Critical Week: Take a load off

Bigger movies continue to turn up at the box office each week, signalling a return to the pre-lockdown pattern of one blockbuster per week. And press screenings are also getting a bit more colourful as a result. We had two big screenings this week, starting with the Nicolas Cage pastiche action comedy bromance The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which is even more fun than expected. Going full-method as himself, Cage and up-for-it costar Pedro Pascal dive fully into the ridiculous story, and they keep the audience right with them. There was also Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third chapter in the whizzy but oddly uninvolving Harry Potter prequel franchise. This one is much more momentous, and the actors (notably Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen) make it worth a look. I also caught up with Michael Bay's latest over-the-top action thriller Ambulance, a choppy but very entertaining ride through Los Angeles with the superb Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen and Eiza Gonzalez.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Compartment No 6 • Small Body
Poppy Field • Cow
PERHAPS AVOID:
Agent Game • Sonic the Hedgehog 2
ALL REVIEWS >

Further afield were the by-numbers spy thriller Agent Game, which has a strong cast (Dermot Mulroney, Jason Isaacs, even Mel Gibson) but rarely rises above its cliches. French actor-filmmaker Valerie Lemercier's Aline is a fictionalised biopic about Celine Dion, and it's as bonkers as you hope it will be. From Ireland, You Are Not My Mother is a stylish dramatic horror that properly gets under the skin. And from France, Anais in Love is a sunny, chatty comedy-drama that recounts an awkward coming of age.

For this coming week I have no press screenings in the diary, but I do have some links to watch at home, for films including Eva Longoria in the comedy Unplugging, James Duval in the comedy I Challenger and the Japanese triptych Sexual Drive. I also hope to see Alexander Skarsgard in The Northman, most likely buying a ticket for a regular cinema.

Critical Week: Things are heating up

These strange times continue to challenge the film industry, as distributors keep shifting release dates, and changing the rules about attending press screenings (I had my first screening this week that required a negative covid test). But it's definitely getting busier, and it's great to be seeing the big movies on huge screens again. Let's just hope that hospital numbers don't rise again. As for the movies this week, one of the more intriguing was the English-language Polish thriller Mosquito State, which is very big on style (see above) even if the plot remains rather elusive. One of the most entertaining Marvel blockbusters yet, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a thrilling martial arts action adventure adeptly led by Simu Liu and Awkwafina. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II leads the identically named nearly 30-years-later sequel Candyman, a punchy political horror that's more darkly unsettling than scary. 

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Candyman
The Last Bus • The Nest
PERHAPS AVOID:
Mosquito State
The Pebble and the Boy
ALL REVIEWS >

A hit West End musical based on a true story, Everybody's Talking About Jamie has been adapted into a surprisingly emotive film. It's still exuberant and inspiring, but everything feels much more intense now. From Peru, the animated adventure Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon looks fantastic and features some lovely magical touches in its rather simplistic story. From Germany, the English-language futuristic thriller The Colony blends Waterworld/Mad Max-style imagery to say some intriguing things about humanity. And it was great to catch the restored 1963 Joseph Losey classic The Servant on a big screen. Still rivetingly deranged after all these decades, it's adeptly anchored by devastating performances from Dirk Bogarde and James Fox.

I'm also watching films as part of both Outfest (Los Angeles) and FrightFest (London) at the moment. These have included the award-winning nonbinary drama Firstness, the quirky autobiographical memoir Potato Dreams of America and the astonishing Swedish thriller Knocking. There are a few more of these to come, and they're being covered both on the site and in other blog posts.

This coming week I'll be watching more FrightFest movies,Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in Respect, the family drama A Wake, the British drama Second Spring, the British thriller Shorta, the German revenge thriller Plan A and the true boxing drama The Champion of Auschwitz.