Critical Week: It's raining again

The 18th Raindance Film Festival kicks off tonight in London, showcasing independent films for an audience that definitely needs to find someplace warm and dry for a few hours. For some reason the press office has limited journalists' access to films this year, so the only ones I've seen are those I saw elsewhere, including the opening night puppet-animation romp Jackboots on Whitehall (hilariously anarchic); the drama Huge, about British stand-up comedy (uneven and difficult); the surreal descent into mental dysfunction that is Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World (flashes of insight but ultimately a downer); the low-budget American horror romp Vacation! (a great premise completely falls apart); and the uber-grisly A Serbian Film (oddly intriguing), which is part of a special section on banned or censored films. Full reviews and a list of all the films is on the website.

Meanwhile, critics were shown two anxiously awaited biggies: the pre-teen vampire horror Let Me In and the Facebook biopic The Social Network. Even though both films are out elsewhere, British critics aren't allowed to say anything about them yet - I'll just mention that I liked one a lot better than the other.

Also screening were two horror films (the unhinged and very black Aussie comedy The Loved Ones and the much darker and creepier Irish freak-out Outcast), two small intimate movies (the British war veteran drama In Our Name and the Mexican sex-and-depression drama Leap Year), and two docs (homeless disabled musicians in the Congo in Benda Bilili! and an artful essay on economic decay in Robinson in Ruins).

This coming week we have Michael Douglas in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, George Clooney in The American, Zac Efron in Charlie St Cloud, Hilary Swank in Conviction, the Thai Palme d'Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and the Hong Kong horror Dream Home. And then there's next week's film festival - the Iris Prize in Cardiff - for which I'm on the jury this year.

Critical Week: Secrets of success

Animation ruled this week, as two of the most enjoyable films I saw at press screenings were cartoons, namely the raucous and very silly 3D romp Despicable Me and the more intriguingly subtle and artful Oscar-nominee The Secret of Kells (pictured).

Three Hollywood movies were less successful simply because they were more formulaic and had most real life polished right out of them. Ben Affleck's The Town was well above average, as it at least has a genuinely introspective tone and enjoyably earthy action. Worst was Julia Roberts in the far too glossy find-yourself travelogue Eat Pray Love. Somewhere in between was the Heigl-Duhamel rom-com Life As We Know It.

And then there was the usual mixed bag of offbeat movies: Julian Schnabel's Israel drama Miral holds us enthralled until an abrupt final reel; British indie The Be All and End All honestly looks at mortality from a teenage perspective; and the lively road movie Africa United follows a group of kids hitchhiking from Rwanda to South Africa in the name of football while dealing off-handedly with some of the world's biggest issues. But the best film of the week, hands down, was the small French comedy My Afternoons With Margueritte, in which Gerard Depardieu gives a disarmingly astute performance as a simple middle-aged man discovering his own intellect for the first time.

This coming week, London critics will be watching the vampire remake Let Me In, teen horror-comedy The Loved Ones, Irish horror Outcast, British comedy-drama Fit, world music fairy tale Benda Bilili and British cinematic essay Robinson in Ruins.

Requisite Blog Photo: Despicable Rich

Critical Week(s): Censored!

Sorry about the delay, but sometimes you just need a holiday (and I needed sunshine after spending the summer months inside a cinema). And no, my sudden silence wasn't caused from watching the notoriously banned A Serbian Film (pictured), which the UK censors wanted to chop so harshly that it was pulled from last month's FrightFest. Yes, it's extremely full-on, taking a very graphic approach to its story, but it's also a surprisingly insightful horror movie.

More contained thrills were to be had with Buried, which locks Ryan Reynolds in an underground wooden box for 90 minutes of real-time squirming, although it's a little too mannered perhaps to really work. Burning Bright, meanwhile, traps Briana Evigan in a boarded-up house with a live tiger - all the more impressive and scary since it's not computer-animated.

From abroad, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest cleverly ties up the loose ends of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy; Olivier Assayas' ambitious Carlos tells the story of the notorious 70s terrorist with skill and detail (although at three hours long, I wondered if the full five-hour version told us even more); Chow Yun-Fat plays Confucius in a massive Chinese biopic that struggles to turn the philosopher into an action hero; and from Iran The Hunter is a chilling drama about urban angst.

