Just like a truffle, this idyllic film is “a little nutty, deep, sweet and very rare”, says Dulcie Pearce in The Sun. In the chilly forests of Piedmont, northwest Italy, directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (with Call Me by Your Name’s director Luca Guadagnino as executive producer) spent three years filming furtive truffle hunters and their highly trained hounds. Using customised harnesses, the directors attached GoPro cameras to the heads of the dogs so they could capture the truffle hunt, which is thrilling. Each shot looks like it could be framed and put in an exhibition. I wouldn’t usually bang on about an 84-minute documentary about geriatric Italians – aged 60 to 88 – even if said doc was shortlisted for an Oscar, but this “really is a gem”.
It makes you wonder what you’re doing with your life, says Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz in The Cut. The old boys don’t appear to have a phone between them – theirs is a life of romping around the hills, day and night, wearing thick jumpers, eating fresh tomatoes and drinking good wine. They only make a sliver of what the sinister, suited, back-alley dealers ultimately flip their fungi for (in the film, one makes $110,000 at auction), but they’re immensely happy with their brainy dogs. They eat evening soup with their canine companions, sleep together, even bathe and blow-dry their hair together. Their poor wives barely get a look-in. “Why don’t I get married?” asks single octogenarian Aurelio, who lives with his dog Birba. “Because I have Birba!”
The Truffle Hunters is in cinemas now. Watch the trailer here.
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Loki
If you were rooting “against Marvel in the battle for worldwide dominion”, I regret to inform you that Loki is actually very good, says Dan Gentile in SFGate. The six-part Disney+ spin-off from its main Marvel franchise is such spectacular telly it “looks and feels more like a spectacular movie”. It’s Marvel’s third TV project, and the best. And it’s thought Disney’s “gigantic burlap sacks” of cash could have stretched to provide budgets as big as $25 million per episode for this space- and time-bending escapade, which “manages to make The Mandalorian look like a cheap date” (and secured the acting talents of Owen Wilson).
“I’d always wondered what Doctor Who would be like if it had a bigger budget,” says Andy Welch in The Guardian. I’m hooked. Say what you will about Tom Hiddleston – “and many of you do” – but as Loki, he’s exceeding all my expectations in this series. He flits from hamming it up to scrapping, to looking scared to delivering emotional dialogue, all “in the space of a line”. The moment he put his hands to his hips and said defiantly “I’m hedonistic. It’s what I do” was joyous. It’s jolly good fun, on a huge paycheque. All it’s missing is a sonic screwdriver.
Loki is on Disney+. Watch the trailer here.