Critical Week: Winding down

It's that time of the year when awards-grabbing movies really go for broke. And in the USA, especially, the release schedules (in Los Angeles and New York) are packed with prestige movies, while critics and awards voters crowd into darkened screening rooms to make sure they see all of the contenders in time for voting deadlines.

Well, my deadline for the London Film Critics was on Tuesday, so I feel like 2008 is a wrap for me. Although I am still watching late-entries before voting as an Online Film Critic next week. The big guns I've seen since the last post include David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Will Smith's Seven Pounds and Stephen Daldry's The Reader - all worthy films with plenty to recommend about them. But the best of this late bunch is, hands down, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. I have no idea how he does it, but he consistently shows up right at the end with one of the best films of the year, and this is one of his best films ever - both as a director and actor (he even sings the theme song, which he wrote!).

Stirred in between those high-profile things were lower-denominator fare like Adam Sandler's not-too-funny Bedtime Stories, Jim Carrey's not-so-funny Yes Man, Keanu Reeves' not-so-good The Day the Earth Stood Still. These are the films that will make all the money, alas.

Better have been the gloom-and-doom docs like I.O.U.S.A. and The Age of Stupid - neither is very hopeful, but if they wake us up they're worth the effort. And The Tale of Despereaux is a surprisingly lovely bit of animation. I'm also catching up with year-end contenders like Tilda Swinton's Julia and the Swedish favourite Let the Right One In. And I have my last actual press screening of the year this morning. Whew!

Critical Week: The big guns

Movies don't get much bigger than Baz Luhrmann's Australia! (No, the title doesn't actually have an exclamation mark in it, but it should.) Massively sweeping at 2 hours 45 minutes, it wallows happily in camp and cheese and sentiment, and is so thoroughly entertaining that you don't want it to end. So few filmmakers have the nerve to make movies like this anymore that you can't help but sit back and love it. And both Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman simply ooze movie star chemistry and presence. Whether it connects with awards voters is another issue altogether - they haven't quite known what to do with Lurhmann's previous stabs at genius.

Otherwise, over the past week I've had a break from worthy year-end movies, although it's all about to crank up again soon. This past week has gone to the dogs: Bolt and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, to be specific. Both films overcome their limitations to offer genuinely enjoyable entertainment. Slightly more serious is Yoji Yamada's terrific third samurai drama, Love and Honour, and the astonishingly engaging steroid documentary Bigger Faster Stronger, which gets far deeper into its subject matter than we expect.

Today I'll be at the press conference for The Spirit with Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes, and upcoming films include Seven Pounds, The Reader, Bedtime Stories, The Tale of Despereaux and The International.

Critical Week: For your consideration

Awards season is clearly in full swing now, as buzz grows for year-end movies that have a chance of grabbing Oscar attention. It's still a bit early, but that doesn't stop the bloggers from sticking their necks out. I'll launch my annual Shadows Sweepstakes next week, trying to keep track of all the brouhaha between now and Oscar night.

In the meantime, I am trying to catch the contenders before my voting deadlines. In the past week I saw Daniel Craig's WWII thriller Defiance (great story but probably only technical awards), Gus Van Sant's emotional/political Milk (could sweep the boards in virtually every category except, ahem, actresses), Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road (terrific acting from Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio), John Patrick Shanley's Doubt (nomination alerts for Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and most notably Viola Davis).

Meanwhile, I also caught up with some documentaries (Trouble the Water and Tis Autumn), foreign gems (Lemon Tree and Moscow Belgium), so-so comedies (Four Christmases and Sex Drive) and box office clout (Twilight). But the most fun I had in the cinema was at what was easily the worse film I saw: Jason Statham's return as monosyllabic, over-muscled driver Frank Martin in Transporter 3. So incredibly stupid, and also a pure guilty pleasure.

Next up: Australia, Seven Pounds, The Reader and Bolt.

Critical Week: After the break

I took a slightly surreal break to recover from the intensity of the London Film Festival: I went to Los Angeles on holiday and only saw one movie while I was there! This is fairly unheard-of behaviour for a British film critic. Usually we indulge in as many movies as possible when we're in the USA, trying to get ahead of the lag in British release/screening schedules. And being in L.A. meant that I could have gone to press screenings out there.

But I didn't, because I was on vacation, which to me means no movies!

That said, I did watch Mamma Mia! for a third time on the flight over there, I caught up with the superb documentary Young@Heart on video at my aunt's house, and I went to the cinema with a friend to see the surprisingly decent Paul Rudd/Seann William Scott comedy Role Models.

