TV

Doctor Foster
1x03 Episode 3

Films

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
[#142 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2016 #8

TV

Castle
6x02 Dreamworld

Doctor Foster
1x02 Episode 2

TV

Castle
6x01 Valkyrie
Got fed up of waiting for this to appear on whichever-Channel-5-channel-it's-on-these-days.

Friday Night Dinner
4x06 For Sale [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
3x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Salvation (2014)
[#141 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

this week on 100 Films

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


Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Leto and Garner’s characters are fictional. So, some would argue, is Ron Woodroof — this version, anyway. For one thing, reportedly the real Woodroof was widely believed to be bisexual by people who knew him, so depicting him as a raging homophobe (who contracted HIV from a druggie prostitute) is completely inaccurate. I suppose that just calls into question how far one can go when adapting reality into fiction while still claiming it’s a true story, because in some respects it’s more interesting to follow the film’s version of Ron, who has to come to terms with a whole new world.

Read more here.


Duel (1971)

Although Duel has been analysed as a horror movie, or a Western, or a commentary on class war in America, Spielberg didn’t see it that way, regarding it as a pure Hitchcockian suspense thriller. He’s bang on the money. It’s not scary in the way a horror movie would be, and I think calling it a Western is a bit of a reach, though I can kind of see where the class war thing is coming from; but you can absolutely see the ingredients for a Hitchcock movie here.

Read more here.


Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD (2014)

Talking heads documentary about the galaxy’s greatest comic, [it] tells of the project’s birth, then the years when the US industry used the comic to scout talent, cherrypicking all its best creators. Today, it’s an influential institution that punches above its weight.

Read more here.


Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

It’s kind of hard to avoid the praise Grave of the Fireflies has attracted... It’s the third highest-rated animation on IMDb, which also places it in the top 25% of the Top 250, not to mention various other “best animated” and “great movie” lists. I mention all this because I fear the weight of expectation somewhat hampered the film for me. It’s by no means a bad film, but, despite the subject matter, it didn’t touch me to the same degree as, say, My Neighbour Totoro

Read more here.


A Royal Night Out (2015)

Gently amusing and relatively briskly paced, A Royal Night Out is lightweight and unchallenging, the definition of Heritage-ish lazy Sunday afternoon viewing. That means it will rub some viewers up the wrong way, but others will love its simple, old fashioned charms.

Read more here.


Also, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

a shadowy man drives an Aston Martin accompanied by the Bond theme. (As in we hear it — he’s not got it on the stereo.) To his surprise, he’s overtaken by a woman. A few miles down the road, he sees her car stopped by the beach, and she’s walking out to sea. He runs after her, scoops her up and carries her back to the shore. As she wakes up, we see his face for the first time — and it’s not Sean Connery! But he does say, “My name’s Bond. James Bond.” Then he has a punch-up.

Read more here.


Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

In one of the most iconic opening sequences in cinema history, three gunmen arrive at a train station and… wait for a train. For ten minutes. Ten real-time minutes, accompanied only by sounds like a squeaky windmill, a dripping water tower, and distant bird cries. Then the train arrives… and then the train leaves… and then a harmonica plays. And the action… threatens to start. Ah, Leone

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Foster
1x01 Episode 1
Finally catching up on this popular drama from last year (almost a whole year ago, in fact!) It's an interesting start, particularly to see how there's four more episodes in it.

The Great British Bake Off
7x01 Cake Week
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

This week was going to be completely devoid of new additions... until a huge sale-acquired title turned up this morning, and the following happened...

Number of titles in collection: 1,883 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 681 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,861 [up 24]
Number of films in collection: 2,075 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,422 [up 98]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x12 10:00PM - 11:00AM [series finale]

Films

Duel (1971)
[#140 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x10 8:00PM - 9:00PM
9x11 9:00PM - 10:00PM

Miranda
4x02 The Final Curtain [series finale; 2nd watch]

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x09 7:00PM - 8:00PM

Miranda
4x01 I Do, But to Who? [2nd watch]

The Musketeers
2x04 Emilie

The Tick
Pilot
Was underwhelmed by this, unfortunately. Will write more in the next 100 Films TV round-up.
[Watch it (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]

TV

Britain’s Favourite Dogs

Films

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
[#139 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x07 5:00PM - 6:00PM
9x08 6:00PM - 7:00PM

Miranda
3x06 A Brief Encounter [season finale; 2nd watch]
You know, I think Miranda is a good demonstration of why so many British sitcoms tap out after two series. That's not to say the third is bad -- there are some great bits, even whole episodes -- but at times it leans too heavily on the catchphrases, or just runs round in circles (this episode is particularly guilty of that).

Films

Deep Blue Sea (1999)
[#138 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x06 4:00PM - 5:00PM

Friday Night Dinner
4x05 The Funeral
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Miranda
3x05 Three Little Words [2nd watch]

this week on 100 Films

Lots of exciting TV covered in 100 Films in a Year's monthly round-up...




3 brand-new reviews were also published this week...


