TV

Upstart Crow
1x06 The Quality of Mercy [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Barry Lyndon (1975)
[#111 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2016 #6

this week on 100 Films

It's that time of the month at 100 Films in a Year: the TV review! Spoiler-free coverage of Game of Thrones, Preacher, and more...




As well as that, the blog's raison d'être continued with 4 brand-new reviews...


Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

Why is this film notable? In fact, is it notable? Well, it was voted in to The 50 Greatest Cartoons by some of 1,000 animation professionals, so there’s clearly something there... Maybe it’s the subversiveness that makes it significant? It comes from an era when that must have been a factor, surely — there’s a certain Monty Python-ness to it, and it was made the same year Flying Circus first aired.

Read more here.


Deadpool (2016)

it’s a pretty standard superhero origin plot. But the devil is in the details, and it’s how Deadpool tells its story that matters — the narrative is just a framework on which to hang the gags. The immediate point of comparison on a superhero comedy is surely Kick-Ass, and it doesn’t take deep analysis to see that Deadpool isn’t as subversive as that movie. Where Kick-Ass comments on, at times even deconstructs, the superhero genre, Deadpool takes its rules as a given and throws a shedload of humour on top of it. Is that a problem? It depends what you’re looking for.

Read more here.


Hercules (Extended Cut) (2014)

The answer to the question, “Hey, remember Brett Ratner? Whatever happened to him?”, Hercules stars Dwayne Johnson in full The Rock mode as the eponymous demigod. In this comic book adaptation, we’re introduced to Hercules at a point in his life after the famous labours but before he’d passed into legend, when he’s just a mercenary… or maybe he’s always just been a mercenary, and the legends are a tall tale to help him and his band of warriors sell their wares.

Read more here.


Ip Man 3 (2015)

Early bouts are not bad, though surprisingly underwhelming, but things really pick up later on. An elevator fight between Ip and a Thai boxer is the absolute high point, an incredible close-quarters action scene that spills out into a stairwell, but Donnie Yen vs Mike Tyson is a very good sequence also, and the climax ain’t half bad.

Read more here.


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


Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

‘Product placement’ is when companies pay for their products to be featured in a film. I’m clarifying this because it’s important to know that Josie spoofs (rather than features) product placement relentlessly... The great irony of the film’s critical reception is that this spoofing of product placement is kinda on-the-nose, and yet swathes of oh-so-clever critics completely missed that. Rotten Tomatoes even use half of their Critical Consensus summary to say that “the constant appearance of product placement seems rather hypocritical.” Point, missed.

Read more here.


Jurassic Park (1993)

For a certain generation, Star Wars is undeniably the defining cinematic experience. For a more recent one, I guess it’s Harry Potter or something. In between, you have my lot — and as became quite clear with the unexpectedly phenomenal response to Jurassic World this time last year, we have Jurassic Park. It was the first film I ever saw at the cinema, and much of it has been lodged in my memory every since. That it’s beloved shouldn’t be such a surprise, really: it was huge back in 1993, and is one of only ten films that can lay claim to ever having been The Highest Grossing Movie Of All Time.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.