Critical Week: It's only a cartoon

For London critics, last week's blockbuster was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a mind-bogglingly noisy cacophany of state-of-the-art animation and sound mixing. After the rather enjoyable 2007 film, this felt oddly soulless, and you had to keep reminding yourself that there were human characters in it at all. Much more human were the week's smaller movies, including the lovely Irish odyssey Kisses and the hilariously fascinating Vogue documentary The September Issue. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is yet another gritty Iraq drama, but it's also more harrowing than most, and anchored by an amazing performance from Jeremy Renner. And Mid-August Lunch is a wonderful surprise from Italy about a man trying to cope with an invasion of old ladies.

A small film that should have been more likeable was Adam, a relentlessly quirky romance that's also the closing night film at the imminent Edinburgh Film Festival. I'm actually writing this from Scotland, where press screenings have started - the festival kicks off with Sam Mendes' Away We Go on Wednesday.

I'll be blogging daily about this festival as well as the equally imminent Los Angeles Film Festival, which kicks off on Thursday (I'm flying over there next Tuesday). Yes, I'm covering two simultaneous festivals separated by an 11-hour flight - call me crazy...

Critical Week: The happy couple

Watching The Proposal, there's very little doubt where it's going, as Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock bicker their way to true love. But at least they have an infectious chemistry that keeps us smiling. And a hilarious back-stage mini-doc on YouTube gives us a glimpse how they kept the silly energy on-camera as well. Have a look: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH9qwa4Avlw

Also last week, I caught up with the third instalment in the trilogy, Goal III, subtitled Taking on the World but actually a much gloomier look at world-class football than the first two films. No wonder it's going straight to dvd next week. I also saw Three Kingdoms, a gritty Chinese battle epic based on the same 14th century novel as John Woo's more exhiliarating Red Cliff. And then there was the Swiss yodelling doc Echoes of Home, which is indescribably odd and probably only for extremely curious filmgoers. My best film last week was another doc, shot in 1974 but assembled this year: Soul Power tells the story of the music festival that ran alongside the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire. It's even better than its Oscar-winning companion piece When We Were Kings, about the boxing match.

This week's films include the offbeat romance Adam, the Irish runaway drama Kisses, the acclaimed Italian drama Mid-August Lunch, the Vogue doc The September Issue, and the next awkwardly titled summer blockbuster, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Critical Week: Eric's the man

It's hardly surprising that it took an ex-footballer to bring out Ken Loach's warm and funny side. His new film Looking for Eric caught the Cannes audiences by surprise and left London critics smiling last week too. It's a charming little film with a serious drama at its centre (of course) and a hilarious comedic pay-off. And Eric Cantona is terrific as himself - poking fun and having a ball, much as he did as the snooty French director in last month's French Film.

Other movies offered up to London critics last week included the Beyonce bunny boiler Obsessed, which is far more trashy fun than it has any right to be; the grimly involving and gorgeously shot Mexican migrant drama Sin Nombre; the ever-so-slightly more edgy high school musical BandSlam; and the gripping guerrilla journalism doc Burma VJ, which examines how video footage of a vicious closed society makes it to our newscasts.

This week is another odd mix of screenings, from the Sandra Bullock-Ryan Reynolds rom-com The Proposal to the Chinese war epic Three Kingdoms, by way of the Iranian experimental film Shirin, the yodelling doc Echoes of Home, and the concluding chapter in the trilogy Goal III: Taking on the World, which is sadly going straight to DVD here in the UK. Probably because Eric Cantona's not in it.

Critical Week: Revenge of the Fanboys

Well, it has been 25 years since the first film, after all. So you wouldn't expect T4 to have the same ethos or style as T1. But Terminator Salvation turned out to be a much bigger drift than expected - a vacuous action cliche that looked like it was inspired by a videogame, with wafer-thin characters and dopey action sequences. It may look so cool on screen that most fanboys won't notice, but it's essentially a franchise-killer.

Last week's other sequel was Night at the Museum 2, or to use its overwrought American title: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (was, maybe, Night at Another Museum too subtle and complex?). That aside, this film was surprisingly better than the original, which isn't saying much. But at least it keeps us laughing with some hilariously bizarre improvised dialog, plus the nutty skills of Hank Azaria and the raw charm of Amy Adams.

The other biggies last week were Sam Raimi's return to horror in Drag Me to Hell, a rollicking funhouse of a movie that's deeply entertaining in its willingness to get truly, gleefully ugly, and the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, which is a guilty pleasure concoction of preposterous action and even more preposterous acting. More serious - and more satisfying - were the thoughtful Brazilian rainforest drama BirdWatchers, the twisty Spanish mathematics thriller Fermat's Room and the powerfully emotional French family drama The First Day of the Rest of Your Life.

This week is a bit thin on press screenings at the moment: just the Beyonce bunny-boiler Obsessed, Ken Loach's Cannes charmer Looking for Ericthe Burmese protest doc Burma VJ, another festival favourite, and the doc Soul Power, about a 1974 music festival in Zaire.

