Best Films to Watch in London This Week
All the movies worth catching in the capital, from a belated Kubrick sequel to the new Ken Loach social drama...
Out and about this week? Fancy a film but can’t make your mind up what to see? Look no further: we’ve assembled the best of what’s on in London and gathered them here to make choosing a great movie as easy as possible. Whether it’s a film that finally inspires you to train for that marathon or a fascinating documentary about cinema’s relationship to sound, WeLoveCinema has you well and truly covered…
Doctor Sleep
You have to hand it to anyone willing to take the reins for a follow-up to The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s seminal horror masterpiece and a film that has somehow managed to avoid a sequel for close to four decades. Best known for his work on TV series The Haunting of Hill House and horror yarns like Oculus and Gerald’s Game (also based on a book by Stephen King), writer-director Mike Flanagan manages a visually stunning – if narratively muddled – continuation of the story as we catch up with a middle-aged Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) battling alcoholism and a vampirish death cult who prey on children who “shine.” It’s a slow-burner, packed with great performances, and – in its final act – heaps of fan service.
Get Doctor Sleep showtimes in London or read our full review here.
Sorry We Missed You
Esteemed director Ken Loach, who made his name in the 60s with the iconic Kes and more recently with benefits drama I, Daniel Blake, is back with yet another socially-minded tale set in modern Britain. Sorry We Missed You, a scathing attack on a culture that forces workers to make ends meet in a culture of zero-hour contracts, hones in on a delivery driver named Ricky (Kris Hitchen), his carer wife, Abby (Debbie Honeywood), and their two kids. Loach isn’t messing around: his film – scripted deftly by Loach’s frequent collaborator Paul Laverty – depicts a family struggling in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Sorry We Missed You is certainly on the bleak side, but it’s also a timely, relevant work with a deserved target.
Get Sorry We Missed You showtimes in London.
Brittany Runs a Marathon
Brittany Runs a Marathon, the debut feature from writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, feels like the film that Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty should have been. Whilst that “comedy’ couldn’t quite work out what to do with its body image-focused plot, this one manages to be endearing and inspiring without ever being patronising. Jillian Bell (working magic for years as secondary characters in other people’s films) finally gets the lead role she deserves as a theatre usher who decides to run a marathon after a trip to the doctor results in a sobering health scare. It’s a film packed with well-observed humour, relatable characters, and a protagonist who’s likeable in spite of her flaws. Think Run Fatboy Run, if Run Fatboy Run was good.
Get Brittany Runs a Marathon showtimes in London.
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound
The most unappreciated aspect of the filmmaking process, perhaps, is sound – an element you only really seem to notice if it’s done badly. Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound feels like a documentary that’s long overdue, then, setting its sights on some of the most revered sound designers in the biz, with interviews from many of the unsung heroes who have had more of an impact on films like Top Gun and Star Wars than you probably realise. If there’s an occasional self-congratulatory feel to the doc, it’s easy to forgive: in 94 brisk minutes, it covers not only the history, but also acts as a primer for all those sound departments you’ve heard of but have no clue what they do. Time to learn what a Foley artist actually does.
Get Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound showtimes in London.
Monos
A cross between Lord of the Flies, Apocalypse Now and, uh, Dogtooth, Monos is an incendiary nightmare – a hallucinogenic journey into the heart of darkness that feels at once indebted to a number of well-known pop culture classics and yet somehow fiercely original. Set atop a misty mountain in the wilds of South America (and later in the oppressive, sweating heat of the jungle), it hones in on a group of child soldiers tasked with guarding a single prisoner. Isolated and restless, they have developed strange rituals and customs. Unfolding with an ominous, apocalyptic vibe, aided by Mica Levi’s industrial score and some truly gorgeous cinematography, Monos is an endlessly mesmerising descent into a truly maddening chaos.
Get Monos showtimes in London or read our full review here.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
San Francisco has proven to be one of cinema’s most photographable cities, setting the scene in movies as diverse as vehicular action classic Bullitt to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Now comes a timely lament for this ever-changing landscape, starring Jimmie Fails – in a film based on his true life story – as a man who is slowly losing his sense of self against a backdrop of gentrification. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which co-stars Danny Glover, follows Jimmie as he pursues his dream to attain the Victorian-style house that used to belong to his family before they were pushed out. Directed by Joe Talbot, this is an indie that feels bigger than its budget – an audacious, electric, and melancholy original that refuses to be pigeon holed.
Get The Last Black Man in San Francisco showtimes in London or read our full review here.
Terminator: Dark Fate
After the last three Terminator movies failed to live up to the standards of James Cameron’s brilliant original and its even better follow-up, Terminator: Dark Fate arrives as undoubtably the best movie in the franchise since 1991. That doesn’t make it a masterpiece, though the studio’s decision to ignore the convoluted stories of the previous three entries gives director Tim Miller (Deadpool) room to deliver a satisfying sequel to Judgment Day that occasionally feels like a loose remake, complete with heart-stopping action set pieces. Arnie is back, of course, alongside franchise newcomer Mackenzie Davis. But more notably, so is Linda Hamilton, who reprises her role as Sarah Connor and basically steals the movie out from her co-stars.
Get Terminator: Dark Fate showtimes in London or read our full review here.
The Peanut Butter Falcon
Sometimes a film finds a sort of magic in the chemistry of its cast alone, and that’s exactly the case with the oddly-titled, Deep South-set adventure that is The Peanut Butter Falcon. The debut feature from filmmaking duo Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, loosely based on Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Falcon stars Zack Gottsagen – a performer the directors discovered at a camp for disabled actors – as a young man with Down syndrome who escapes from his care home, teams up with a surly drifter (Shia LaBeouf), and goes in search of a legendary wrestling school. It’s a whimsical ride, but the sheer magnetism of the cast transcends the quirk: LaBeouf, particularly, has never been so likeable.
Get The Peanut Butter Falcon showtimes in London or read our full review here.
Non-Fiction
Acclaimed filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who gave us masterpieces such as Summer Hours and Clouds of Sils Maria, returns with a comedy-drama about the changing face of publishing, set in contemporary Paris. Juliette Binoche (who worked wonders with Assayas on Clouds) returns, too, as the actor wife of an editor, played by Guillaume Canet, who finds himself struggling in this modern era of e-books. Assayas’ film is slyly satirical, targeting the sorts of middle-class Parisian whose livelihoods are put at stake by their stubborn attitudes towards the shifting times. Still, with its intellectual dinner conversations, and lots of extramarital affairs, the very French Non-Fiction manages to be both funny and profound about it all. If not quite at the level of Assayas’ best, it fits nicely into his remarkable canon.
Get Non-Fiction showtimes in London or read our full review here.
This post was categorised in Archive.