Mr C's back for his second roundup of the 2012 year. Last week it was all about music, this week it's all about the visual arts. To recap the rules, initially we wanted this to be a "top five 2012 films seen in 2012" but the problem is we run about six months behind thanks to windowing and all that nonsense. Instead, the rules are relaxed a little to include …

Very mixed feelings on this one. As an action/adventure thriller, it's certainly intriguing enough to sustain interest throughout. It's a unique style in which the protagonist is the bad guy, and whilst there is almost equal time given to those hunting him down, I think we're supposed to root for the terrorist here. I suspect he becomes less bad in subsequent books, but here we're talking about a guy that signs up to kill one or more leading figures in British Parliament in the late 80s/early 90s.

Last year, I added something new to my Life List - completing a puzzle book. It came about after I worked through a crossword with my mum and dad, and realised just how pathetic my general knowledge skills are. I thought a few puzzles couldn't hurt, and seeing a Puzzler or two lying around reminds me very much of living at home. I picked up one of the monthly editions …

Off-the-beaten-track at CES 2013 Don't let's tell Mr C about the sports cameras!

When I finally started a bit more human after a festive holiday full of cold, I decided to bake something nice and comforting. What better than apple pie? I used a recipe from the Photo Cookbook - Baking edition, and had great fun chopping up all the apples and mixing in sugar and cinnamon. I didn't have a round dish, so I improvised. They are meant to be leaves on …

We were doing some testing of our internets, browsing random things on YouTube, when Mr C asked if I had seen this version of I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift. As much as he has convinced me of some of her music, I'm not a fan of this song at all. However, when it's done like this, by Walk Off the Earth, then I'm on board! These people …

I've not read this before, and I was quite surprised by the time I got to the end. Although I hadn't expected this to be about a jolly green giant with a bolt through his neck, I wasn't really prepared for how depressing the book is. From the start we are thrust into the icy world of a pole expedition, and then through letters to a sister detailing the story told to the brother by a scientist plucked from the wilderness (friend of a friend!) we learn about Frankenstein and his monster.

The past month in Archers-land passed terribly quickly, I can't quite believe it is 2013 already. To recap on the festive antics of our Ambridge-based friends, we must begin with Lilian and Matt. What is going on in that woman's head? I don't understand why she doesn't just leave Matt if she is so unhappy with him? Why sneak off into the kitchen to take clandestine phone calls? They aren't …

This was a perfectly functional action movie, not bad overall, but with a few detractions. More than anything, it loses points for the epic lens flare fail. I thought that people would have seen what JJ Abrams did and learnt their lesson, but no. This was worse. Awful. Blinding. Irritating. The characters were okay, but Kate Beckinsale was the best thing in it and she was supposed to be the bad guy/girl.

I've read most of this before, and also listened to an audiobook version, but as part of the extended reading list, it was time to read the whole thing in one go. It's a nice little story, but it does come across a bit preachy in places. There are plenty of sections about God and things start going right for the characters after they mend their ways and do the Christian thing.

New Year usually means quite a lot of reviews of the previous twelve months, and things are no different round these parts. At the end of each year, Mr C gets a chance to have his say on both music and films, and today it's time to recap his top five songs from 2012. We've previously listed his songs from 2010 and from 2011, but this time it's all about …

This is the story of Martha Payne, a young girl who started blogging about her school dinners and created quite the stir as she did so. I had previously heard of the blog, and read a few of the entries, but I was intrigued to hear the story from the family behind it and see what happened in the end.

I think I tried to watch the relatively recent BBC adaptation of this, but gave up not long into it because nothing was happening. You'd think the title would give that away. The book is much better, however, because with the nice intervals that a diary style gives, you have more natural stops, starts and potentials for fun.

Turbo This is one of the latest efforts from DreamWorks Animation, and features a snail who feels the need for speed. The blurb is bizarre (but then I suppose these things always are): A freak accident might just help an everyday garden snail achieve his biggest dream: winning the Indy 500. Interesting idea, can't really tell too much from the trailer, except, you know, Ryan Reynolds.

Instead of making New Year's Resolutions each January, I have a long-running Life List that does the same job, only is a constant reminder of the things I want to, and am trying to, achieve. It's time to have a quick recap of what has been happening on my Life List over the last twelve months. The Amazing A-Z Adventure I've only managed two more visits this year, and now …

We saw the film adaptation of this novel last year, to mixed reviews. The twist at the end was great but the film took an awful long time to get there, and the middle third was not enjoyed in my household. I was keen to read the book to see if it was any better, and I'm glad I did. I couldn't put it down! Even though I knew the story, knew what was coming, it was just riveting.

The final few weeks of the year haven't really gone as I had planned. I didn't manage to complete a 10k in December, which is disappointing but not surprising. The weather has been terrible, either freezing cold or torrential rain. I'm not a completely fair-weather runner, but it's hard to get the motivation when it is both dark AND raining. I had planned to make the most of my holiday …

I have to tread a bit carefully, as Mr C was ready to put this in his top whatever films of all time. I did like it, it's good when a film has the space to breathe, and I really thought that scene in the diner was amazing. I just have this problem with films where I can't really work out who I'm rooting for. I guess you're meant to get behind Pacino, but he wasn't exactly that friendly either. Perhaps it doesn't matter, it's just something I struggle with. Otherwise, I enjoyed it, even if it was a bit long!

