt) is a charming romantic comedy about teen girls in love, with an added witty ghost. Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman's It Must Be Heaven is a serious charmer, a surreal trip from Nazareth to Paris to New York packed with witty and very pointed observations. From Japan, To the Ends of the Earth is an offbeat and very likeable odyssey for a confused young TV host on location in Uzbekistan. And the riveting Swedish documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World follows the life of actor Bjorn Andresen following his explosion onto the world scene in Visconti's Death in Venice.

This next week I have a screening of the sequel Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, plus review links to watch include Disney's animated adventure Luca, Willem Dafoe in Lansky, the spy thriller The Serpent and the comedy Untitled Horror Movie.

Critical Week: The right stuff

I caught up this week with HBO's movie All the Way, recounting how, in the wake of Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr (Bryan Cranston and Anthony Mackie, above) begrudgingly cooperated to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, standing up to opposition because it was the right thing to do. Reteaming Cranston with Trumbo director Jay Roach, the film has a bristling sense of humour that brings the situation to life. And the performances are full of punchy emotional undercurrents, from Cranston and Mackie to ace supporting players like Bradley Whitford, Melissa Leo, Frank Langella, Stephen Root, Ray Wise and Joe Morton. While the plot and themes are important and strongly relevant, the film feels oddly muted in tone, contained within rooms rather than encompassing the bigger picture. This is perhaps due to the script's stage origins, so thankfully it doesn't water down the story's powerful kick.

My only proper screening this past week was The Conjuring 2, the London-set sequel featuring real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). Like the 2013 original, the film is genuinely terrifying, even though director James Wan can't resist using every cliche available. I also caught three films in the upcoming East End Film Festival: Desire Will Set You Free is a freeform drama with documentary elements set in Berlin's sexually ambiguous club scene; Uncle Howard is a moving documentary about filmmaker Howard Brookner (Burroughs) by his nephew Aaron; and Transit Havana is a beautifully shot doc following transgendered men and women as they navigate Cuba's health care system. I'll have more on these and others when the festival kicks off on 23rd June.

Screenings this coming week include Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart in Central Intelligence, the animated adventure The Secret Life of Pets, the cat-kidnapping comedy Keanu and the acclaimed doc Notes on Blindness. I've also got several more EEFF movies to watch.

LFF 4: Strike a pose

The 59th London Film Festival forges ahead with more red carpet mania (that's Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren and John Goodman out last night, for Trumbo). It's only Day 4 and I'm already suffering from burn-out, so tonight I'm taking a break and heading to the theatre! That should help me face the coming eight days, even with those nasty 8.45am press screenings. Thankfully the films have been good enough to (mostly) keep me awake. More highlights...

Bone Tomahawk 
dir S Craig Zahler; with Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson 15/US ***.
A fresh take on the Western genre, this film combines dark drama with snappy wit and grisly horror to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. So while it's riveting and unpredictable, with strikingly bold performances from the entire cast, it's also vaguely ridiculous in its grotesque exaggeration of frontier fears about Native Americans.

The Program
dir Stephen Frears; with Ben Foster, Chris O'Dowd 15/UK ***. 
With a quick pace and steely tone, this drama traces Lance Armstrong's career in a strikingly lucid way. Never simplistic, it sees the events through the cyclist's own perspective, acknowledging the moral issues while carefully exploring why a sportsman would cheat his way to success. Anchored by a bracing performance from Foster, this is also one of the edgiest movies in Frears' eclectic filmography

Couple in a Hole 
dir Tom Geens; with Paul Higgins, Kate Dickie 15/UK **. 
Like something from the Greek new wave, this film takes a surreal look at fundamental human emotions through a premise that feels both fantastical and eerily realistic. On the other hand, this particular parable is far too on-the-nose, never quite coming up with anything very insightful. Still, it's packed with unexpected twists and characters that defy expectations.

Men & Chicken 
dir Anders Thomas Jensen; with Mads Mikkelsen, David Dencik 15/Den **** 
A wickedly grotesque look at family connections, this Danish black comedy is both hugely entertaining and utterly bonkers. A mixture of scientific creepiness and Three Stooges-style slapstick, the film defiantly refuses to fit into a genre. Which makes it gloriously entertaining in all the wrong ways.

Aligarh
dir Hansal Mehta; with Manoj Bajpai, Rajkummar Rao 15/Ind ****
It would be easy to write off this true drama as something that could only happen in India, but the film has striking layers of global resonance. Not only is it a vivid depiction of the struggle for human rights, in this case relating to sexuality, but it's also a subtle indictment of how Western media have created a need for everyone to be put into their appropriate box. And it's written, directed and acted with remarkable sensitivity and insight.