Films

Alien Love Triangle (2008)

A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

A Danny Boyle double-bill courtesy of FilmBath Festival — one short, one feature. Normally you'd assume the latter was the main draw. It was Boyle's follow-up to Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, and though it's not as well remembered as either, it's one of his I'd never seen, so it was fun to get the chance to see it on the big screen. It's pretty good.

But the real attraction was the short that screened before it. Filmed in 1999 for a project that was never completed, this is only its third-ever public screening — and the other two were over 15 years ago, both on very limited and special occasions; and this is another of those (it's not just beginning a wide tour or something, as far as I know). Quite how FilmBath scored that coup, I don't know. Frankly, it does make me wonder if it's being prepped to pop up somewhere more significant. The fact Criterion are about to release Trainspotting on 4K, with the extras not yet fully revealed, makes me wonder if it'll be on that disc. Well, I hope it does become more widely available at some point, because it's fun and I'd like to see it again.

Games

The Dragon Staff of Maladoria
21–23 June 2021

Collection Count

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

Another slew of new additions this week, including a bumper lot of 4K — among them, Criterion's first UK release on the format (hooray!) Also an upgrade from BD to 4K, for a BD I bought a few months ago and hadn't even opened. I suppose it's not the first time that's more-or-less happened, but it feels like one of my shortest repurchase windows ever. I'm not happy about it... and yet, at the same time, I did it.

That's not the most uncommon addition of the week though, an honour which goes to a true rarity: an entire release for just a short film. That would be Pedro Almodóvar's Strange Way of Life, which is exclusive to HMV on Blu-ray and comes out on Monday. It's streaming in 4K on MUBI, mind, so I'll probably watch it there. Yeah, maybe I am a fool...

Number of titles in collection: 3,187 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,022 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,165 [up 9]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 306 [up 5]

Number of discs in collection: 7,764 [up 13]
Number of films: 3,912 [up 10]
Number of additional cuts: 347 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,621 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,087 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.