Critical Week: A walk in the park

London's cinema community is gearing up for this Sunday's British Academy Film Awards, which will be hosted by Richard E Grant at the Royal Festival Hall with all the stars in attendance. And this year the Baftas will air some of the awards live (but only a handful). I'll watch it at home, but I'm attending a few parties over the weekend, which should be fun ... and rather glamorous. More about all that on Monday, after the dust settles.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Inspection • Framing Agnes
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
PERHAPS AVOID:
Devil's Peak
ALL REVIEWS >

Meanwhile, we're starting to see movies released early in the year, far from awards consideration. Sharper is a thriller about con artists, so it's no surprise that it's packed with twists, turns and revelations. All of that is fun, even if it's a bit predictable, but it helps that the film stars Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan and (above) Briana Middleton and Justice Smith. Also sticking to the formula is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the latest slice of Marvel mayhem. The action largely swamps Paul Rudd's superb sense of humour, but the film does have its moments, and Jonathan Majors is seriously good as the villainous Kang. And then there's Devil's Peak, a backwoods thriller that sinks completely under the weight of its cliches, even as strong actors like Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright do what they can.

A little further afield, 88 is a political thriller with a nicely complex plot, although the dialog is overstuffed with lectures. From Italy, Nostalgia is an involving drama about a man trying to return home even as his past warns him to leave. From Spain, 8 Years artfully mixes colourful energy with thoughtful emotion as a man ponders the good and bad in a broken relationship. Chase Joynt's astonishingly inventive doc Framing Agnes works on many levels to explore trans experiences and social justice. And Gaspar Noe has rearranged his shocking 2002 classic as Irreversible: Straight Cut, which becomes something very different chronologically.

In addition to British Academy Film Awards events this weekend, this coming week I'll see the nutty thriller Cocaine Bear, Michael Shannon in A Little White Lie, Kore-eda's drama Broker, the Argentine drama Wandering Heart and the climate activism thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Critical week: Hive mentality

A couple of big films screened to the London press this week, including Marvel's latest blockbuster Ant-Man, a hilariously engaging action romp that's sure to win over just about everyone in the audience. The adult comedy Ted 2 carries on the story of Mark Wahlberg and his best pal, a talking teddy bear voiced by Seth MacFarlane. And its nonstop barrage of adult-aimed humour is packed with laugh-out-loud moments. Saoirse Ronan is superb as always in Brooklyn, an emotional epic about a young woman migrating from Ireland to America in the 1950s.

There were also two very different documentaries: The Salt of the Earth is the stunning story of photographer Sebastao Salgado, who changed the world (and himself) with his daring, potent photos of humanity and nature, while The Nightmare is a gimmicky doc about sleep paralysis told as a horror freak-out without any expert commentary. There was also the inventive British indie thriller 51 Degrees North shows considerable promise, even if the found-footage structure leaves it somewhat fragmented. And the American indie Angels With Tethered Wings felt rather thrown together with jarringly contradictory tones in each plot thread, amateurish direction and a cast that can't keep up.

This coming week we have Ryan Reynolds in Self/Less, James Franco in True Story, Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman in Ruth & Alex, Craig Roberts in Just Jim, the horror thriller The Gallows, the animated adventure Maya the Bee, the romance doc Looking for Love and two horror comedies: 100 Bloody Acres and Dude Bro Party Massacre III.

Requisite Blog Photo: Feeling small with Paul