Robert Downey Jr is a very busy man. He has a lot to uphold amongst his Hollywood comeback, first donning the Iron Man suit and now almost certainly entering a second franchise with one of fiction’s most beloved characters. It’s funny then that the character of Sherlock Holmes hasn’t been a favourite in cinema; the bumbling detective now has one of the most known falsely quoted lines in history. Sadly but rightly so, said line fails to actually be mentioned – but the 1800’s London setting gives Guy Ritchie the perfect opportunity to do what Guy Ritchie does best – show the gritty side of town with a bit of humour thrown in. More than a bit – this is his most family-friendly film to date. After all, it is a ‘blockbuster’.

Like the temptation of a big red button that reads ‘Do Not Push’, New Zealand director Peter Jackson simply cannot resist filming the so-called “unfilmable”. First it was J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and now it’s Alice Sebold’s bestseller The Lovely Bones; a dense thematic story of a teenage girl, who after being brutally murdered, watches over her broken family and sadistic killer from heaven.

While Jackson might have aced Rings, he only just manages to pull off Bones. This is a film that shines only in short, erratic bursts. It can be an emotional film, a disturbing film, a romantic film, a funny film and a breathtaking film, but never a seamless blend of each.

While Jackson might have aced Rings, he only just manages to pull off Bones. This is a film that shines only in short, erratic bursts. It can be an emotional film, a disturbing film, a romantic film, a funny film and a breathtaking film, but never a seamless blend of each.

The first feature film by director Shane Acker, based on his animation short of the same name, 9 delves into a post-apocalyptic world where a small group of little ragdoll people are the only living things that remain. For a first time venture with a feature, Acker’s CG animated film (never a thrifty undertaking) has received powerful backing and confidence from Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands) and Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted), who serve as the film’s producers.

Steven Soderbergh’s had a busy 2009, first with the release of Che (parts One and Two), and then The Girlfriend Experience. His latest is The Informant!, different in style to both of these films but with a similar theme (of a human just trying to make their way in the world). To be a whistleblower and rat out your employers is a big ask on anybody; people like Erin Brokovich won their cases with no direct connection to the company they sued, but Mark Whitacre chose not to accept the behaviour of his workplace. Like Brokovich, he appeared to do it out of sheer goodwill – but this film tells us that even people that try to do the right thing often get caught up in something beyond their understanding.

After modestly being labelled “one of the scariest movies of all-time” by certain critics following its States side release in October, the ultra low-budget horror Paranormal Activity has pulled a feat similar to 1999’s Blair Witch Project in becoming a unexpected box office sensation in the US. Much of the film’s commercial success owes to a lucrative marketing strategy that initially saw it distributed via a limited ‘demand and supply’ model before generating massive buzz on micro-blogging sites like Twitter to warrant a wide release. While the twitter-sphere in the US has just about run out Paranormal things to tweet about, the hurricane of hype surrounding the film is currently crossing the Pacific and is set to hit Australian shores December 3rd.

Puberty is pimply and awkward and, fittingly enough, so is The French Kissers (Les Beaux Gosses), the debut film of French graphic artist Riad Sattouf. Squeamishly forthright and deliberately rough-around-the-edges, Sattouf’s film humorously captures the weird, wonderful and often humiliating stages of adolescence in a fashion similar to 2007’s Superbad and Britain’s Skins.

Like a super-sized version of The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 is spectacularly loud, laughably ludicrous and insanely entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The phrase ‘so bad it’s good’ just doesn’t quite cut it; 2012 is a full-blown disaster both on and off the screen, which is exactly what makes it so much fun.

Oh the irony of a major Hollywood production being critical of capitalism. A multi-million dollar film that preaches about the evils of a market economy, condemning the fat-cat sitting on his proverbial gold throne. Can someone please hand the maker(s) of Capitalism: A Love Story a mirror?