TV

Friends
7x17 The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress [4th or so watch]

Films

Tower Block (2012)
[#6 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Second half, via... alternate means.

Comics

Velvet #1-2 by Ed Brubaker & Steve Epting

A Cold War-set espionage action-thriller with a kick-ass female hero? Thought this looked right up my street. Unfortunately, after two issues I'm not wholly sold. It's by no means bad, I'm just not quite on board with the characters or where the story's going; and there's always that query from mainstream comics: is there actually enough going on each issue to justify the $3 price tag?

Plus, it's an ongoing -- great for developing and paying off things long-term, but who knows how long you'll have to wait for those answers? A wait can be fine, but more of an issue is: I'm looking to cut my pull list, not keep expanding it -- something's gotta give. Question is, do I give it one more issue to sway me, or just ditch it now?

With such thoughts, this (along with practically-gone-already Satellite Sam) is on shaky ground.

this week on 100 Films

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


Tom Conway as the Falcon, Part II
A summary, linking to the following reviews:


The Falcon and the Co-eds (1943)

The twisty plot is engrossing and the humour entertaining, though I felt more could have been made of the potentially atmospheric remote cliff-top setting. It’s the kind of film where I began imagining how it might be remade to even greater effect.

Read more here.


The Falcon Out West (1944)

provides all the Western action it can muster: runaway coaches, shootin’, horseback riding, gentle racism about Native Americans… This is the West of the 1940s, theoretically 50 years or whatever on from The Wild West, but conceptually almost unchanged.

Read more here.


The Falcon in Mexico (1944)

“In our peaceful country, life is very seldom in danger,” states one character halfway through, just one of many instances that might make you think the film was co-funded by the Mexican tourist board. Oh sure, there’s the usual array of thefts and murders that you’d expect from a Falcon adventure, but they’re mostly committed by Americans.

Read more here.


The Falcon in Hollywood (1944)

By this point you should know what you’re in for with a Falcon film: a solid murder mystery plot with some light fun and mischief on the way to its solution. In this one, the plot is actually quite simple to follow for quite a while, making a change from recent Falcons. It’s still an engrossing enough mystery, but clearly told.

Read more here.


Also this week...


Macbeth (1948)

a compromised but interesting adaptation. Welles has chopped and changed the play, cutting scenes, transposing others, assigning speeches to different characters, even creating new ones. This array of modifications scandalised critics at the time, though nowadays it’s much more common, usually to make the works a manageable length. Macbeth is one of the more sensibly-sized plays, however, though I suppose this is the legacy of Welles’ short 23-day schedule.

Read more here.


Plus, new to the new blog...


Air Force One (1997)

Harrison Ford stars as President Indiana Jones — sorry, Jack Ryan — no, James Marshall (that’s it) in this action-thriller from the Die Hard school of moviemaking. Yep, this is “Die Hard on a plane” — except it’s not any old plane, it’s Air Force frickin’ One; and the Bruce Willis character isn’t any old washed-up cop, it’s the frickin’ President of the U.S. frickin’ A. Hells yeah!

Read more here.


More next Sunday.