The Bank Job (2008)

Inspired by a real 1971 robbery, plus a host of other issues that were in the news around that time, The Bank Job is a rich stew of fact, supposition, and wild imagination. Apparently the filmmakers claimed it was very much based on a true story, including new information from an inside source, though eventually admitted some of it (including a major character) was wholly fiction.

Read more here.


Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

it’s visually sumptuous and impressively mounted, with well-imagined semi-plausible versions of the tale’s fantastical elements. However, despite the epic length (and four screenwriters), it never gets inside characters’ heads — they’re just going through motions dictated centuries ago.

Read more here.


Scotland, Pa. (2001)

Shakespeare gets transposed to 1970s Pennsylvania in this blackly comedic reimagining of Macbeth, which converts the Thane of Glamis into a diner chef and the Scottish throne into ownership of a new concept: drive-thru.

Read more here.


And my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

The plot hinges on the romance of Claudio and Hero, and the machinations of Don John to disrupt it, but the central characters are Beatrice and Benedick and the witty verbal sparring that characterises their love-hate relationship [which] at its best, plays like a period screwball comedy.

Read more here.


Mystery Men (1999)

it’s an undervalued comedy. The ensemble cast are all perfect... the material they have to deliver is both witty and suitably silly, and it incorporates superhero tropes and references without relying on them. In the sub-subgenre of superhero comedies, all others are number two, or lower.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x05 3:00PM - 4:00PM

Miranda
3x04 Je Regret Nothing [2nd watch]

Films

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
[#137 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Thanks to sales and offers from the past few weeks all turning up at once, there are six new additions this week (one of them an upgrade from a previous Blu-ray), featuring a mass of films and TV episodes.

Number of titles in collection: 1,882 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 680 [up 5]

Number of discs in collection: 4,837 [up 12]
Number of films in collection: 2,075 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,324 [up 16]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x04 2:00PM - 3:00PM

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x03 1:00PM - 2:00PM

Friday Night Dinner
4x04 The Pyjamas
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Miranda
3x03 The Dinner Party [3rd watch]

TV

24: Live Another Day
9x01 11:00AM - 12:00PM
9x02 12:00PM - 1:00PM
With the new spin-off on the horizon, finally getting round to the last go-round of the original-flavour series: this "event series" (rather than a full season 9, at least officially) from 2014 (which is when I finally got round to watching season 8!) Despite the supposed distance, it's very much the same 24 it was towards the end of its regular run.

Miranda
3x02 What a Surprise [2nd watch]

Films

Enemy (2013)
[#136 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Friday Night Dinner
4x03 Congratulations
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Miranda
3x01 It Was Panning [3rd watch]

Films

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
[#135 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Cowboy Bebop
1x19 Wild Horses
1x20 Pierrot Le Fou

Miranda
2x06 The Perfect Christmas [season finale; 3rd watch]

this week on 100 Films

A whopping 7 brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week! They were...


Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

it’s dark, and to do it justice the makers needed to make it R-rated [and] they’ve done just that. So here we have a very faithful adaptation of the graphic novel… but it’s a bit short, so there’s a 28-minute prologue stuck on the front. Designed to ameliorate some of the issues people have with the original book, it’s actually only made things worse, containing brand-new controversial elements all of its own. Oh dear.

Read more here.


Blackhat (2015)

The great Michael Mann, who once helmed genre-defining crime movies with expertly-directed sequences, here delivers a movie that looks like an amateur cheapie by a film student who’s watched too many Paul Greengrass movies without learning anything meaningful from them.

Read more here.


Brooklyn (2015)

Guiding us through this, the film’s heart in every respect, is Saoirse Ronan’s leading performance. I will watch Ronan in essentially anything at this point, both because she seems to choose good material and because, even when she doesn’t, she’s great in it. This is probably her first really mature performance, convincing as a somewhat shy young woman who makes her way out into the world, in the process realising all the confidence she should have in herself.

Read more here.


Chappie (2015)

Neill Blomkamp seems to be on M. Night Shyamalan’s career path: a massively-praised Oscar-nominated breakthrough genre movie, followed by a series of increasingly maligned follow-ups.

Read more here.


Lucy (2014)

After years producing movies in the Taken stable, Luc Besson directs one himself. Unfortunately it’s a poor effort — not a bad movie, exactly, but a deeply silly one.

Read more here.


Pan (2015)

this is an exciting and enjoyable fantasy adventure, best commended for its inventive, well-realised visuals and colourful design, which when it really clicks can be quite incredible. I suppose that might not be enough to overcome a familiar plot for some viewers, but it eases the way in this particular example.

Read more here.


The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

It’s easy to dismiss films like this as twee vehicles chasing the so-called ‘grey pound’, but, in this instance at least, that would do it a disservice. When a film is as amusing and emotional as this one, while also exploring an increasingly relevant aspect of life... then its audience should reach far wider than the age bracket of its principal characters.

Read more here.


Also, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


Mission: Impossible II (2000)

M:i-2, as we used to call it, is pretty much everyone’s least-favourite Mission movie, a place only cemented by the two excellent instalments that have been released during this blog’s lifetime. To be honest, I’ve never really been sure why. It’s very much a John Woo movie, all overblown action and melodramatic stakes, and I’d be tempted to say that turns people off were it not for the love Face/Off receives. Personally I like his style

Read more here.


