Critical Week: Cannes do

The jury members at the 64th Cannes Film Festival get their moment of glamour before deliberations start in earnest: they present their awards this weekend. It's certainly been fun to read stories of audience reactions to big-name films that arrive with huge expectations. When we will get to see them is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile here in London, we had a couple of horror movies: the excellent Spanish thriller Julia's Eyes and the not-so-good American remake Mother's Day. There was also the gripping but over-stuffed Italian true-crime drama Angels of Evil, a radiant Catherine Deneuve in Francois Ozon's bright 70s-style comedy-drama Potiche, and the undercooked but emotionally involving British prison drama Ghosted. And there were two documentaries: Lucy Walker's terrifyingly unnerving Countdown to Zero, about the danger of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists, and the remarkably engaging Donor Unknown, about a beach bum who discovers he has dozens of children from his years as a sperm donor.

This coming week, we've got two sequels that are aimed at rather different target audiences: The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2. There's also Brendan Gleeson in the Edinburgh Film Festival opener The Guard, Jesse Eisenberg in Holy Rollers, Kim Cattrall in Meet Monica Velour, Gerard Depardieu in Mammuth, Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier, Lee Chang-dong's acclaimed Poetry, and the Kyrgyz drama The Light Thief. Whew!

Critical Week: Jack's back

Easily the biggest press screening of the past week, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was shown to UK critics in advance of this week's European premiere as well as the big Cannes Festival screening this weekend. Johnny Depp is back for another comical romp, indicating that this franchise could possibly go on forever. The other Hollywood movies this week were both very late week-of-release screenings: Priest is a noisy, derivative futuristic vampire thriller starring Paul Bettany in yet another offbeat religious role; Take Me Home Tonight is a raucous, derivative 80s-style comedy starring Topher Grace in yet another offbeat period role.

Acclaimed foreign films included the Oscar-winning Danish drama In a Better World, exploring the human proclivity to violence through the eyes of two boys; and A Screaming Man, an intensely personal look at life in war-torn Africa. And there were some intriguing smaller dramas as well, including Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington in the stage-like relationship drama Last Night; Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington (again) and Marton Csokas in the Mossad dramatic-thriller The Debt; Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marton Csokas (again) in the Aussie family drama The Tree; the amazing Mia Wasikowska in Gus Van Sant's sensitive drama Restless; and Jason Statham in the enjoyably corny London cop thriller Blitz. Wildcard movies included Prom, another Disneyfied high school romp, and Senna, a documentary about one of the greatest Formula One drivers ever.

This coming week is calmer, if scarier, with the Spanish horror thriller Julia's Eyes, the slasher-horror remake Mother's Day, the Italian crime thriller Angels of Evil, the gritty prison drama Ghosted, plus two scary-looking docs: Countdown to Zero, about the nuclear arms race, and Donor Unknown, about a guy who discovers he has a child. And of course the 64th Cannes Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday with the latest Woody Allen movie. But I'm staying in sunny London this year.

Critical Week: Bad romance

The two big movies screened for critics this past week touched on serious relational issues. Trust is David Schwimmer's latest directing effort, a chilling drama about internet grooming starring the remarkable Liana Liberato (pictured) as a 14-year-old who has no idea how much trouble she's in. And then there's Water for Elephants, the Depression-era circus drama about a dodgy marriage between ringmaster Christoph Waltz and performer Reese Witherspoon that's interrupted by the still-mopey Robert Pattinson and his more-interesting elephant.

We also were able to catch up with Rachid Bouchareb's Oscar-nominated Outside the Law, an involving but melodramatic exploration of colonialism; Rutger Hauer in the latest luridly extended Grindhouse trailer Hobo With a Shotgun; the fascinating chess-champion documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World; and the mostly animated Imax romp Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough.

Screening this week are two big blockbusters: a late screening of Paul Bettany in the vampire thriller Priest and the franchise reboot Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (new director, new supporting cast). Other high-profile offerings include Topher Grace in Take Me Home Tonight, Keira Knightley in Last Night, Helen Mirren in The Debt, the Disney kiddie romp Prom, Gus Van Sant's Restless, Jason Statham in Blitz, Charlotte Gainsbourg in The Tree and the acclaimed A Screaming Man from Chad.

