this week on 100 Films

First up, as it's now October that means its time for the always exciting 100 Films in a Year monthly update.

How good was September? This good. Also at that link: five great Shakespeare adaptations.


And that wasn't all this week, oh no. There were also three new reviews published, including...


Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition) (2013)

Given the choice, I think this adaptation functions better in its original, intended, two-part version; but the single-film version is not fundamentally different to double-billing its constituent parts. [But] though there are aesthetic reasons for choosing to watch The Dark Knight Returns as two separate features, there are several unavoidable reasons why picking up the Deluxe Edition is preferable.

Read more here.


Les Misérables (2012)

Jackman is the star of the show, and brings his musical theatre background to bear on a clearly-sung but emotive performance. He was unlucky to be in the same awards year as Daniel Day-Lewis’ all-conquering turn in Lincoln, because otherwise those gongs might well have been his.

Read more here.


Safe House (2012)

Denzel Washington is a fugitive, Ryan Reynolds is the CIA rookie who ends up looking after him — and later, chasing him — after Something Goes Wrong at the titular abode in this workmanlike thriller

Read more here.


And finally, reviews new to the new blog...


Great Expectations (1998)

It comes across more as an academic exercise in turning a British Victorian novel into a modern American movie than a believable tale that works in isolation. Indeed, many of the changes appear to be designed purely to help distance it: the changed character names, the focus on the love story, and so on. Yet it directly recreates many scenes from the novel, and it obviously retains its title

Read more here.


Solaris (2002)

When Andrei Tarkovsky adapted Stanislaw Lem’s thoughtful science fiction novel in 1972, it took 165 minutes. When Steven Soderbergh did it 30 years later, it took just over 90. Lem hated them both, stating that he didn’t write about people’s “erotic problems in space”, but for those concerned with what the film is about rather than what it (perhaps) should have been about, it seems that an abbreviated running time is no barrier to loading any adaptation of Solaris with a weighty thoughtfulness.

Read more here.


Stormbreaker (2006)

An adaptation of the first in Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling series of Alex Rider novels. It does a good job of translating the book, aided by an extensive cast of recognisable Brits (and some Yanks) and some entertaining action sequences.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.