Critical Week: The hot ticket

The most eagerly anticipated press screening last week was Matthew Vaughn's raucous Kick-Ass, the fiercely independent adaptation of the non-super hero comic. All I can really say is that I am sure it will be a massive hit. The other big screenings last week were Paul Greengrass' thrilling Green Zone, starring Matt Damon and adapted from the bestselling book about the hunt for WMDs in Baghdad just after the 2003 invasion, and Neil Marshall's snappy Centurion starring Michael Fassbender in an action yarn from Britain's Roman era.

Slightly less high-profile were the gentle Ricky Gervais comedy Cemetery Junction, about teen life in 1970s Reading, and Uma Thurman in the low-key Manhattan mommy comedy Motherhood. Still further off the grid were the moody indie British prison drama Release, the scruffy British football-fan road comedy The Shouting Men, and a trio of foreign films: the stunning bromance Plan B from Argentina, the emotional gut punch of the gay orthodox Jew drama Eyes Wide Open and the rather bold Bahamian drama Children of God.

This coming week I only have two screenings - the Chinese drama-doc 24 City and the Kristin Scott Thomas drama Leaving - plus a few more festival films to watch. But the lack of screenings is explained by the fact that I'm off to New York on Wednesday for a few days, which means I'll get to watch the Oscars on Sunday at a normal hour rather that staying up all night in London as usual.