Films

Die Hart (2023)
[#16 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]

Audio Drama

Hell Cats
1x01 Disguise and Deceit
Released as an Audible Original podcast, this series tells the story of the infamous pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read — the eponymous "hell cats". I forget where I first heard about it, but I've been meaning to listen for ages; and as I've forked out for Audible for months now without getting round to it, it was more than overdue that I start. This first episode is mostly backstory, detailing the women's childhoods, which clearly set them on their path to outlaw lives.
[Listen to it (again) on Audible.]

TV

Doctor Who
2x15 Inferno
aka The Romans Part Four, the final episode.

TV

Doctor Who
2x14 Conspiracy
aka The Romans Part Three.

The Wheel
3x08 Episode 8
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

2000 AD #2301
Ok, it's taken me a little longer to continue than intended, but I intend to pick up the pace from here. All-new storylines start this prog, most of which I really enjoyed, so there's double incentive to keep at it.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

8 new reviews were published to 100Films.co.uk this week, but all within one post...


Silent Shorts Summary

Featuring...
- Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900)
- The One-Man Band (1900)
- The Infernal Cauldron (1903)
- Life of an American Fireman (1903)
- The Consequences of Feminism (1906)
- The Dancing Pig (1907)
- Frankenstein (1910)
- What! No Spinach? (1926)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
2x13 All Roads Lead to Rome
aka The Romans Part Two.

Collection Count

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

For the past few weeks I've been talking about reaching 2,000 Blu-rays before the February running time update. Well, in short, it didn't happen — but it definitely will next week, because the order that should've tipped me over is in the post and currently due to arrive on Monday. Oh well.

There were still some new additions this week, but I'd forgotten that a 4K title I added last week was actually an upgrade from DVD. I've accounted for that this week, but it means most categories show no change at all, because this week's only new additions were a different 4K title and a Blu-ray-to-Blu-ray upgrade.

Number of titles in collection: 3,032 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,034 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,998 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 239 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 7,484 [no change]
Number of films: 3,708 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 304 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,551 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,041 [no change]

But, as I alluded to earlier, it is time for the monthly running time update, so here's that excitement...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
532 days, 20 hours, and 12 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 19 hours, and 25 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Doctor Who
2x12 The Slave Traders
Rolling straight on into the next serial, The Romans. This is always billed as “Doctor Who tries comedy”, but within the first 10 minutes we’ve met slave traders plotting to kidnap our heroes and an innocent old man’s been brutally murdered in a hedge. Barbara does whack Ian over the head during a fight though, so fair’s fair.

Films

The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Case (1932)
[2nd watch]
[#15 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]

TV

Doctor Who
2x11 Desperate Measures
aka The Rescue Part Two (of two). After a strong opener with an interesting setup, Part Two almost squanders it trying to justify Barbara killing an innocent creature and everyone patronising Vicki. But the scenes in the Hall of Judgement are suitably atmospheric (Bennett tossing a chair like a petulant child excepted), and the twist is neat. Plus, at just two instalments, the story doesn’t have time to outstay its welcome — none of that Part Three treading water. A few dud parts aside, this struck me as a bit of an underrated adventure.

Films

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2010)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube.]

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Two (2011)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube.]

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Three (2014)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube.]

The three original Marcel the Shell shorts, before I watch the feature film (hopefully soon).

TV

Doctor Who
2x10 The Powerful Enemy
aka The Rescue Part One (of two — the second of just six true two-parters in classic Who). Watched on the season two Blu-ray, which I think makes this the first story I've actually watched from one of those Blu-ray releases. Considering we're now almost halfway through the range, that's a bit ludicrous on my part. Really need to dig into them more.

Our Flag Means Death
1x08 We Gull Way Back
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The British Academy Film Awards 2023
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Death in Paradise
11x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
6x30 Week 6: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
4x21 Mother's Day
4x22 Day in the Hole [season finale]
Really weird season finale: they doled out a major development that affected several ongoing plotlines as a cliffhanger for episode 21, then fundamentally ignored it and its wider implications in the finale (which I therefore assumed was going to be all about resolving the aforementioned plot threads) for what was more of an anywhere-midseason comedy episode kinda thing. Weird.

TV

Bill Bailey: Larks in Transit
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ghosts
4x06 Not Again [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
6x29 Week 6: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
4x19 Simone
4x20 Enervo
Two-part backdoor pilot for the spinoff series.

Strike
4x03 Troubled Blood Part 3
4x04 Troubled Blood Part 4 [season finale]
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

I'm edging ever closer to 2,000 Blu-rays, and still on track to do it before next week's monthly running time update. That said, two titles I was expecting next week have been delayed (as is so often the way with boutique labels), so there's a little jeopardy — whereas previously I had more than enough on order, now I'm relying on everything turning up on time (actually, slightly early) or the milestone will have to wait until next month. But then, who knows when I'll cave to a sale or something — so we'll see...

