TV

The City and the City
Part 1 Besźel
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Episodes
5x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 3D (2017)
[#89 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Lucifer
2x12 Love Handles
2x13 A Good Day to Die

Who Dares Wins
11x03 (7/4/18 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

Just 2 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, but one was a big'un...


Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

like a massive comic book crossover rendered in live-action. You might think “of course it is”, but it’s not that long ago that this wouldn’t even have been possible (the CGI required is phenomenal), and even less time since it would’ve been considered profitable (remember when all superhero movies had to be “grounded”?) As much as it’s a familiar epic sci-fi action blockbuster, it’s also a new kind of thing to the big screen. There are pros and cons to turning that kind of narrative into a movie, but Infinity War is heavy on the former and relatively light on the latter. When it comes down to it, it’s just marvellous entertainment.

Read more here.


Geostorm (2017)

Some people, even including some filmmakers, seem to think critics and “pretentious” filmgoers slag off movies like Geostorm based solely on the genre or concept or some other fundamental characteristic. And, yeah, there must be some people who won’t give certain genres a fair shot; but that’s not widely the case, as the praise attracted by better blockbusters proves time and again. No, films like this get slagged off when they’re shittily made. Geostorm is shittily made.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Ordeal by Innocence
Part 3 (of 3)
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

New York, New York (1977)
[#88 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Collection Count

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

It's meant to be the always-exciting running time update this week... but I've been away from home all week, so I don't have the numbers to hand. There should also be a bunch of new titles added, but they're currently laying on my doormat at home, awaiting my return.

So for now, the numbers remain unchanged:

Number of titles in collection: 2,100 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,163 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 937 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 5,374 [no change]
Number of films: 2,341 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,018 [no change]
Number of short films: 607 [no change]

See you next week for definite increases, faithful reader.

TV

Ordeal by Innocence
Part 1 (of 3)
Part 2 (of 3)
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
[#87 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Liar Liar (1997)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2018 #16

Films

The Death of Stalin (2017)
[#85 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Yes Man (2008)
[#86 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Films

Killing Gunther (2017)
[#83 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

The Snowman (2017)
[#84 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Westworld
2x01 Journey into Night

Films

The Disaster Artist (2017)
[#82 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

The Room (2003)
[#81 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Films

Call Me by Your Name (2017)
[#80 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

this week on 100 Films

Time to look at my past month's TV viewing on 100 Films in a Year this week, including big reviews of A Series of Unfortunate Events season 2 and Westworld season 1...





And in film, there were 5 brand-new reviews published this week...


Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)

This is the real Spinal Tap: a rockumentary about heavy metal group Anvil, who once headlined alongside Whitensake and Bon Jovi, and are cited as an influence on groups like Megadeth and Metallica, but who haven’t enjoyed the same success as any of them. The film follows the group as they attempt to relaunch with a tour and new album.

Read more here.


The Dark Tower (2017)

I don’t know what people were hating, because I thought it really wasn’t that bad. I can’t comment on its faithfulness or thoroughness as an adaptation, but as an action-fantasy movie in its own right I thought it held together pretty well. It only cost $60 million (a bargain for a blockbuster nowadays), but they got good value for money: it doesn’t look cheap, and it has a respectable lead cast as well.

Read more here.


The Monster Squad (1987)

The film wasn’t a success on its original release, but has gained a cult following since. It feels like that kind of movie, too. It’s also the kind of film I can imagine you’d love if you saw it at the right age, but the “right age” is not, it would seem, the one I am now. [...] That’s not to say it’s without value. There’s great make-up and creature effects, better than you might expect given the overall quality of the film, which is what you get when Stan Winston’s involved.

Read more here.


Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)

This is Spinal Rap: comedy trio The Lonely Island star as the Style Boyz, a popular pop-rap boy band who disbanded after their frontman, Conner4Real, decided to go solo. The mockumentary follows Conner as he goes on tour to launch his second album.

Read more here.


Zatoichi's Flashing Sword (1964)

Flashing Sword offers a more straightforward story than some other instalments of the Zatoichi series: the opposing sides and their differences are thoroughly established, and one of the gangs are even clearly the good guys! Makes a change from Ichi having to pick between the lesser of two evils and/or trying to wipe out both sides. Some other reviewers seem to find the story simplistic or lightweight. Conversely, I appreciated the clarity of approach, and thought the film found different ways to add complexity beyond pure plot gymnastics.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

Five new Blu-rays this week, all acquired at bargain prices, push my total collection to a nice round number this. Every other number is... not round. Ah well.

