Sunday 3 March 2013

TV

The Good Life
1x05 The Thing in the Cellar

Films

Anonymous (2011)
[#24 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

Comics

2000 AD #1772-1776

Featuring...

Judge Dredd Day of Chaos: Eve of Destruction, Parts 8-12 by John Wagner, Ben Willsher & Henry Flint
Age of the Wolf II She is Legend, Parts One - Five by Alec Worley & John Davis-Hunt
Nikolai Dante The Wedding of Jena Makarov, Parts 10-11 by Robbie Morrison & Simon Fraser
Nikolai Dante The Dante Gambit, Parts 1-3 by Robbie Morrison & John Burns
Grey Area Personal Space, Parts Two - Three & Xenophobia by Dan Abnett & Lee Carter
What If...? Max Bubba Hadn't Killed Wulf by Alan Grant & Carlos Ezquerra
What If...? Cassandra Anderson Hadn't Become a Judge by Alan Grant & Robin Smith
Flesh Midnight Cowboys, Parts One - Three by Pat Mills & James McKay
The Zaucer of Zilk Parts 1-2 by Brendan McCarthy & Al Ewing

The introduction to Age of the Wolf II implies it's a sequel picking up 10 years after the original, but the story itself seems to dive in among existing threads and characters. Either it's designed to throw everyone in at the deep end, or it's the usual 2000 AD trick of newbie-alienating. On one level it doesn't matter; on another, if it's the former then ultimately it should cover everything we need to know, whereas if the latter it might be best to just give in and go with the flow. Great art, at least.

Ever since I first saw the cover of The Zaucer of Zilk, and some of the interior art while flipping through the Progs when they arrived, I thought it looked like it would be awful. And it is. Or, at my kindest, I'd say it's not my cup of tea. Or as the strip would likely have it, it's zot zy zup of zea. (Bloody stupid thing.)

this week on 100 Films

First up, it's now March, which means it's time to look back at February. This month, the top 5 is favourite Best Picture Oscar winners. Which are yours?

As well as that, seven new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


The Hunger Games (2012)

Seen by some as a Battle Royale rip-off and by others as no more than the new Twilight, The Hunger Games is different enough from its Japanese forebear and immeasurably better than that detestable cross-media abstinence-fest.

Read more here.


Iron Sky (2012)

Throw in a moderately witty spoof of the Downfall-based Hitler YouTube meme, and moderately audacious elements like the Nazis turning a black astronaut white as part of their new attitude to racial purity, and you have a film that is moderately successful on its own terms.

Read more here.


Johnny English Reborn (2011)

Perhaps the best word to describe it would be “sedate”. Even the action sequences, of which there are a couple, can’t muster much speed, let alone jeopardy.

Read more here.


Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (2009)

it was shot in 2009 but not released until 2011, when it was slated by critics (a measly 39% on Rotten Tomatoes), flopped at the US box office (it opened at an unimaginably painful 67th place (who knew there were that many films out at once?), grossing just $25,423 total), and went straight to DVD in the UK. Ouch.

Read more here.


Tom Conway as the Falcon, Part I

Featuring reviews of The Falcon's Brother, The Falcon Strikes Back, and The Falcon in Danger.

Read more here.



And finally, new to the new blog...


Johnny English (2003)

Every joke is sign-posted at least a good few seconds in advance, sometimes several minutes, yet that’s half the fun — you know what’s about to go wrong and that nothing can stop English doing it anyway.

Read more here.


Sunset Blvd. (1950)

it’s tempting to say Sunset Blvd. is overrated. But really that would be a slightly sensational way of saying I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.