Critical Week(s): Family reunion

That slightly too high-octane cast reunites once again for Little Fockers, the second Meet the Parents sequel with a whiff of desperation about it. The cast makes it watchable, but the story is episodic and rather joyless. That sentence also describes the other late-screened Christmas blockbuster, Jack Black's takeover of Gulliver's Travels. And it's not far off the strange concoction that united Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp on screen in The Tourist, also screened a little too late to review in print.

Smaller British titles included the rather oddly truncated Age of Heroes, reuniting Danny Dyer and Sean Bean for what is intended to be a trilogy about the creation of the SAS, and Wake Wood, an enjoyably offbeat creepy-village horror movie.

Critics also got to indulge in the joys (and some disappointments) of year-end awards contenders like the Coen brothers' True Grit, Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole, Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version, Reese Witherspoon in How Do You Know, Robert DeNiro in Stone, Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack and the unforgettable killing fields doc Enemies of the People. There are still a few of these to come.

So my votes are already in for the London Critics' Circle Film Awards - the nominations will be announced tomorrow. And my voting deadline is this coming weekend for the Online Film Critics Society nominations. I also plan to have my top 10s (aka The Shadows Awards) ready to unfurl next week, so I can sit back and look forward to the awards mania leading up to Oscar night. For which the stars of Little Fockers probably needn't worry about preparing a thank you speech.

Requisite Blog Photo: Trapped in Lilliput

Critical Week(s): Guilty pleasures

It's been awhile since the last entry in this blog, mainly due to the fact that I was in Los Angeles for two weeks visiting friends and family. I also managed to see five films while I was out there, including the almost criminally enjoyable Burlesque, Cher's first film in seven years, which she steals effortlessly from first-time actor Christina Aquilera. It's bad, but it knows it. The other guilty pleasure was Unstoppable, Tony Scott's true-life runaway train action movie, which is lent gravitas by Denzel Washington but never tries to be anything more than a roaring thriller. I also saw Morning Glory (good undemanding fun), Fair Game (slightly too-demanding drama) and Tangled (enjoyably unambitious).

Before leaving London, there were screenings of: the Jake Gyllenhaal / Anne Hathaway romance Love & Other Drugs, which I really enjoyed (and which was followed by a lively interview with Jake, Anne and director Ed Zwick); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which was more emotional than expected; An Ordinary Execution, a darkly involving French drama about the last days of Stalin; and Men on the Bridge, an intriguing drama about people working on the Bosphorus.

Since returning home, we've had: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the enjoyable but childish third Narnia adventure; Tron: Legacy, the disappointing 28-years-later sequel;Cell 211, the rightly acclaimed gritty Spanish prison drama; and Norwegian Wood, a moody, gorgeously filmed drama from Japan.

And coming up this week are The Tourist (Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp), Rabbit Hole (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart), Barney's Version (Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman), Gulliver's Travels (Jack Black), and two films I know nothing about: The Wake Wood and Age of Heroes. Not to mention a growing stack of awards-contender DVDs I have to watch. I think I need another holiday.

Requisite Blog Photo: Into Narnia

Critical Week(s): In the picture

Yes, as usual at a Sunday morning press screening, I was placed into the world of Megamind yesterday morning. And the film wasn't too bad either. It's been a busy week or so since the London Film Festival wrapped up, as I've been catching up on screenings and doing rather a lot of writing as I get ready to take a break next week. And it's been such a strange mix of films that I've stopped trying to get in the right mood before a screening. Not that I really do that...

I'll start with the high-minded fare - the better quality movies that make me happy to do this job. I quite enjoyed Clint Eastwood's new drama Hereafter, a moving and thoroughly involving drama that's an intriguing departure for him as a director (and for Peter Morgan as a writer). Peter Weir's The Way Back is a beautifully made epic adventure with an amazing story and a solid cast. Fernando Trueba's Chico & Rita is a stunningly animated epic romance from Cuba that really gets under the skin. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu's new film Biutiful is a little more problematic - Javier Bardem's performance is razor sharp, but the film's a little too dense and gloomy. Even more troubling is Rowan Joffe's remake of Brighton Rock, inventively filmed but too bleak to connect with.

There were also a few ambitious little films. One documentary held the interest effortlessly while telling a disturbing story: Into Eternity is an ethereal exploration of how we protect the distant future from our toxic nuclear waste. The internet thriller Chatroom is a great idea but doesn't quite work, while the Indonesian war drama Red & White is inspirational but derivative.

Moving to the more low-brow offerings, we had Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis on the road in the angry and strangely unfunny Due Date, which will no doubt make more money than every other film I've mentioned today. Zombies of Mass Destruction is a riotous satire of both zombie movies and American politics. And then there was Jackass 3D, which was exactly what we expected from these boneheads. Pity they didn't let us put ourselves into a still from that one!

Only a few screenings ahead for me this week: Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway star in Love and Other Drugs; Cher and Christina Aguilera give it their all in Burlesque; An Ordinary Execution is about the last days of Stalin; Men on the Bridge is a documentary about people working on the Bosphorus; and then there's a little movie called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I.