Back in London, the holiday's over. In the last two days, I've already seen Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (another surprise: even better than the first one), To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die (a pretty cool Tajik film that's not nearly as gloomy as the title suggests), and Defiance (the all-star WWII Nazi-resistance drama).

And tonight I have one of the year's most hotly anticipated films, Gus Van Sant's perhaps too-timely Milk, which the trailer promises features a startling performance from Sean Penn, as well as more fine work this year from Josh Brolin and James Franco. Also this week I'll catch up with James Marsden and Seth Green in Sex Drive, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn in Four Christmases, and the Belgian rom-com Moscow Belgium, among other things.

It's certainly the right weather for moviegoing. And with the awards-season buzz starting to crank up (and for-your-consideration screenings getting underway), eyes are starting to focus on February's Bafta and Oscar love-fests. Although as a member of the awards committee of the London Film Critics' Circle, I have my own awards-event madness to attend to before those events. Bring it on...

LFF16: That's all, folks!

The 52nd London Film Festival came to a close last night with the European premiere of Danny Boyle's terrific new film Slumdog Millionaire. Those braving a particularly chilly red carpet last night in Leicester Square included (l to r) Boyle, actors Freida Pinto and Anil Kapoor, co-director Loveleen Tandan, lead actor Dev Patel and writer Simon Beaufoy.

Slumdog Millionaire *****
Danny Boyle injects such a sharp blast of real-life energy to this story that we can't help but be carried away. It's easily one of the most enjoyable movies of the year, and there's some extremely dark and serious stuff going on here as well in this tale of a young guy from the slums (the superb Dev Patel) who somehow manages to become a winner on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Telling his life story through the questions he's asked on the show is extremely clever, and there are some terrific twists that come later on, leaving out hearts pounding with tension and emotion before the cast cuts loose in a closing credits Bollywood number. It's a simply wonderful movie that can't help but gather extrordinary word-of-mouth and awards buzz.

My top 10 films of the fest

1. Hunger - Steve McQueen's astonishing look at the 1981 IRA hunger strike.
2. Slumdog Millionaire - Danny Boyle's remarkable Indian drama.
3. The Wrestler - Darren Aronofsky's expert portrait of a has-been.
4. The Class - Laurent Cantet's riveting year in a Paris high school.
5. Of Time and the City - Terence Davies' cheeky and moving ode to Liverpool.
6. Sugar - Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's engagingly hopeful immigration drama.
7. Waltz With Bashir - Ari Folman's involving animated documentary about war.
   
8. Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan's bracing take on the collision between two personalities.
9. The Baader Meinhof Complex - a stunning epic drama about 1970s German terrorism.
10. Gonzo - Alex Gibney's astute and entertaining look at Hunter S Thompson.

This year's award winners

• Fipresci Award: Three Blind Mice (Matthew Newton)
• First feature (Sutherland Trophy): Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
• Documentary (Grierson Award): Victoire Terminus (Barret and De La Tullaye)
• Satyajit Ray Award: Mid-August Lunch (Gianni di Gregorio)
• Achievement in Film Award: Ralph Fiennes
  

As I've said before, London is perhaps the least festive film festival on earth. There's no atmosphere at all unless you're in the VIP circles (which doesn't include any jobbing journalists) - it's all about the movies themselves, and crowds turn out to see big titles before they open or smaller films that will never be seen anywhere else. The festival organisers have a reputation for programming extremely good films, with very few duds, so there's plenty for fans to enjoy.

But it would be nice if there was a bit more fun on offer. Virtually every other festival on earth has public venues (cafes or bars) where people can mix with the filmmakers after the screenings, rather than having them whisked off in a labelled fleet of cars like London does. These gathering spots create a real celebratory atmosphere, which is completely lacking at the LFF, and is a bit odd since they now have such a nice space for this kind of thing at the BFI Southbank.

Here's hoping that next year the fun can be extended to the public and the press (which also needs much better facilities in which to work). But at least we know we'll have two weeks of amazing movies to sink our teeth into.

LFF15: Everybody who's anybody

The cast of the new Noel Coward comedy Easy Virtue showed up to support their film at the London Film Festival (that's Kimberly Nixon, Kris Marshall, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, Jessica Biel and Charlotte Riley standing around director Stephan Elliott). But last night all eyes were across Leicester Square as virtually everybody who's anybody in London attended the royal world premiere of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, which then had its first public screening at the LFF. In addition to the whole cast and crew, the rather random selection of stars on the red carpet included: Princes William and Harry, Mayor Boris Johnson, Elle Macpherson, Saint Bob Geldof, kilt-wearing cycling god Chris Hoy and, erm, Harrod's boss Mohammed al Fayed.

