A blackly comic lampooning of American popular culture, writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America takes aim at everything from The Jersey Shore to American Idol, shooting them down through the combined mediums of satire and bullets. It’s an entertaining ride where the blood flows and the commentary bites, but don’t expect any critiques you haven’t heard before.

Julie Westfelt (Kissing Jessica Stein) writes, directs, produces and stars in a romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor funny, more harrowing and pointless. Bridesmaids 2, as the poster and trailer would have you believe, it absolutely is not.

A genuinely disturbing, if slightly hokey psychological horror from the new iFeatures digital filmmaking scheme, In The Dark Half beats the odds predicted by its micro-budget to produce a sensitive and finely detailed exploration of a particularly toxic grief, the claustrophobia of small-town life and the sheer scope of the power of denial.

Willem Dafoe is on rare form with this intensely atmospheric thriller set in the trackless Tasmanian mountains. But can the rest of the film live up to his performance? An aesthetic masterpiece with a commanding central character, The Hunter is nevertheless a little too diffuse to truly captivate.

Gospel music gets the Glee treatment in this confused and blundering Jesus-heavy musical, which sees Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton go head-to-head in a bid to see who can be called a “strong woman” the most times in an hour and fifty-five minutes. The music and the quips are great, but they’re not enough to bring salvation to this lowly sinner of a film – still, you’ll be too busy singing to care.

The latest Broadway show to hit the silver screen is an eclectic celebration of all things 80s, unless those things include drugs or AIDS or, you know, anything of genuine interest or significance bar Tom Cruise in leather chaps. Boasting a ruthlessly PG-ified script, a series of songs you’ll probably never have heard before and Bryan Cranston getting gently spanked, Rock of Ages is just silly enough to take the edge off how dull it is.

In 2008 action comedy Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller’s character learns the hard way the perils inherent in going Full Retard for his role in fictitious drama ‘Simple Jack’. Rebecca Hall has clearly never seen Tropic Thunder. She’s never even heard of it.

Alternate history epic? Creature feature? Gothic horror? Maverick director Timur Bekmambetov’s latest film struggles with as much of an identity crisis as its politician/lawyer/Slayer hero, flitting from dry-as-dust declamation to 3D combat in the blink of a glowing red eye. Mind you, with a title like that…

The opening film for this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, it would be difficult to claim that William Friedkin’s Killer Joe was an obvious selection. Populated by grim people doing some pretty grim things, it’s a dark drama with both a sexual and violent edge. There’s levity, sure – in fact, there’s quite a lot of laughs – but it’s safe to say this isn’t an easy going crowd pleaser. Yet that’s just what makes it such a brilliant choice. You’ll never look at Matthew McConaughey or southern fried chicken in quite the same light again.

Despite the big names on screen and behind the camera, Cosmopolis is the most niche film of 2012; emotionally frigid, wilfully obtuse and very, very talky. But it’s a delicacy, not a feast, and catching it in the right mood could leave you with one of the year’s more rewarding cinema experiences.