Sadly, Terence Malick's The Tree of Life - my most-anticipated film of 2011 - has been caught in a UK distribution mess: it was supposed to open this Friday, but is now in limbo. Sigh!

Critical Week: Ready for battle

Last week we had the summer movie season's first big remake, sequel and reboot, so of course this week it's time for the big guns: a massive comic book movie that has the enormous weight of an entire publishing house behind it and is keyed in to comic book superhero movies past (Ironman, Hulk) and future (this summer's Captain America and, most importantly, 2012's summer tentpole The Avengers). We are of course talking about Thor, which was screened to the UK press last week in all its muscly, noisy, eye-popping 3D glory. It's a big movie that's almost as dumb as it looks but is helped by having Kenneth Branagh, however improbably, in the director's chair. Of course, the photo above isn't from Thor; it's from a bit of non-competition at the box office - Takashi Miike's higher-brow samurai battle drama 13 Assassins, which is entertaining but perhaps not as smart as it looks.

Also screened for us were Philip Seymour Hoffman's feature directing debut Jack Goes Boating, a wilfully "normal" indie drama; the freaky Italian thriller Shadow, which is stylishly made but a bit random; the West Indies cricket doc Fire in Babylon, a colourfully interesting film even for non-fans; and the micro-budget B-movie Airline Disaster, yet another so-bad-it's-hilarious crisis thriller from Asylum. Better than all of those, I got the chance to see Danny Boyle's amazing production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, with Benedict Cumberbatch (as the professor) and Jonny Lee Miller (as the monster).

If last week was short (4 days) this week is even shorter, as we have holidays for both Easter Monday and Royal Wedding Friday. As a result, I only have four screenings (plus a handful of DVDs I really need to stop putting off): Trust is an online thriller with Clive Owen and Catherine Keener; A Screaming Man is a Cannes-winning drama from Chad; Bobby Fischer Against the World is an acclaimed doc about the chess player; and Flying Monsters is a dinosaur extravaganza in Imax 3D.

Critical Week: Summer ahoy!

When  remakes and sequels start to take over the cinema, we know that blockbuster season is upon us - that time of year when movies get increasingly disappointing as we watch filmmakers throw away hundreds of millions of dollars in a desperate attempt to fleece dim-witted filmgoers of their cash on opening weekend, before word of mouth sets in. On the other hand, some sequels and remakes actually live up to (or even exceed) expectations. Well, three of these were screened for London critics this past week, as well as a handful of smaller, more original things.

All eyes are on Arthur, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren's solid update of the goofy 1981 comedy. But American society has shifted in the three intervening decades, and billionaire drunken playboys aren't quite as loveable now. Actors from the previous four films all turn up in Fast Five, another loud, big, shamelessly entertaining blast of machismo that benefits from the addition of Dwayne Johnson to the line-up. And Wes Craven plays with the whole concept of the remake/reboot with Srea4m, wryly subverting the received wisdom that franchises need to give over to new, younger casts to carry on.

There's much more inventiveness on display in two British thrillers: Attack the Block is an uneven Shaun of the Dead-style South London alien invasion comedy-adventure, and The Veteran is a gritty action movie following fresh-from-Iraq Toby Kebbell as he's dragged into dodgy activity with the government and the mob. There were also two French dramas: The Big Picture stars Romain Duris, whose life derails, turning him into a likeable variation of the Talented Mr Ripley, while Love Like Poison is artfully and morosely explores a young teen girl exploring faith, fear and sex. And then there's Life in a Day, Kevin Macdonald's fascinating and sometimes annoying attempt to make sense of some 4,500 hours of YouTube footage chronicling one day of humanity.

The big movie for critics this week is Kenneth Branagh's comic book blockbuster Thor. And we also have Philip Seymour Hoffman's Jack Goes Boating, Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, the Italian drama Angels of Evil, the cricket movie Fire in Babylon, the Formula One doc Senna, and the acclaimed doc Sweetgrass.

