My brother has a saying that every film - including the very worst - has something of merit in it. Whether it is a particularly photogenic shot when someone opens a car door, or a surprisingly credible character moment, or an unexpected funny line, or whatever, there will be at least one in every film.

Incidentally, when talking about the very worst films, I tend to draw a distinction between those with virtually no budget and which hardly anybody has ever heard of (Plughead Rewired, anybody?) and those made by people who should know better (The Grudge 2, AI, The Time Machine (2002)).

Regarding films mentioned, Surf's Up - Clare and I tend to go to see any film with penguins in, and we thoroughly enjoyed March of the Penguins and Happy Feet. I also liked the spin-off from the rather boring Madagascar (yeah, I know it's a children's film but so is Happy Feet). But Surf's Up was very poor. Basically a teen movie with the human characters replaced with penguins who generally don't behave in a penguine* manner.

I think The Man Who Fell To Earth is one of the very few good SF films. Of course, it helps to be a bit of a Bowie fan, and to enjoy the weirdness, but the whole seeing-our-world-from-an-alien-pov was very well done, I thought.

Films I've most enjoyed recently include the Lord of the Rings (but let's hope this thread doesn't become another "it did/didn't do the books justice" thing), 24 Hour Party People, Everything Is Illuminated, The Simpsons Movie and (to my surprise) Music and Lyrics.

Hoping to get Control (another Joy Division film) soon.

Enjoyable but forgettable include Pan's Labyrinth, The Fountain, Casino Royale and whatever that last Harry Potter film was called.

Very disappointing include The Gelding Compass.

*Pronounced peng-wine.