In Rodrigo Garcia’s Albert Nobbs, Glenn Close (The Stepford Wives) stars as a buttoned down manservant working in a posh Dublin hotel who lives in constant fear of losing his livelihood due to the secret fact that he is actually a woman. A fascinating premise for a period film one might think, but alas what could have been an off-kilter examination of the social and sexual hang-ups of 19^th century [...]

All that hard work Christopher Nolan put into making the superhero genre serious again with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is given a swift boot from behind in Kick-Ass. This ballsy genre hybrid from director Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake) does for comic book adaptations what last year’s Zombieland did for horror: it pays homage to the genre by fondly lampooning it, not critiquing it (ala Watchmen), similarly going overboard on the violence and profanity. It’s destined to explode at the box office, probably going down in the history books as a culture-defining movie, as it’s exactly the kind of thing the Facebook and Youtube generation of today will Re-Tweet by the masses.

Sam Taylor-Wood’s feature debut Nowhere Boy charts the turbulent teenage years of music legend John Lennon, but you wouldn’t know that from the title alone. You could say it’s a missed opportunity to cash in on a household name, but the title is actually a perfect fit; Nowhere Boy is a solid urban drama on its own accord, it doesn’t need to flaunt Lennon’s famed name to be enjoyed. The fact that the young Liverpool lad depicted on-screen goes onto create arguably the most famous band of all time feels almost coincidental.