Critical Week: This round's on me

As movie awards season heats up, things are getting busier for me - we're in the final week of voting in the London Critics' Circle Film Awards. I'm the chair of this group, so have quite a lot to do over the next few weeks before we announce our winners. Only a couple of the films I saw this week are awards-worthy. Ben Affleck earned a SAG nomination for his role in The Tender Bar, a gentle and somewhat uneven personal drama that also stars Tye Sheridan and is directed by George Clooney. On the big screen, I had a press screening of the fifth Scream movie, another self-referential meta-horror that plays it rather straight rather than going for something original. But it's fun to see Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette back together on-screen.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Memoria • Cow • Belle
Save the Cinema • Scream
ALL REVIEWS >

Smaller movies this week included the nutty horror The Free Fall, which plays out in swirly confusion before a terrific but very late reveal. Lucy Hale stars in Borrego, an underpowered thriller set on the drug-overrun desert on the California-Mexico border. There's more arthouse horror in The Scary of Sixty-First, a stylish and sexy Manhattan freak-out. And from Switzerland, The Fam (La Mif) is a riveting doc-style drama set in a children's care home.

Films to watch this coming week include Michael B Jordan in A Journal for Jordan, Christoph Waltz in Rifkin's Festival, the Brazilian thriller The Pink Cloud and the mountain-climber doc Torn, plus awards contenders Test Pattern, El Planeta, Azor and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy .

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: Chart a course

Britain is slowly emerging from lockdown after five very long months, and next week's shift includes reopening cinemas. It'll take awhile to get back up to full-speed, but it feels hopeful to be moving in the right direction. Meanwhile, I'm still watching everything on links, with the biggest film this week being the thriller Voyagers stars Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp and Colin Farrell in an oddly dull and timid riff on Lord of the Flies in space. Melanie Laurent is terrific in the claustrophobic thriller Oxygen, which has a lot of enjoyable twists and turns, even if it begins to feel a little silly. Kelvin Harrison Jr once again shines in Monster, a powerful legal drama that got stuck in distribution chaos for three years. And Robin Wright makes her feature directing debut with the beautiful but thin back-to-nature drama Land, in which she also delivers a terrific central performance.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Never Gonna Snow Again
The Perfect Candidate
Servants • End of Sentence
The Crime of the Century
PERHAPS AVOID: The Reckoning
ALL REVIEWS >

From the Czech Republic, Servants is a visually stunning, thematically powerful drama set in a Catholic seminary during Soviet occupation. From Romania, Two Lottery Tickets is the dryly amusing story of three hapless friends trying to improve their aimless lives. The horror pastiche Psycho Goreman is packed with hilariously big characters and riotously grisly effects. And Alex Gibney's riveting, engaging two-part documentary The Crime of the Century is a must-see portrait of the opioid crisis from a variety of pointed perspectives.

With cinemas opening on Monday, I actually have a physical screening in the diary for next week, the first since early December, for the Emily Blunt thriller A Quiet Place Part II. Otherwise I have links to watch for various things, including Amy Adams in The Woman in the Window, Angelina Jolie in Those Who Wish Me Dead, Fionn Whitehead in Port Authority, the Austrian drama Why Not You and the short film collection The Dutch Boys. 

Critical Week: Men in skirts

It's the hottest week in Britain since record keeping began (a couple of hundred years ago), so sitting in a cool cinema is a nice alternative to my sweltering home! We had a press screening of what is likely to be this week's biggest new movie: Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans, which transfers the popular book and stage series to the big screen with an all-star cast of British comics (Lee Mack is leading the charge in the pic above). The film is resolutely silly, like a family-friendly variation on the classic Carry On romps. It's also very funny, and actually recounts some real history.

There were a couple of highbrow indies: Sienna Miller and Christina Hendricks are terrific in American Woman, a grim slice of working-class life that's beautifully shot and played. Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum make an offbeat duo in The Mountain, a surreal and very dark drama about mental illness and social failings. From Mexico, The Chambermaid is a riveting drama about a hotel cleaner in which very little actually happens. Arthouse audiences will love it. And from the Netherlands, Dust is a sensitive, gritty teen drama that takes a hard look at an awkward coming-of-age. There was also this doc...

Illuminated
The True Story of the Illuminati
dir-scr Johnny Royal • narr Johnny Royal
with Josef Wages, Adam Kendall, Reinhard Markner, Olaf Simons, Clyde Lewis, Teresita Arechiga, Eric Bertolli, Brian Butler
release US 30.Jul.19 • 19/US 1h16 ***

Unveiling the most notorious secret society, this documentary is so over-serious that it's both dry and borderline comical. But it's packed with resonant detail. Featuring to-camera interviews with a variety of historians and experts, the film is an eye-opening journey into this unseen world, including re-enactments of its initiation rituals and secret handshakes.

