REVIEW - THE ACCOUNTANT (GAVIN O'CONNOR)

As with the slyest, most satisfying of puzzles, The Accountant is a film best experienced forwards, best remembered backwards. It's a case of gradually reassembling a picture whose creators are in evident, essential control right from the start. And, just as you think you've got a hold of what that picture represents, a missing piece is revealed, and the picture becomes not only clearer but so much cooler. In what you initially expect of The Accountant, it holds a few worthwhile virtues - it's a solidly constructed corporate mystery / thriller, it stars J. K. Simmons, it also stars the irreplaceable Jean Smart. And if that appears enough to hold your attention, it's only ever doing so stemming from the precursory assumption that said attention might otherwise have been lost. Not so, as The Accountant weathers the normally-troublesome segue into a thriller's third act, only here revealing its wily hoodwinking and developing some much-appreciated depth, concurrently disclosing its true identity. And yet still this film has cards up its sleeve - not to give too much away, but the manner in which deception, diversion and even the suggestion of disappointment distract from its central topical tenet is extremely nifty, and thematically appropriate in a way that few such films have ever aspired. Just as its characters underestimate those they regard as of limited ability, so too does The Accountant open itself to those same underestimations. As a person on the autistic spectrum myself, it's a surprising, savoury payoff to two hours of increasingly interesting genre fun.

REVIEW - INDIGNATION (JAMES SCHAMUS)

An economy of style with a maximum effect, James Schamus' Indignation is a sensitive and sensible work of solid dramatic art. Those seeking anything so radical as the Philip Roth novel upon which this film is based may return to its pages - Schamus distils Roth's verve and situates it square in the centre of the wan underbelly of a culture of banality. This is direct, seemingly uncomplicated filmmaking, and all the more effective for that, since not only does Schamus enable himself to establish his thematic and emotional concerns with force and clarity, he also dupes his audience into underestimating his film. With elegant subtlety and simplicity, he guides us through a narrative whose full corrosive power we, as our affable, misguided, intelligent yet fundamentally naive protagonist, cannot fully comprehend. Schamus turns Indignation into the film we want it to be, or expect it to be, but only in our hopeful heads; in reality, it's only the film it needs to be. His techniques are essentially cinematic, in that manner most overlooked by so many more experienced filmmakers - a close camera and excellent visual craftsmanship emphasize intimacy and interiority, rather than broad, blustery expanses of emotion and space. As cinema's potential for grand extroversion exists on the screen, it's the medium's oft-untapped potential for quiet, private, personal expressions, existing in its consumption, that Schamus here exploits. It's the very opposite of theatricality, in that, though theatre may be inherently limited in its physical scope, its consumption necessitates a more ostentatious expression; Indignation's inverse is far more affecting an approach, a modesty that is troubling and moving in its impact, and extremely impressive in its construction.

TONI ERDMANN LEADS 29TH EUROPEAN FILM AWARD NOMINATIONS

Cannes competitors dominate in the nominations for the 29th European Film Awards. Four of the Best European Film nominees showed in competition on the Croisette in May, including Palme d'Or recipient I, Daniel Blake, and FIPRESCI Prize (and Grand Prix) recipient Toni Erdmann, which leads all films with five mentions. In all, the contenders for seven new categories joined the previously-announced lineups in Best European Animated Feature and Best European Comedy. Wroclaw will host the ceremony on the 10th of December. All the nominees are listed below.

Best European Film

Elle (Paul Verhoeven)

I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach)

Julieta (Pedro Almodovar)

Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

Best European Director

Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann)

Pedro Almodovar (Julieta)

Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake)

Cristian Mungiu (Graduation)

Paul Verhoeven (Elle)

Best European Actor
Javier Camara (Truman)

Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Dave Johns (I, Daniel Blake)

Burghart Klaussner (The People vs. Fritz Bauer)

Rolf Lassgard (A Man Called Ove)

Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann)

Best European Actress

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Like Crazy)

Trine Dyrholm (The Commune)

Sandra Huller (Toni Erdmann)

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

Emma Suarez and Adriana Ugarte (Julieta)

Best European Screenwriter

Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann)

Emma Donoghue (Room)

Paul Laverty (I, Daniel Blake)

Cristian Mungiu (Graduation)

Tomasz Wasilewski (United States of Love)

Best European Animated Feature

My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras)

Psychonauts, The Forgotten Children (Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vazquez)

The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)

Best European Documentary

21 x New York (Piotr Stasik)

A Family Affair (Tom Fassaert)

Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi)