But even with all of these thrills, Chris Smith's sharply well-made Collapse wins the award as the week's (or even the year's) most horrific film: a documentary that holds very little hope for the future of Western civilisation. So thankfully we also had the restored and reconstructed version of Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis to make us gasp with wonder.

Coming up this week: Ben Affleck's The Town, Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, Julian Schnabel's Miral, animated hits Despicable Me and The Secret of Kells, festival fave Africa United, and Brit indie The Be All and End All.

Critical Week: Guilty pleasures

Finally, the summer produces a gleeful, guilty-pleasure action comedy. Against all odds, The Other Guys is enormous good fun, with terrific chemistry between Will Ferrell and Mark Walhberg and a sharp, smart script. The week's other surprise was the Eli Roth-produced thriller The Last Exorcism, which is much more cerebral than expected, and scarier as a result. Sure it's another Blair Witch-style handheld horror, but it's thoughtful enough to keep our minds engaged even as we're being freaked out.

Rather less exciting was the violent heist thriller Takers, which wastes its decent ensemble on incoherent action. Jonah Hex lays waste to its source material and a strong cast by being merely loud and chaotic. And Vampires Suck only mimics Twilight without coming up with anything remotely clever, although it's strangely more engaging than the Twilight movies simply because the cast seems to be having fun. And finally, The Special Relationship is the third in Peter Morgan and Michael Sheen's Tony Blair trilogy (after The Deal and The Queen), insightfully tracing the Prime Minister's interaction with Bill Clinton. But by ending just as George W enters the frame, the TV movie misses the chance to say something really interesting.

Coming up this week: Ryan Reynolds gets Buried alive, documentary filmmaker explores the financial Collapse, a wild tiger is Burning Bright for Brianna Evigan, Chow Yun-Fat takes an epic journey as Confucius, Oscar-nominee The Secret of Kells finally hits Britain, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis gets restored.

Critical Week: Take a bite

The surprise of the week for journalists is that Piranha 3D is one of the most enjoyable action movies of the summer - irreverent, smart and very silly. Oddly, the Weinstein brothers opted not to screen the film for critics in the USA, but we in the UK got one screening, and the riotous laughter was constant.

Less successful was the week's big blockbuster screening, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, which is witty and visually snappy but sacrifices story and characters along the way. By contrast, two female-led thrillers kept us much more entertained. Angelina Jolie confirmed her action-hero chops with the skilfully made Salt, while Noomi Rapace continued to seduce us as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Off the beaten path, we had the charming and seriously engaging road movie Wah Do Dem, and the blackly hilarious Chilean film The Maid. I also managed to catch up with Banksy's enjoyably untrustworthy feature debut, Exit Through the Gift Shop, a rather brilliant look at the art world that comes out soon on DVD.

This coming week we have the bank robbers thriller Takers, the Will Ferrell comedy The Other Guys, Josh Brolin in Jonah Hex, and the indie horror thrillers The Last Exorcism, Burning Bright and Splintered. So what is it with all the horror at the moment? Perhaps it's a reaction to the economic situation...

Critical Week: Say cheese

Actually the pictured film, Cyrus, was one of the less-cheesy films in a week that seemed oddly packed with gimmicky movies. But at least this one subverts the rom-com formula with a sharp story of two men (son Jonah Hill and boyfriend John C Reilly) fighting over a woman. Complex characters and an offhanded sense of humour help a lot. By contrast, Dinner for Schmucks wasn't quite so subversive or complex, but the silliness was made watchable by Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, plus a hilarious supporting cast.

But by far the cheesiest film screened for London critics this week was Marmaduke, which even a likeable cast couldn't rescue. And speaking of rescue, no help was in sight for the characters in Frozen, which traps three decent young actors in a chairlift for a few days of dangling, jangling yuckiness.

As usual, the week's more interesting offerings came from abroad. Certified Copy is an Italian-French exploration of originality and creativity from Iranian maestro Abbas Kiarostrami and Cannes-winning actress Juliette Binoche. Also from Italy, Ferzan Ozpetek turns his usually dramatic hand to farce with the lively and thoughtful ensemble comedy Loose Cannons. And from Sweden we had Involuntary, an artfully made five-strand exploration of peer pressure.

This coming week will bring us more from Sweden with the middle part of the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, plus another big American action comedy in Scott Pilgrim vs the World. I'll also catch up with a late screening of Angelina Jolie in Salt, the schlock of Piranha 3D, the American indie drama Wah Do Dem and the acclaimed Latina drama The Maid.