Fiction

The Emperor Waltz by Philip Hensher
Book 1
Book 2 1-4

this week on 100 Films

It was nearly a whole week ago now, I know, but a new month did begin this week, and so 100 Films in a Year looked back at the last one — lightweight though it was...





And 5 new reviews were published this past week, too...


The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)

Where the first three Dragon Tattoo stories were all fundamentally crime thrillers, this opens up the storytelling world into much more fanciful realms. It’s a bit like they’ve tried to make Lisbeth Salander a kind of freelance female James Bond, using her l33t h4x0r skillz to stop evil cyber-terrorists. It also helps that she’s pretty handy on a motorbike and with a gun. How? Just because. Unfortunately, an element of ‘just because’ powers too much of the film, with fundamental flaws in even its basic setup

Read more here.


The Karate Kid (2010)

From reading other viewer reviews, I get the impression a lot of people dislike it just because they’re nostalgic for the original or because they’re annoyed by Jaden Smith’s parents trying to make him a movie star. But if you remove those external contexts, the film offers a decent storyline and some strong performances — it’s Jackie Chan, c’mon!

Read more here.


Shaft (2019)

Where Jackson’s Shaft was once a cool dude kicking ass and taking names (or whatever it is cool dude PIs did in the early ’00s), here they’ve turned him into a bit of a throwback dinosaur, spouting politically incorrect opinions with every other line of dialogue... At times it’s like someone adapted one of those facile “millennials are to blame for everything” articles into a movie; or at least copy-pasted it into Shaft Sr’s dialogue.

Read more here.


Witness (1985)

the film could descend into a culture-clash comedy — the big city cop chafing against historical rural life — but, while that clash is certainly in play, it’s not milked for laughs. Rather, the film is about Book experiencing a way of life so different to his own, and it changing his perspective on the world. Indeed, with the focus it gives to Amish ways, the film almost seems like it wanted to be a documentary about that community as much as a story.

Read more here.


Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970)

Sex has been a factor of Zatoichi films before, but I’m not sure any other is as consumed by it as this one. It starts with a mistress auction and teases of nudity; the mystery ronin’s quest is to kill everyone who slept with his wife, which he thinks includes Ichi; the major set-piece is a fight in a bathhouse between Ichi and an army of assassins, all of whom are stark naked; Ichi spends an evening with five prostitutes; the villains decide the best way to kill our hero is with a honey trap (who winds up genuinely falling for Ichi, of course); there’s the roadhouse owners we randomly come across, who are casually perverse… and that’s all before the one-hour mark. Though if you’re expecting to see flashes of flesh, the nude scenes feature almost Austin Powers-level endeavours to make sure nothing explicit is shown.

Read more here.


More next Sunday, perhaps, depending on my holiday.

Holiday

As you read this, I am leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again... except I do know: it's Saturday 20th.

Until then, updates may be sporadic and/or delayed, if there's even anything to write about.

TV

Beecham House
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

Films

The Killer (1989)
[#100 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]
Blindspot 2019 #6. Later than expected for both #100 and Blindspot #6, but here we are!

TV

Summer of Rockets
Part 6 (of 6)
[Watch the entire series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Glastonbury 2019
Kylie Minogue
Well, the Sunday afternoon BBC One show was billed as Kyle, but it began with Jeff Goldblum and ended with a fair old chunk of Miley Cyrus, so them too.
[Watch these sets, and many more (again), on iPlayer.]

Films

Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971)
[#99 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

TV

Glastonbury 2019
Sigrid
The Cure
Plus bits & bobs of all sorts of other stuff, mainly based on what the Beeb decided to pad their main-channel shows with, but I did dip into Kylie’s set a few times.
[Watch these sets, and many more (again), on iPlayer.]

Films

Shaft (2019)
[#98 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

this week on 100 Films

Time for a TV review this week at 100 Films in a Year...





Plus, 3 new films reviews...


Shaft (2000)

This is almost 20 years old now (obviously), and yet all the white privilege bullshit that drives its story makes it feel like it could’ve been made yesterday. (Why are you so enable to evolve societally, America?) Other than that apparently-eternal timeliness, it’s a pretty standard kinda thriller, with most of its charm coming via an array of likeable performances.

Read more here.


Stalker (1979)

Described by the blurb on its Criterion Collection Blu-ray release as “a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic post-apocalyptic landscape”, Stalker is… probably that… I guess…?

Read more here.


True Romance (1993)

Directed by Tony Scott from Quentin Tarantino’s first screenplay, this is pretty much everything you’d expect from an early Quentin Tarantino screenplay directed by Tony Scott... I’m a fan of both men’s work, so of course it was up my alley. I don’t think it’s the best from either of them, but mixing together the distinct styles of two such trend-setting iconoclasts does produce a unique blend.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Glastonbury 2019
The Killers
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

As mentioned last week, there are a few more additions this week (3 releases with 9 feature films across 12 discs, plus 1 BD-to-UHD upgrade that added 1 disc), just in time for the monthly running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 2,238 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,132 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,106 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 30 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,814 [up 13]
Number of films: 2,569 [up 9]
Number of TV episodes: 8,609 [no change]
Number of short films: 671 [up 2]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
426 days, 7 hours, and 59 minutes.
(Up 4 days, 17 hours, and 7 minutes from last month.)

That's my biggest monthly increase this year by far... although there were a couple even bigger in 2018, never mind in previous years, so it's not one for the all-time record books.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Glastonbury 2019
Stormzy
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Summer of Rockets
Part 5 (of 6)
[Watch the entire series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Summer of Rockets
Part 3 (of 6)
Part 4 (of 6)
[Watch the entire series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Summer of Rockets
Part 1 (of 6)
Part 2 (of 6)
[Watch the entire series (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Beecham House
1x01 Episode 1
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch episodes one and two (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

The Truth About...
Getting Fit
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

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


The Happytime Murders (2018)

there are some legitimately funny bits along the way, often found among the riffs on the puppet thing (for example: one of the victims is drowned, and before bagging the body they ring him out). Unfortunately it isn’t funny as often as it should be, too often relying on worn or lacklustre humour. I mean, it tries to run with the old playground favourite “idiots say what?” as a running gag. It also leans on puppets being lewd and crude as the extent of the gag, which simply isn’t that funny in itself, partly because it isn’t as original as the film seems to think it is.

Read more here.


Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)

Before Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle there was Zathura, which is sort of a sequel to Jumanji… but more of a spin-off, I guess… well, really it’s a completely unrelated movie with the exact same plot... But this game is about space, so it’s completely different, obviously... I did enjoy it — in some respects, more than I enjoyed Jumanji when I rewatched that recently — but it also doesn’t feel as polished and complete as its predecessor

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Opera

La damnation de Faust
at Glyndebourne