Mr. Gaga (Tomer Heymann)

S Is for Stanley (Alex Infascelli)

The Land of the Enlightened (Pieter-Jan de Pue)

Best European Comedy

A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm)

Look Who's Back (David Wnendt)

One Man and His Cow (Mohamed Hamidi)

Best European Discovery - FIPRESCI Prize

Dogs (Bogdan Mirica)

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (Juho Kuosmanen)

Liebmann (Jules Herrmann)

Sand Storm (Elite Zexer)

Thirst (Svetla Tsotsorkova)

Best European Short Film
9 Days - From My Window in Aleppo (Issa Touma, Floor van der Meulen and Thomas Vroege)
90 Degrees North (Detsky Graffam)
Amalimbo (Juan Pablo Libossart)
Edmond (Nina Gantz)
The Fullness of Time (Manon Coubia)
The Goodbye (Clara Roquet)
Home (Daniel Mulloy)
I'm Not From Here (Maite Alberdi and Giedre Zickyte)
In the Distance (Florian Grolig)
Limbo (Konstantina Kotzamani)
A Man Returned (Mahdi Fleifel)
Shooting Star (Lyubo Yonchev)
Small Talk (Lisa Brooke Hansen and Even Hafnor)
The Wall (Samuel Lampaert)
We All Love the Seashore (Keina Espineira)

O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA IS BFCA'S BEST DOC OF 2016

So, given 13th's entry both in the Theatrical category and the TV / Streaming category in the first ever Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, it was perhaps inevitable that it'd fail to take home the former top award but succeed to take home the latter. And so it did, with a fellow race-themed doc, O.J.: Made in America, winning the big prize in the Theatrical category. This is the BFCA's first time separating its Best Documentary award out from the remainder of its many others, and indeed adding several more awards for doc filmmaking - a wise move, I believe, saving the filmmakers from the ignominy of picking up an award on the Critics' Choice red carpet or during a commercial break, and providing several more to win BFCA awards. Take a look at the nominees at this link, and the winners right here:

Best Documentary Feature
O.J.: Made in America

Best Direction of a Documentary Feature
Ezra Edelman (O.J.: Made in America)

Best Song in a Documentary Feature
Sharon Jones - 'I'm Still Here' (Miss Sharon Jones)

Best First Documentary Feature
Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg (Weiner)

Best Music Documentary
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

Best Political Documentary
13th

Best Sports Documentary
O.J.: Made in America

Most Innovative Documentary
Tower

Best Documentary Feature: TV / Streaming
13th

Best Ongoing Documentary Series
30 for 30

Best Limited Documentary Series
O.J.: Made in America

Best Director: TV / Streaming
Ava DuVernay (13th)

Best First Feature: TV / Streaming
Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker (Everything Is Copy)
Deborah Esquenazi (Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four)

FIRST TRAILER FOR T2: TRAINSPOTTING

The title sucks, meaning pretty fucking little apart from a probably-unwitting, entirely bizarre and entirely inapt homage to Terminator 2. But the trailer rocks, as does the film from which this 21-years-later sequel follows on. Trainspotting is precisely the kind of film whose sequel should be set this far in the future, rather than a few months down the road, and with Danny Boyle, John Hodge, the old cast members, and the new addition of Anthony Dod Mantle on cinematography, one's right to expect damn good things from T2: Trainspotting, if the above trailer and first proper look at the film is to be trusted. Out in the UK and Ireland on the 27th of January and in the US on the 3rd of March. Choose T2!

REVIEW - THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS (DEREK CIANFRANCE)

Derek Cianfrance blunders through the big emotions in The Light Between Oceans, a thick and syrupy novel adaptation that's at much too great a pain to proclaim itself as such, perhaps as a self-conscious exercise in contrast to the writer-director's two previous, more urban, contemporary pieces. And yet this film bears much in common with them, confirming Cianfrance as a filmmaker with very definite interests and concerns, but as yet lacking in the skills to explore them with the requisite depth and care. The grand emotional drive of Blue Valentine meets the sticky structural irregularity of The Place Beyond the Pines, regrettably lacking in the immediacy of the former, and boasting all of the stodginess of the latter, and then some. Cianfrance's determination to barge boldly through the vivid, raw sentimental content of M. L. Stedman's novel, flinging it on screen with little formal appreciation of how to situate it save doffing his cap to the cinematic melodramas of old throughout, is a fair attribute in a young director, if only in concept. And that's all to which The Light Between Oceans largely amounts - blunt ideas, entirely laudable in principle, but disappointingly shallow and ill-fitting in practice. To be sure, it's a visually beautiful film, and there are some terrific performances, even if the local Aussie accents are dragged through the bush and over several raging oceans before landing somewhere in Central Europe. But these are surface pleasures in a skin-deep soap opera, one that cries out for a more rigorous probing, thus to justify a runtime that incessantly drags out an already-dragging film. There's much to admire in The Light Between Oceans, but whether or not it's worth sitting through it merely to experience it is a question whose answer I must leave up to each of you to decide.