Number of titles in collection: 2,100 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,163 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 937 [up 5]

Number of discs in collection: 5,374 [up 9]
Number of films: 2,341 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes: 8,018 [no change]
Number of short films: 607 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

American Assassin (2017)
[#79 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Have I Got News For You
55x02 (13/4/18 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Travel Man
6x03 48 Hours in Madeira
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

TV

Westworld
1x10 The Bicameral Mind [season finale]

Films

Identity (2003)
[#78 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
[#77 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Archer
5x05 Archer Vice: Southbound and Down

Westworld
1x08 Trace Decay
1x09 The Well-Tempered Clavier

Films

Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
[#76 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Muppets from Space (1999)
[#75 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Westworld
1x07 Trompe L'Oeil

Films

Princess Mononoke (1997)
[#73 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ all the special features on the UK Blu-ray

Witness (1985)
[#74 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Westworld
1x05 Contrapasso
1x06 The Adversary

Films

The Karate Kid (2010)
[#72 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

this week on 100 Films

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


Candyman (1992)

you don’t know where the story’s going to go or how it’s going to end, which is always an unusual sensation in a genre movie. It contributes to it being an effective piece of horror as well. It’s creepy and atmospheric, as well as containing straight-up jumps and gore. It’s all elevated by a fantastic score from Philip Glass, which helps lend a particular type of mood — kind of religious, almost; mythic.

Read more here.


The Director and the Jedi (2018)

The Director and the Jedi isn’t some cobbled-together EPK featurette, where talking heads tell you how wonderful everyone is and how great the working environment was... For this one Last Jedi’s writer-director Rian Johnson and his producer Ram Bergman contacted documentary-maker Anthony Wonke to follow them around throughout the film’s production and provide a more truthful account of the film’s creation. If that sounds like it would just turn out a video diary, the key would seem to be Wonke, who brings considerably more artistry than that. Most making-ofs are, for want of a better word, educational — “this is how they did it”. There’s some of that here, naturally, but it’s not about that. It’s more often about the psychology and emotion of being the people making a new Star Wars movie.

Read more here.


Shrek (2001)

DreamWorks’ irreverent riff on fairytale animations was a breath of fresh air back in 2001, allowing them to net the first Best Animated Feature Oscar ahead of Disney or Pixar. A decade and a half of imitators have taken the shine off that somewhat, as have advances in technology (old CGI ages worse than old cel animation), but it remains an amusing and quotable film, with a surprisingly strong moral message at its heart.

Read more here.


Shrek 2 (2004)

I think Shrek 2 has fared better. Arguably the first one has more pure originality, giving birth to an irreverent fairytale meta-verse, but Shrek 2 expands on those building blocks and plays with the ideas. There are lots of fun movie spoofs, the climax is a legitimately good action sequence, and there’s even a decent thematic throughline about what you’re prepared to do or give up for the one you love.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Archer
5x04 Archer Vice: House Call

Westworld
1x04 Dissonance Theory

Films

Mission: Impossible II (2000)
[5th watch]

Rewatchathon 2018 #15

It seems incredible this is my fifth watch of this, considering how rarely I rewatch movies, but that's what my records say. I wrote a little more related to this particular rewatch here.

Collection Count

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

A fresh DVD and a DVD-to-BD upgrade this week mean it looks like I just bought that one new BD when actually that was the upgrade -- hilarious!

Number of titles in collection: 2,095 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,163 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 932 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,365 [up 1]
Number of films: 2,336 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,018 [up 1]
Number of short films: 606 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Westworld
1x03 The Stray

Films

Geostorm 3D (2017)
[#70 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
[#71 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Archer
5x03 Archer Vice: A Debt of Honor

Films

Das Boot: The Director's Cut (1981)
[#69 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2018 #4
+ featurette The Perfect Boat about the creation of the director's cut.

Shockproof (1949)
[#68 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Westworld
1x02 Chestnut

Films

Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
[#67 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Archer
5x01 White Elephant
5x02 Archer Vice: A Kiss While Dying
I last watched Archer four years ago, when Channel 5 were titting around with how they showed the end of season four. I was always meant to keep going but never quite got round to seeking it out. Well, the whole lot is on Netflix nowadays, so… A new, ninth season starts later this month, but I've no intention of getting caught up in time for that (I mean, I'm 44 episodes behind!)

Westworld
1x01 The Original
Also finally getting round to this, 18 months after it aired. Conversely, this I am intending to catch up on before season two arrives in a couple of weeks.

Films

American Psycho (2000)
[#66 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Films

Knocked Up (2007)
[#64 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Logan Lucky (2017)
[#65 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ the two short deleted scenes that are the entirety of its special features.

Films

Baywatch: Extended Cut (2017)
[#62 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
[#63 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

this week on 100 Films

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


Benji (2018)

Benji himself is a clear 5-out-of-5, both super cute and super smart. Yes, I know the film’s edited to make him preternaturally clever (there’s an awesomely daft sequence where he thinks back over everything he’s seen and comes up with a plan), but the tricks he performs without the aid of editing show that he’s a damn well trained doggy.

Read more here.


The Boss Baby (2017)

For all its daft humour, the reason The Boss Baby is so successful (for an adult viewer) is that it’s actually a really neat way of tackling the whole “sibling displaced by new baby” thing, from the kid’s point of view. That’s the thematic and subtextual meat that makes it more than just “wouldn’t it be funny if a baby was a businessman!”

Read more here.


