Critical Week: You're winding me up

After the Bafta Film Awards on Monday, the final stretch of this year's awards race is as unpredictable as ever. Apart from Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin, most categories are still up in the air. A flurry of awards this weekend will further muddy the water before it all climaxes at Oscar on March 2nd. Meanwhile, movies are still arriving in cinemas, and this week's biggest was The Monkey, another enjoyably creepy film from Osgood Perkins, this time with Theo James as twin protagonists. It's funnier than it is scary. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
I'm Still Here
I Am Martin Parr
Picnic at Hanging Rock
ALL REVIEWS >

From the Netherlands, Invasion is a slickly made thriller set in sunny Caribbean locations as beefy marines take on an unexpected attack from a (fictional) rogue South American nation. It's fun but anticlimactic. The Brooklyn drama Barrio Boy is an involving depiction of Latino subculture with a story that explores homophobia in somewhat elusive ways. From China, the animated epic Chang'An is a spectacular mix of gorgeous imagery, visceral battles and moving poetry. And the entertaining, finely made documentary I Am Martin Parr explores the British photographer's inimitable career. I also attended the programme launch for the 39th BFI Flare film festival (coming 19-30 March), plus the monumental Vollmond at Sadler's Wells and the rhythmic Trash! at the Peacock.

This coming week I'll be watching Woody Harrelson in the underwater thriller Last Breath, Ralph Fiennes in The Return, Toby Jones in Mr Burton, Bruno Dumont's The Empire, Georgian drama April and the documentary Ernest Cole: Lost & Found.

Critical Week: Pesky kids

After missing them during the festival, I caught up with this week's two big releases at press screenings on Tuesday. Pet Sematary is a remake of the horror thriller adapted from Stephen King's novel. It's better than the first stab at it, as it were (I dredged up my archive review of the 1989 version and posted it together with the new one HERE.) And then there was Shazam!, easily the most enjoyable movie in recent memory from DC. It's lively and funny and has a solid plot and characters.

Seth Rogen has made unlikely romantic-comedies before, but perhaps Charlize Theron seems like a stretch too far. Well, their pointed political comedy Long Shot is a nice surprise, hilariously well written and sharply played. Judi Dench is of course great in Red Joan, as a woman accused of working with the communists back during her Cambridge University days. The film is a bit plodding and choppy, but the true story is fascinating. And from Wales, Gwen is a grim, atmospheric 19th century drama with strong horror overtones. Superb performances and skilful photography make it worth a look.

Coming up this week we have Isabelle Huppert in Neil Jordan's Greta, bonkers horror Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, medieval German thriller Hagazussa and Sergei Loznitsa's Donbass.