Number of titles in collection: 3,032 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,035 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,997 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 238 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 7,484 [up 3]
Number of films: 3,708 [up 3]
Number of additional cuts: 304 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,551 [up 39]
Number of short films: 1,041 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
6x27 Week 6: Tuesday
6x28 Week 6: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
4x18 Backstabbers

Strike
4x01 Troubled Blood Part 1
4x02 Troubled Blood Part 2
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

How I Met Your Father
1x09 Jay Street
1x10 Timing Is Everything [season finale]

TV

Our Flag Means Death
1x07 This Is Happening
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
16x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Ace in the Hole (1951)
[#14 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2023 #2

TV

Our Flag Means Death
1x06 The Art of F**kery
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
16x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Consequences of Feminism (1906)

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Radio

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Neil Brand's "concert drama" adaptation of the famous Sherlock Holmes adventure, starring Mark Gatiss as Sherlock Holmes and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Dr Watson. "Concert drama" is Brand's term for an adaptation written for actors and orchestra — there's constant music, which also includes some sound effects and indications of scenes changes, etc, while the actors voice the characters and also provide narration, as per a traditional audio drama.

This is a recording of the world premiere performance, which happened just before Christmas; it was also filmed and will be on BBC TV later in the year. I highly recommend it (I'll definitely be experiencing it again when it's on TV) — it's a superbly atmospheric and effective retelling of the story. There's also a nice introduction by Brand, which I hope they have on the TV version too.

[Listen to it (again) on BBC Sounds.]

Comics

2000 AD #2300

Many years ago, I read comics regularly — you can go scouring through this blog's history to find them, if you want; we're talking back c.2011. The problem was, I was never very good at keeping up, and I fell further and further behind until I just gave up. 2000 AD was one of the titles this happened to, with my reading coming to an end in March 2013 with Prog 1792. But every now and then I get a hankering for regular comics...

And so, almost a decade on from last foray into the world of regular comics reading, I decided to start again. This is the first issue I bought on that mission... one which came out back in September. Yeah. So, that's how well this has gone — I'm starting almost five months behind. But I'm not giving up before I've even really begun, oh no. I'm gonna catch up and keep going. Yeah I am. ...okay, we'll see. But I live in optimism.

Anyway, this particular issue was a massive crossover, where all of the strips dealt with a multiverse zombie apocalypse situation. So big an event, it continued into the companion magazine...


Judge Dredd Megazine #448
I know my limits. Well, I don't (clearly), but I knew enough to not go all-in and subscribe to the Megazine too — this is a one-off to complete the zombie crossover.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

1 new review was published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


Black Girl (1966)

Let’s be upfront about this: I’m a middle-class Western white man who herein will be critiquing a film made by a black African filmmaker about the life of a black African character. I’m stating this baldly because I wouldn’t want anyone to think I wasn’t aware of the potential connotations and pitfalls of that situation, especially as I’m about to challenge (what seems to me to be) the accepted reading of the work in question.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Collection Count

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

Having bought so much stuff recently, I'm long overdue a respite — and so here it is, sort of, with just two new additions. And one of those is a DVD at that, just to make things even odder.

Of course, as I already observed last week, this lull won't last for long: if future releases come out as planned, then before the month is out my Blu-ray collection will have passed 2,000 titles.

Number of titles in collection: 3,029 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,035 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,994 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 238 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 7,472 [up 3]
Number of films: 3,705 [up 2]
Number of additional cuts: 304 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,512 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,041 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Oak Thorn & the Old Rose of Love (2022)
A short film set in the world of The Green Knight, and only available as a special feature on the A24 Shop-exclusive Blu-ray Collector's Edition of that film.

Films

Chopping Mall (1986)

Films

Tropical Malady (2004)
[#13 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]
Blindspot 2023 #2

Articles

Two great interviews with fantastic interviewees:

Harrison Ford: “I Know Who the F*** I Am”
by James Hibberd (from The Hollywood Reporter)
Ford’s always amusing, and I think the interview did a better job of getting into ‘the real Harrison’ than they or he might admit.

Steven Soderbergh Can’t Quit
by Matt Zoller Seitz (from Vulture)
Soderbergh’s always so thoughtful and insightful, in a way that doesn’t feel put-on or self-aggrandised, but clear, focused, and honest. It’s part of why I’ll always happily watch anything he makes.

TV

Our Flag Means Death
1x05 The Best Revenge Is Dressing Well
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
[#12 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]
+ Star Trek: Three Picture Saga, a 10-minute featurette about how the second, third, and fourth films came to be a trilogy

this week on 100Films.co.uk

We're already a whole month in 2023, so it was time to look back at January on 100Films.co.uk this week. First up, the usual review of the month...





...and then, all the stuff I failed to watch...





There was time for some new reviews, too — 5, to be precise; and they also looked back at my January viewing...


2023 | Weeks 3–4

Featuring...
- The Magician (1926)
- Glass Onion (2022)
- My Year of Dicks (2022)
- Shotgun Wedding (2022)
- The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

Fantasia (1940)
[#11 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]

A Night at the Opera (1935)
[#10 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]

Collection Count

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

After passing the 3,000 titles mark just a fortnight ago, I'm already on the cusp of another milestone: my Blu-rays alone are edging close to 2,000. In fact, with just seven additions to go 'til I cross that threshold, titles I've already pre-ordered suggest I should get there just in time for the next running time update. Unless anything gets delayed or takes its sweet time in the post, of course — that might push it back just a little. Time will tell...

Number of titles in collection: 3,027 [up 7]
Of which DVDs: 1,034 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,993 [up 7]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 237 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 7,469 [up 11]
Number of films: 3,703 [up 11]
Number of additional cuts: 303 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,512 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,041 [up 5]

See you next week, faithful reader.