*Has the glow of The Artist faded? Will our innate and unshakable of the noble horse win the day? Will anyone pay any attention to poor old Margin Call? What about that Meryl, eh? Does Fassbender get his little Michael out in Shame? It’s all to play for at BFF Towers…*

Papa Neish (will the TV add 50 pounds?):

You have to see Margaret this week, if only to show Fox Searchlight Pictures that you don’t care what they think. Having finally discovered what to do with Anna Paquin, the film makes the most of her unexpected talents in this sprawling but endlessly enthralling morality tale. While it took Kenneth Lonergan more than five years to arrive at a cut of Margaret he was happy with, however, it appears to have taken Chris Gorak all of five minutes. Written on his mother’s living room wall in crayon, the plot of The Darkest Hour makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. After a few characters have spontaneously disintegrated, and the invisible aliens that are occasionally visible have run up against a particularly sturdy-looking bird cage, the film simply ends leaving you alone in a world you no longer understand. We can only hope the Mayans were a little more creative.

Orange Choice: Margaret
Ultimate Lemon: The Darkest Hour

Tash (Totally cool about not seeing The Muppets tonight. Honest.):

I’m going to take it as read that you’ve all seen The Artist by now, because this is a classy site and frankly still being ignorant as to its joys is akin to wandering into an exclusive members bar wearing the remains of your wife. With that in mind, this week I’m going to recommend Margin Call – a tightly woven, high-paced financial drama that’s in danger of falling off the radar because of that bloody horse film. Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci, Jeremey Irons – all of them wearing lovely suits and saying really important, clever things about our current economic crisis. It actually deserves your attention, which is more than we can say about Haywire – a silly, style-over-substance action romp that trades in satisfying twists for Gina Carano kicking Michael Fassbender in the face. Which is, admittedly, fairly cool, but that’s hardly the point. Probably.

Orange Choice: Margin Call
Ultimate Lemon: Haywire

Kayleigh (a mushroom misunderstanding):

We all know that, deep down, I still want to take The Artist, in all of its monochrome glory, and paint it everywhich shade of orange. But, as I sat down to write, I felt a sudden stirring between my thighs. We all know what that means, right? WAR HORSE IS OUT! Horses are simply marvellous, aren’t they? They can canter, they can gallop, they can trot, they can whinny and, by jove, they can fight a war and wring us of all our saved-up tear juices too. Spielberg has gifted us with equine magic. Praise be to Spielberg! However, whilst I adore horses to the power of infinity, I pretty much love dogs too. Which is, apparently, reason enough to lemon The Darkest Hour. Not in the mood for vaporised canine this week, I’m afraid.

Orange Choice: War Horse
Ultimate Lemon: The Darkest Hour

John (now with added sobriety):
This week, I’d really like to recommend that you see Tatsumi, the scintillating animated biopic of legendary gekiga artist Tatsumi Yoshihiro. Unfortunately, I suspect it’s the sort of film that would be about 538543836000000% less good if you know bugger all about the major themes – in this case post-war Japan, manga and the man himself – before you go into the cinema. I was able to bone up on Wikipedia before I went; you can’t. Therefore, sit on Tatsumi until next week and go and see Shame. Nothing says “I don’t care about intellectual freedom” like Fassbender’s enormous truncheon of sexual misery, does it?

Orange Choice: Shame
Ultimate Lemon: Tatsumi

Oh let’s just go see The Artist again eh? What are you pointing your face at tonight? TALK TO US: