Critical Week: It's a slam dunk

It's been a fairly busy week for screenings, with another eclectic bunch of movies to sift through. There is an unusually large number of films opening this weekend, including several animated movies to coincide with school holidays, date-night movies for Valentine's Day and some awards-season gems that are finally getting into cinemas. Most are well worth seeing. One of the bigger ones screened for us this week was the animated adventure Goat, a lively basketball-adjacent comedy about a goat who wants to be the greatest of all time. Painterly animation and sparky characters make it worth a look. And then there's Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in Emerald Fennell's unsurprisingly lascivious adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I'm a fan of her deranged style of storytelling, and this movie is deliciously full-on.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Crime 101 • Wuthering Heights
Palestine 36 • Cold Storage
Goat • The President's Cake
Stitch Head • Little Amelie
My Father's Shadow
PERHAPS AVOID:
The Day the Earth Blew Up
ALL REVIEWS >

Other films screened this week include the nutty horror thriller Whistle, starring the gifted Daphne Keen. It's corny, but fun. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough take a tearaway Anson Boon into their home in The Good Boy (retitled Heel in the US), an unnervingly dark British drama that raises some enjoyably provocative moral questions. Danny Dyer puts on a one-man show in One Last Deal as a London sports agent trying to save his career, or maybe his soul. It's rather thin, but riveting. And the Swedish-produced Egyptian drama Eagles of the Republic, starring the terrific Fares Fares, starts as a satire about politics and moviemaking before shifting into a tensely mind-spinning thriller. I also attended a live performance of Pina Bausch's Sweet Mambo at Sadler's Wells. And at a special awards-season brunch in honour of Sentimental Value, I enjoyed chatting with Oscar and Bafta nominated filmmakers Joaquim Trier and Eskil Vogt.

Coming up this next week, I'll be watching Sam Rockwell in Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die, coming-of-age drama DJ Ahmet, subterranean doc Underland, tour doc Palestine Comedy Club, plus attending the London premiere of Paradise season 2 and the programme launch event for the 40th BFI Flare.

On the Road: The Book Thief and more

On holiday in rainy Southern California, I've been mainly spending time with my family up to now - very nice! Now over the next week or so it's time to run around the area seeing friends and relatives from  Orange County to Pasadena, from Santa Monica to Palm Springs. Am hoping to catch up with a few more films along the way too - a couple open next week, and there are also some awards-consideration screenings out here to catch. 

I caught one film on the plane flight out here: CBGB, the story of the famed music venue in New York, where punk and indie rock ruled the 70s and 80s. It's an enjoyable slice of history, with a solid performance from Alan Rickman at the centre and lots of big name cameos, but the movie is shot and edited in an annoying comic book style that continually distances us from the characters and situations. 

I also caught The Book Thief (pictured), starring Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson and newcomer Sophie Nelisse. It's a great story about the power of words set in Nazi Germany and told from a child's perspective, and the actors are good (particularly Watsona a the gruff but ultimately too-kindly adoptive mum). Sadly, the whole film is glossy and sweet, focussing on Oscar-bait dramatics and cute touches that undermine the horror of the situation. It feels like a magical fairy tale rather than a story set in a real time and place in which thousands were dying. Every day.