TV

Small Axe
Mangrove
[#246 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Should this count as Film or TV? It's a series of five thematically-linked feature-length episodes, directed by filmmaker Steve McQueen, and this first one was the opening night film at the London Film Festival. So it's a film... but it's a TV series... but it's a series of films... that most people will watch on TV, one per week... though in the US, the promos don't call it "a series" or "miniseries", but "a collection of five films"... but... Oh, the line is so blurry now!
Anyway, I've listed it as TV, because that's where I watched it, but I'm also going to count it for 100 Films.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Lie (2018)
[#245 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

See also: today's TV post

this week on 100 Films

4 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Jojo Rabbit (2019)

some people really took against the film. Others, less vitriolic, thought it didn’t measure up to writer-director Taika Waititi’s high standard. I don’t think it’s as good as Hunt for the Wilderpeople or What We Do in the Shadows (both modern classics, more or less), but I did like it a lot. When it hit the mark with its humour, it was very, very funny; but it balances this with emotional and hard-hitting bits.

Read more here.


Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

the film’s tension crushes in all the time, throughout. Or perhaps not tension, exactly, but worry; uncertainty; anxiety. What’s going to happen? What’s going to go wrong? How are they going to deal with this, that, and the other? Horribly, this is probably what it’s like to be a young woman a lot of the time, especially in America. That’s the film’s power: it takes a real-life experience lived by so many, and it doesn’t just show it to us, it makes us feel it.

Read more here.


Patrick (2019)

To sum this up as “Agatha Christie meets the Coen brothers in a nudist camp” doesn’t feel too wide of the mark. Okay, there’s no murder, so perhaps mystery-genre fans could think of a better author than Christie to sub in. But the fact remains that the missing hammer isn’t just a story hook to hang something else on: it’s a solid mystery narrative, with clues and red herrings and twists. Conversely, it’s not just a mystery... It’s very much a comedy-drama, in that it’s not out-and-out seeking to provoke laughs, but it’s frequently absurd to the point of being laughable

Read more here.


Waxworks (1924)

Often billed as the first portmanteau horror movie, Waxworks only fits the bill in the loosest sense: its “three stories” are actually two stories and a dream sequence, the first (and longest) of which is, if anything, a swashbuckling farce... It’s a welcome watch for fans of silent cinema or early horror (with caveats about its “horror” content duly noted), and there are enough good parts to recommend it, but I wouldn’t argue it’s a classic in any enduring sense

Read more here.


More next Sunday.