Critical Week: On a mission

We don't get many big-screen premieres for TV series, but The New Legends of Monkey threw a bash for us, screening the first four half-hour episodes of this cheeky fantasy romp from New Zealand. It's thoroughly cheesy, but also a lot of fun, packed with sarcastic wit and bonkers plot twists. I now feel the need to find the remaining six episodes on Netflix.

Back to cinema releases, this week saw screenings for Andrew Niccol's new film Anon, a noir-style mystery set in an imaginative futuristic setting.  it stars Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried. Anything is a thoughtful, clever drama starring John Carroll Lynch who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a cross-dressing Matt Bomer when he moves to Hollywood. And Born Guilty gives a welcome lead role to Rosanna Arquette, but the film is a bit too shrill to properly engage.

Further afield, Gehenna: Where Death Lives is a cheesy horror movie about a group of property developers who stumble into a scary underground maze of tunnels. Well, more yucky than scary. The Misandrists is another gonzo Euro-drama from Bruce LaBruce, railing against the patriarchy. It's blackly funny and sharply pointed, but pretty nutty. The documentary That Summer explores gorgeous footage from 1972 Long Island, including sequences featuring Big and Little Edie before the Maysles shot Grey Gardens. And Boys on Film 18: Heroes is the latest collection of queer shorts from Peccadillo, featuring quite a few great little films.

Coming up this week, we have Nicole Kidman in How to Talk to Girls at Parties, Gabrielle Union in Breaking In, Rob Brydon in Swimming With Men, the British doc 50 Years Legal, and the star-packed doc Always at the Carlyle.