REVIEW - I, DANIEL BLAKE (KEN LOACH)

Ken Loach battles on with yet another film that might just have been that bit more persuasive, and less expensive, as a simple screed or local political campaign. Alas, he's tried that, and anyway, I, Daniel Blake is neither of those, at least not technically. It's a film, and in many ways it is a very fine one - ways principally due to its political persuasiveness. Corners cut and shortcuts taken in the name of dramatic licence accepted, the heart of this film - and it is a burgeoning, brimful, heavy heart - bears an important message, existing only to be communicated with all the clarity and sympathy of which Loach and Paul Laverty are capable. It's an angry, accusatory work, beneath and beyond the generous humour, typically unafraid to point fingers and place blame. Neither director nor screenwriter are interested any longer in humanizing their targets, unambiguously railing against the exploitation and desecration of public services established to maintain some modicum of compassion in the state system. If I, Daniel Blake is a film destined to enrage or annoy conservatives, that's entirely and appropriately intentional, since Laverty has here drawn a line through the right-wing elitist spin, directly connecting cause and consequence. The final feeling with which one is left upon watching I, Daniel Blake is despair, though perhaps a small part of that is down to the horrible big missteps taken en route to eliciting it. The grip on pacing and continuity is slack at best, the artistic design is utterly average (has Robbie Ryan ever crafted such dull images?) and there's a crass, sex-phobic plot turn in the third act. All unnecessary errors that, indeed, might have been avoided had I, Daniel Blake been left to the realm of political activism alone. But as politically activist cinema goes, it's a powerful, worthy work all the same.

DIVERSITY RULES IN 2016 IDA NOMINATIONS

No, nothing to do with anyone named 'Ida,' at least to my awareness, these are the International Documentary Association nominations for doc filmmaking in 2016, their 32nd annual slate of awards. A whole bunch of acclaimed titles here, which include several TV categories not included in this post. Some I've seen and enjoyed already, and others to which I'm highly looking forward. Among the nominees in top categories are some award winners already announced. Pleasingly, three of the seven directors with films up for the Best Feature award are POC, and three are women. Winners will be announced on the 9th of December. You can see all the film nominees below:

Best Feature
13th (Spencer Averick, Howard Barish and Ava DuVernay)
Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson and Marilyn Ness)
Fire at Sea (Roberto Ciccutto, Paolo del Brocco, Camille Laemle, Serge Lalou, Donatella Palermo, Olivier Pere, Gianfranco Rosi and Martine Saada)
I Am Not Your Negro (Remi Grellety and Raoul Peck)
O. J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman, Deirdre Fenton, Libby Geist, Nina Krstic, Erin Leyden, Tamara Rosenberg, Connor Schell and Caroline Waterlow)
Weiner (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg)

Best Writing
James Baldwin and Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro)

Best Cinematography
Gianfranco Rosi (Fire at Sea)

Best Editing
Nels Bangerter (Cameraperson)

Best Music
Jacaszek (The Bad Kids)

Pare Lorentz Award
Starless Dreams (Mehrdad Oskouei)

Best Short
The Above (Kirsten Johnson and Marilyn Ness)
Clinica de Migrantes: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Jenny Lim and Maxim Pozdorvkin)
Extremis (Dan Krauss)
Pickle (Amy Nicholson)
Red Lake (Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato and Billy Luther)
The White Helmets (Joanna Natasegara and Orlando von Einsiedel)

2016 BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARD NOMINATIONS HIGHLIGHT A FANTASTIC YEAR FOR U.K. INDIES

A healthy and diverse offering from the British Independent Film Awards, displaying the talent that abounds in the British film industry today, making low-budget but high-impact features that court renown the world over. I, Daniel Blake leads with an impressive seven nominations, while Adult Life Skills, American Honey and a favourite of mine, horror debut Under the Shadow (the U.K.'s official Foreign Language Film Oscar entry), follow closely with six each. I'm also very pleased to see a strong showing for Notes on Blindness, joining Shadow as one of two first features up for the top award. Truly a selection with something for everyone! Award winners are due to be announced at BIFA's London ceremony on the 4th of December. Check out all the nominees just below.

