Critical Week: Scary movies

It's been a busy week at the movies for me, even if the cinemas are a bit hit and miss at the moment, with a bunch of releases that look unlikely to threaten Barbie's dominance of the box office. I finally caufht up with Disney's remake of Haunted Mansion, which is as much of a limp mess as the 2003 film was, abandoning characters for corny references and mindless action. Much better was Aporia starring Judy Greer, an inventive and involving time-bending drama with no special effects at all. I also enjoyed Ben Kingsley teaming up with Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris in the stranded-alien caper Jules, which is simple and charming.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Red, White & Royal Blue
Aporia • Dreamin' Wild
L'Immensita • Medusa Deluxe
PERHAPS AVOID:
Haunted Mansion
REVIEWS >

A bit further afield was the gorgeous stop-motion animation in The Inventor, which recounts the story of Leonardo da Vinci with wit and colour. Lucy Hale and Grant Gustin star in the cute romcom Puppy Love, which is fine for those looking for something unsurprising. Jeremy Allen White is terrific in a supporting role in Fremont, a clever and very quirky arthouse movie about Afghan immigrants. The superb Japanese drama Love Life remains remarkably sunny as it explores some very dark themes. And the Romanian drama RMN takes no prisoners in its exploration of xenophobia in a rural community.

This coming week I'll be up in Edinburgh watching shows at the Fringe and covering them here. I also have a couple of films to catch up on if there's time. I also hope to reattend the new staging of La Cage Aux Folles at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, as the press night was rained out after about an hour of the show on Tuesday.

Critical Week: Scary season

It's Halloween week, so the cinemas are packed out with various kinds of horror movies, including big-budget creep-outs (Antlers, above), stylised arthouse offerings (Last Night in Soho) or down and dirty ones (Chuck Steel). And the 29th Raindance Film Festival has also just kicked off, so I'll get a chance to catch up with some indie movies over the next 10 days. I'll add some festival updates along the way.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Cop Movie • Wild Indian
The Souvenir Part II
Cicada • Keyboard Fantasies
ALL REVIEWS >

As for movies I saw this week, Antlers is an atmospheric monster movie from filmmakers Scott Cooper and Guillermo Del Toro, starring Keri Russell. It's sharply well-made, but feels a little thin. Oscar Isaac is excellent in Paul Schrader's provocative drama The Card Counter, a challenging exploration of the tension between revenge and redemption. The British haunted house horror Barun Rai and the House on the Cliff has a riotously arch tone that's entertaining even if it's clumsy. Using stop-motion animation, the riotous action satire Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires is packed with witty touches and knowing gags, even if it's all rather ridiculous. And the Turkish drama Love, Spells & All That is a lovely look at lingering romantic feelings between two women who haven't seen each other in two decades.

In the coming week, I'll be watching Chloe Zhao's Eternals, Josh O'Connor in Mothering Sunday, the British comedy Pirates, Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God, the black comedy Decrypted and several Raindance movies.

Critical Week: Family time

These are busy days in the screening rooms, with festival films as well as the usual forthcoming releases. And the awards season has also begun to rear its head with for-your-consideration screenings. It'll be like this for the rest of the year! This week I caught up with the Cannes-winning Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, a staggering drama about a family of con-artists that continually twists and turns to keep the audience gasping. There was the second Shaun the Sheep Movie, Farmageddon, which is just as sweet and hilarious, if a bit more madcap, than the first. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss all go against type in the thriller The Kitchen, which struggles to find its tone. And Ready or Not is a horror comedy that's funny and very grisly, but not scary at all.

Awkwafina is terrific in a dramatic role in The Farewell, a charming and involving drama set in China. The gifted Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is back with the important, unnerving and rather long dramatic thriller The Nightingale, set in 19th century Tasmania. Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) is back with the staggeringly good, utterly unmissable period romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Richard Kind gets a rare serious role in the gentle, uneven virtual reality drama Auggie. The inventive but messy black comedy Groupers takes on homophobia in ways that will make everyone feel uncomfortable. And this beautiful documentary opens this week...

Mother
dir Kristof Bilsen; scr Kristof Bilsen, Xan Marquez Caneda
with Chutimon "Pomm" Sonsirichai, Maya Gloor, Elizabeth Rohner, Martin Woodli,
Walter Gloor, Joyce Gloor, Sara Gloor, Tanja Gloor
release UK 20.Sep.19 • 19/Belgium 1h22 ****

Reflective and intimate, this understated documentary simply follows women who initially seem completely different but reveal layers of common ground between them. Filmmaker Kristof Bilsen cuts between Thailand and Switzerland, quietly observing mothers and children as they connect to each other in unexpected ways. This gives the film a gently involving narrative, allowing the audience to experience these situations and emotions in a vivid way.

