Critical Week: Duelling divas

Two of the biggest movies this week were released online, so I watched them in my heatwave-warmed home rather than a nicely air conditioned cinema. Charlize Theron takes on a villainous Uma Thurman in The Old Guard 2, a sleek sequel that carries on the saga of a team of immortal mercenaries. But it bogs down in the mythology before a cliffhanger ending. Much stupider, and therefore a lot more fun, is Heads of State, starring John Cena and Idris Elba as bickering leaders of the US and UK forced to work together to save Nato. The starry supporting cast includes a scene-stealing Jack Quaid and hilariously sparky Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Heads of State
Jurassic World: Rebirth
ALL REVIEWS >

David Cronenberg's dark mystery The Shrouds is packed with intriguing ideas and striking imagery, plus churning performances by Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. It's also gets more enigmatic as it goes along. And Sam Riley is terrific as a scruffy surfer-like tennis pro in Islands, a provocative drama that inventively subverts its thriller-like plot and characters who never speak the whole truth. All in gorgeous Canary Islands locations. I also caught a couple of live shows: my favourite-ever Edinburgh Fringe act triumphantly hit London for one night only with Otto & Astrid: The Stages Tour at Jackson's Lane, and another iconic duo returned to London after 17 long years with Kiki & Herb Are Trying at Soho Theatre Walthamstow.

This coming week we have James Gunn's new take on Superman, Nick Offerman in Sovereign, Maxine Peake in I Swear, the Dardenne brothers' Young Mothers, Spanish comedy-drama The Other Way Around and a live performance of R.O.S.E. at Sadler's Wells.

Critical Week: Party season

Well, we're coming up to the end of the year, and awards are pouring in at a rapid pace, with top 10 lists and critics groups announcing their honours. I've been busy with Golden Globes ballots and organising the London Critics' Circle nominations announcement this week (we announce our winners on 4th February). We also announced that we're giving special awards to Jeffrey Wright and Colman Domingo at our 44th ceremony. There have also been a couple of Christmas parties, of course, as we prepare for the holidays this weekend. So I've only seen three films...

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
All of Us Strangers
Society of the Snow
Memory • The Iron Claw
ALL REVIEWS >

The British drama How to Have Sex earned several nominations, and I understood why as I finally caught up with it. Starting as a raucous drunken holiday comedy, it quickly shifts into something much more provocative and important. Debut writer-director Molly Manning Walker is certainly one to watch. And then there was the lavish French swashbuckling adventure The Three Musketeers: Milady, the second part in this all-star adaptation, putting Eva Green's shadowy character at the centre of the mayhem. It looks great, and the cast is terrific, keeping it enjoyable even when the plot bogs down in detail. I also saw the Mexican drama The Trace of Your Lips, a beautifully made and rather intensely erotic drama about isolation and connection.

I won't see many movies this coming week, but I will need to watch the Aaron Eckhart thriller The Bricklayer, the biopic Tchaikovsky's Wife and the immigrant drama Norwegian Dream. 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Critical Week: Take the wheel

It's been another week of movies here, and I'm enjoying how things are back to a relatively normal schedule after months of intensity. The biggest movie this week was an online feature: Ghosted is an engaging action romcom that reteams Ana de Armas and Chris Evans. Rather a lot mopier, To Catch a Killer stars Shailene Woodley as a troubled cop pulled into an FBI investigation into a mass-shooter. It's dark and timely, but feels somewhat undercooked.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
A Thousand and One
The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan
PERHAPS AVOID:
Padre Pio
ALL REVIEWS >

The best surprise this week is The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan, a familiar story sharply well told with a first-rate French cast and properly thrilling action. The latest in the franchise, Evil Dead Rise is never very scary but will please fans with its outrageously excessive gore. And then there's the inventive and hugely engaging Filipino comedy I Love You Beksman, which kicked off the Queer East Fest in London on Tuesday. 

Outside the cinema, I loved the Nederlands Dans Theater programme at Sadler's Wells. And this was my first year attending the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards as a voting member (I am a member of the Critics' Circle Theatre Section, in addition to being chair of the Film Section). These awards are great fun, held at @sohoplace, the first new theatre built in the West End in 50 years. And most winners were in attendance, so it was great to celebrate them.

This next week I'll be watching the biopic Big George Foreman, Jay Baruchel in the story of BlackBerry, Kate Bosworth in Last Sentinel, the Greek drama Broadway, the Swedish comedy RSVP and the dance art film Transparent.

LFF 8: Back home again

I entered the press screening of Xavier Dolan's latest film here at the 60th London Film Festival with some trepidation. It was met with harshly mixed reviews at Cannes, booed by audiences, slated by critics and yet winning one of the top awards. I've been a fan of this young filmmaker since the start of his prolific career, and I was happy to immediately feel at home in his twisted, dysfunctional world. I also thought his filmmaking and the amazing cast (Vincent Cassel, Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux and Nathalie Baye, above) were astonishing. This is my best film of the festival so far, and there are only two days to go. Highlights for Friday...

