The film starts out just like the trailer, and there's a clear Outnumbered influence as the three kids run riot whilst the long-suffering parents try to hustle them into a car for the holiday departure. Much of it is just family bickering, and David Tennant trying to fathom out what the heck his kids are talking about, but then it all changes.

In the mood for something slightly low key, we picked this out on Netflix, and low key is exactly what it was. Really, it was like a BBC drama but with better lighting. A brilliant colour scheme and some fabulous cinematography, but ultimately just a bit of a detective drama around the glossier parts of London.

This was a complete surprise. I'm always a bit nervous going into a movie that's written, directed and starring the same person - because those kinds of labours of love can be hit or miss. This one had the extra slightly dubious claim to fame of being a Kickstarter funded movie - something even Hollywood didn't want to go near.

It's a bit of a joke, now, how Liam Neeson has managed to create the single character that appears in all his movies now. Guy who wants to put his crazy action lifestyle behind him, but can't because there are bad guys on the loose, so he gets involved with bringing them to justice - usually with a gun.

I think we only ended up watching this because we were looking up things Alice Eve had been in, took a look at the trailer, and saw that Wade from Hello Ladies was one of the friends. That sold it to us, although I think it's easy-going nature and rom-com style was appealing after hauling our way through all the Harry Potters.

I read the first two Alex Rider books quite quickly, and had intended to wait on this one. However, I fancied an easy-to-read adventure and that's exactly what these books deliver. They are quite literally James Bond as a teenager but that's great because you know exactly what to expect and how things are going to work.

Another intriguing entry in the 87th Precinct series, this one takes yet anther format. We don't focus so much on the cops themselves this time, even heroes Carella and Hawes are by-products to the story really. Instead, it's about the heroes and villains, and how actually neither are one thing or the other.

The titles of these books are sometimes straightforward, but sometimes a clever play on the crime within. This is one of those but it seems a bit flippant having read the story and realised exactly how sad the crime itself was.

From the traipsing around of part one, this finale really does ramp things up to a big old wizardy action sequence. There's a lot that annoys me about this one, things like the fact they make a big deal about Teddy despite barely mentioning Tonks and Lupin's relationship this whole time, but there's also a lot to like. Neville finally getting his moment to shine is fantastic.

Hermione really levels up her awesomeness in this one, with the fantastic bag that carries everything, the fact that reading saves the day, and her loyalty to the cause even when Ron deserts them and she has to eject herself from the life she once knew. Love her.

It's a cliche now, that these films just keep getting darker and darker, but this one really crosses the line so that we know what to expect from the final two. There are moments of brightness - Ron and his love spells, Hermione helping out with the Quidditch tryouts, and things like that, but mostly it's angst and drama and bad times.

Following swiftly on from the films of 2014, Mr C turns his attention to music. The playlist to choose from was up to 17 songs at one point, and narrowing it down to five proved to be a difficult task, but one which was great fun for me to watch him agonise over. You can view previous years via the handy links at the end of the post, but for …

I hadn't particularly expected to like the first Young Guns film but I really did, and so was quite keen to see the sequel. It got off to a shaky start, because I wasn't fond of the narration from Emilio as the old guy, it was really hard to understand. Thankfully, he only piped up every now and again.

In all honesty, it's at this point that our binge-watching of the Harry Potter films makes them start to blur together. It doesn't help that this one didn't stand out anyway, it's very much setting everything up for the future films to come.

I love this. I used to watch it as one of those 'in the background' movies, but hadn't seen it for a really long time. I'd forgotten quite why I liked it. At first, having immersed ourselves quite so much in Hollywood, I was a bit boggled at how this film ever got off the ground - such strong accents and mumbling style of talking. But you soon get used to it, and it really grows on you.

I can imagine that fans of Sherlock Holmes were a bit concerned when this book came out, a book approved by the Doyle estate and an official entry into the Sherlock canon. I thought it was done really well. It had all the tone and feel of the originals, certainly the writing style was an homage to but not a direct copy of Doyle's work.

After watching this one, we decided it was the best so far and with the benefit of hindsight can conclude it is the best of all of them. With the kids now old enough to start being teenagers and trying to fathom the workings of the opposite sex, it really was like Dawson's Creek on broomsticks.