It's good. It gets off to a bit of a slow start and it takes a while to warm to any of the characters, but then when you do it starts to get interesting. The action ratchets up, and the animosity between Wolverine and Cyclops adds some much-needed humour. There's a lot of serious messages to be pondered, with regards to this whole other race of people being treated differently, and I can see how this spawned quite a few sequels!

I've enjoyed another of the History in an Hour series on the Cold War, and previously talked at length about how the format of the book is perfect for me. The facts, given in an easy to digest way, without overloading you with too much content. This book was being given away for free to encourage readers to the series, and whilst I do intend to snap up more in the coming months, I couldn't resist this one.

On the reading list, this is a classic book that I hadn't heard of and probably wouldn't have sought out. It's short, but I didn't get very far through it before I had to give up. I just didn't know what was going on and couldn't follow the story at all. Perhaps it's because I was under the weather, or perhaps it was just in a style that didn't suit me, I don't know. Unfortunately, I didn't get on with this one and will have to chalk it up as unfinished.

The story was a lot tamer than my wild imagination had pictured. Rather than some strange mythical two-faced or two-headed being, it was simply the mystery of two men who were never seen in the same room at the same time. I really enjoyed it, all the way through the mystery, and through the big reveal at the end. I felt sorry for Jekyll, forced to admit defeat and succumb to a fate without knowing what it was.

I've always been a bit put off by the whole puff pastry situation. Everyone says that you may as well just buy ready made pastry - even Mary Berry says so - and that it's nothing to be ashamed of. Making puff pastry from scratch is tricky and time-consuming, so it makes perfect sense just to roll out the ready made stuff. It's not that I'm snobbish about it, but …

My dad often sends me links and things that he discovers on his travels around the internet, and sometimes I think I need to share that with others - but never quite get round to writing a post about it. Instead, here's a compilation of five recent links and bits that I found quite interesting. A List of Books. I'm working through my own select list of reading material, but …

The content is made up of a collection of articles, letters and chapters from various places, all relating to matters of Victorian London. Set out alphabetically, we travel through all kinds of things from advertising through to what goes into London gin, as well as the practicalities of pawnbroking.

Well, it's gloriously short! I do love a short film but on the flip side, it seemed like we were a bit short-changed in value for money! I thought this was quite fun, although a lot of the time I was laughing at the block-headed men. They reminded me of the block-headed people in Tomb Raider 2, where the animation just isn't good enough to keep up with the ambition. Anyway, some fun characters, a reasonable story, nothing spectacular but plenty of scope for more.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't a bumbling buffoon of a spy film, but that Carell was actually meant to be a half-decent and intelligent spy. Things just kept going wrong for him, although, of course, it all worked out in the end. I suspect there were a lot of references to the original TV series that went over my head here, but even so, I quite enjoyed it.

I was a little wary ahead of this year's Christmas Special. The festive episodes have not always been the best, and when they are charged with ingratiating a new character into our lives as well, the pressure is really on. Thankfully, all my fears were unfounded as what we had here was a fantastic episode in its own right, plus a continuing mystery regarding the new companion as well. The …

I liked this, but it wasn't spectacular. A perfectly serviceable animation, nice and festive, feel-good story, with a few funny lines along the way. I did like the concept of Santa's business as a military-style operation, and the gadgets, Mission Control, and spaceship style transport were very well done.

Thankfully, unlike some of the other children/young adult books I have been revisiting, it still holds up for me as an adult. It's not terrifically scary, obviously. It has Doctor Who's family friendly ethic when it comes to scare tactics, but it was certainly intriguing. I don't know if I've read this particular one before, but the thought of ventriloquist dummies is unsettling enough, let alone them coming to life.

I've been a fan of Danny Wallace books in the past, those true life adventures that he and others (Dave Gorman) go on. The humour works very well in those because it's honest, open and you can imagine that they really are thinking that. This book is in the same vein, only it's a fictional adventure instead. That being the case, some of the humour feels a little bit shoe-horned in, almost like it's trying too hard.

It has cute and/or funny muppets, great one-liners, tells the story really well and catchy songs. There's little to complain about, it's one of the classics that is at this point a Christmas staple. There's little else to add, except the confusion about 'The Love is Gone' being included in some versions and not in others was very irritating. It also didn't make sense as the song is reprised at the end, but wasn't included in our version so it didn't make any sense. But I don't mind because it's not the best song on the soundtrack anyway.

They weren't as hard to read as I remember, although they do get a bit wearing by the end. As the big criticism of the films go, there really is a lot of walking, a lot of logistics. When you get to hear the dialogue, learn about the characters, it's great. Sam's cheeky personality, and the growing relationship between Legolas and Gimli - both of those are things I enjoyed.

These are so good. So delicious. I really need to work on my dusting technique though. It's not very even, and far too much in some places.