Critical Week(s): The big bad wolf

This week's trend in press screenings was clearly female-centred fairy tales. Saoirse Ronan stars in Hanna as a Bourne-type teen being chased by a tooth-obsessive Cate Blanchett. Amanda Seyfried is Red Riding Hood in the werewolf twist on the old story, in which she has to pick between two male models while grandma (Julie Christie) shows off her unusually big eyes, ears and teeth. In Luc Besson's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, Louise Bourgoin is a self-assured Indiana Jones-style heroine in pterodactyl-menaced 1911 Paris. And in the British independent thriller Island, Natalie Press is an unstable young woman confronting her birth mother (Janet McTeer) on a creepy Scottish isle.

To be fair, men were at the centre of three award-winning docs: Armadillo follows a group of young Danish soldiers on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and feels more like a drama than a documentary; The Oath centres on a terrorist-by-association on trial in Guantanamo while his brother-in-law provides a potent narrative in Yemen; and Becoming Chaz tells the story of Chastity Bono's female to male transition in a remarkably personal way.

And then there were two wild cards: Point Blank is a pulse-racing French thriller about a married couple caught up in an unimaginably violent nightmare, while Rubber is a playfully knowing art-house piece about a killer tyre.

The big movies showing to us in the next week don't look hugely promising, from Russell Brand's remake of Arthur to the gonzo chaos of Fast Five. More interesting are the smaller, less predictable movies like the British crime thriller The Veteran, with Brian Cox and Toby Kebbell; the French drama The Big Picture, with Romain Duris; the French coming-of-age drama Love Like Poison; and the Italian horror movie Shadow, the name of which I seem unable to type without adding an s at the end. I wonder why?

NB. The site's frontpage this week will be the same as last week, as Rio opens in the USA on Friday. Next week we'll have some meat.

LLGFF Part 4: A festive finish

The British Film Institute's blink-and-you-miss-it 25th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival wraps up on Wednesday night. It seems like it only just started (it did). But at least the programmers packed as much into six days as they could. Yesterday's screening of the new doc We Were Here ended with a live Skype Q&A with director David Weissman at his home in sunny San Francisco. It was a long, lively interview with lots of audience interaction, and it clearly marks a step forward for cash-strapped festivals to continue to allow filmmakers and viewers to talk together.

Here are some of today's highlights. I still have one screening to attend - plus the closing party, of course. The review of that film (Rent Boys) will be on the website in a couple of days...

The Four-Faced Liar (closing film)
dir Jacob Chase; with Todd Kubrak, Marja-Lewis Ryan 10/US ***
Light and undemanding, this New York romantic-comedy is engaging enough to hold our interest, even though we know from the start that it's probably not going to say anything very important. But it touches on some big issues... FULL REVIEW >

Going South
dir Sebastien Lifshitz; with Yannick Renier, Lea Seydoux 10/Fr ****

With his usual light touch, Lifshitz again concentrates on feelings rather than plot for this involving road movie. This may annoy viewers looking for something tight and tidy, but it captures the moods of its central character in a remarkably honest way... FULL REVIEW >

We Were Here
dir David Weissman; with Paul Boneberg, Guy Clark 11/US ****

Almost overwhelming in its emotional kick, this documentary about the San Francisco Aids epidemic is so intensely personal that it's sometimes difficult to watch. Which is why it's so important... FULL REVIEW >

Festival shorts

Normally I try to see as many shorts as possible at any festival I attend, but this year's LLGFF had a much smaller selection than usual, and no press screening facilities. So in the end I managed to see only five short films - but they were all very good. Four came from UK filmmakers: Hong Khaou continues his sensitive, understated seasonal explorations of sexuality with Spring; Miikka Leskinen's Small-time Revolutionary is an intriguing period piece combining personal and political issues in Thatcherite Britain; Jason Bradbury makes a mark with his introspective, haunting look at two young men dealing with some big issues in We Once Were Tide; and Andrew Steggall takes on the thorny issue of immigrant refugees in the artful, thoughtful To the Marriage of True Minds. From America, Pierre Stefanos offers a remarkably effective fairy tale about lust, attraction and expectations in Bedfellows. I've been able to hang out with three of these filmmakers (and many others) at parties during this festival, and I suspect more fun is to come at tonight's closing bash ... REVIEWS >