The final of the initial X-Men trilogy, I knew I definitely hadn't seen this one before. It started as they all do, with Wolverine waltzing in and out, but then Jean Grey was resurrected and everything went a bit weird.

I've shied away from Lisa Gardner books in the past after finding one of them particularly vicious, harsh and featuring just slightly too much hate for my tastes. However, I thought I shouldn't base my assumptions on just one book so picked up this one in a sale.

Up there in the notes, I said this was the best film so far, of the three we have watched, and I think that's true. It was starting to build the over-arching story, rather than just have the standalone mysteries and adventures for each film. It had some great casting and cameos, Dawn French and the shattered wine glass being a particular highlight.

I know that I had seen the first X-Men film before posting it here, but I couldn't remember about this one. Even after watching it, I'm not sure, but I'm erring on the side of not having seen it before. It's very similar to the first one, with Hugh Jackman flitting in and out, a group of kids trying their best to fit in, and a big bad threatening the world.

I was a bit concerned at the start of this, that including members of Steve Carella's family in the story was just reaching for a way to bring emotions into it. But actually, it did work and the story made sense. It was nice, that some of the other cops sacrificed their day off to come in and help him out, and it was good to see how the relationships grew and changed across the course of the wedding.

It was a really interesting film, quiet and moody, creepy and intense, although ultimately slightly unbelievable. You hope that doctors aren't capable of doing the things that he is, and you sort of have to think it's just a story or you might never go to a hospital ever again.

I wasn't really aware of this one other than casually browsing past it on Netflix occasionally. When Mr C suggested we watch it, I suddenly realised just how many famous faces are in there, baby faces of course, but hey, who doesn't love a young Kiefer Sutherland?

Amazingly, this is a sequel that pretty much matched its predecessor. Seeing all the characters we loved from the first back again was great but there were also lots of brilliant cameos and new characters to love. Giant Abraham Lincoln was fun, as was the big ol' inflatable balloon dog thing.

It was surprisingly good, lots of great characters, a fun story, and some excellent CGI. I did get a bit confused towards the end what exactly the big bad plot was, but it didn't matter because it was all fun and games and actual details were unimportant.

I had anticipated making a big deal of the 500th film, picking an epic classic, but in the end I wasn't feeling well and in those cases you just want to watch what you want to watch. So, we took in the second adventure of Harry Potter and his pals, in which the shortest book is made into the longest movie.

It was actually a lot better than I'd thought it would be, but it left me a little baffled. It wasn't the stupid comedy I'd anticipated, although did have some hit or miss jokes that you expect from the genre. But it was a bit too serious to be the normal comedy, and yet not quite serious enough to be a full on drama.

I was happier going into the book and I quite enjoyed how the stakes were raised, and the morals of the situation analysed. I wasn't totally sure why we had that week of difficulties with the faux family at the beginning, but once Rider got to the school things really heated up.

I had no idea what to expect going into this book and was drawn in immediately. The way it's told, as though you're just having a conversation with Alex himself as he reminisces, allows the information to be drip-fed, not always in chronological order

It's that time of year again (a little late actually), the one where I force Mr C to decide on his top five songs and films from the year just gone. Usually, this is a fun process in which we discuss music and movies and have a bit of a laugh. This year, it's been less enjoyable because there have been so many good songs and films that it's been …

I probably would never have given this a second glance if it hadn't been on my reading list. A young adult adventure story, about a boy who is recruited to be a spy for MI6. You sort of have to get over the concept of them putting a boy through everything Alex goes through, because although it does get referenced occasionally, it's mostly glossed over how unlikely it all is.

I've talked before about how much I liked Crashed Ice, the sport is simple and pure - four guys on skates racing to the bottom of a tricky ice course. You have to have skill, but there's enough luck involved to know that every single trip down the course is unpredictable and unmissable. This year, the sport is taking in four spots around the globe including Belfast, which is tantalisingly …

Just as with the Nativity film series, we only watched the first one to be able to watch the second. The 'shut the hangar door' line in the trailer was enough to convince us we wanted to get involved, despite concerns about it being Disney taking on the Pixar mantle. So, Planes was good, this one was on the same level but didn't quite live up to its predecessor.

I bought the bundle of Harry Potter films on iTunes but have spent a very long time getting round to watching them. That's partly because Mr C wasn't sure and it's a rare time I Film Watch by myself these days. It's also because I was a bit in awe of starting what is clearly an epic series of films, and finally a bit worried about the adaptation because I do like the books and don't want them ruined.