The Hurricane Heist (2018)

If The Hurricane Heist had been made 20 years ago it probably would’ve been a major blockbuster. It certainly looks like the CGI was produced back then. Now… well, it’s gone direct to Sky Cinema, hasn’t it? Maybe it’ll find a cult following, but I’m not sure it’s quite barmy enough to achieve that so-bad-it’s-good love.

Read more here.


Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964)

it’s probably the most artfully directed Zatoichi film so far. Or if not artfully then certainly energetically — it’s full of more unusual angles and editing tricks than the previous films put together. But director Kazuo Ikehiro isn’t just a show-off, knowing when to not over-complicate matters: if a sequence calls for a simpler series of shots (in a dialogue scene, for example) then that’s what we get. The cinematography looks superb too, with a palpable richness.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)
[#61 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

The Hurricane Heist (2018)
[#60 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Collection Count

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

Five new titles this week, including a nowadays-rare DVD-to-DVD upgrade (I'm sure they must still release such things sometimes, but as a Blu-ray buyer I'm usually looking at that format).

Number of titles in collection: 2,094 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,163 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 931 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 5,364 [up 8]
Number of films: 2,336 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes: 8,017 [no change]
Number of short films: 606 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

The Director and the Jedi (2018)
[#59 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
The feature-length making-of on the Last Jedi Blu-ray is a legitimately great film in its own right.

Shrek 2 (2004)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2018 #14. My Shrek rewatch continues... and ends, because I've never seen the third and fourth (or any of the other spin-off bits, except for Shrek 4D). I've not seen this one for a similar amount of time to the first (to be exact, I know my family watched it at Christmas 2004, so just over 13 years ago). Watching now, I actually enjoyed it more than Shrek 1. However, the musical after-bit (Far Far Away Idol) wasn't even as good as Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
3x17 Adrian Pimento

The Great Stand Up To Cancer Bake Off
1x05 Episode 5 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Lucifer
2x11 Stewardess Interruptus

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
3x16 House Mouses

Line of Duty
4x05 Episode 5
4x06 Episode 6 [season finale]

A Series of Unfortunate Events
2x09 The Carnivorous Carnival Part One
2x10 The Carnivorous Carnival Part Two [season finale]

TV

Line of Duty
4x04 Episode 4

A Series of Unfortunate Events
2x07 The Hostile Hospital Part One
2x08 The Hostile Hospital Part Two

Who Dares Wins
11x02 (31/3/18 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Line of Duty
4x03 Episode 3

Lucifer
2x10 Quid Pro Ho

A Series of Unfortunate Events
2x05 The Vile Village Part One
2x06 The Vile Village Part Two

Films

Paddington 2 (2017)
[#58 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

dinnerladies diaries
Part 3 Final Toast

Line of Duty
4x02 Episode 2

Not Going Out
9x04 Pets
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

A Series of Unfortunate Events
2x03 The Ersatz Elevator Part One
2x04 The Ersatz Elevator Part Two

this week on 100 Films

It's the first of a new month, which means today 100 Films in a Year looks back at the last one...





Also this week, there were 6 brand-new reviews...


Bad Boys (1995)

The debut feature from director Michael Bay, Bad Boys displays a lot of the things he would become known for: fast-cut action scenes; a sense of style over substance; a little light lasciviousness… Even from his first film, some of his flourishes look over the top.

Read more here.


Bad Boys II (2003)

Probably the Michael Bay-iest Michael Bay movie that Michael Bay ever Michael Bay-d— er, made. If the first Bad Boys suggested where Bay’s style would go, Bad Boys II is him in full flow.

Read more here.


Beetlejuice (1988)

Ironically, I’d like the whole film a lot more if the title character wasn’t in it. Okay, I know not everyone’s going to feel this way — I imagine some people love him — but, for me, he’s by far the worst thing about the film. He starts off with just a couple of small appearances that are only a little irritating, but when he enters the story properly… ugh.

Read more here.


Cars 3 (2017)

Easily the best film in the Cars trilogy... Although I wouldn’t say sports movies are my bag, I think Cars 3 probably benefits from taking a more clean approach to that genre, ditching all the spy hijinks distractions of the last one. That purity of genre keeps it straightforward and focused.

Read more here.


The Silent Child (2017)

There’s a clear social-conscience motivation behind the creation of this film, highlighted by a downbeat ending that’s well calibrated to anger you into wanting change. It’s depressing that this isn’t set 50 years ago, but is the situation today. It seems hard to believe any parents would be so horrid and low-key abusive as Libby’s, but then I bet they voted Tory, so, y’know. Even then, the cold hard stats presented at the end are sobering. The cumulative effect is powerful and worthwhile.

Read more here.


The Villainess (2017)

This isn’t one of those films that’s trailed like an action movie but, actually, only has a couple of stunts and is mostly something else. No, this really, really pays off just as a two-hour adrenaline kick; but it’s also, simultaneously, something more complicated. Put both sides together and I think there’s a good chance this will, deservedly, become regarded as a genre classic

Read more here.


More next Sunday.