From the novel by J.G. Ballard and starring man-of-the-moment Tom Hiddleston as Dr Robert Laing, High Rise is Ben Wheatley’s pretty decent stab at a neighbourly utopia gone bonkers. Many others have tried and failed to bring this decadent mess to the big screen. Reviews are mixed, but lean toward the positive.

Last Days in the Desert brings us Ewan McGregor as Jesus in Rodrigo García’s feature about the holy man’s desert wanderings. Captivating and well-reviewed as it may be, the question is: what accent did Jesus have? Because McGregor’s appears to be kind of English-ish.

OMG which sperm made Bridget’s baby? Colin Firth’s or McDreamy’s? Who cares? Our favorite supporting characters are back in Bridget Jones’s Baby: Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as Bridget’s parents, and Shirley Henderson, James Callis and Sally Phillips as her besties Jude, Tom and Shazza.

Hot on the heels of Tina Fey’s correspondent-comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Eric Bana and Ricky Gervais hole up in a New York apartment pretending they’re broadcasting live from Ecuador in the Netflix feature Special Correspondents.

From Frank Underwood to Mr Fuzzypants, Nine Lives looks to be a ridiculously good, family-friendly Kevin Spacey palate-cleanser for those suffering a House of Cards hangover.

Bald Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One! The trippy new trailer for Doctor Strange promises a whole lotta weird (and a little bit of inception) as Benedict Cumberbatch gets all existential in his Marvel superhero vehicle.

“I knew I was in for a long 150 minutes when the movie opened with an unbelievably generic recapping of how young Bruce Wayne became Batman. I would be very interested to meet someone, anyone, who doesn’t know Batman’s origin story at this point in the pop culture zeitgeist. Why the f**k do filmmakers think they need to slam this boring little scene from Wayne’s history in our faces whenever Batman is mentioned. His parents got shot, he got sad, saw some bats, there ya go. You know who else is an orphan? Every goddamn hero in every goddamn story ever told. No one gives a shit about your parents, Bruce. No one gives a shit about YOUR parents either, Clark. F**k.” —Quan Chi Ellsworth™

“This is a post-modern reflexive view of an entire genre, a scathing satire that doesn’t provide any laughs. Eisenberg destroys any constructed idea of the ‘supervillain’ as he performs as somebody entirely displaced from social construct.

“Nobody wants to speak out, nobody wants to share their thoughts but everyone knows what’s going on: this is the way the world ends, God vs. Mortal—indeed the media (and the frequent newscast-based narrative interruptions) acts as a literal narrative obstruction… there’s no way to understand those around us if our own voice is in the way, if we can’t hear what they’re trying to say. Too many people trying to communicate all at once, until all of a sudden there’s a total blackout with cosmic consequence.

“…But none of this is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the fact that the DC Cinematic Universe may very well be the one time, now—or ever—that an auteur is given a massive budget and free reign to do as he pleases. This is Snyder messing with form and genre on a fundamental scale, a film about the cycle of destruction breeding destruction, hate breeding hate, fire is only ever fought with fire and nothing gets in the way of human intimacy. Because ultimately, it’s our connections—those we love, and those we hate—that forge the paths of our lives.

“Let’s not begin loving this in fifty years when the criticism no longer matters. Let’s start appreciating this now, while it still means something.” —Josiah Morgan

“The Conversation is thrilling, heart-stopping, frightening. But it operates more importantly as a meditation on personal privacy and psychological paranoia, right down to its haunting final image, which contains more sorrow, more anguish and more tortuous claustrophobia than any movie you’re likely to see.

“Coppola’s control of tension is relentless and thrilling. In terms of goals set and achieved, this may very well be his finest effort. He plays with reality and imagination in a particularly blunt and effective fashion, presenting scenes numerous times with varying outcomes. Coppola waits until we lose our footing on reality and then pulls the rug out from under us in a way which is devastating and effective.” —Flovv

P.S. Check out this conversation about The Conversation—between Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma from the May 1974 edition of Filmmakers Newsletter.

“Deborah Kerr is perfectly cast as a prim governess who is given charge of two strange children in a huge, rambling English country estate. Kerr was known for playing nuns and nannies, and was the epitome of British refinement. So to see her playing this sprightly governess, who gradually unravels under the influence of the creepy goings on taking place in the house around her, adds an extra jolt of shock to her performance. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her play a role better than she does here, with perhaps the exception of Black Narcissus.

“The Innocents is the best kind of creepy movie, because the creepiness is in the psychology of the characters, not in the film’s effects. For a relatively short movie, it packs a lot of themes into its story: sexual repression and deviance, obsessive protective instincts, the nature of evil. On top of that, it’s got top-notch production values.” —EvanstonDad

List title of the month—possibly even the year—goes to Graham Williamson for Czech Your Slovakia Before You Wreck Your Slovakia, a two-part list of Czech and Slovak shorts and features he’s already seen, and those he intends to watch.

Nathaxn Walker has gone above and beyond with his creepily genius list In Darkness, Wearing the White Nightgown, Light the Illuminatory Source, Go Down the Staircase, Explore the Creepy Manse. From The House That Screamed to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, you get the idea: to make the list, a film must include this classic sequence. Suggestions welcome.

Speaking of being followed and things like that, Ben is watching his followers’ favorite movies. An ingenious approach to the community aspect of Letterboxd, he’s selecting a movie from each of his followers’ four favorites (that he hasn’t seen)—while his follower count is still manageable, that is.

Bless those Letterboxd members with micro interests, for they shall inherit new followers: a list for those of you into Giant Robot Movies; a list of films featuring the songs of Billy Bragg on their soundtracks; a list of movies whose posters are pretty in pink(ish); a list to make you go mad in the jungle; and a list of films in which she did that!

We missed this first time around but we won’t let you: a 9-month-old reviews Six in Paris, the 1965 vignettes directed by all the Jeans plus Éric and Claude. “We got back from our walk. When Dad told me this was a Godard film, I’m not gonnna lie, I was all ready to poop my pants again. But this one was really good!”