He may wear hoodie, wield a can of spray paint and use any wall he pleases as a canvas, but British street art legend Banksy – an alias he uses to protect his top-secret identity — is well on his way to joining the ranks of Picasso, Duchamp and Warhol. Just try telling that to the police; as with all trailblazing artistic movements, street art has sparked hot debate as to its legitimacy, many considering it to be nothing more than mindless vandalism. But whatever your stance, Banksy’s stellar documentary (or elaborate mockumentary?) Exit Through the Gift Shop is not to be missed, shedding light on the age-old question of “what is art?” without ever ceasing to entertain.

The fans of Gotham City’s most famous vigilante prefer different incarnations of the dark knight for different reasons. Some people like to be ironic, and claim that the 1960′s Batman TV series and film (starring Adam West) were their favourite, despite it being universally ridiculed for its’ high dose of camp. Other people relish the dark and gritty Tim Burton films, Batman and Batman Returns, for their unique style. Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever catered to a more colourful 90′s culture, while his sequel Batman and Robin found fans in people who like cheesy one-liners. Then, of course, Christopher Nolan’s addition to Batman’s on-screen saga garnered incredible enthusiasm from fans and initiates alike for removing the cheesiness and replacing it with drama in a more realistic tale: Batman Begins. His sequel, The Dark Knight is favoured by many as the best Batman movie for its’ complex plot and thematic significance. However, there is another deserving candidate for the best depiction of Batman on screen in the television show Batman: The Animated Series. Volume one of this outstanding series has been released on DVD in Australia for some time, bringing with it the one of the strongest senses of style I have seen in a western cartoon. The problem is volume two hasn’t been released in the years since.

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.

For a man who usually pays his bills by acting small parts in various television series and the occasional film, the story of Scott Cooper’s 2009 rise to fame is nothing short of inspiring. As a first time director on the film Crazy Heart, which Cooper also adapted from a Thomas Cobb novel, he has created a film many seasoned directors could only long for. The screenplay is tight, dramatic and emotive but also quite funny. The cinematography is clear and vast, capturing the space of land and mind within the scope of protagonist, geriatric rocker Bad Blake.

If only passing through airport security was a quick and painless in reality as it is for George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, who casually slips through the draining protocol, grinning from ear to ear. And why shouldn’t he be smiling; not only is Clooney in the middle of delivering the best performance of his soaring career, he’s starring what is also the first great film of 2010.

eautifully vivid in cinematography and eerily noir in theme, pace and score, Los Abrazos Rotos a.k.a Broken Embraces, is an emotive dissection of heart wrenching circumstances. Love, trust and family cycle the stories of present day and fourteen years before, bridged by one writer/director’s sudden need to recount his own story before he can move on to writing another. Through opening himself up to a much younger man who is his producer’s son, a blind Harry Caine – previously known as film director Mateo Blanco – depicts the tense climate of making a film, falling in love with his lead and dealing with the tragic consequences dealt down by her Chilean financier husband, the rich and miserable Ernesto Martel (played brilliantly by Jose Luis Gomez). Ultimately, Writer/director Pedro Almodovar uses the catharsis of human interaction – our obsessions, jealousies and unintelligence when falling in love – to portray the intensity and importance of honest expression through film.

Defying the sceptic inside all of us, James Cameron’s long-awaited sci-fi epic Avatar does the impossible by actually living up to the lofty expectations set by the director’s own inflated ego and the record-breaking success of his previous endeavour Titanic. Coating classic romanticism with breathtaking 3D visuals, Avatar transports us to another world for 162 minutes of sensory bliss, a place difficult to leave once the credits roll. Every cent of the film’s $300+ million budget can be accounted for, and I’m betting every cent will be recouped in box-office takings before the new year.

Whilst cinephiles of the past have been treated time and time again with the likes of zombie-horror-comedies such as From Dusk Till Dawn, Shaun of the Dead and Planet Terror, Director Reuben Fleischer’s Zombieland is THE horror-comedy for the Juno Generation. As inspired by Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland does not disappoint in its portrayal of likable characters thrown into apocalyptic settings and scenarios that seem them as prey. But just as quickly as Simon Pegg and gang have owned the zombie-cult arena, Fleischer arrives to yell loud and clear that the Americans are back, armed with every kind of filmmaking ammunition a blockbuster at this time of year needs. It’s really fun to unwind to the comedy of Zombieland; as the undead horrifically feast their way about day to day life , it’s up to our heroes to do some serious Zombie killing. Songs from Metallica through to Metric diversify the score and add indie credibility.