Feelgood Films

Mamma Mia!
Sing-a-long: Oh yes, it's impossible not to, and even better, you're bound to be more in tune than Pierce Brosnan.
Blub factor: Meryl Streep's rendition of 'The Winner Takes It All' will get them flowing.
Party potential: ABBA costumes, the SingStar special edition and some ouzo will make a night out of it.
Hugging and learning: It really doesn't matter who your father is, particularly if he might be a gay Colin Firth. And it doesn't matter that your mother doesn't know.
Air punch: When Sophie cancels the wedding to go traveling instead - she's 20, but looks about 15, so a much better idea.
Holly Grigg-Spall

Sex And The City: The Movie
Sing-a-long: It's a quartet chorus with Charlotte hitting all the high notes, so pick your part or just do-do-do along to the remixed theme tune.
Blub factor: Carrie gets jilted at the altar, but the best blubbing is saved for Steve's even-more-accurate-than-usual puppy-dog looks in Miranda's direction.
Party potential: Samantha puts on 'The Best Of The 1980s', you all put on the worst of your 1980s wardrobe (the summer 2007 revival, if not the first time round).
Hugging and learning: It's all about forgiving the weaker sex, because well, what will you do Valentine's night if you don't? Oh and friendship that survives the break-ups, no make-up and a bad dose of diarrhea.
Air punch: For sure, when Carrie gets the closet she deserves.
HGS

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Sing-a-long: Ferris storms the float to mime along to 'Twist And Shout'. And Ferris' monologues to camera are worth memorizing: "A man with his priorities that far out of whack doesn't deserve such a fine automobile."
Blub factor: Ferris is wall-to-wall upbeat joy.
Party potential: Invite over your friends who are weighed down by unceasing conformity.
Hugging and learning: The message is simple: seize the day and you can beat the Man if you have the guile.
Air punch: Ferris reckons he can take the miles off the Ferrari but the car becomes the focus for all of Cameron's grievances and he kicks it until it flies out of the garage and crashes far below. We exult in the triumph of defiance over the tyranny of things.
Matthew De Abaitua

Nine To Five
Sing-a-long: To Dolly Parton's typewriter-powered theme tune, that tells of the exploitation of smart female workers by their dumb male bosses. Skewers the nature of capitalism and nails the downtrodden personal side of daily office life in neat, succinct verses.
Blub factor: You feel sorrow toward the lot of women in the workplace before feminism righted some of the ills.
Party Potential: Bonding on a Friday night, but too depressing on a Sunday night before the working week begins again.
Hugging and learning: Management who are sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigots deserve all they get. And just because a woman looks like Dolly Parton doesn't necessarily mean she is sleeping with the boss.
Air punch: When Dolly finally tires of Franklin M Hart Jr's innuendo and threatens to shoot him.
MDA

It Happened One Night
Sing-a-long: There are plenty of wisecracks and comebacks to file away for future use.
Blub factor: Peter Warne and Ellie Andrews are not the types to get sentimental. He thinks she needs "a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not."
Party potential: You could spin a feelgood marathon out of Frank Capra's backcatalogue - Mr Smith Goes to Washington, You Can't Take It With You and, of course, It's A Wonderful Life .
Hugging and learning: The defining study of a love/hate relationship, or an illustration of Eddie Izzard's 'splashy-splashy' theory on love.
Air punch: Send up a cheer when the Walls of Jericho are finally pulled down.
HGS

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