Ah! I only just spotted on the IMDb that this actually came from a novel by Anthony Schaffer which explains a lot … had I known this I might’ve watched it even sooner than I have knowing it features Hayley Mills, albeit in a role so small her opening credit bizarrely reads, “Guest starring …” lol. But hers is one of those roles that, though small in screentime, is felt overwhelmingly at all times. She’s as beautiful a presence here as she has been anywhere – I think for me it all really clicks when it cuts back to her in Forbush’s last monologue, about all living creatures relying in some way or other on others, even (and there it cuts to Mills back at home) humans. It’s such a great moment, her face just sells what could easily be quite a corny message.

Much of the film is footage of the penguins themselves and there’s a sense in which it’s almost part-documentary, the story being fairly thin on the ground and really just being this portrait of man, and quelle man in John Hurt’s performance – Forbush being the kind of guy who won’t go to Antarctica without a few cases of Krug champagne and other fineries, declaring in a radio call that the electric blanket is the last thing he’s missing in the bed department, lol. It’s an amazing performance that goes from surprisingly young and feisty for Hurt through to something bordering on madness and finally despair only to come back full circle, completely changed; the last shot of Hurt returning to Mills is so simple but at the same time absolutely beautiful. It’s definitely a movie I’ll come back to.

Ugh, this is excruciating. And I know, it’s billed as being about Mary-Kate and Ashley getting their driver’s license, and driving doesn’t interest me in the slightest, so I should’ve known. Thing is – I wish this movie was more about the car and the road. It’s a road trip with barely any road in it. I swear, this script – if there even was one – must’ve been written in a night and never altered thereafter. It’s just a random series of events, none of which are remotely interesting. The cover art of this one made it look like one of the few, (moderately) slicker Olsen twins movies, like Passport to Paris, Winning London, New York Minute. Instead, it’s almost unwatchable, packed with those desperate silences which can only have been left in to maintain a feature length. Bland doesn’t even cover it. If you make it through, you won’t believe the sigh of relief you release when you realise yay, there are outtakes at the end!!!!

Well I can’t believe I just teared up while a Classic Eighties Movie Slow Clap^TM was going on in the background

It somehow felt like it was finally time for me to watch this – a recent Channel 4 thing about the best family films brought it to the surface, and I’ve been noticing a lot of people on Facebook listing it as a fave – but within minutes I was questioning if that was a good idea. There’s an old me that would have been far from impressed with this movie for the exact same reason the me of now ultimately fell for it today. This is guilty of just about every cliché in the book of late-80s and early-90s cinema. It pulls every faux-pas that practically threatened to destroy the artform during that period. But, somehow, it works.

It didn’t make me laugh at loud much at all compared to some. But there’s just something else under it all – perhaps highlighted by the Dark Moment (let’s use the proper template terms here, it couldn’t be more by the book I swear) ... which is actually really dark, I mean for a movie that seems so silly and light from the outside that crash is nasty – it’s perhaps the fact that it does follow the old screenplay paradigms and wot-not so to the letter. I don’t know. All I know is, I wasn’t bored, I laughed a little, and I was embarrassingly moved by those final moments.

Well if anyone complains about this one not delivering, they should be sent to bed without any supper, lol. To be blunt, this blew me away and I’m kicking myself for not seeing it back when it previewed on Halloween. This is an absolutely stunning kick in the vampire genre’s shins, beautifully shot, genuinely scary, and mercifully it also has an ending to make what originally seemed like “20 minutes too long” when I glanced at the running time well worth the wait. I don’t know if it’s just me having a thing about sun this year, but the ending here really has me comparing it in my mind to Sunshine and between the two of them, till Sweeney at least, I’ve two clear favourite movies of the year. With its glorious violence and surprising depth of meaning, I also wanna call it this year’s Silent Hill ... I know a lot of people didn’t like that movie but I loved it, and I loved this one too. I mean, when even Melissa George is good, you know you’re watching something good.

Another big surprise here and an instant addition to my annual Christmas viewing (hmm, that list’s getting a little big there, lol :P) Two kids find a temperamental weather-making machine in the garbage at Santa’s summer home in L.A. Chaos ensues. And there’s a “boring weatherman”, kinda reminded me of bad guy Vince from “Alex Mack”, trying to find the origin of the unexpected snow storm they cause to get off the last day of school.

This is just so much fun all the way. Hallee Hirsh can pull a sorry face like I don’t know what, makes me cry instantly when she realises she’s “ruined Christmas” etc. It’s just a great Christmas movie, I don’t know what else to say.