TV

Castle
3x15 The Final Nail
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Friends
9x10 The One with Christmas in Tulsa [5th or so watch]
9x11 The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work [5th or so watch]
Friends does a clip show and it has a big-name guest star and a major plot development that affects the rest of the series. Win.

Person of Interest
2x14 One Percent

Films

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
[#27 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

this week on 100 Films

April kicked off last Tuesday, meaning it was time to look back at what happened on 100 Films in a Year in March. Quite a lot, as it turned out. Also there: a list of 5 cancelled TV series that continued on the big screen.


It was also a good week for reviews, with four shiny new ones published. They were...


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) (2012/2013)

looking back over what was added in the wake of seeing the second film, I can’t help but feel that, when viewed as a trilogy, the little extensions that feed into events of The Desolation of Smaug make the extended edition a marginally preferable version.

Read more here.


The Next Three Days (2010)

it’s inherently quite a daft concept: prisons are (rightfully) incredibly secure places — no ordinary Joe is breaking anyone out of there in a couple of weeks. By rights, a film of this ilk should probably be a Taken-esque slightly-OTT action-thriller... Haggis’ film is a mix of that, and an attempt at depicting a serious, plausible, realistic version of what might happen if a regular, intelligent guy set his mind to such a task.

Read more here.


On the Waterfront (1954)

So much more than one famous scene, On the Waterfront is a movie about a magic jacket, which causes anyone who owns it to stand up for what’s morally right even in the face of oppression, but also to suffer badly when they do.

Read more here.


Trance (2013)

Boyle comments that “it’s more classical than you might expect.” Though it has a storyline that blurs the line between what’s actually happening and what’s happening inside a character’s head, the overall tone and style is actually quite Hollywood. It’s just Hollywood jazzed up with storytelling trickery, a quirky score, dashes of extreme gore and surprising nudity

Read more here.


And finally, new to the new blog...


Michael Clayton (2007)

If this sounds more legal drama than legal thriller, it is. Where this comes unstuck is that director Tony Gilroy does seem to want it to be a legal thriller, and so uncomfortably squidged into the mix are a pair of surveillance experts/assassins and one of the least-tense car chases in movie history

Read more here.


More next Sunday.