Films

Willow (1988)
[#132 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

Four brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Part of its success stems from being bold with the concept. Rather than just rehashing the first film’s story, or taking it in only a slightly different direction, returning writer-director Dean DeBlois jumps the story forward five years, in the process changing the status quo of the film’s world enough to keep it fresh.

Read more here.


The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)

If you’re not au fait with the first two Hunger Games movies, there’s nothing for you here... Even for those of us who are, Mockingjay Part 1 throws us in at the deep end, starting a little while after the end of the last film and challenging us to keep up. It’s a little frustrating at times — if you’ve not watched the previous movies into the ground, there are points where you wonder if you’ve forgotten something or just not been told it yet — but ultimately helps make for an engrossing, mature movie.

Read more here.


John Wick (2014)

John Wick is an action movie. I know you know that, but what I mean is, that’s kind of all it is. There’s no transcendent deeper meaning here; no attempt to explore the real life of a hired killer. If anything, this is an ultra-heightened universe, where the criminal underworld has an entire society and set of rules unto itself, including a raft of familiar faces in cameo-sized roles.

Read more here.


North West Frontier (1959)

I caught a few seconds and thought it looked fabulously shot — I confess, that’s the only reason I’d got hold of a copy. I’m so glad I did though, because it’s excellent stuff — a rollicking, action-packed, old-fashioned (in the good sense) adventure, full of peril, derring-do, chases and shoot-outs.

Read more here.


Plus 11 archive reposts begin the story of 2007, the blog's first year...


Weeks 1-7

The aim of the original idea from which this blog is adapted is to read 50 books this year and list them here. There’s no way I’d manage that, to be honest. Yes, I’m an English Lit student — that doesn’t mean I read! So my version is to try to watch 100 films this year... we begin here, covering weeks one to seven of this year.

Read more here.


Week 8

Number of films per week required to achieve 100: 1.93. Current average number of films seen per week: 2.63. More than on target. Excellent.

Read more here.


Weeks 9-11

I’m not doing too badly — not yet a quarter of the way through the year and I’ve passed the quarter point in my total. There is hope yet!

Read more here.


Weeks 12-13 (Statistics)

The end of the second week here marks the exact quarter-way point of my filmic quest (in time terms anyway) and so it seems an appropriate point to reflect a little on my quest so far. So here are some numbers, all totalled up to the end of week thirteen

Read more here.


Week 14

this week I’ve hit an exact average of three films per week — if that were to continue I’d easily pass 150 films by the end of the year! It’s really beginning to seem that 100 is a rather easy mark to cross, while 150 would be more realistic… though only if I kept this rate up, and if I slipped I would fail. That’s never fun.

Read more here.


Weeks 15-18

After a glut of movies during the middle of the holiday things have slowed down a tad again. I say “a tad” — you can see how much by the sheer volume of weeks included in this entry and the relatively sparse number of films! (To be technical, the average-films-per-week in this entry is 1.75, compared to 2.72 overall and 6 (yes, 6!) last time.)

Read more here.


Weeks 19-20

In which I don’t see Spider-Man 3, because I don’t care enough to brave the huge opening weekend crowds (and it’s not meant to be very good anyway).

Read more here.


Weeks 21-23

This time I do see Spider-Man 3!

Read more here.


Weeks 24-26

I’m halfway through! For anyone who can’t remember how many weeks there are in a year… well, there’s 52; and half of 52 is 26; and the week of June 25th is week 26 of 2007, meaning that July 1st is just about halfway through the year (though, to be precise, there’s actually 52 weeks and one day in a year… well, actually, 52 weeks, one day and a quarter day… anyway…)

Read more here.


Weeks 27-28

I've done really pathetically in the last couple of months -- my average number of films per week has dropped from 2.7 for weeks 1 to 18 to just 1.5 for weeks 19 to 26! I ain't gonna get to the end that way... Actually, I'd hit exactly 100 by the end of the year if I carried on that way. But still, reaching 'only' 100 when I was more on track to hit 150 does seem like a slight disappointment.

Read more here.


Weeks 29-30

Another two week stretch on my quest to see 100 new films by the end of the year. I'm just not seeing enough films per week to warrant entries that often, it would seem. This time round I blame TV -- so many new things have started, as well as continuing shows, that I spend most of my time keeping up! During these two weeks I've been watching...

Read the list here.


More next Sunday.