Meanwhile, here are a few notes on films from yesterday and today...

Che: Part Two ****
The second half of Steven Soderbergh's epic biopic (subtitled Guerrilla) is a more linear tale than part one, detailing Ernesto "Che" Guevara's year in Bolivia as he gathered and trained rebels in an attempt to ignite a Cuba-style revolution to overthrow the tyranical, US-backed government. Nothing much happens in the film, which follows the scruffy guerrillas through the mountain forests as they try to evade American-trained commandos and drum up support from peasants who are too terrified to trust them. It's a slow-burn movie, building tension gradually and never boiling over into big movie action scenes - most of the time we are just as impatient for something to happen as the rebels are! But it's also bracingly well-made, with strong performances and strongly relevant themes about standing up for justice in an unjust world - no matter what it costs.

The Betrayal ***
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras spent 23 years filming this documentary about a family from Laos that was caught up in and shattered by American intervention during the Vietnam War. Kuras worked with Thavisouk Phrasavath to write and direct his own story - combining family photos, newsreel footage and new scenes shot with his mother and nine siblings, who escaped from Laos and moved to New York, where their life has taken some surprisingly dark turns. It's a beautifully assembled film, perhaps a bit too earnest but also vitally important.

The Good the Bad the Weird ***
From Korea, this unhinged, high-energy tribute to the Western is great fun to watch even as its raucous pace wears us out. The story centres on 1930s three bandits (see the title for clues) who cross paths during an epic train robbery and then chase each other into the wilds of Manchuria while battling Asian gangs and the occupying Japanese army. The story races at full speed from the start, with mind-bogglingly complicated battles and outrageous stuntwork, plus lots of slapstick humour and plenty of surprising twists and turns. It's utterly mad, but thoroughly entertaining.

LFF14: Serious acting

Ralph Fiennes was on hand at the London Film Festival to collect the Variety UK Achievement in Film Award here. I'm not completely sure what this awards means, but it looks like a very nice chunk of glass.

Meanwhile, out on the red carpet last night were Colin Firth, Jessica Biehl and Ben Barnes for the premiere of their Noel Coward film Easy Virtue; Dougray Scott with filmmaker Richard Jobson for New Town Killers; and Charlie Kaufman for Synecdoche, New York.

Here are a few notes on films in the festival yesterday and today...

Quantum of Solace ****
Yes, the new James Bond film will get its first public screening tonight at the LFF, just after its massive premiere on the other side of Leicester Square (the film opens in the UK on Friday). It's a direct sequel to Casino Royale, picking up the story immediately as Bond seeks answers and revenge after the death of his girlfriend. In other words, it's a much more internalised 007 movie than we're used to - centred more on the drama going on in Bond's head than a megalomaniac (in this case Mathieu Amalric) trying to take over the world. And the action is once again bone-crunchingly rough, sofuccing on stunt work rather than gadgets. This is the kind of action film I love - as it appeals to the heart as well as the gut. But fans who like more mindless action may be annoyed.

Not Quite Hollywood ****
This documentary about Australian exploitation cinema (or "Ozploitation!") is raucous good fun, trawling through nearly 40 years of unhinged movies that gleefully trample all over every concept of good taste. It's loaded with pristine clips from all of these films, plus interviews with filmmakers, actors and big-name fans. From ocker comedies to gross-out horror to marauding road gangs (like Mad Max), this film chronicles an important movement in world cinema that's still influencing what we see now. And it's also fast, crazed and hysterically good fun.

The Beaches of Agnes ****
From the ridiculous to the sublime, this documentary by French filmmaker-photographer Agnes Varda traces her life and work with ironic set pieces, telling film clips, witty dramatic recreations and lots of stories about her encounters with her famous friends over the years. What emerges is a lovely exploration of life, looking back from age 80 and constantly cycling back to the love of her life (filmmaker Jacques Demy) and their children. And it's all linked by scenes shot on various beaches - in her childhood Belgium, France, Hollywood and even a makeshift sandbar on a street in Paris.

The Market ****
British director Ben Hopkins travels to the eastern border of Turkey to tell an engaging story of a man trying to get the most out of the free market system without losing his soul to greed and unethical behaviour. It's a warm combination of family drama and road movie, packed with comedy and emotion, and beautifully filmed and acted. There are also, of course, incredibly relevant themes running right through it, all handled with a deft light touch.