By Andy Irwin Immigration is once again set to be a key theme in the run up to this year’s general election. Backbench Conservatives want a tougher line in order to combat UKIP and Labour is attempting to position itself bizarrely as the ‘natural’ party of resistance against mass immigration. Toxic political narratives and campaigns of misinformation have propped up a profoundly negative way of looking at immigration in this country, particularly outside of London. All the while, families are suffering...

Sport News 24/7 By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic This weekend Britain's football elite will embark on their FA cup journey after a typically jam-packed Festive schedule. While clubs across Europe manage to get some much-needed rest, the powers that be (BT Sport, BskyB) ensure professional footballers in Britain ply their trade (getting people to watch the telly) to the detriment of long-standing institutions such as the FA Cup, which is left to deal with a Premier League hangover...

By Sam Inglis  @24FPSUK  The only interesting thing about Dying of the Light is its production history. Initially the screenplay by Paul Schrader was to be directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and star Harrison Ford and Channing Tatum. Some years later, the project has come to fruition with Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin, which feels like more than a small step down. The delay and change in casting appears to have been only the start of behind the scenes ructions....

By Anna Power  Film Editor @Tle_Film @KittKino Not since Nicholas Ray’s Bigger than Life has there been a more palpable portrayal of a mental breakdown than Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman. It’s a film with wings that soars, thunders and ultimately roars as an unapologetic assault on the senses. Michael Keaton plays faded star Riggan in this sharp, blackest of black comedies that finds him attempting to rekindle his career by putting on a Broadway play. Some people have a monkey...

By Stephen Mayne  @finalreel Once upon a time, a new Tim Burton film was an event worth paying attention to. Then, after a string of disappointing gothic tinged fantasies that began to border on parodying his earlier work, they became something best ignored. Big Eyes, an admirable attempt to try something different, doesn’t end the rut. Demonstrating restraint to the point of dullness, barring a woefully misjudged performance from Christoph Waltz, it’s a lifeless and overly simplistic biopic of artist...

Sport News 24/7 By David de Winter - Sports Editor @davidjdewinter  @TLE_Sport The January sales.  Traditionally a time where one can purchase the best of last season for a knockdown price.  Not so in the world of football.  The January blues cause chairmen to write cheques left, right and centre, and managers to sign players they would never normally even consider at enormously inflated prices.  Most managers and chairmen hate January.  But if one looks hard enough, there are some bargains...

By Stephen Mayne  @finalreel  Now in his 70’s, Stephen Hawking has spent half a century defying expectations. For a man given no more than a two year prognosis following diagnosis of motor neurone disease in 1963, he’s lived a life of astonishing achievement. It’s disheartening then, that The Theory of Everything chooses such a safely conventional route, never straying close to the boundaries Hawking continually pushes past. As much as it feels like a box ticking exercise though, James Marsh’s...

By Emma Silverthorn @HouseOf_Gazelle The cast and crew of Unbroken couldn’t be much more stellar; with Angela Jolie directing, the Coen brothers adapting Lauren Hilldenbrand’s memoir of Louis Zamperini’s life into the screenplay, and the exceptional Jack O’Connell in lead. O’Connell lives up to the hype that’s been surrounding him of late, and though he’s received some critical acknowledgement since 2007’s Skins, this is surely his breakthrough role. The film doesn’t disappoint in terms of delivering a gripping, emotive and...

By Anna Power  TLE Film Editor An effortlessly cool, funny, truly timeless film from Hollywood’s golden age of musicals; Guys and Dolls is the kind of film that plants a sloppy smile on your face and fills your head with snappy songs you'll catch yourself singing in the shower for weeks to come. So here are my top five reasons why you should see it: 1, Brando in a musical and he sings!: Arguably at the height of his considerable beauty,...