The Illuminati was founded in May 1776 in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt to improve humanity by accelerating the Enlightenment, deeply Christian but opposing superstition, church influence in government and abuse of state power. Weishaupt is an intriguing figure, and the film dives into his background, as he read forbidden books that explored the dangers of giving too much power to the Catholic Church, which suppressed ideas that threatened its authority. Weishaupt was the first non-Jesuit allowed to teach law at Ingolstadt University, so he made a lot of enemies. His goal was to develop intellect, striving for perfection on earth (he originally called the group the Perfectibilists). By combining elements of Freemasonry the movement spread, and the film covers key turning points until the group was dissolved in 1785 due to internal divisions and official opposition. Oddly, the film never mentions how the Illuminati excluded Jews and women, leaning toward wealthy, young, pliable men. But they also promoted equality among classes and forbade slavery.

Filmmaker Johnny Royal narrates in a flat voice, while filling the screen with lushly produced slow-motion dramatisations of a variety of creepy rituals in candle-lit rooms. Combined with the articulate interviewees, this helps the film feel like more than merely a reading of the Wikipedia page. Details about rival secret societies are hugely intriguing, including the way the Freemasons (not the Illuminati) established the United States. Indeed, conspiracies today ignore the real history, conflating various secret orders. Instead, it's the big philosophical ideas and the historical narrative that make this film gripping.

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Coming up this next week, we have screenings of Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, Pedro Almodovar's acclaimed Pain & Glory, the Spanish political thriller The Candidate, the French-German thriller Transit, and two animated movies: the sequel The Angry Birds Movie 2 and the fairy tale Charming.

Flare 1: Don't fence me in

The British Film Institute's 32nd annual Flare: London's LGBTQ+ Film Festival has kicked off on the Southbank, and runs for 10 days with a selection of intriguing, entertaining and provocative film. There seems to be an emphasis this year on controversial movies, with films about politics and religion along with a significant number of features and shorts exploring disability and identity. It was fun reconnecting with my annual Flare buddies at the opening night party on Wednesday - this is my 20th year covering this festival! Here are some highlights from the first days...

My Days of Mercy (opening night film)
dir Tali Shalom-Ezer; with Ellen Page, Kate Mara 17/US ****
Despite having a hugely contentious issue at the heart of its plot, this film remains remarkably centred on its characters, all of whom are played with an earthy authenticity that often feels improvised. Scenes are so raw that they continually take the audience aback. And while the narrative itself is a bit predictable, the character complexity more than makes up for it.

The Revival
dir Jennifer Gerber; with David Rysdahl, Zachary Booth 17/US ***
Adapted by Samuel Brett Williams from his own stage play, this drama is sharply well written and played, with knowing observations about the collision between religion and culture. When the plot kicks in for the final act, the film's honesty begins to feel contrived, badly muddying its message in a series of scenes that may ring true but say all the wrong things about the topics at hand.

Martyr
dir-scr Mazen Khaled; with Carol Abboud, Hamza Mekdad 17/Leb ***
An experimental exploration of masculinity and male friendship, this Lebanese film is very tactile as it follows a young man over the course of a fateful day. While touching on some social issues, the main focus is on his friends, who remain by his side through a very detailed ordeal. There isn't much plot, and very little sense of character for the actors to work with, so it never quite resonates emotionally as it should. But it's darkly involving. [VFF 2017]

Rift
dir-scr Erlingur Thoroddsen; with Bjorn Stefansson, Sigurdur Thor Oskarsson 17/Ice ****
Sleek and dark, this Icelandic thriller gets under the skin quickly with filmmaking that's enticingly mysterious. Writer-director Erlingur Thoroddsen skilfully shoots the film to catch deep colours while positioning characters against stunning landscapes, giving everything a powerfully visual kick while the story develops beneath the surfaces. It's overlong but beautifully made, and packed with fiendishly clever touches. FULL REVIEW >

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

Films screened this past week included a few big blockbusters. Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One basically shows up virtually all other big effects-based movies for the empty spectacle that they are. This movie is utterly gripping - a great story and superb characters. As if to prove the point, we also saw Pacific Rim: Uprising, a robots-bashing-robots sequel no one really asked for and a movie that would be unwatchable without the wonderful John Boyega. A Wrinkle in Time is a disappointment, an important, ambitious adaptation of the classic Madeleine L'Engle novel that feels overdesigned. Much grittier, Unsane is Steven Soderbergh's edgy mental hospital nightmare thriller starring the amazing Claire Foy. Taraji P Henson brings the rather mindlessly violent Proud Mary to life. Agnes Jaoui is wonderful in the French comedy-drama I Got Life! And Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies, is pretty much what it sounds like: a bit of bonkers, and rather hilarious low-budget mayhem.