LFF16: Out with a bang

Aleksei Popogrebsky receives the Best Film prize from jury president Patricia Clarkson at last night's London Film Festival awards ceremony at LSO St Lukes. Other prizes included best documentary (the Grierson Award) for Armadillo and two awards for Clio Barnard's The Arbor: best first feature (the Sutherland Award) and British newcomer. In addition, Danny Boyle, director of tonight's closing film 127 Hours, was awarded a BFI Fellowship. The starry ceremony was attended by virtually every filmmaker and actor in London at the moment, including Martin Scorsese. Alas, mere journalists weren't invited to cover it.

Here are three more highlights from today: the closing night film, the big winner and my last film at this year's festival...

127 Hours

dir Danny Boyle; with James Franco, Kate Mara 10/UK *****

Danny Boyle brings his considerable filmmaking energy to bear on this claustrophobic true story, and the result is a bracing thriller that puts us right into the mind of a man trapped in an unthinkable situation... MORE >

How I Ended This Summer
dir Aleksei Popogrebsky; with Grigoriy Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis 10/Rus
Gorgeously shot and edited, this subdued dramatic thriller closes in on us through skilful filmmaking, sharply believable performances and an astonishing use of a natural setting that's both expansive and claustrophobic. It's about two scientists at an isolated Arctic outpost - one is young and bored and the other is more experienced and annoyed. Their interaction is a thoroughly engaging mixture of comedy and tension, and as the story progresses things get surprisingly emotional and scary, even though the film never abandons its earthy, realistic tone. These two men are so different that we wonder if they can ever connect on a meaningful level, and clearly they are beginning to feel the same.

Inside Job

dir Charles Ferguson; with Barney Frank, Eliot Spitzer 10/US ***

Easily a contender for the year's most depressing documentary, at least this film is sharply well made. It's also the first of the docs about the financial crisis that actually helps us understand what has happened and what is going on now. This is a lucid and thoroughly researched exploration of the economic system that caused this global mess, and as we begin to understand it we wonder why the people responsible aren't in prison, frankly. But no, they're still either earning multi-million dollar bonuses at still-thriving financial institutions or working at the very highest offices of politics. Meanwhile, the entire system is slanted to take money from the hard-working middle classes and give it to the most wealthy - thanks to laws enacted by Reagan and both Bushes and inaction from Clinton and Obama. Which is why America now has the largest disparity between rich and poor in the industrialised world. In other words, this is a film that gets our blood boiling in all the right ways - and it's not a polemic: it's all too true.

LFF15: The ladykillers

Alejandro González Iñárritu and Javier Bardem take to the red carpet at the London Film Festival last night for their film Biutiful, which has won awards at various other festivals this year. Strangely, the film wasn't shown to the press here. Along with a lot of other critics, I tried to get into various public screenings of the film, but they were all sold out. So I'll catch up with it after the festival ends.

I did manage to catch a few films today, and at the Howl screening this afternoon, directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman gave a terrific Q&A after the film, talking about how they turned the iconic Allen Ginsberg poem into such a groundbreaking film, their first narrative feature. Here are comments on three films showing today and tomorrow...

Somewhere

dir Sofia Coppola; with Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning 10/US ***

Coppola returns to the premise of Lost in Translation with another gentle exploration of celebrity, this time a hot star (Dorff) who lives in Hollywood's Chateau Marmont, flirts with an endless stream of women and spends his free time with his 11-year-old daughter (Fanning). While Dorff isn't hugely engaging, which leaves the film feeling rather cold, his scenes with Fanning are warm and enjoyable. And the overall style of the film still makes it watchable, with its long scenes, unhurried pace, offbeat score and gorgeous Harris Savides cinematography. And even if the closing scenes aren't hugely convincing, there's a strong commentary along thw way about the limbo of fame.

Howl

dir Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman; with James Franco, David Strathairn 10/US *****

Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers Epstein and Friedman turn their skills to a narrative feature, sort of. This is essentially a movie based on a poem, which is vividly animated in a variety of styles by Eric Drooker. Stirred in with this is a doc-style dramatisation of Allen Ginsberg's life that runs in parallel with both the poem and recreates scenes from the Howl obscenity trial. What emerges is a remarkable look both at the man and his work, and also what makes his work so important more than 50 years later. In Franco's performance, Ginsberg comes to vivid life in a remarkably complex way that balances the beat poetry with wry humour and political controversy. This is fiercely original cinema worthy of one of the 20th century's most fiercely original artists.

The First Grader

dir Justin Chadwick; with Naomie Harris, Oliver Litondo 10/Ken ***

Based on a true story, this drama from Kenya reflects on the legacy of colonialism and tribal warfare in a nation trying to get its feet on the ground. As the government introduces free education for all, 84-year-old Maruge (Litondo) shows up at primary school hoping to learn to read. When a caring teacher (Harris) takes him in, neither suspects that their actions will both ripple around the world and dredge up old wounds at home. The film has a dark undercurrent taken from historical events, but the central story is warm and sentimental, as Maruge bonds with his young fellow students and takes a stand for the importance of education. It's not a hugely complicated film, but it's a real crowd-pleaser.