This month sees the release of Thatcher-fest The Iron Lady, much to the chagrin of David Cameron, and rather than being what we all want it to be – a cross between Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man and Ted Hughes’ not-quite-as-good-as-Iron-Giant-but-still-pretty-good The Iron Woman – it is, in fact, another boring, by the numbers, Oscar hounding biopic, no different to any that have come before. Sigh, does the biopic genre show that the film industry is running out of ideas?

When the credits rolled on Clerks II with the distinct feeling that a much-loved Kevin Smith chapter had closed, it was hard to see what his next move would be. With news that Red State, a so-called horror movie about a far-right Christian cult, was in the pipeline, it seemed as if Kevin Smith had left his Askewniverse behind completely. Well, not only is Red State Smith’s best film to date, but the similarities between it and his previous nine offerings are more numerous than one might expect; pointing to a director at the peak of his craft.

Everyone loves Jim Carrey, and what better time to do a shambolic career appraisal than with Mr. Popper’s Penguins coming out next week? Obviously that film will render this list null and void, and all other “Best Film” lists, as it promises to be ruddy brilliant, but until it that day here are our Top 10 Jim Carrey films. Somebody stop us!

The word ‘formulaic’ is bandied about quite a lot by us cinema lovers, and we’ve noticed that if often occurs just after watching a Kevin James film. This week saw his latest offering, Zookeeper, besmirch screens across the country, so to celebrate / commiserate / royally take the mickey we take a gander at some of the parts which are undoubtedly going to be offered to him in the near future.

After the astonishing success of 2008’s Man On Wire James Marsh turns his documentary lens to the remarkable story of Nim, a chimp who became the centre of an experiment into whether language can indeed be acquired by animals. Without probing too much into the moral issues of such an experiment, Marsh presents this story with an extremely even hand, allowing us to be the judges of the characters, human and animal.

Either that or the end of One Day is a lot more intense than we thought

Veteran film-maker Jean-Luc Godard recently lamented the state of modern cinema whilst promoting his new film Film Socialisme. I take a look at his comments within the context of some of the independent cinema flourishing today and ask whether film is indeed over, and what to make of the term “auteur” in the current cinematic climate.

Expect a sweeping, dusty, realist account of Depression era America.

The twist is that they’re all gay.

Oh Bryan, you are human after all.