I'm sure you're all aware of my obsession with Bourne/Matt Damon, and hearing they were going to continue the franchise without the main character was a bit of a concern to me. I'm also slightly confused because they've lined up Renner to take on the Mission Impossible franchise as well. Too many! Anyway, always happy to give a Bourne a go!

The Thanksgiving Black Friday sale business doesn't really reach the UK, although the internet's ability to shrink the globe means we do get to see some deals. I spotted one such deal on the Amazon site, where they had reduced the Kindle Fire to just £99. Now, we don't really need another device in our lives, but I was interested to see what it was like, and we could always …

It turns out that Mr C is a bit of a fan of cherry cake, so I added it to my baking list and this week that was the recipe that popped up. It's a good ol' Delia Smith recipe, but I must admit to being a little concerned at the idea of putting a cake in an oven for an hour and a half. It's a reasonably low heat, …

Mr C reckons this trailer reminds him of Prometheus which is very worrying to me. I can see what he means, but also... it looks brilliant! And there appears to be distinctly less lens flare than the previous outing. Phew! Star Trek Into Darkness

It got off to a bit of a slow start, but when it got going, it was fun. It really was just like the Addams Family, only a little bit less kooky and a bit more fish-out-of-water. Towards the end, both Mr C and I thought it went very Death Becomes Her and that made us want to watch that... but I digress.

I'm a bit late on writing this for November, we're almost halfway through December already, but there's plenty to catch up on before the festive season begins (and we have to endure Lynda's latest creative endeavour). Of course, the main story over the past few weeks has been Ed, Emma and their lack of funding. George dropped them in it a bit by demanding the more expensive cereal whilst shopping …

For a long film, this didn't feel too long and that is something I'm super sensitive too. It was really so good! There was tons I didn't remember from the previous two, but the only real thing that needed to be remembered was about Liam Neeson's character. It turns out that Bane was easy enough to understand, although his accent was beyond ridiculous. Batman's whisperings were the trouble, but he doesn't speak that much anyway.

This was not at all what we thought. A lot of it was stuff I didn't really relate to: drugs, clubs, stripping, etc. It was a lot more arty than I'd expected, the Instagram filters, the incredible camera angles, and the natural dialogue. It was fun seeing Olivia Munn, hadn't quite expected to see so much, and I enjoyed the banter between Mike and... I want to say Brooke? It's not going to be my favourite film of the year, it was better than I'd expected, but not really my style. I do quite like this Channing fellow though.

Naturally, as we are heading rapidly towards the festive season, where mince pies and yule logs and turkeys are the order of the day, I decided to bake some Hot Cross Buns. It had been in the back of my mind a while ago, and then when I made the chocolate chip cookies, I remembered I had dried mixed fruit that needed using up. So, I waited until the end …

Gangster Squad Where do I begin with this? Oh yes, Ryan Gosling. Mmm. And Emma Stone with her proper red hair. And the guy who was incredible and freaky in Men in Black 3. And Ryan Gosling! Oh, and the film looks okay too.

This was good and amusing, quite original in some ways, and totally formulaic in others. There were moments where it was all a bit weird, and then others where it was genuinely laugh out loud funny. Emily Blunt has this offbeat way about her, interrupting and talking over other people - sometimes it's sweet and seems realistic, other times it just gets annoying. The flow wasn't quite right, but moments like the Elmo/Cookie monster conversation made up for it.

Spotted this on Kottke and had to share. As Kottke says: "When the hand reached in to turn the Rubik's Cube, my brain melted and spilled out of my ear and into a puddle on the floor."

I hadn't realised there was a bear in this. That's two bear films in a row! I loved most of the bear stuff, the feminine walk, the gestures, the communication, bear rage! Overall, though, I wasn't totally convinced by the whole thing. It was good, a nice 90 minutes of entertainment, with a few laughs. There were bits that didn't make much sense, though, and it all seems to hang on the magic - which is also very confusing. I liked it, but it's not my favourite Pixar offering.

What I hadn't anticipated, in amongst all my ponderings about what the film would be like, is that it's freakishly funny. Sure there's a lot of stuff that I am too prudish to get, and there are references that go over my head, but even with all that, there's still enough funny to the point I couldn't breath. The bear is as cute as expected, you might have got that from the above. I didn't really like the sad bit, for obvious reasons, but it all works out okay in the end. Loved it.

I wrote some initial impressions about the Kindle Paperwhite when it first arrived, and looking back, I think I was very generous. It was a disappointment but I tried to temper the frustrations with the knowledge that there were benefits for me (3G and touchscreen), and it was supposedly a cutting edge product - they knew it wasn't perfect. Unfortunately, after a month using the device most lunchtimes, I have …

There were twists and turns along the way, and as I didn't know anything about this before I started (and managed to stop myself googling it), they were all a surprise to me. The characters were brilliantly formed, not just figures to love or hate, but multi-dimensional with positive traits and negative flaws alike. I found Maxim fascinating but mostly because I pictured him as the main character from the BBC's The Paradise - a chap who has just lost his wife and is trying/struggling to move on.