The big screening last week was (and the big release this week is) the mega-ensemble romantic comedy Valentine's Day, which is unlikely to be trumped in star wattage this year. That it's actually a schmaltzy American version of Love Actually is beside the point; it's also an undemanding crowd-pleaser that's bound to make a box office fortune.A much more polished blockbuster screened to critics last week was Martin Scorsese's mental hospital thriller Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley and Mark Ruffalo. And even Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief (to use the UK title) was great fun in an energetically Harry Potter-lite way. We also caught up with some more grown-up fare, including the lively Irish crime comedy Perrier's Bounty, the unsettling remake of the classic Aussie horror Long Weekend, the stylish Mussolini drama Vincere, the seriously unsettling Cannes-winning Greek drama Dogtooth, and the fascinating stand-up comic doc American: The Bill Hicks Story. But the best film I saw was part of a handful of screenings for an upcoming festival: the utterly stunning Canadian mother-son drama I Killed My Mother, written, directed, produced by and starring the remarkably talented 20-year-old Xavier Dolan.
This week's offerings include the big-budget monster movie The Wolfman, the Irish rom-com Happy Ever Afters, the gay drama Lucky Bastard and several more festival films. Hopefully there will be another gem in there somewhere, whether or not it has 20 A-listers in it.
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