*We are SPOILING you with new writers at the moment! Go on, Ray, start us off in style:*

Ray (weathering a bimbo storm):
So everyone’s been raving this week about how Gangster Squad is attempting to revive the gangster movie. At least three of my friends have said this to me, almost absentmindedly, and a taxi driver asserted just the same during a drunken conversation on the way home last weekend. On all occasions I sort of mindlessly accepted the premise, and then thought once again of the scene from Miller’s Crossing when Albert Finney blasts everyone away with his Tommy gun. But on reflection I’m thinking, when was the gangster film pronounced dead? I don’t know who decides these things and I don’t really care. I just want something similar to that scene, and so I’m possibly ill-advisedly very excited about that. On the lemony side of things, I’ve just heard about Ballroom Dancing, which is (unsurprisingly) about a Croatian ballroom dancing partnership and their rise and fall. Not particularly interested in Ballroom dancing, and the prospect of watching a documentary in which the cameras follow them around and attempt to make glamorous, dramatic, pathetic, or any kind of statement really about the world and humanity strikes me as about as enticing as a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger pulling out his toenails with some used toilet-paper.

Orange Choice: Gangster Squad
Ultimate Lemon: Ballroom Dancing

Kayleigh (monocular):
All the films I desperately want to see, like Django Unchained and Monsters Inc 3D (interesting combination, right?), aren’t out until Friday. So my reluctant orange – more of a Satsuma, to be honest – goes to Argo, which I’ve already seen, but wouldn’t mind watching again. After so very many BAD Ben Affleck films, rewatching Argo is just the pinch I need to confirm that his Golden Globe winning talents aren’t just some beautiful dream. My lemon, on the other hand, goes to Les Misérables. You’d have to rip my teeth out and shave my head (sorry Fantine!) before I’d even think about sitting through all of that tragically beautiful wonderfulness for a second time. I don’t have the emotional strength, I don’t have the tissues and I just don’t have the hours spare. And, to be honest, I have a sneaky suspicion that a second dose of French misery may be the final shove I need to land me on the suicide watch list.

Orange Choice: Argo
Ultimate Lemon: Les Misérables

Carlotta (oh, Rattigan!):
Despite umm-ing and aah-ing between Gangster Squad and American Mary, I’m not going to succumb to Ryan Gosling’s mobtastic movie (I’ve heard he likes ‘hard to get’ anyway) and present my Orange on bended knee to American Mary. Its been showered with 4+ stars so far, and I reckon it’s going to be one of those horror films that never quite makes it big but is secretly AMAZING and very weird. I like amazing and weird. This week’s Lemon will be thrown at May I Kill U? because HAVE YOU SEEN THE TRAILER FOR THAT SHIT? Even though it has the best tagline since forever – ‘Psychopath on a cycle path’ – I still don’t quite understand what the film’s about, and can’t work out if it’s a parody or whether someone has filmed the whole thing on their camera phone.

Orange Choice: American Mary
Ultimate Lemon: May I Kill U?

Flossie (refuses to smell the ball jar):
What Richard Did slipped under my radar when it was released last Friday, but now that it’s Orange Wednesday I’m absolutely GAGGING to see it. The third film from Lenny Abrahamson after Adam and Paul and Garage, follows an Irish teenage boy whose world is turned upside down after one summer night, throwing him into a moral crisis. Sadly, news is just out that Michael Bay has snapped up lead actor Jack Reynor to star in Transformers 4. All the more reason to treasure this small budget independent, trying to make a point about marginalized people and class conflicts. My lemon this week is Les Misérables, if only because I saw if a few weeks ago and once is definitely enough. Tom Hooper’s adaptation may be nominated for a thousand Oscars, but it’s overly long, needlessly convoluted and filled with average singing performances. Very disappointing!

Orange Choice: What Richard Did
Ultimate Lemon: Les Misérables

*Shit, Floss, you did NOT just slag off Les Mis. To the barricades – rabid musical fans are incoming! See you next week, pop pickers.*