This appeared in an iTunes collection of Christmas films, and I couldn't really remember it being particularly Christmassy. Of course after the first scene you see it's snowing and it definitely is the festive period, so that goes to show how good my memory is. I had seen it before, but not for a while, and couldn't really remember what occurred - aside from the general chaos.

Actually a bit of a disappointment. Considering we only watched Nativity so we could get to this one, the first film was leaps and bounds better. There wasn't the same sort of story here, rather than a nice somewhat simple tale of a lie spinning out of control, instead we have David Tennant chasing kids across the hills and valleys of rural Wales. Very odd. The danger levels were much higher, and there was far more yelling and screaming.

It was actually a lot better than I'd expected it was going to be. The trailer for this one hadn't looked all that good but the film delivered. Sweet and saccharine, with an overemphasis on the cuteness of children, but with plenty of heart and an actually interesting story. They also played out most of the nativity at the end which I thought was good - usually, films gloss over the end performance of a story like this.

This was an odd one for me to read, because I haven't ever seen Hamish Macbeth before and only really knew it was about a Scottish detective. The story didn't grab me to start with, particularly with all the foreshadowing. It felt like a nice, sedate murder mystery rather than the high tech crime thrillers nowadays. But that did mean a slow pace. Setting up the murder victim as being nasty to everyone so there were motives left, right and centre was a bit tedious but it paid off in the end.

This felt very much like watching Transcendence - a unique idea that had to be handled correctly to get the best out of it. Transcendence almost managed it, going a bit wonky only towards the end. Lucy went wrong almost from the very start. Aside from the fact that the science is a myth, and thus the whole premise is a bit off, there's not an awful lot going on in the film.

This dystopian book takes place after a supreme electrical storm wipes out the infrastructure of humanity and leaves everyone vulnerable. A plucky bunch of scientists are studying at one of the poles, and thus escape the brutal nature of the storm, only to find themselves thrust into the horrific world of the survivors.

This was the first non-Harry Potter book that JK Rowling released, and it‚'s taken me a long time to get round to reading it. I'm glad I eventually did, because it has all the hallmarks of Rowling's ability to set up a world and immerse the reader in it.

I really enjoyed this one. Previous books have introduced a myriad of characters from the 87th Precinct and now we got to spend a dedicated amount of time with a handful of them. Trapped in a siege situation, it was fascinating to follow the thought process of the cops trying to get themselves out of a sticky situation.

Having seen the Miranda episodes far too many times to mention, the actual scripts weren't that interesting to me to read, although I do love a good script book. It was the introductions by the author, the snippets about what it was like to record and the production notes littered throughout each script that made it fascinating.

This is a classic book, that I picked up partly because it was on my big read list and partly because it's such a part of culture and referenced on so many occasions, that I felt I was missing out. I'm not sure I was, really. It's short and to the point, a clear shot at communism that is barely masked by satire.

I was catching up with some recent Desert Island Discs episodes and the most recent conversation was with Julie Bentley. Ms Bentley is the Chief Executive of the Guide Association and she spent much of the talk with host Kirsty Young defending the concept of Girl Guides. Are they still relevant? Should they be modernising and discussing sex education as they apparently have recently, or rather preserving the youth of …

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but if I'm honest, the covers did put me off reading this for a long time. I picked up the first book in the Area 51 series in a sale, and finally got round to giving it a read. It was really good, far better than I'd imagined.

It took me a while to get fully on board with the Bridget Jones character, I can relate to plenty of her self-conscious spiralling, but not always with the obsessive relationships about men. I was surprised that a new book came out, given the gap since the last ones, but I knew I wanted to see how it all worked out.

Neither of us had realised there's a new entry in the Terminator series coming soon, but after watching the trailer to Genisys, we realised we had some work to do to catch up. I watched the first film a long time ago, and although I liked the film, some dodgy CGI ruined it for me. We watched that one again before moving on to this, the second.

I hadn't really wanted to watch this one. It was clearly Disney cashing in on the success of Cars, and they were making fast and loose with the connection even though there's clearly no Pixar going on here. But the trailer for the second film looked a lot better, so we thought we'd start at the beginning. Also, it has Crofty in it and that has to be seen!