Critical Week: Dancing on air

I essentially took the week off, because I had family visiting. But still managed to attend a few screenings in between the London Eye, the National Gallery, Madame Tussaud's, We Will Rock You (not bad!) and even a day trip to Paris. Filmwise, Pedro Almodovar's latest film I'm So Excited is a broad 80s-style farce about a group of people on what they think is a doomed airliner. It's unusually camp and ridiculous even for Almodovar, and will probably divide audiences. Some will be disappointed that Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz only have cameos in the film, but gay audiences will at least get all the hilarious jokes.

London critics also got to see Mud, Jeff Nichols' new drama with Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon. It's skilfully written, directed and played, as expected - a fascinating Huck Finn-style drama - but it feels very long. Also overlong, the Swedish thriller Easy Money with Joel Kinnaman is finally getting a UK release (it was made in 2009) - it's slick and enjoyable, but not hugely original. And Disney's Chimpanzee is also getting a long-delayed UK release. It's a cuddly doc that shamelessly humanises a baby chimp.

This coming week we have a very late screening of Tom Cruise in the apocalyptic thriller Oblivion, Paddy Considine in Honour, Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, the rock band adventure Bula Quo, and two collections of short films: this year's Bafta nominees and Boys on Film 9: Youth in Trouble.