Pomm is a care worker from an isolated Thai village. She only gets to see her children when she's on holiday, and feels guilty that she isn't there all the time. Her job is to work with the Western patients at Baan Kamlangchay, an Alzheimer's care centre in Chiang-Mai. One of these is Elizabeth, a smiley woman who occasionally wonders where she is. "You're on holiday in Thailand," Pomm cheerfully reminds her, calling her "granny". Pomm feels that her patients are family, and she uses emotions to communicate with them. Meanwhile in Switzerland, Maya has early onset Alzheimer's at 57, and is being readied by her family to travel to Chiang-Mai. Maya's husband and daughters are sensitive to criticism that they are sending her away, but from their perspective this is a sacrifice, giving up their time with her so she can have a better life and proper care. As Pomm is grieving Elizabeth's death, Maya moves in, and they begin a new relationship.

The film is beautifully shot without ever being pushy about themes, offering remarkable insight into a variety of issues, including a young woman who needs to work two jobs to support a family she rarely sees and also the importance of providing dignified care for Alzheimer's patients. It's fascinating to see how Pomm identifies with women who have lost their past lives. She longs to hug her mother, who takes care of her kids, but the culture forbids it, so she lavishes affection on her patients instead. She's also well aware that if she needed this kind of care, she could never afford it. Yes, this is the kind of doc that makes us think.

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Much of my time at the moment is being taken up with festival screenings. The Raindance Film Festival is running right now (18-29 Sep), and press screenings have already begun for the London Film Festival (2-13 Oct). I'll of course have more updates on both of those! And there are also regular movies screening for the press these days, including Naomie Harris in Black and Blue, Juliette Binoche in Non-Fiction, Jamie Bell in Skin, Mathieu Amalric in Sink or Swim and the horror movie The Birdcatcher

Critical Week: Furry heroes

I caught up with the month's two big kids' movies this past week, before leaving London. The Secret Life of Pets 2 is as frantic as the first film, if not more so with its three parallel plot strands. So it never settles down long enough to make the characters very endearing. But it is funny. And Guy Ritchie's live-action Aladdin remake is a surprisingly childish movie - goofy and energetic. But it's also quite enjoyably camp, with a sweet and pointed romance at the centre. And Will Smith puts his own distinctive spin on the Genie, thankfully.

Haven't managed to catch any other films, but I did watch lots of TV on the long flight, including the final episode of Game of Thrones (it was fine, but not the shocking spectacle the series deserved) and a proper binge of The OA (super-addictive, and I'm still a season behind).

I'm travelling west for the next couple of weeks, visiting family in Los Angeles and friends in Maui - not on glamorous movie business, but I hope to catch up with a few films that are opening while I'm out there, starting with Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, James Gunn's Brightburn and the Elton John biopic Rocketman, which screened to press in London just after I flew out. Although I have other things on my mind aside from movies, of course...

Critical Week: Who runs the world?

It's been a busy week for screenings in London, as we're starting to get to see autumn festival titles. This week I was happy to catchup with Wash Westmoreland's biopic Colette, starring Keira Knightley as the iconic French author. It's a fiercely clever film, quietly subverting the period drama while addressing issues that are still current. Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born is the fourth version of this involving tale of a fading artist (Cooper as a rocker) being eclipsed by his emerging-sensation girlfriend (Lady Gaga, surprisingly excellent). Damiel Chazelle's First Man stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong in the run-up to the moon landing. It's moving and intriguingly internalised. And Night School features the powerhouse team of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, although the script leaves them hanging.

Other films this week are featuring in the forthcoming London Film Festival (10-21 Oct), including Nicolas Cage in the gonzo horror Mandy, the hilarious Kiwi comedy The Breaker Upperers, Zhang Yimou's silvery-riveting 3rd century Chinese thriller Shadow, and the Indonesian ghostly horror freak-out The May the Devil Take You. There were also two rock 'n' roll docs: Bad Reputation follows the queen herself, Joan Jett, while After the Screaming Stops traces a reunion of Bros twins Matt and Luke Goss. I also saw one film that's in the now-underway Raindance Film Festival (26 Sep-7 Oct): Dizzy Pursuit is a hilarious one-room micro-budget comedy about distracted filmmakers. And then there were these two Supreme Court documentaries...

