Critical Week: Eye on the prize

As awards season arrives, I have a lot of for your consideration screenings alongside the regular upcoming releases, which creates a rather offbeat mix. This week we saw Otto Bathurst's ambitious new take on Robin Hood, starring Taron Egerton and Eve Hewson (above), plus Jamie Foxx and Ben Mendelsohn. Pity it's such a predictable, uneven movie. Creed II was also a disappointment, especially after the high point of Creed. This one should probably have been titled Rocky VIII, because it falls back on the old formula.

Far more satisfying were Steve McQueen's Widows, a wonderful reinvention of the heist movie starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki. The Old Man & the Gun is a terrific true drama starring Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek on top form. And the Cannes winner Shoplifters is another masterpiece by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda. There was also the scruffy, rather awkward micro-budget gay wedding comedy The Rainbow Bridge Motel, plus two documentaries: the fascinating and beautifully assembled Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story, and this one...

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Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
dir Matt Tyrnauer; with Scotty Bowers, Stephen Fry
release US 27.Jul.18 • 18/US 1h38 ****
As legendary Hollywood party boy Scotty Bowers turns 80, he spills the beans on his decades of procuring men and women for the stars. These stories may be salacious, dropping some of the biggest names in cinema history, but they humanise these celebrities and finally open a door on the industry's long-hidden secrets. After serving in the Marines during the war, Scotty worked as a gas station attendant in Hollywood, where he stumbled into a network of closeted gay and bisexual men for whom he organised discreet trysts. While managing a team of rentboys, he met George Cukor then the likes of Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Cole Porter, Cecil Beaton and on and on. They had to hide their true natures due to morals clauses in their contracts, so they created myths and entered arranged marriages. When questioned about outing dead people, Scotty comments rightly that there's nothing negative about being gay, and it's no longer breaking any contractual agreements. In addition, the film outlines Scotty's childhood, including trading sex for cash from a very young age and being part of Kinsey's research study. It's fascinating to see Scotty now, chatting openly about his experiences and living amid mountains of memorabilia without any regrets at all. So the film becomes an important exploration of culture and history, as well as attitudes toward sexuality then and now.

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This coming week's screenings are an eclectic mix, including Disney's sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet, Mahershala Ali in Green Book, Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns, Christian Bale in Vice, Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots, Felicity Jones in On the Basis of Sex, Alicia Vikander in Tulip Fever and the Sundance hit Eighth Grade.

Critical Week: Fashion forward

Since I travelled mid-week, my film viewing over the past few days was somewhat limited (I've already seen everything worth watching on the plane!). But before leaving Los Angeles, I caught an awards-season screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a 1950s London dressmaker. It's tricky, twisty and utterly mesmerising. And James Franco's The Disaster Artist is a hugely entertaining look at the making of a terrible movie, which turns into an ode to the importance of following your dreams. The all-star cast is excellent, and a lot of fun.

I also saw the family adventure Kepler's Dream, a rather simplistic TV-style movie that will appeal to undemanding audiences. It's boosted by the presence of Holland Taylor and Sean Patrick Flanery. And then there was the chance to revisit the 1969 Western Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, starring a surprisingly feisty Robert Redford. It's a complex ahead-of-its-time drama set in California's Native American community - riveting, emotional, challenging.

Coming up this week: the Cannes winner The Square, the Hungarian drama Jupiter's Moon, Rupert Graves in Native and the British drama Beast. There are also a number of for-your-consideration awards screenings coming up.

Venezia74: Celebrations on Day 11

The 74th Venice Film Festival came to a close tonight with a starry awards ceremony at which Guillermo del Toro unsurprisingly took the top prize for his superb The Shape of Water. Earlier in the day I spent a couple of hours out in the sunshine and then caught my final film of the festival (see below). Here the winners in the bigger categories and sections, as well as my 10 favourite films of the festival...