It's Only the End of the World 
dir-scr Xavier Dolan; with Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard 16/Can *****
Few filmmakers are as bold as 27-year-old Canadian Xavier Dolan, who regularly takes on family relationships using bravura filmmaking that brings out unexpected, unfiltered emotions. This film, based on a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce, is a staggering dissection of the dynamic between parents, children and siblings. It's heightened to the point that it's often painful to watch, but it's also urgent, honest and essential.

Trespass Against Us 
dir Adam Smith; with Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson 16/US ***.
Like a slap in the face, this edgy Irish comedy-drama comes at the audience at full tilt and never really lets up. This is a story about a family stuck in a cycle of ignorance and criminality, and writer Alastair Siddons and director Adam Smith take an approach that's unapologetic. The plot isn't hugely developed, and the message is rather muddled, but the sharp cast keeps it entertaining.

The Innocents 
dir Anne Fontaine; with Lou de Laage, Agata Buzek 16/Fr ****
Based on real events, this harrowing true story is told with sensitivity and humanity, making it easy to engage with every step along the way. Even though the setting is somewhat alien - it's a Polish convent at the very end of WWII - the story resonates with themes that are instantly identifiable, especially the choices everyone has to make between following the rules and showing some compassion.

Ethel & Ernest 
dir-scr Roger Mainwood; voices Jim Broadbent, Brenda Blethyn 16/UK ***.
A collection of gentle slice-of-life anecdotes, this is a warm account of 20th century life as a son retraces his parents relationship. Raymond Briggs told their story through drawings in his graphic novel, and now those scenes have been adapted into a movie with refreshing pen-and-ink style animation and a gently involving narrative free of gimmicks.

I saw Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals in Venice, and it was also a big gala presentation here, attended by Amy Adams and Armie Hammer (both of whom also have other films at LFF), as well as Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ford himself.

Critical Week: My head hurts!

I caught up this week with Will Smith's new film Concussion, a true drama that's very well shot and acted, and also relentlessly "Important!" Hopefully it'll finally give traction to the dangers of brain injury in America's favourite sport, which has suppressed medical findings for decades. Long delayed here in the UK, Ramin Bahrani's 2012 film At Any Price will be released in the wake of the filmmaker's 2014 drama 99 Homes. This is a similar story of the American dream gone sour, and it gives Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron (astutely cast as father and son) unusually meaty roles.

Vincent Cassel is terrific as the patriarch in Partisan, an elusive drama about a commune in an isolated country (it was shot in the Georgian Republic) where one of his children begins to doubt the nature of this created reality. It's clever and startlingly involving. And from Denmark, A War cross-cuts between life at home and on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Shot like a documentary, the film feels rather derivative (see Restrepo for the real thing) but carries a strong kick in the moral dilemma of the final act. I also caught up with two previously released awards contenders:

Hard to Be a God
dir Aleksey German; with Leonid Yarmolnik, Aleksandr Chutko 13/Rus ****
With a virtually plotless structure and nearly three-hour running time, this Russian epic will test the patience of even the most ambitious moviegoer. But there's so much going on in every extraordinary frame that it's never boring. Violent, silly and utterly bonkers, the premise is that a group of scientists has travelled to help a distant planet that's stuck in its middle ages, unwilling to move into a renaissance. Shot in vivid black and white, the film follows one of these men, Don Rumata (Yarmolnik), through an odyssey of mud and blood. Details are observed in long takes by the bravura camerawork and jaw-dropping production design. It may ultimately be a meandering and bleak look at the tenacity of human ignorance, but it's utterly dazzling. (Nominated for Foreign-Language Film of the Year by the London Critics' Circle.)

Radiator
dir Tom Browne; with Richard Johnson, Gemma Jones, Daniel Cerqueira 14/UK ****
A beautifully played three-hander, this astutely written, shot and acted film centres on Daniel (Cerqueira) who finds that he needs to travel more often out of London to visit his parents as their eccentricities increase. Leonard (Johnson) has confined himself to the sofa, while Maria (Jones) keeps herself unnecessarily busy. In very different ways, both are extremely demanding, and Daniel struggles to adapt to this new paradigm in which he is their primary caregiver. Each scene is packed with astute observations, played to perfection by the sharp cast with an offhanded sense of humour. And the emotional kicks, when they come along, are potent. (Nominated for Breakthrough British Filmmaker by the London Critics' Circle.)

I still have a few more screeners to watch before I cast my final votes in the London Critics' Circle Film Awards and make my nominations in Galeca's Dorian Awards. And I also need to finalise my own year-end lists, which I'm planning to post on Thursday.