Critical Week: You're going to be just fine

It seems that awards season is arriving early this year, as screenings have already begun for many of this year's festival favourites, who are jostling for attention in the awards conversation. What's nice about this is that, at many of these screenings, we get a chance to meet the actors and filmmakers. And I particularly like getting a bit ahead of the buzz - making up my own mind without reading reviews. One of my most anticipated this year was Harris Dickinson's writing-directing debut Urchin, starring Frank Dillane (above). It's a stunner, authentic and artistic, and profoundly moving.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Plainclothes • Solo • Steve
The Lost Bus • Happyend
Tape • Peacock • Megadoc
ALL REVIEWS >

The starriest event, attended by the cast and crew, was for Steve, which stars Cillian Murphy as headmaster of an English reform school. It's another remarkably artful, skilfully shot and acted drama with a powerful kick. Paul Greengrass' riveting, immersive true story The Lost Bus stars Matthew McConaughey and American Ferrera as a pair of everyday heroes trying to save young kids during a horrific California wildfire. And Emma Thompson is terrific in the snowy and very gritty thriller Dead of Winter.

I also caught up with three festival favourites: The Love That Remains is an unusually nuanced collage of complex family life from Iceland, Two Prosecutors is a wryly ironic drama set in Soviet-era Russia as a young lawyer tries to take on the system and, from Spain, Romeria is an involving look at identity as a young woman seeks answers about her heritage. I also loved Mike Figgis' making-of-Megalopolis documentary Megadoc, which is a gorgeous portrait of Francis Ford Coppola. Finally, I attended two offbeat live performances that mix dance, music and spoken word: How to Be a Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons at Sadler's Wells East and Vlaemsch (Chez Moi) at Sadler's Wells.

Films to watch this coming week include Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in The Smashing Machine, Channing Tatum in Roofman, Sam Claflin in All the Devils Are Here and Brett Goldstein in All of You, plus Acosta Danza's A Decade in Motion on stage at Sadler's Wells. I'm also hosting a Q&A with director Sophie Dupuis and actor Felix Maritaud tomorrow following their new film Solo.

Festival Days: Think before you watch

Set in Tunisia, the Dutch film Die Welt opens with its protagonist Abdellah (Abdelhamid Naouara, above) giving an impassioned plea to a customer at his DVD shop not to watch Transformers 2, because it represents not only American cinema at its most ridiculous, but it is also packed with lazy ethnic stereotypes. The customer ignores him, but we don't! And it's appropriate that the film is screening at both the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the East End Film Festival in London this month. I'm watching lots of things at both festivals this year, along with the regular releases. So my festival reports are taking a bit of a different form this time.

Among the regular screenings, we caught up with recent US release The Internship, a deeply silly comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Museum Hours is a strikingly artful exploration of how art and life mingle, set around a museum worker in Vienna. And Dream On is a clumsily made teen drama that has some important themes in it.

Festival-wise we had a chance to see Mike Figgis' playful mystery thriller about movie-making and creativity Suspension of Disbelief. There was also the lively documentary Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic, packed with unseen footage and new insights. And the offbeat, unsettling Mexican drama Halley.

There are also a number of films at the Edinburgh festival that I've already seen. Among my favourite films of the year are Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha and Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell. Otherwise, I really enjoyed Monsters University, found the eco-terrorism drama The East to have some potent moments, and thought the Icelandic true thriller The Deep was pretty haunting. We Steal Secrets is a strikingly well-made exploration of the culture of secrecy, while Shane Carruth's surreal thriller Upstream Color is worth a look for it's pure bravura, not that it's easy to make much sense out of it. Full reviews to come.

Coming next week: Daniel Radcliffe in the true drama Kill Your Darlings, Tommy Lee Jones in the true WWII drama Emperor, and Amanda Seyfried in the true story of the pornstar Lovelace. Plus lots and lots of festival films. Watch this space...