Critical Week: The morning after

It was another eclectic week in the screening rooms, with a dizzying array of films from every genre imaginable. Although it didn't quite leave me as shattered as the three guys in The Hangover, the raucous comedy that's simplistic and stupid and absolutely hilarious. Sam Rockwell's rude awakening in Moon sets up one of the most intriguing sci-fi thrillers in years, with heavy echoes of Silent Running, 2001 and Solaris. And Audrey Tautou is also terrific as the designer emerging from her dark youth in Coco Avant Chanel. By contrast, Vincent Cassel's riveting performance as French criminal Jacques Mesrine offers no awakening at all - his kinetic, energetic, fiercely relentless two-part story is told in Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy No 1.

Much more cathartic was the wonderful Sophie Okonedo in the astonishing South African drama Skin, featuring remarkably brave supporting turns by Sam Neill, Alice Krige and Tony Kgoroge. And even though it's been on a shelf for three years, Blind Dating has some terrific moments and a solid central turn by Captain Kirk, aka Chris Pine. On the other hand, we also had a couple of British horror films: the low-key and deeply haunting The Disappeared and the wacky Danny Dyer-Stephen Graham zombie romp Doghouse. And I also caught up with a couple of gorgeous Bruce Weber films on DVD (A Letter to True and especially Broken Noses) and had the opportunity to interview experimental filmmaking guru Kenneth Anger, who's still feisty and chatty at 82. Whew!

This week looks like another head-spinning foray into cinema, from Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell to the act-a-thon remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, by way of the Guarani drama Birdwatching, the award-winning French family drama The First Day of the Rest of Your Life, and a little sequel titled Terminator: Salvation.

Critical Week: Action man

I must admit that I went to the press screening last week of Angels & Demons with very low expectations, because I'd found The DaVinci Code such a huge disappointment three years ago (the novel is a page-turning romp; the film is an over-serious slog). Thankfully the sequel, which is actually based on an earlier novel, gets the tone right, rampaging through the action with never-mind-the-plot-holes gusto. And Tom Hanks even seems to get into the spirit this time, with loads of ludicrous action to go with his exposition-heavy dialog.

Even more fun last week was seeing Star Trek again, but this time on the Imax screen, where the images are so big you can see the actors' pores. Even more impressive than the seamless special effects in Imax was the astounding sound mix. Other films included the dark Hungarian drama Delta, the ethereal French drama 35 Shots of Rum, the moody British drama Shadows in the Sun and two straight-to-DVD releases: the emotive American high school musical Shakespeare mash-up Were the World Mine and the eerie French drama The Last or the Crazy People. We also had the launch event for the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival (17-28 June), which will open with Sam Mendes' new film Away We Go.

This is another busy week, screening-wise, with both parts of the French crime thriller Mesrine starring Vincent Cassel, the Vegas romp The Hangover, Sam Rockwell in the astronaut drama Moon, Chris Pine in the comedy Blind Dating, the Spanish thriller Fermat's Room, the British horror The Disappeared, and Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham in Doghouse, yet another British zombie comedy.

Critical Week: And here we go again

It's official blockbuster season again, which means that virtually every week we'll get another mammoth, over-produced movie that hopes to attract your weekend spending money. This year's first summer tentpole is the cheesily titled X-men Origins: Wolverine, which brings Huge Action back to his iconic role as the hairy, muscled, claw-wielding mutant hero from the three X-men movies. After one of Fox's employees leaked the film online, they clamped down security and didn't let anyone see the film before last Monday. It does what you expect: bludgeons you with Wolverine's back-story. Although it lowers the tone even further than the third movie, by not only eliminating all subtext, but leaving out a coherent plot or any point at all. Even so, it's pretty watchable.

Other films last week includes the Matthew McConaughey Christmas Carol pastiche rom-com Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which was also watchable and pretty bad; the clever Japanese black comedy Funuke, about a seriously dysfunctional family; the rather gloomy doc The End of the Line, which looks at how humanity has been fishing all the life out of the sea; the clever suburban drama The Private Lies of Pippa Lee, featuring a terrific performance from Robin Wright (formerly Penn); the superb indie comedy-drama Sunshine Cleaning, with fantastic performances from Amy Adams and Emily Blunt; the uneven British rom-com pastiche French Film, with the watchable Hugh Bonneville and Anne-Marie Duff; the surreal Mexican drama I'm Gonna Explode; and Godard's indulgent 1960s romp Pierrot le Fou.

Coming up this week is the summer's next blockbuster, Star Trek, which I've already seen but will get to watch again on the massive Imax screen; the blockbuster after that, Tom Hanks' return to DaVinci territory in Angels & Demons; the British drama Shadows in the Sun with Jean Simmons and James Wilby; Claire Denis' new film 35 Shots of Rum; and the acclaimed Hungarian drama Delta. We also have the programme launch for next month's Edinburgh Film Festival. And the tentpoles will keep on coming.