Disaster! It’s Wednesday, but at Best For Film Towers team members are dropping like flies (has anyone ever actually seen a fly drop?) and our collective power is waning under the relentless bacterial onslaught. Still, that’s not going to stop us infecting whole screens full of Orange Wednesday-goers, so the least you can do is read this blog and find out where we won’t be sitting.

Reader! Would you like to be able to write convincing clichés about films which are genuinely able to inspire laughter and tears in successive heartbeats? If you would, please keep your sordid phrases well away from Barney’s Version, a work of art which will stay with you long after the lights go up. An uncommonly captivating tale with memorable performances all round, it is superb.

Sally Hawkins can’t help but melt hearts in Made In Dagenham, a forgivably fluffy account of the women’s Ford strikes in 1968. Mixing fact and fiction with a dollop British good humour, its an uplifting yarn that restores your faith in the human capacity for justice. Well, the women-human capacity, anyway.

Hyper Japan, a three day “pop culture” event made its way to The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane last weekend. Imagine all things Japanese under a London roof; food, art, gaming, fashion and technology (I saw my first 3D telly!) and you’ve got something a bit like it. But I had no time for Japanese tomfoolery, I was there with a purpose. So I tore myself away from the manga illustrators and Japanese fashion show, slapped on my film hat and went to be wowed (and a bit weirded out) by the joy and absudity of anime.

With their debut feature Jackboots on Whitehall about to open the Raindance Film Festival, the McHenry Brothers are men to watch. We caught up with them in London to talk puppets, Nazis and Terminator 2…

Astro Boy is the classic tale of a young boy trying to get along with the cards life gives him. Making friends, getting by and generally having a good old time, he’s just like you and me. The only difference is that this kid is a robot. And some people want to kill the death out of him. It’s a futuristic Pinnocchio-inspired CGI romp, and whilst it has a lot to recommend it, ultimately there’s not a lot of human heart beating behind it.

It’s always refreshing when a thinking person’s rom-com comes around. An Education is not only beautifully constructed, but with wonderful performances, a tight script and questions of love that are difficult to wriggle out of, it’s a film that really grips its audience. Charming, sleek and funny, it’s hard not to be won over by this twisted romance. Just be careful, if we’ve learnt anything, its the danger of the power of seduction.

Astro Boy is the classic tale of a young boy trying to get along with what life gives him. Making friends, getting by and generally having a good old time, he’s just like you and me. The only difference is that this kid is a robot. And people want to kill the death out of him. It’s a futuristic Pinnocchio-inspired CGI romp, and whilst it has a lot to recommend it, ultimately there’s not a lot of human heart beating behind it.