Set in London, 1962, Ginger & Rosa is a largely insufferable coming-of-age story, charting the friendship between two teenage girls set against a backdrop of the threat of nuclear destruction and the beginning of the change in attitudes towards sex and femininity that the 60s instigated. Wonderfully shot, but populated with insufferable characters and terrible British accents, Ginger & Rosa is a psuedo-intellectual endeavor, overflowing with proto-philosphical nonsense.

The world cried out for it, DreamWorks listened. Ben Stiller and co are back, and Madagascar 3 proves a surprisingly enjoyable trip during a stellar month for animated releases. Things get weird as the homesick animals’ journey back to New York takes a detour through the old continent…

Dull and lifeless, Paranormal Activity 4 fails even at the cheap jump-scare. Some decent performances aside, there is very little to sustain either the horror-buff or the average movie goer in this absurdly boring flick. Please don’t waste your money on this. Go buy a hat or something instead.

In a month that’s already overcrowded with supernatural themed animations, Hotel Transylvania is the runt of the litter. Frantic, over-manic direction, a severe dearth of laughs and a predictable plot are bad enough, but when you factor in Adam Sandler trampling all over proceedings and doing another Stupid Fucking Voice, then you’ve really got problems.

A romantic comedy directed by husband and wife Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) and written by female lead Zoe Kazan, whose real life partner Paul Dano also stars, it is not unexpected that Ruby Sparks should have a lot to say about relationships. Where it does surprise, however, is in its refreshingly layered approach to the genre. Observing reality through the premise of a fairytale, it is at once a critique of fantasy and a lesson in how to make it real.

Based on Jack Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical masterpiece, On The Road is awash with promiscuous sex, rambling prose and cool jazz. Fans of the book may appreciate the loosely structured narrative, but will soon tire of the repetitive plot developments which become so monotonous as to lack reason and purpose.

Frankenweenie sees Tim Burton return not only to his 1984 short-film of the same name – and not only to the stop-motion animation style he utilised on Corpse Bride – but also to the sort of smart, Gothic quasi-horror that made his name. And the results are, pleasingly, very much the Tim Burton of old.

Sinister is frustrating, in that it’s almost a brilliant horror movie. It’s still a very good one; darkly disturbing, well acted, effectively shot and – yes – scary, but ironically it’s the film’s attempts at distancing itself from the plethora of sub-par horrors that ends up damaging the final product. Still, if you’re after an hour and a half of intense psychological and supernatural terror, Sinister delivers an oppressively creepy atmosphere and some genuinely disturbing imagery.

The worst part of watching Sparkle was coming to the realisation that as a nation, we appear to have learned nothing from Glitter. It’s time to face the fact that singer-turned-actors appearing in films headed by one-word titles of adjectives usually used to describe jewellery are not a good idea. Not since Mariah Carey’s unfortunate first foray into feature-film have we seen the age-old rags-to-riches trope done such a disservice. To refer to this film as a poor man’s Dreamgirls is to pay it a compliment it doesn’t deserve.

Holy Motors is an intensely weird, but visually stunning deconstruction of the art of acting, and of cinema in general. At least, we think that’s what it’s about. There are likely to be dozens of interpretations. Holy Motors is a unique and vivid experience; sure to be too weird, and too pretentious for some, nevertheless, Denis Levant’s astonishing lead performance is worth the experiment alone.