Danny Boyle, who has been made a fellow of the BFI as this year’s London Film Festival draws to a close, finished off a season of first-class screenings with his best film since Trainspotting. Telling the true story of an American mountaineer who escaped certain death through an extraordinary act of courage, 127 Hours is a deeply compelling film which thrusts the viewer into the tortured body of its protagonist.

If you were one of those people that thought Lost In Translation was just too chock-full of jokes, Somewhere is for you. Fans of Sofia Coppola will probably be won over by this gentle tale of a film star and his slow burning existential crisis, but for the rest of us, its just more of the same self-satisfied, time-munching film-glaze. A few nice moments create the skeleton of a good film, but sadly it’s just never fleshed out enough for us to get a grip on it.

Legend of the Guardians is a CGI fantasy kids film featuring a war between owl empires. Starring Australians, directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) and based on a novel, this is a quirky cinematic treat worth paying the IMAX ticket price for. Did we mention it features owls?

The subject of our antepenultimate visit to the BFI London Film Festival, Dear Doctor is a film made with all the grace one would expect of Japanese cinema. However, although its pace may be too slow for hyperactive Western audiences, its message is as relevant here as it is anywhere in the developed world. This is a beautiful film.

Watching Alpha And Omega is essentially like watching an hour and a half of deleted cut-scenes from a 90s Sonic The Hedgehog Sega game, if the special effects were worse and it was made by a suspected sex offender. Dull, unfunny and bizarrely adult in parts, under no circumstances should you or your children be subjected to this.

Based on the wildly successful Beverly Cleary books of the 1980s and 90s, Ramona and Beezus looks like another saccharine romp starring a slightly overdeveloped High School Musical-esque tween and a nauseating pseudo-Matilda brat. Happily, in this case appearances are deceiving – novice director Elizabeth Allen provides a skilfully updated treat for children and nominated supervisory adults alike.

Bruce Willis. Morgan Freeman. John Malkovich. Dame Helen Mirren. These are hefty names. It might seem reasonable to assume that a film capable of bringing them together would be pretty bloody special, mightn’t it? Unfortunately, it seems that all it takes is a production company with very deep pockets. Seeing Red is a truly unhappy experience which you are advised to avoid.

Based on the infamous Burke And Hare murders of 1827, Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis provide a darkly silly romp through Edinburgh town aided by every British celebrity you can think of. Go on, think of one. Was it Michael Winner, or Paul Whitehouse? It doesn’t matter, they’re both in there. Though it doesn’t have the cult brilliance of Shaun Of The Dead or the gloriously bizarre sting of The League Of Gentlemen, it’s nevertheless gorily enjoyable stuff and if nothing else, it’s lovely to see Jessica Hynes (neé Stevenson) back on our screens. Not so much good writing as canny use of cameos, Burke and Hare will nevertheless just about satisfy most comedy-loving Brits. After all, who doesn’t love seeing Ronnie Corbett in a funny hat, eh?

Being wealthy and famous, living life to the full, having lots of sex, going to the doctors and discovering you have a malignant tumour on your breast. It happens. Love Life is an award-winning Dutch movie about an adventurous couple that decide who the hell they are when cancer enters their lives.

As the 54th BFI London Film Festival draws to a close, we had the pleasure of escaping into the Californian sunshine for two hours of a dreary Monday morning – only to discover that there’s just as much heartache sloshing around LA as there is here at Best For Film Towers. We might, in fact, even have less, because none of us were conceived through sperm donation and brought up by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Relatively unexperienced directrice Lisa Cholodenko presents a well-balanced and decidedly grownup drama which also manages to be deliciously funny.