You know you’re of a certain age when all the movies you go to see are animations, and are mostly U rated. I just saw my tenth kids’ movie of the year, not counting Frozen, which I have seen twice this year at the cinema, after seeing it twice last year when it first came out, and of course, having watched it again, and again, and again at home on DVD; and not counting Home Alone either, which I got to see on the big screen for the first time as a birthday treat earlier in the year. I have no expectation of seeing a better movie than Frozen for quite some time. Here is my list of this year’s lot, in a rough order, and bearing in mind there are two months to go still:

1. The Boxtrolls [awesome]
2. The Book of Life [the least scary kids’ movie with loads of death in it that you could imagine]
3. Earth to Echo [ET meets Blair Witch without the scariness of either]
4. The Nut Job [clever doubling of human and animal capers]
5. Peabody and Sherman [a movie for dads]
6. Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy [the least disappointing of the lot]
7. The Lego Movie [awesome only in parts]
8. Dolphin Tale 2 [not good enough to make me watch the first one]
9. Tarzan (The Legend Starts Here) [very peculiar]
10. Postman Pat: The Movie [forgot about all the good characters]

I seem to have missed a couple aimed at the target audience of which I am now a part, such as Maleficent and Muppets Most Wanted. This year, I have seen a grand total of 1 grown-up movie, which was ’71. On the basis of this rather skewed sample, I think the difference between kids’ movies and grown-up movies is that death always seems to have a redemptive purpose in the kids’ movies – ‘cos there is a surprising amount of death in most of these films.