Golden Lion: THE SHAPE OF WATER
Grand Jury Prize: FOXTROT
Director: Xavier Legrand (CUSTODY)
Actress: Charlotte Rampling (HANNAH)
Actor: Kamel El Basha (THE INSULT)    
Screenplay: Martin McDonagh (THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI)
Special Jury Prize: SWEET COUNTRY
Mastroianni Award: Charlie Plummer (LEAN ON PETE)
Lion of the Future: Xavier Legrand (CUSTODY)
Glory to the Filmmaker: Stephen Frears
Lifetime Achievement: Jane Fonda and Robert Redford

Horizons
Film: NICO, 1988
Director: Vahid Jalilvand (NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE)
Jury Prize: CANIBA
Actress: Lyna Khoudri (LES BIENHEUREUX)
Actor: Navid Mohammadzadeh (NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE)
Scr: Dominique Welinski and Rene Ballesteros (LOS VERSOS DEL OLVIDO)

Venice Days
People's Choice: LONGING
Director: Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza (CANDELARIA)

Critics' Week
Film: TEAM HURRICANE
Audience Award: TEMPORADA DE CAZA

Queer Lion: MARVIN
Fipresci: EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Fipresci - Debut Film: Kim Nguyen (LOS VERSOS DEL OLVIDO)
Fedeora - Film: EYE ON JULIET
Fedeora - Debut Dir: Sara Forestier (M)
Fedeora - Actor: Redouanne Harjane (M)
Doc on Cinema: THE PRINCE AND THE DYBBUK
Mouse d’Oro: MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO UNO
Leoncino d’Oro: THE LEISURE SEEKER

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RICH'S 10 BEST OF THE FEST

1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Lean on Pete
3. M
4. Custody
5. The Third Murder
6. Suburbicon
7. The Shape of Water
8. Love and Bullets
9. Nico, 1988
10. Brawl in Cell Block 99

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M
dir-scr Sara Forestier; with Sara Forestier, Redouanne Harjane 17/Fr ****.
An unusually involving and offbeat romance, this is a remarkably assured writing-directing debut for actress Sara Forestier. With a clever premise, the film brings two marginalised people together, forcing them to address personal issues they would rather hide from the world. Forestier packs the film with little unexpected details about these characters, both of whom are so beautifully played that we can't help but root for them as we vividly identify with their longing and frustration as well as their joy.

I'll be straight back into screenings in London starting on Monday, and this coming week includes Borg vs McEnroe, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, The Glass Castle and Brakes.

Venezia74: Flying the flag on Day 3

The weather shifted here on the Lido with an extended series of thunderstorms in the middle of the night, which left the Venice Film Festival rather drippy and wet for most of the day, a drastic change after the sunshine of the previous two days. There was also a shift in the films, from the thematically overheated to more overwhelmingly emotional adventures. Here's what I saw today, including one film that will surely be among my best of the whole year...

Brawl in Cell Block 99
dir-scr S Craig Zahler; with Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter 17/US 2h12 ****
After infusing the Western with horrific new life in 2015's Bone Tomahawk, S Craig Zahler is back with a thunderous reinvention of the prison movie. Set in the present day but playing out like a 1970s exploitation thriller, this increasingly grisly story unfolds with choreographed precision, grinding the audience into its emotional depths with several genuinely hideous plot turns. And it's anchored by a superbly thoughtful/fierce performance from Vince Vaughn.

Lean on Pete
dir-scr Andrew Haigh; with Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi 17/US *****
There's an unusual depth of character to this finely crafted odyssey about a teen who hits the road in a last-gasp effort to find some semblance of hope in his life. While there's plenty of potential for bleakness, writer-director Andrew Haigh instead infuses the film with warmth and honesty, facing the darkest moments head-on as the only way to get through them. It's an extraordinarily tough story told with a light touch that brings the viewer right into the journey

Our Souls at Night
dir Ritesh Batra; with Jane Fonda, Robert Redford 17/US ***.

In addition to screening their new film,
Redford and Fonda are receiving
a special award here in Venice.

Gentle and never pushy, this homespun drama spins a love story between two people who are pushing 80. Although it might be a little unrealistic, since they're played by perhaps the fittest 79 and 81 year-olds on earth: Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. Both actors easily reignite their on-screen chemistry, adding character details that give the film a strong emotional kick. It's all a bit cozy, but it touches on some sharper-edged themes.

Tainted Souls [Il Contagio]
dir Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini; with Vinicio Marchioni, Maurizio Tesei 17/It **.
This ambitious multi-character drama takes aim at several potent issues plaguing Italian society, from organised crime and drug abuse to the machismo that leaves men too proud to get a job. But the film's tone is all over the place, veering from quirky comedy to gruelling nightmare, more like a melodramatic TV series than a feature film. And the characters feel equally uneven as they look for happiness in all the wrong places.

