If only the denouement wasn’t so forgone, didn’t revel in familiarity while also telegraphing its scares like a second-rate John Carpenter B-movie. I was more than ready to extoll the virtues of The Woman in Black, to scream its praises from the marshy moors. But because of that soggy climax I just can’t do it.

While the surprises involving who lives and who dies (and in what order) is never in doubt, the pulse and the pace of The Grey is so unsettling, so unbalanced, that doesn’t mean near as much as it otherwise would.

King of Devil’s Island isn’t new, doesn’t offer up very many surprises, but thanks to Skarsgård and Helstad, and in no small part due to Holst’s confident direction, the drama transcended its overfamiliar tropes and transported me into a fiery winter wonderland of despair and resolve I didn’t want to depart from.

Man on a Ledge falls flat on its face, leaving a bruised and battered mess bleeding out clichés onto a bloody cinematic pavement that is going to be darn difficult to wipe clean anytime soon.

Had I seen Margaret in 2011 it would have likely been number two or three on my list of the best films of the year. Lonergan beat me up, assaulted me, stripped me bare and left all my expectations of self on the theatre floor for all to see.

There are sequences and situations where I found myself floating into the celluloid, and even though a lot of Norwegian Wood left me perplexed and bewildered the segments I enjoyed gave me an ethereal sense of elation I can only hope audiences take the time to experience for themselves.

Selene’s return is a welcome one, and if the Death Dealer feels the need to dole out some more justice a couple of years hence that possibility wouldn’t bother me in the least bit whatsoever.

Haywire is a total kick in the pants, this thriller an enjoyable freestyle winner that swings aggressively back and forth with raucous enthusiasm. Mark my words, I’ll be rhapsodically waxing poetic about this one for all of 2012.

As a history lesson Red Tails simply doesn’t rise to the occasion, and while bits and pieces are adequate on the whole this is one flight into the wild blue yonder that never achieves liftoff.