Critical Week: Cannes do

The jury members at the 64th Cannes Film Festival get their moment of glamour before deliberations start in earnest: they present their awards this weekend. It's certainly been fun to read stories of audience reactions to big-name films that arrive with huge expectations. When we will get to see them is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile here in London, we had a couple of horror movies: the excellent Spanish thriller Julia's Eyes and the not-so-good American remake Mother's Day. There was also the gripping but over-stuffed Italian true-crime drama Angels of Evil, a radiant Catherine Deneuve in Francois Ozon's bright 70s-style comedy-drama Potiche, and the undercooked but emotionally involving British prison drama Ghosted. And there were two documentaries: Lucy Walker's terrifyingly unnerving Countdown to Zero, about the danger of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists, and the remarkably engaging Donor Unknown, about a beach bum who discovers he has dozens of children from his years as a sperm donor.

This coming week, we've got two sequels that are aimed at rather different target audiences: The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2. There's also Brendan Gleeson in the Edinburgh Film Festival opener The Guard, Jesse Eisenberg in Holy Rollers, Kim Cattrall in Meet Monica Velour, Gerard Depardieu in Mammuth, Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier, Lee Chang-dong's acclaimed Poetry, and the Kyrgyz drama The Light Thief. Whew!