Everybody knows Christmas is a time for cinema, but this year there aren’t many fresh festive treats being served up. So in the spirit of charity and knowing what it’s like not to want to talk to your family, we’ve scoured the charts for December and found the films most likely to placate your clan for most of the festive season. Did someone say ‘eye-popping CGI and childish plotlines’?

Since you all seemed to like our October Film Events blog (you lazy scamps), we’ve decided to make a habit of it. Read now, or be accused of wagon-jumping in a year’s time when BFF’s Film Events Blog is the new Time Out and Stephen Fry’s claiming he meets hygienic and available gentlemen in the comments thread. From Jewish festivals to Welsh horror, we’ve got it all!

Hurrah for the bloody goriness that is Guy Fawkes day! A proud, dastardly time indeed in our national history, and a great excuse to give children some fire to mess around with. So considering the film world is usually so ready and willing to hijack our most exciting tales, our question is, where are the films to accompany Bonfire Night?

Replete with guns, gore and grisly black humour, Ian Vernon’s Rebels Without A Clue was the toast of this year’s Raindance Film Festival. We caught up with the man himself to find out how he went from professional photographer to writer-director, how best to frame a shot whilst hanging out of a helicopter, and the time he met Michelle Pfeiffer in a BlockBuster…

When it was first announced that David Fincher, best known for such meditations on violence as Seven and Fight Club, had taken up directorial reins on a film about the founding of Facebook, it’s fair to say that some film fans found themselves confused. Why had Fincher attached himself to such a potential snoozefest? Well, now we have the answer. With a story driven by sharp dialogue and an unrelenting pace, The Social Network is anything but boring. A beautifully acted character study, it asks real questions about the nature of business, friendship and loyalty – and we don’t just mean online.

Halloween is a time for scary movies with a high sugar and fat content. Cast aside nutritious award-winning scares and shun that well-received Scandinavian or Japanese horror… It’s time to pig out on the scary movie equivalent of tarty/spooky Halloween costumes, apple bobbing and dodgy home-made punch with jelly spiders in it. What does the world want out of a truly great Halloween movie? PURE NONSENSE!

October is, of course, a time dominated by ghouls, zombies and good ol’ fashioned frightfulness. But with All Hallow’s Eve not falling until the last day of the month, what on Earth are you supposed to do until then? Well you can stop fearing death by boredom and leave your demise to the demons, because here at Best For Film we’ve leapt on the case and compiled some of our favourite film events happening this month. After all, if you’re going to get shocked by skeletons and mauled by monsters, you might as well have some fun first.

Here at Best For Film, we want you to be prepared. Halloween comes but once a year, creeping up on you whilst you are distracted by the changing weather and the slow realisation that it’s not acceptable to wander around in your bikini because SUMMER IS OVER. And we would hate for you to miss out on super cool Halloween things due to a lack of preparation. So here it is, champs; a list of Halloween film events for you and me and all to share.

When the film Adulthood was released in UK cinemas in June 2008, its opening weekend grossed more money than the freshly released Sex and the City. In the wake of its success, a spate of new and gritty urban films has been drawing audiences to cinemas in increasing numbers, with films such as Shank and Dead Man Running bringing new vigor to the UK film industry. Despite their success, though, the issue of black representation is never far away. With a panel debate titled “The New Blaxploitation?” taking place as a part of London’s Across the Street, Around the World festival, Best For Film went to investigate.

Whenever you head to the cinema these days, there’s always an advert asking audiences to be vigilant against video pirates: making sure anyone with a camcorder can’t buckle their swash.The one thread that runs between them all is an emphasis on the value of the ‘cinematic experience’. Pirates, we’re told, are a threat to that experience. Well certainly those big hats must be blocking somebody’s view. But however much we cinema-goers care, or don’t, about internet piracy, we do all care about having a good Saturday night at the movies, whatever picture we see. But how connected, really, are those two things? Is internet piracy really the biggest threat to our cinematic experience, and if not, what else is?