Critical Week: Let's drink to that!

A highlight in the cinema this week was the chance to watch a stage performance of Stephen Sondheim's Company at New York's Lincoln Center on the big screen. The all-star cast is simply terrific (pictured are Martha Plimpton, Steven Colbert and Neil Patrick Harris), and being able to see them in close-up makes these stage-to-cinema screenings worth looking out for.

But the biggest press screening this past week was for the impending blockbuster franchise-launcher The Hunger Games, a stormingly entertaining film that more than lived up to the hype. We also had Elizabeth Olsen in the eerie psychological freak-out Silent House; Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in the enjoyable and moving road movie Cloudburst; Luis Tosar and Gael Garcia Bernal in the inventive, powerful Bolivian drama Even the Rain; the full-of-life Arabic village drama The Source; the sensitive French romantic-drama Angel and Tony; the offbeat, unnerving Argentine thriller Absent; and the comprehensive, entertaining Bob Marley doc Marley.

This coming week, London critics will be treated to the fairy tale comedy Mirror Mirror, Ben Drew's Ill Manors, the animated British comedy-romp The Pirates!, Julie Delpy's anxiously awaited sequel 2 Days in New York, the horror thriller Cabin in the Woods, Jason Segel as Jeff Who Lives at Home, and the Danish historical drama A Royal Affair. In addition, Friday is opening night for the 26th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, one of Britain's biggest film events, which takes place at BFI Southbank - and I'll be blogging regularly on the films and parties over the festival's 10 days.