Critical Week: Stars in my eyes

This is rather a massive week for me, film wise, as on Wednesday night the London Critics' Circle has its annual film awards dinner. I'm on the organising committee for the event, so it will be great to be there and see all our work finally come to fruition. A lot of nominees will be present, so it'll also be fun to have a social evening with actors and filmmakers we write about all year round.

Then the next day I head off to Berlin for the 59th Berlinale - I'm a member of the jury for the Fipresci Panorama prize. I'm still not sure how many films I have to see, but I know there are a lot I want to see outside the Panorama - so we'll see how it goes. Most of the films are world premieres, so much of Hollywood will be on the scene. And I hope I get invited to some of the parties at least. I'm there for the entire run of the festival, and plan to update this blog daily, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, I have a few screenings before I leave London, including Drew Barrymore's He's Just Not That Into You, which hasn't yet been screened for the press, which may or may not mean something; Jennifer Aniston's doggy drama Marley & Me; and Clive Owen's The International, which also happens to be the opening film in Berlin.

Critical Week: Post-contender blues

It always happens this time of year, just as all of the year's best films are finally landing in cinemas, we film critics are subjected to some of the least notable movies of the year. February release schedules are notoriously underwhelming, as all of the biggies linger in the corners of the multiplexes while box office charts are weighed down by duds. I mean honestly: Paul Blart Mall Cop has been No 1 on the US chart for two weeks now, despite astoundingly bad reviews.

On the other hand, Slumdog Millionaire is storming up the charts in both the US and UK, as well as walking off with every major award it's up for. Here's the cast with their SAG Best Ensemble award. (Best thank you at the SAGs goes to Meryl Streep - look it up on YouTube if you missed it.)

Meanwhile, I've been watching decent but not-great WWII dramas like Tom Cruise's Valkyrie and Viggo Mortensen's Good; the jarring Irish Troubles drama Fifty Dead Men Walking; the bewildering parallel-reality thriller Franklyn; and the slightly dull 19th century period piece The Young Victoria. None of these films are bad - all are worth seeing, but they're perhaps not as satisfying as they should be. It's telling then that the best film I saw last week was the ripping 1949 crime noir Gun Crazy.

This week looks like more of the same, probably, with the Jean Claude Van Damme self-made (and self-titled) JCVD, the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious, the horror remake The Uninvited, and the Greg Kinnear drama Flash of Genius. More interesting are Raymond Depardon's rural doc Modern Life and the live-action Japanese sci-fi fantasy manga 20th Century Boys. Here's hoping...

Critical Week: Britain on the march

It's been a month since my last blog - hope you enjoyed the Christmas and New Year holiday! I know I did, but things are cranking up once again, mainly on the awards season front, as British talent storms its way through, sweeping up an almost ludicrous number of accolades - with Slumdog Millionaire's overall domination echoed in Kate Winslet's double Globe win and double Bafta nomination. Oscar nominations are announced on Thursday, so things are about to get even more crazed. In the meantime, I'm working with the committee to organise the London Critics' Circle Film Awards, which will be handed out at a glitsy dinner ceremony on February 4th.

Meanwhile, my screenings are back up to speed, although this isn't a notoriously promising time of year for movies, as the prestige films are behind us. Over the past week or so, I've had less than thrilling movies like Bride Wars, Hotel for Dogs, My Bloody Valentine 3D, The Unborn and Outlander - although at least all of those have some guilty pleasure value. There have also been more challenging indie or foreign films like Helen, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Three Monkeys and Katyn. Plus rather a lot of interviews at press junkets for Doubt and Milk.

Coming up this next week is Tom Cruise's Valkyrie, which they've finally decided to show to the UK press, Viggo Mortensen in Good, the British period romp The Young Victoria, Ryan Phillippe and Sam Riley in Franklyn and Ben Kingsley in Fifty Dead Men Walking.

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...