Best British Independent Film

American Honey

Couple in a Hole

I, Daniel Blake

Notes on Blindness

Under the Shadow

Best Director

Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow)

Andrea Arnold (American Honey)

Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake)

Peter Middleton and James Spinney (Notes on Blindness)

Ben Wheatley (Free Fire)

Best Actor

Steve Brandon (My Feral Heart)

Michael Fassbender (Trespass Against Us)

Dave Johns (I, Daniel Blake)

Shia LaBeouf (American Honey)

Max Records (I Am Not a Serial Killer)

Best Actress

Kate Dickie (Couple in a Hole)

Sasha Lane (American Honey)

Narges Rashidi (Under the Shadow)

Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake)

Jodie Whittaker (Adult Life Skills)

Best Supporting Actor

Jamie Dornan (Anthropoid)

Brett Goldstein (Adult Life Skills)

Sean Harris (Trespass Against Us)

Arinze Kene (The Pass)

Christopher Lloyd (I Am Not a Serial Killer)

Best Supporting Actress

Gemma Arterton (The Girl with All the Gifts)

Naomie Harris (Our Kind of Traitor)

Avin Manshadi (Under the Shadow)

Terry Pheto (A United Kingdom)

Shana Swash (My Feral Heart)

Best Screenplay

Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow)

Andrea Arnold (American Honey)

Christopher Hyde and Billy O'Brien (I Am Not a Serial Killer)

Paul Laverty (I, Daniel Blake)

Rachel Tunnard (Adult Life Skills)

Outstanding Achievement in Craft

Shaheen Baig (Free Fire) - casting

Seb Baker (The Girl with All the Gifts) - visual effects

Paul Monaghan and Mat Whitecross (Supersonic) - editing

Robbie Ryan (American Honey) - cinematography

Joakim Sundstrom (Notes on Blindness) - sound

Best Documentary

The Confession: Living the War on Terror

Dancer

The Hard Stop

Notes on Blindness

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach

Best International Independent Film

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Manchester by the Sea

Moonlight

Mustang

Toni Erdmann

Best Breakthrough Producer

Michael Berliner (Adult Life Skills)

Mike Brett, Jo-Jo Ellison and Steve Jamison (Notes on Blindness)

Paul Fegan (Where You're Meant to Be)

Camille Gatin (The Girl with All the Gifts)

Dionne Walker (The Hard Stop)

The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director

Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow)

Alice Lowe (Prevenge)

Peter Middleton and James Spinney (Notes on Blindness)

Adam Smith (Trespass Against Us)

Rachel Tunnard (Adult Life Skills)

Most Promising Newcomer

Steve Brandon (My Feral Heart)

Dave Johns (I, Daniel Blake)

Sennia Nanua (The Girl with All the Gifts)

Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake)

Letitia Wright (Urban Hymn)

Best Debut Screenwriter

Julian Barratt and and Simon Farnaby (Mindhorn)

John Cairns and Michael McCartney (A Patch of Fog)

Hope Dickson Leach (The Levelling)

Ed Talfan (The Passing)

Rachel Tunnard (Adult Life Skills)

REVIEW - CERTAIN WOMEN (KELLY REICHARDT)

A quintessential, unifying statement on women in the West, written by Maile Meloy, adapted by Kelly Reichardt, seen by us. Indeed, Certain Women sees its own women as society, and the culture of filmmaking from which it has slyly sprung, does not - existing for their own sake and by their own terms, to whatever extent possible. Inconsequential it may seem, but this is, in fact, a work of quiet significance, a gentle but nonetheless stringent insistence on the validity of this particular American existence. The singularity of Reichardt's purview presents its women as doggedly active figures, each imbued with independent agency of thought even as their agency of action is casually chipped away - incisive performances from the cast further develop this notion that a woman is only as she defines herself, not as a biased society regards her. Yet Certain Women avoids its puff-piece potential with a stark, challenging strain of ambiguity and apparent contradiction, subtly knocking back our perceptions of its protagonists whilst refusing to condemn the character of any of its male supporting parts; Reichardt's style of directing and editing is correspondingly enigmatic, courting commerciality as much as artsy obscurity. Thus she evades thematic and stylistic simplism, and though this may be a tactic that's somewhat alienating and uncomfortable upon viewing, the way in which it permutates one's impressions of the film and its meanings over time is very smart and very satisfying.