Think of Shutter Island — the much anticipated mystery/thriller from movie master Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, The Departed) — as the act of a master stage magician slightly past his prime. His production values are top notch, and the performances of his stage hands make for great diversions, but his technique isn’t as refined as it used to be. His sleight of hand isn’t so ‘slight’ anymore. We therefore catch him in the act of deception, and before he has time to finish the trick, we’ve sussed it all out.

As the American presence in the Middle East continues, the toll begins to show on both political and personal grounds. It’s the latter that attention is brought to in Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated film, as troops in Baghdad face their greatest fears.

From the beginning, Jacques Audiard’s sixth feature film refuses to stray from whole-heartedly telling the story of a young man from the wrong side of the virtues of literacy, family, religion and self-control. Un Prophète is a violent depiction of a kid caught in the frays of the French underworld, who puts his back against prison walls and refuses to give in his fight until he is the last man standing. Nineteen-year-old Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is a young Franco-Arab incarcerated for assaulting police and, as the smallest fish in one nasty pond, tries hard to avoid connections and simply stay alive. Once dragged into a deadly game of kill our mafia informant or we will kill you, by an ageing yet dominating Corsican “godfather” figure and his mob, Malik touches the first rung of the hardened criminal career ladder, and hastily climbs to the top.

Now how ‘bout that: An Australian made film that mainstream audiences might actually go and see! Or at least gore hungry teenagers with litres of Red Bull infused blood pumping around their hormonal bodies. But given the recent vampiric trend amongst teens, it’s the perfect market for the Australian film industry to suck the life out of. Lord knows they’re looking a little parched.

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.

Just off the beaten track from Wolf Creek and Cape Fear is Rupert Glasson’s promising feature debut Coffin Rock; a must-see destination for deftly crafted thrills and chills. In fact, this surprisingly good thriller might even satisfy those without a lust for blood, as the film initially masquerades as an earnest drama about a rural couple’s fruitless attempt to conceive a child. But as soon as a psychopathic third party gets involved (ala Fatal Attraction with the gender roles reversed), Coffin Rock suddenly shifts into high-gear for a fierce, if somewhat contrived, horror finale.

With past trophies like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, a film by Sam Mendes has a statistically significant probability of transcending the realms of cheap laughs and light-hearted fluff. So you can imagine my surprise when Away We Go wasn’t a black hole of jaded cynicism and suburban disillusionment.

If anything, it was warmly funny and an interesting exploration of modern fears and hopes surrounding family, love and identity. It follows the journey (read: roadtrip) of a thirty-something American couple, Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) and Burt Farlander (John Krasinski), who set out to find their uniquely own place to nest as they expect their first child. Along the way, they reconnect with a motley collection of friends and family, who show them what their life together could be but predictably enough, what their lives won’t be.

“There’s one in all of us” declares the poster for Spike Jonze’s (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) long awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s celebrated children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. The tag-line is of course referring to a Wild Thing; an eccentric species of mischievous monsters that belong to the young, imaginative mind of misunderstood Max. They represent the part of us that still loves to get our clothes muddy. The part of us that wants to howl when we don’t get what we want. The part of us that, when no one else seems to understand, just wants to run away into our own imaginary world. In other words, they’re our inner child. And if Sendak’s book spoke directly to our to the child that is inside all of us, Jonze’s film lets it run wild for 100 magical minutes.