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RBG
dir Betsy West, Julie Cohen; with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Clinton
release US 4.May.18 • 18/US Storyville 1h38 ****
This engaging, gentle documentary traces the extraordinary life of the 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Born at a time when women didn't dare to be lawyers, she was encouraged by her parents and later her husband to pursue her dreams. Her life is a remarkable story of overcoming barriers, refusing to take no for an answer. Then as a lawyer, professor, judge and justice she has been able to help bolster the law to create a more equal system. The film beautifully portrays her efforts to help men understand how it feels to be a second-class citizen as she pursued landmark cases to the Supreme Court in the 1970s, at a time when no one believed there was such a thing as gender-based discrimination against both women and men. There are also sections that explore Ginsburg's personal life as a wife, mother, grandmother, dedicated opera fan and terrible cook, as well as her unexpectedly close friendship with Justice Scalia. The filmmakers include a terrific range of archival photos and film, as well as interviews with her friends, family, colleagues and other public figures. The film captures her personality as a quiet, thoughtful woman with a steel-trap mind, determined to make the world fairer. She's soft-spoken, but her words have real power, and her lively sense of humour makes her even more likeable. Ginsberg is a living American hero, a champion for equality at various levels of society.

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Reversing Roe

dir Ricki Stern, Annie Sundberg; with Tony Perkins, Gloria Steinem
release US 13.Sep.18, UK 19.Sep.18 • 18/US Netflix 1h39 ***.
Bang up to date, this propulsive documentary opens as Texas passes laws restricting access to abortion, with a stated goal to ultimately overturn Roe v Wade. "Everything about abortion is a sin," say the proponents. And the other side replies, "Women have always had abortions whether or not they're legal, so if you want to stop them, help stop unwanted pregnancies." The filmmakers take an open-handed approach, exploring the collision of politics and religion that led to the Supreme Court's landmark decision in 1973 and then on to today's standoff. Both sides have their say as the doc carefully outlines the history of the issue in America, including the way Reagan and the Republicans switched sides on abortion (it was a deliberate strategy to lock in a voter base), as did Planned Parenthood (which was originally against abortion). Today the issue has turned religious, arguing against the murder of unborn infants. This has led to a system in which voters make their choice based on this issue alone, not whether the candidate is suitable for office. And in the 1980s it led to violence, including fatal shootings and bombings, perpetrated by fanatics who hypocritically called themselves pro-life. As it carefully balances the presentation of each argument, the film can hardly help but have a pro-choice slant, simply because the separation of church and state makes the issue legally clear. And also because the pro-life side is driven by men who use sleazy tactics. But the film also avoids exploring the idea that abortion is the taking of a human life, focussing instead on the fact that women should choose, not government officials. And certainly not middle-aged male politicians.

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This coming week I have a lot more films for Raindance and London festivals, plus regular releases like Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English Strikes Again, Joaquin Phoenix in Don't Worry He Won't Get Far on Foot, Tilda Swinton in Suspiria, Aubrey Plaza in An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn, Emily Rajtakowski in Cruise, and the animated film Tehran Taboo.

Critical Week: Against the law

The big movie screened this week for London critics was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, a powerfully riveting drama that, like last week's Dunkirk, unapologetically immerses the audience in a historical event. Plus noteworthy performances from British actors John Boyega (above) and Will Poulter. Lighter fare included the raucous comedy Girls Trip, which is very funny and has a surprisingly soft centre, and the Jack the Ripper style horror whodunit The Limehouse Golem, which is overfamiliar but very well-played.

Slightly outside the mainstream, we had the conceptual underwater horror of 47 Metres Down, which nerve-wrackingly traps two young women at the bottom of the sea surrounded by sharks; Gerard Butler trying to emote in the rather painfully obvious work-life balance drama A Family Man; Michael Winterbottom struggling to find a balance between documentary and fiction in the band tour movie On the Road (Wolf Alice fans should love it); and a sensitive doc tracing a likeable young musician's gender transition in Real Boy.

Coming up this week are the animated comedy The Emoji Movie, Tom Holland in Pilgrimage, Toni Collette in Fun Mom Dinner, Francois Ozon's L'Amant Double, Sundance hit Beach Rats, Berlin winner On Body and Soul, the dark comedy Kept Boy, and the tense drama Insyriated.