TV

Arrow
4x23 Schism [season finale]

Upstart Crow
1x05 What Bloody Man is That?
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Deadpool (2016)
[#107 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...


Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

Top villain Jürgen Prochnow is so underused one wonders why he’s even in the film — Brigitte Nielsen’s more striking henchwoman could’ve been brains as well as brawn. Either way, they’re the character equivalent of a MacGuffin: this is all about Murphy

Read more here.


Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

according to director John Landis, [Eddie Murphy] envious of the careers of Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes, who were starring in straight action movies. Consequently, Murphy was keen to downplay the film’s comedy — much to its detriment, of course, as it’s Murphy’s comedy that makes this series work.

Read more here.


A Boy and His Dog (1975)

It’s a film fuelled by weirdness, left-field ideas, and a controversial tragicomic ending. It’s a “not for everyone” kind of film that, I must confess, I found hard to properly engage with

Read more here.


The Revenant (2015)

it’s like an old-fashioned blockbuster — the kind of thing you’d’ve seen in the 1950s (epic revenge Western) or 1970s (bleak revenge Western) as among the year’s biggest movies — crossed with a slow-paced, scenery-loving, meditative arthouse piece. If it’s about anything (beyond, y’know, the plot), it’s surely about nature — both the amazing vastness of natural spaces, but also the brutality of survival.

Read more here.


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


The Incredibles (2004)

Even before the present glut of big-screen super-heroics, Pixar were in on the game with this affectionate genre entry. Writer-director Brad Bird mixes together classical superhero antics with elements of 1960s spy-fi to create a retro world of optimistic heroics and larger-than-life villainy — at odds with the dark-and-serious tone of so many superhero movies of the past 17+ years, but all the more memorable for it.

Read more here.


Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

I know we’re all supposed to love Raiders most, but I think Last Crusade is actually my favourite Indy movie. [It has] plenty of the requisite derring-do, an almost Bondian globetrotting storyline, and a high-stakes climax, complete with gruesome death for the villain. Spielberg once said it was his favourite Indy movie too, so I’m in good company.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.