Critical Week: A big buddy

London critics saw two big effects-based movies this week featuring young kids interacting with huge digital costars. Steven Spielberg brings his usual sense of wonder to The BFG, based on the Roald Dahl classic. The excellent cast features Mark Rylance, newcomer Ruby Barnhill and Penelope Wilton, and the story is involving and lovely, although it does feel very animated. Surprisingly, Pete's Dragon feels rather more tactile and grounded, with its loveable giant green furry puppy dog-like dragon. It's just as wondrous, with fine acting from Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley and Robert Redford.

Off the beaten path, we had screenings of Things to Come, a clever, thoughtful French drama starring Isabelle Huppert; the moving documentary Jim: The James Foley Story, about the American journalist kidnapped and executed by Islamic State; and the artful portmanteau movie Confessions, exploring issues of love and sex through rather actorly monologs.

This coming week I have rescheduled screenings for both Jason Bourne and Hell or High Water, plus that other Chris Pine movie Star Trek Beyond, Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic and the new film version of the British classic Swallows and Amazons. Then I'm off on a short holiday for five days, hurrah! My first proper break since last November.

Requisite Blog Photo: Feeling furry

Critical Week: Beardy men unite!

That's Vin Diesel in the photo above. Yes, really. He's going a rather decent Tom Hardy impression in the olde worlde scenes in his new franchise hopeful The Last Witch Hunter, which was screened to London press on Monday only a couple of days before it opens in cinemas. Whether that franchise materialises depends on the audience's appetite for a batty supernatural thriller that mixes Game of Thrones with Underworld. But it got a lot of laughs from the critics!

Most of the films I watched over the previous week were London Film Festival offerings. Some of these have release dates coming up, including Danny Boyle's exhilarating Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet; Jack Black in the manic comedy-horror romp Goosebumps; Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford in the true journalism drama Truth; the artful, surprisingly moving documentary The Fear of 13, about a man on death row; and Jafar Panahi's Taxi Tehran, his superbly mischievous third film as a banned filmmaker in Iran.

Tomorrow comes the first press screening of one of the year's most anticipated movies, Sam Mendes' Spectre, starring Daniel Craig as James Bond. I've also got the British comedy A Christmas Star in the diary, as well as Josh Duhamel in Lost in the Sun and the pre-apocalyptic Mexican buddy movie Velociraptor. I'm also planning to binge watch the entire old series of David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks in preparation for a press trip to The Owls Are Not What They Seem, a themed cafe-club night in a secret London location. Watch this space for a full report!

LFF 11: Surprise us

The surprise film at this year's London Film Festival was Anomalisa, and directors Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman, plus actor David Thewlis, were on hand to present their film to the audience. Alas, I wasn't able to attend this year, so I'll have to wait until the film is screened to the press prior to its UK release. Meanwhile, the parade on the red carpet is continuing with tonight's awards ceremony, at which Cate Blanchett will be presented the BFI Fellowship. The last day of the festival is tomorrow, and it will be all about Michael Fassbender. Here are a few more highlights...

Truth
dir James Vanderbilt; with Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford 15/US ****
Cate Blanchett's gives yet another storming performance in this smart, enlightening backstage drama about the 2004 scandal at CBS News, which ended the career of iconic newscaster Dan Rather. Like a populist blending of The Newsroom with Good Night and Good Luck, the film is talky and a bit too obvious in the points it makes, but it's also important...  MORE >

Ruben Guthrie
dir Brendan Cowell; with Patrick Brammall, Alex Dimitriades 15/Aus ****
It seems obvious that an Australian filmmaker would make a movie about alcoholism into a blackly hilarious comedy. What's surprising here is that the serious undercurrents are just as pungent, and that the film never slips into the usual simplistic approach to the topic. As a result, it's both entertaining and thought provoking.

Victoria
dir Sebastian Schipper; with Laia Costa, Frederick Lau 15/Ger ****.
German filmmaker Sebastian Schipper took a big risk shooting this epic romantic thriller in a single unbroken take, and the resulting film not only wows the audience with its technical audacity but also fully engages the emotions. This story of a young expat's two-hour odyssey is genuinely terrifying, darkly touching and thumping entertainment.

From A to B
dir Ali Mostafa; with Fadi Rifaai, Fahad Albutairi 14/UAE ****
This is a lively road movie with an unusually sharp script that combines character-based humour, introspective drama and a sharp sense of the political scene as three 25-year-olds drive from Abu Dhabi to Beirut, recreating a trip they were supposed to take five years earlier. It's also cleverly timely, connecting with political realities while keeping the audience laughing, then hitting us with an emotional whammy.

