Critical Week: Locker talk

Amid sunny weather in London, while many critics decamp to Cannes for 10 days of frantic festival action, there has been the usual eclectic collection of press screenings. Olivia Wilde steps behind the camera to direct the hugely entertaining teen comedy Booksmart, as raucous as any high school comedy and comes from a refreshingly female perspective. For contrast, Keanu Reeves is back in killing mode for John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, which starts off with a series of breathtakingly inventive action sequences before settling in for a relatively rote final act.

The week's indie was Funny Story, a comedy with a very dark undercurrent, beautifully played and bravely written. The foreign film was Portugal's frothy ambrosia Diamantino, a surreal and pointed but surprisingly sweet satire of politics and celebrity culture. And there were three docs: Apollo 11 is a gripping archival film with no present-day material, telling the story of the first man on the moon with pristine film footage and a strikingly intimate perspective. From the brilliant mind of Werner Herzog comes Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, which cleverly traces the life of the late writer on an unusual trek through history and geography. And the finely assembled The Lavender Scare recounts a little-known spin-off of the McCarthy hearings, as government workers were hunted down and ruined for being gay from the early 1950s until the law was repealed in the 1990s.

I have two more screenings before I leave London for a couple of weeks: Will Smith in Disney's live-action Aladdin remake and the animated sequel The Secret Life of Pets 2. There may be some films I can catch up with while I'm in the US, not to mention whatever might be on the plane. I'll be updating the blog along the way...

Critical Week: Taking care of business

I'm in Southern California visiting my family this week, so haven't exactly been trying to keep up with movies. I didn't even get to watch the Baftas - I had to read about them instead. I managed to catch one film that needed to be reviewed: John Wick: Chapter 2 sees Keanu Reeves return as the weary expert hitman dragged back from retirement to clean up another mess. It's a bit more reliant on the mythology this time, which makes it a little less fun. But the film is still slick and clever, and dares to pay attention to its plot and characters.

There were also a few films on the airplane. Keeping Up With the Joneses is a lively but inane action comedy with an ace cast led by Zac Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher. It's a nicely made, engaging romp about discovering that the new neighbours are spies, but it's also preposterous fluff. The Little Prince is an odd adaptation of the children's classic, which wraps it into the story of a little girl fantasising about the adventures of her old neighbour. While most of it looks great, some of the animation is simplistic and plasticky. And some of the story's gyrations lose the point. Morgan is a terrific little thriller starring Kate Mara as a corporate officer sent in to evaluate an experiment that might be going wrong. This involves the creation of an artificially engineered human-like being (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her nervous minders. Sharply well-made and seriously unnerving.

My holiday visiting friends and family in Los Angeles and nearby continues over the next week - doing my work remotely, but not in press screening mode. A couple of films opening here this weekend might be worth a look, including The Great Wall, A Cure for Wellness and Fist Fight. And I will attend the Galeca Dorian Awards winner's toast on Saturday - watch this space for a report.

Critical Week: Purging the underworld

Aside from films I saw as part of BFI Flare, I caught up this past week week with Keanu Reeves' latest career boost movie John Wick, a rippingly stylish revenge thriller that's far better than it has any right to be. Also enjoyable, but not quite as artistically ambitious, Fast & Furious 7 (aka Furious 7) is a thunderously entertaining step in the franchise, including a lot more emotion than these actors have attempted before. And they just about get away with it. The action stuntwork looked pretty cool on the Imax screen.

Further afield there was the superb Cliff Curtis in the dark and intense true story The Dark Horse; the astonishingly grim and unnerving Belgian thriller The Treatment, which compares chillingly with The Silence of the Lambs and Seven (yes it's that good); and the raucous documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, a mist-see for movie fans tracing the Hollywood career of Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who produced an outrageous run of films over about 15 years.

We now have two short weeks with the four-day Easter weekend in between. Film screenings on the schedule include Anna Kendrick in The Last Five Years, Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria, Jack Reynor in the Sundance-winner Glassland, the German thriller The Samurai, the comedy Undocumented Executive and the documentary Lambert & Stamp.