Critical Week: Title of the year

The fear going into the press screening of Lesbian Vampire Killers was that it was a snappy title and a hot comical duo and not much more than that. A couple of hours later, our fears were confirmed, but late-night audiences will love this goofy romp. A less inspired title came with the other big British film shown to the press last week: The Boat That Rocked, the new all-star ensemble comedy from Richard Curtis (Love Actually) about pirate radio in the 1960s. You can't really go wrong with Philip Seymour Hoffman in your movie, plus scene-stealers like Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost. But it will be interesting to see what audiences make of this one.

More enjoyable were the lower-key films, even when they were gloomy examinations of parent-child relationships and mortality (The Burning Plain, with the fabulous Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger), offbeat comedy-dramas about mental problems (Diminished Capacity), grimly violent dramas about showbiz aspirations (Tony Manero), or meandering heartwarmers about the clash between the old and new worlds (Bottle Shock). And the most fun were the junior Eurovision doc (Sounds Like Teen Spirit) and the latest bit of hilariously energetic DreamWorks animation (Monsters vs Aliens).

This coming week is another offbeat collection, including the Paul Rudd/Jason Segel man-romance I Love You, Man, the Irish surfing doc Waveriders, the Julia Roberts/Clive Owen thriller Duplicity, the Julia Roberts/Ryan Reynolds family drama Fireflies in the Garden, Dwayne "don't call me The Rock" Johnson in Race to Witch Mountain, Michael Caine in the 1980s British drama Is Anybody There? And I'm also looking forward to seeing Truffaut's classic The 400 Blows on a big screen for the first time.