Critical Week: Double trouble

Tom Hardy himself popped up at the press screening for his stylish and entertaining movie Legend, in which he delivers two astonishing performances as the Kray twins, who ran London's gangland in the 1960s. Ed Helms stars in Vacation, a next-generation sequel to the Chevy Chase comedies that's just as rude but more silly than edgy. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte star in the enjoyably earthy comedy A Walk in the Woods, based on the Bill Bryson book. Marcia Gay Harden heads to Costa Rica in the warm comedy-drama After Words, and has a life-altering encounter with a cheeky local. And Josh Hutcherson heads to Colombia in the realistic, gritty thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost, where he becomes entangled with the 1990s drug kingpin, played with disarming charm by Benicio Del Toro.

A little further afield, we had the sequel Sinister 2, which has an extreme embargo on it: until the day it opens. We also saw the beautifully made gentle Los Angeles drama Brahmin Bulls, with Sendhil Ramamurthy and Roshan Seth as father and son; actor-turned-filmmaker Craig Roberts' perhaps too audacious,but skilfully made British coming-of-age movie Just Jim; actor Steve Oram's even more experimental, and rather genius, sociological pastiche Aaaaaaaah!; the rather bleak but moving Australian homophobia drama Drown; and Dishonoured Bodies, a collection of nine somewhat preachy but very cleverly assembled experimental shorts by Spanish filmmaker Juanma Carillo.

This coming week we have the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, Zac Efron in We Are Your Friends, Kevin Costner in McFarland, Rupert Friend in Hitman: Agent 47 and M Night Shyamalan's The Visit.

LFF 4: Meet the filmmakers

I've reached that point in the London Film Festival when my backlog of reviews begins to swell, and my lack of sleep begins to affect my ability to carry on a coherent conversation. But it's been a good weekend of movies, wrapped up with Pawel Pawlikowski (above with festival director Claire Stewart, photo by me on the front row) presenting his gorgeous new film Ida, one of my favourites so far. The stars and filmmakers were out in force over the weekend, enjoying the crisp sunshine on Saturday and the gloomy rainshowers on Sunday. Here are some more highlights...

All Is Lost 
dir JC Chandor; with Robert Redford 13/US ***.
Shot with an astounding attention to detail, this film puts us right in the middle of a life-or-death situation with its only character, a sailor whose boat founders in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But Chandor's remarkable skill as a director is slightly undone by a plot that piles on too many disasters... FULL REVIEW >

Enough Said 
dir-scr Nicole Holofcener; with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini13/US ****
With her usual style of off-handed honesty, writer-director Holofcener gives the rom-com formula a welcome grown-up twist. And even if the story is somewhat simple, the characters bring out layers of insight in every scene. It's smart and often very funny, with brittle, flawed people we can easily identify with... FULL REVIEW >

The Zero Theorem 
dir Terry Gilliam; with Christoph Waltz, Melanie Thierry 13/Rom *** 
Terry Gilliam updates the look and feel of Brazil to the digital age with this lively and raucously imaginative adventure-drama. So it's a shame that the plot runs out of steam about halfway through, leaving us unable to piece together the big ideas that flood through every corner of the script... FULL REVIEW >

Closed Curtain 
dir Jafar Panahi, Kambuzia Partovi; with Kambuzia Partovi, Maryam Moqadam 13/Irn *** 
Banned filmmaker Panahi continues to work by making movies with other filmmakers and distributing them outside Iran. Packed with clever ideas, this feels more like an expression of his frustration than a fully formed feature. After an intriguingly provocative first half, it turns surreal and far too metaphorical... FULL REVIEW >

Teenage
dir Matt Wolf; with Jena Malone, Ben Whishaw 13/US **. 
An odd hybrid, this film mixes authentic newsreel footage with fictional re-creations to explore the concept of the teenager, which didn't exist before World War II. But ultimately the film merely traces American and European history from 1904 to 1945, only offering a flash of insight in its final moment... FULL REVIEW >

Critical Week: She's not human

I'm not feeling massively human myself after such a busy week. The 21st Raindance Film Festival came to a close Sunday night with the creepy British thriller The Machine (pictured), which also won the top prize for best UK feature. Exploring artificial intelligence with an emotional edge, the film features sharp performances and some genuinely unnerving touches. Also at Raindance, I caught up with the Argentine comedy The Critic, which touched a few nerves in its engaging, cleverly told tale of a film critic's messy life.