Moulin Rouge! (2001)

These days there are plenty of musicals appearing on the big screen, and they’re often contending for the top gongs come awards season. This wasn’t the case back in 2001 — Moulin Rouge, divisive as it is, changed all that. Baz Luhrmann’s injection of modern MTV style gave the genre a kick up the arse, which isn’t necessarily to the taste of classic musical fans but certainly brought the genre renewed mainstream attention.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
[#134 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Number of titles in collection: 1,877 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 675 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 4,825 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 2,070 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,308 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Armageddon (1998)
[#133 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Preacher
1x09 Finish the Song
1x10 Call and Response [season finale]
[Watch Finish the Song and Call and Response (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]

Talking Preacher
1x02 Talking Preacher on Call and Response [season finale]
Considering how much there could be to say about adapting Preacher for TV (why they made all the changes they made, the thought processes involved in making those decisions, etc), this is incredibly lightweight. I mean, I guess it's kind of designed to be, but a proper in-depth discussion would be great. Maybe there'll be something on the Blu-ray...
[Watch it (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]

Films

Road Games (1981)
[#132 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Preacher
1x07 He Gone
1x08 El Valero
[Watch He Gone and El Valero (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]

TV

Miranda
2x05 Just Act Normal [3rd watch]

Films

The Good Dinosaur (2015)
[#130 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Pride (2014)
[#131 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

this week on 100 Films

It's been August for exactly a week today, which means my look back at July on 100 Films in a Year may seem old news but... well, maybe it is, but it's still time to post it here:




In other news, 4 brand-new reviews were published this week...


Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition (2016)

As someone who genuinely enjoyed Batman v Superman’s theatrical cut, it’s hard to say how much better the Ultimate Edition is for viewers who were less convinced. However, I do think it’s a question of “how much better” rather than “is it better”, because this is certainly a superior version of the film — the fact it’s now over three hours long notwithstanding. The new cut won’t ‘fix’ the movie for viewers who object to the inherent tone and style of the piece, but if you’re open to that, this cut does improves the storytelling and character arcs for a smoother experience overall.

Read more here.


Big Eyes (2014)

It’s certainly a bizarre tale, and given even more of an otherworldly edge in Burton’s hands. He’s reined in here compared to his more fantastical leaps, but even when he does the real world it’s not quite our world (see also: Ed Wood). Nonetheless, it makes what could have been a slight tale more interesting than it would’ve been as a straight-up clean-cut biopic

Read more here.


The Lobster (2015)

the kind of odd movie that critics adore (90% on Rotten Tomatoes) and then, I always feel, spend some of their time looking down their noses at regular folk who don’t get it. In my experience, you have a 50/50 chance of such movies actually being any good. For me, The Lobster straddles that divide.

Read more here.


Sicario (2015)

Any viewers seeking simple action thrills will not be satisfied with the sequences offered here, but the way the scenes rely on suspense rather than bullet choreography makes for a supremely tense movie; one that can grip you like a vice and only occasionally let up, letting you catch your breath before it doubles down.

Read more here.


Finally, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


The Matrix (1999)

There are some movies where their significance almost outstrips the ability to judge them independently — Citizen Kane, for the most obvious example. I don’t know if The Matrix now appears that way to newcomers, but it could, because it’s hard to understate the impact it had on action/sci-fi movies (and other media) for the next decade or more.

Read more here.


Minority Report (2002)

it mixes exciting, propulsive plot and action sequences with thematic concerns that use science-fiction ideas to explore real-world issues, both tangible (the prevalence of state control and policing) and metaphysical (free will vs determinism). It makes for a rounded, thrilling movie.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Miranda
2x04 A New Low [2nd watch]

Films

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)
[#129 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Three additions this week more than double the number of new titles since the last running time update -- yep, it's that time of the month again.

Number of titles in collection: 1,874 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 672 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 4,822 [up 11]
Number of films in collection: 2,067 [up 7]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,308 [up 2]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
353 days, 14 hours, and 29 minutes.
(Up 13 hours and 52 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Americans
4x12 A Roy Rogers in Franconia
4x13 Persona Non Grata [season finale]

Miranda
2x03 Let's Do It [2nd watch]

TV

The Americans
4x11 Dinner for Seven

Miranda
2x02 Before I Die [2nd watch]

TV

The Americans
4x10 Munchkins

Miranda
2x01 The New Me [2nd watch]

The Musketeers
2x03 The Good Traitor

TV

The Americans
4x09 The Day After

Miranda
1x06 Dog [season finale; 3rd watch]
DVD title: What a Dog.

The Musketeers
2x02 An Ordinary Man

Films

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition (2016)
[#128 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

I watched the theatrical version when it came out, of course, but this merits a new number because it's a whole 20% longer and the storytelling is much smoother.

TV

The Americans
4x08 The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears

Friday Night Dinner
4x02 The Carpet Cleaner
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Miranda
1x05 Excuse [4th watch]
DVD title: Let It Out.

Preacher
1x06 Sundowner
[Watch it (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]