Non-festival films coming up include the parent-teen comedy Blockers, the Emily Blunt horror A Quiet Place, the action thriller The Hurricane Heist, the banking doc The Outsider, and a restoration of GW Pabst's 1929 silent classic Pandora's Box.

Critical Week: Into the night

Screenings continue to slow down in the run-up to Cannes. But there are things we need to see! It was great to watch Tye Sheridan continues to prove himself as an actor with the lead role in Detour. It's a clever, tricky thriller with an inventively fractured narrative. Of course the big movie this week was the highly anticipated sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which reunites the team for a bigger adventure that lacks the free-spirited tone of the original but is still a lot of fun.

From Scotland, Whisky Galore is a remake of the 1949 classic about residents of a remote island who lay claim to the cargo of a wrecked ship during WWII. It's a gentle comedy, amusing but never very exciting. Further afield, Slack Bay is an oddly comical period romp from controversy-courting filmmaker Bruno Dumont. It stars Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini in an enjoyably farcical story involving snobbery, crime and religion. Much darker, The Student is a Russian drama about a teen who becomes a Christian fundamentalist and begins manipulating everyone in his school. It's chilling and very sharp. And from Greece, Suntan follows a shy middle-aged doctor who falls headlong into the hedonistic summer tourist season. It's well-made and involving, but a little too pointed.

Oddly, I have no screenings in the diary over the next seven days. It's the long weekend this month in London, and things always go quiet at this time of year (call it pre-Cannes gloom). I do have screeners to watch at home, and we are awaiting word of press screenings for the soon-arriving Alien: Covenant, Snatched and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, among others.

Critical Week: Of skirts and men

I caught up with the ancient-mythology epic Gods of Egypt this week (that's Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites above being tormented by a god-sized Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There's definitely a lot of camp value there, and much of the snarky attitude is intentional. It's definitely smarter that most blockbusters, even if it is swamped by excessive effects work (hint: it's better on a small screen without 3D).

Aside from the Sundance Film Festival London, I had only three other movies this week, and it was a mixed bag: Elvis & Nixon recounts an absurd true story as a vehicle for Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey to chomp merrily on the scenery. There isn't much more to the movie that that, but it might be enough. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a rather darker true story from 1971, with eerie resonance in more recent headline news. It's a very well-made film, sober and pointed, with a terrific cast. And Outings consists of the first three episodes of a proposed British TV series that's unlikely to be commissioned. Basically an amusing but never funny gay variation on Sex and the City, the stories are good and the cast is fresh, but it's just too amateurish to appeal to broader audiences.

As usual this time of year, screenings are rather few and far between. The only one in the diary for the coming week is the London-set sequel The Conjuring 2. Other films might be forthcoming (and I have a few in the diary for the following week), but I'm looking forward to a bit of time to do other things for a change.

Critical Week: American pride

Even though it was made for the small screen, HBO's The Normal Heart is one of the biggest movies of the year - a fiercely intimate exploration of the 1980s Aids epidemic that not only grips on an emotional level but shows clearly which community of Americans should be proud of the way they approached the situation (hint, it's not the politicians). Thunderous performances by a first-rate cast (Taylor Kitsch and Mark Ruffalo are pictured above), Larry Kramer's sharp script (based on his 1985 play) and clever direction by Ryan Murphy make this a film that really should have been released on the big screen. [Full review on the website]

Films screened to the London press this week include Maleficent, Disney's revisionist take on Sleeping Beauty starring an imperiously fabulous Angelina Jolie as the eponymous no-longer-evil fairy. The tough drama Joe features a nicely against-type performance from Nicolas Cage and another star-making turn from young Tye Sheridan (see also Mud). Last week's costars Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou are back for Chinese Puzzle, a New York-set ensemble piece costarring Cecile De France and Kelly Reilly. It's the third in Cedric Klapisch's decade-long trilogy of silly-sweet rom-coms. And Omar received a deserved Oscar nomination for its complex story about a young Palestinian freedom fighter trying to find love as his world collapses around him.

Coming up this week: Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt live a day of warfare over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill go back undercover for 22 Jump Street, Seth MacFarlane and Charlize Theron go for laughs in A Million Ways to Die in the West, Rosamund Pike and David Tennant have some fun in What We Did on Our Holiday, Karen Gillan faces the horror of Oculus, and a young boy comes of age in 1967 Palestine in When I Saw You.