So, what to spend your money on at the big screen tonight? It’s just fun fun fun… Well, you either like Mike Leigh and his unique take on English life or you don’t, and much like Woody Allen, Leigh’s understanding of the weirdness and perversity – as well as the kindness and cruelty – of people gives texture and identity to his dramas. In ‘Another Year’, there’s comedy as two happy married people... 

I love that phrase, “It won’t leave the island.” I never understood it until it was explained to me that that is what producers, etc, call a British film that doesn’t stand a chance of achieving success (or whatever) anywhere but here – ‘on the island’. So, what the heck do the BIFA awards – British Independent Film Awards – have to do with anything? They’re not the Oscars, are they? They’re...