Critical Week: Into the blue

This week, London critics caught up with this year's Palme d'Or winner, Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour, a staggeringly involving romance starring Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. The film has had a lot of press for its three-hour running time and explicit lesbian sex scenes, but it's also an unnervingly honest relationship movie. It deserves the prizes. And there will be more to come.

More in the mainstream, we had a late-scheduled screening of the concert documentary One Direction: This Is Us, which is a lot of fun, and sharply well made, although calling it a documentary is stretching the definition of the word, as it's actually a 90-minute promo for Syco Records. Saoirse Ronan stars in How I Live Now, based on the book about teens trying to start their lives over in WWIII Britain (an embargo means I can't say more). Halle Berry stars in The Call, a more-involving than normal thriller about an emergency phone operator who gets caught up in a nightmare. The ending is contrived, but it's utterly riveting.

From Korea we had Pieta, the new drama from Kim Ki-duk, who delights in making audiences squirm - and this is no exception as it cleverly tells a twisted story of redemption and sacrifice centred on a mother and son. Sort of. From Britain, the Indian-subculture drama Jadoo is lively and engaging, and packed with delicious food from Leicester's Golden Mile. And we also saw the restored final cut of Robin Hardy's 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man, which hasn't really aged well but is still pretty freaky.

This coming week I've got: Robin Wright and Naomi Watts in Adore, Harrison Ford in the baseball drama 42, Ryan Reynolds in the ghostly action-comedy R.I.P.D., Hirokazu Kore-eda's acclaimed Like Father Like Son, the Seoul Olympics doc 9.79*, the Aids medication doc Fire in the Blood, and the BFI's restoration of the 1924 expedition doc The Epic of Everest. We also have the launch event for the 57th London Film Festival (9-20 Oct), where we'll finally get our hands on this year's programme.

Critical Week: Out of the closet

That's Domhnall Gleeson emerging from a wardrobe in the time-travelling romance About Time, which was the surprise film at June's Edinburgh International Film Festival and has been screening to London press this past week. It's what you'd expect from writer-director Richard Curtis, including a terrific cast that features Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy and Lindsay Duncan. Tilting more toward the comical end of the rom-com spectrum, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis star in We're the Millers, a rude drug-smuggling romp that's more amusing than riotous

We also had two indie comedy-dramas: Aubrey Plaza stars in the sex-focussed coming-of-age comedy The To Do List, which is much smarter than expected; and Kristen Bell gets a more serious role than usual in The Lifeguard, as a 29-year-old who reverts to her teen life in a moment of panic, complete with her old summer job and a 16-year-old boyfriend (the superb David Lambert). Both films are strongly involving, and likely to provoke different reactions in audiences.

A little further afield, Uwantme2killhim? is a chillingly clever British thriller based on a true story about an internet-based crime; Kon-Tiki is the spectacularly photographed Oscar-nominated epic about Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 raft journey proving that Incas populated Polynesia; and Una Noche is a disarmingly engaging drama about three young Cubans planning a dangerous journey to Miami. And I also revisited one of my all-time favourites: Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, which is getting a digitally restored release.

This coming week we catch up with the 3D doc One Direction: This Is Us just before its release. There's also Saoirse Ronan in the WWIII thriller How I Live Now, the Cannes-winning romance Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the British youth-crime comedy Borrowed Time, the British-Indian comedy Jadoo, and the restored final cut of the 1973 classic The Wicker Man.

Olympics Day 16: Big finale

It feels like the Olympics just started a few minutes ago, and now they're finished. The closing ceremony tonight was another random collection of British cultural influences, from The Who to One Direction by way of the Spice Girls, Take That, Annie Lennox, George Michael and Eric Idle singing the marvellous Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (my personal highlight!). It made no sense, had no discernible narrative and was packed with moments that were wonderfully wacky and thoroughly bewildering.

But of course the best thing is seeing all the athletes clumped together regardless of political or geographical boundaries, celebrating their experiences over the last 17 days. So watching the flame dwindle out is always profoundly moving. It's been a blur of energy, flooding through every part of London in a way that won over most (but not all) of the most die-hard cynics. yes, the Olympics are over-commercialised and ruthlessly corporate, but they also celebrate human achievement at the most simple, honest level. And it's a rare moment every four years when everyone gets together and forgets that they're at war with each other.

I'm looking forward to the Paralympics in a little over two weeks. I've never attended one, and will be covering these Games in an intriguing way that will let me soak up a lot of the experiences firsthand. I'll be blogging about that later.

But now back to our regularly scheduled movie nonsense. The Expendables 2 opens this week, after all...