I saw a couple of independent films outside Raindance: Who Needs Enemies is a low-budget London crime thriller that takes a clever approach to the genre and has a superb cast, but doesn't quite come together. And the comedy-documentary Seduced & Abandoned is a joy for movie fans, as Alec Baldwin and James Toback hit Cannes to sell their Iraq-set remake Last Tango in Tikrit. Pointed and very funny, it's packed with big-name cameos including Bertolucci himself, as well as surprisingly adept raconteur Ryan Gosling. And just last night I attended a massive Ender's Game teaser event with Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld and Ben Kingsley in attendance, but we'll have to wait to actually see the movie.

In continuing press screenings for the 57th London Film Festival, which opens Wednesday night, we caught up with Robert Redford's staggeringly well-made but somewhat over-done solo thriller All Is Lost; the amazing Robin Wright as a version of herself in Ari Folman's striking but confusing live-action/animated The Congress; the warm but implausible Brit-com Hello Carter with the likeable Charlie Cox, Christian Cooke and Jodie Whittaker; the provocative French drama Stranger by the Lake, which morphs from a quiet drama into a Hitcockian freakout on a gay-naturist beach; and the documentary Teenage, mixing terrific archive footage along with matching faked scenes that kind of undermine the entire point.

This coming week is pretty much devoted to the LFF with screenings of: Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, Alexander Payne's Nebraska, Jason Reitman's Labor Day, Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem, Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves, Xavier Dolan's Tom at the Farm, Bruno Dumont's Camille Claudel 1915, Lukas Moodysson's We Are the Best, David Mackenzie's Starred Up, Hong Sangsoo's Haewon, the Berlinale winner Child's Pose, and the sexploitation doc The Sarnos. There's also a screening of two London movies: the crime thriller Vendetta and the comedy World of Hurt. Whew.

Sundance London: Day 1

The 2nd Sundance London Film and Music Festival kicked off at the O2 today with another ambitious collection of films from the January event in Park City, plus a number of live performances, workshops, panel discussions and musical events. Press screenings have been underway all week, and now the fun really starts, since all of the filmmakers are in town for the festival.

Yesterday we had a big launch press conference with Robert Redford, who noted that Sundance's first venture outside its home base in Utah was a big success last year, and he was happy to be invited back again. "It's a cultural exchange," he said, "We bring foreign films to Utah and now we're exporting American films to London audiences. And the filmmakers are excited to see their films travel outside America's borders." Here are a few early highlights...

The Kings of Summer
dir Jordan Vogt-Roberts; with Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso 13/US ****
Witty direction and an exceptionally sharp script give this coming-of-age film a blast of originality that completely wins us over. There may be a few too many wacky touches, but overall the film is grounded in solid characters and hilariously squirm-inducing observations. It centres on three teens (Robinson,  Moises Arias and Basso, pictured) who run away from home and build a cabin in the woods to escape their humiliating parents. And we can see why, with brilliant supporting turns by the likes of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. So even if the film sometimes drifts toward Napoleon Dynamite, it remains grounded by the excellent performances and sharply observant filmmaking.

The Look of Love
dir Michael Winterbottom; with Steve Coogan, Imogen Poots 13/UK ***.
This fascinating story is told with vivid style, a terrific use of actual settings and a strong cast. But the characters never quite get under our skin, so our interest in the history of one of London's more colourful districts is never deepened by personal resonance or larger meaning... REVIEW >

Mud
dir Jeff Nichols; with Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland 12/US ***.
Nichols is a gifted writer-director who knows how to get into the heads of his characters. And this film has superior actors who create people who are intriguing and hugely involving. But the overlong running time makes the story drag badly, straining our patience to the point where we don't really mind how things end... REVIEW >

God Loves Uganda
dir Roger Ross Williams; with Christopher Senyonjo, Lou Engle 13/US *****
This deeply disturbing documentary shines the light on a side of American culture that seems wholly positive to everyone involved. But from the outside it looks sinister and hateful. Credit must go to the filmmakers for presenting this in a fair and balanced way, covering the whole story with remarkable restraint. The topic is the missionary work run by the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer in Uganda, where in the name of Christian outreach they export ultra-conservative views that would never take root in America. This has led to several violent murders as "Christians" rise up to kill anyone perceived to be a homosexual, and indeed a law is before Uganda's parliament to make being gay a capital offense. Watching these clean-cut, under-educated American young people is shocking: their hearts may be in the right place, but they simply don't realise that they are actually killing people instead of helping them. A remarkably honest but truly shocking film that deserves to spark a lot of discussion. Especially in Uganda.