TV

The Graham Norton Show
22x13 New Year's Eve Show
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Little Women
Part 2 (of 3)
Part 3 (of 3)
[Watch parts two and three (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Airplane! (1980)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #52

this week on 100 Films

As it's the new year tomorrow, this week over at 100 Films in a Year has ended with a review of 2017's Christmas TV...





Aside from that, there were 8 brand-new film reviews...


The 39 Steps (1935)

This adaptation of John Buchan’s adventure novel is one of the best-known among director Alfred Hitchcock’s early works, and for good reason. Galloping briskly along with a running time under 90 minutes, it’s a film where mood, tone, and the wonderful execution of individual sequences are all allowed to trump plot, which is somewhere on the spectrum from unexplained to nonsensical.

Read more here.


Dances with Wolves Special Edition (1990/1991)

the near-four-hour extended one certainly feels its length. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — this is an epic in the truest sense of the word, with a large story to tell on a grand canvass; although it’s concurrently a drama about just a couple of people from different cultures coming to interact.

Read more here.


Gran Torino (2008)

I imagine it would play very nicely as a companion piece and/or counterpoint to his earlier Oscar-winner, Unforgiven — both are stories about old men in one final fight, essentially. Here, that comes with a subtext about the price that’s paid for standing up for yourself. It may be the right thing to do, and maybe it ends up with the right result, but the good guys really suffer to get to that point.

Read more here.


Jackie Brown (1997)

Some people argue that Jackie Brown is secretly Tarantino’s best movie. I add “secretly” there because it gets a lot less attention than the aforementioned movies that came either side of it. That’s not a bandwagon I’m prepared to jump on. To me, it feels a little like QT was trying to emulate what worked about Pulp Fiction without just making a rip-off of his own movie, and therefore it’s a bit of an inferior copy.

Read more here.


A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

It’s a grandly romantic film — it is all about the triumph of love over everything else, after all — but with a particular fantastical bent that I think remains unique. It has the wit to present a mildly irreverent stance on the afterlife, not taking the whole “life and death” thing too seriously.

Read more here.


Nashville (1975)

Robert Altman’s low-key epic about 24 characters and how their stories interact, overlap, and collide across five days in the city of Nashville, Tennessee. The sheer scope of that makes it a tricky film to interpret. There’s a lot going on, much of it in snatched conversations and moments that leave it up to the audience to piece together what matters and why.

Read more here.


Planet of the Apes (1968)

Coming to Planet of the Apes for the first time almost 50 years after its release, there’s an unavoidable quaintness to some of it, mainly the monkey makeup. It was for a long time iconic, but it’s been abandoned in favour of hyper-realistic CGI in the new movies and therefore shows its age.

Read more here.


Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Screenplay (first two acts) — 3/5
Screenplay (bit where it suddenly gets plot-heavy and all exposition-y to set up the third act) — 1/5
Screenplay (third act that seems to be from a completely different, much more conventional movie) — 2/5

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Little Women
Part 1 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

A Few Good Men (1992)
Stumbled across this on TV and watched chunks from the second half, including the famous climax. Not something I'd do normally, but when having Christmas at other people's houses... It's not like my viewing of it first time round was perfect, having to wait over two months between most of the film and the final half-hour. I really ought to re-watch it properly.

Scrooged (1988)
[#174 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Collection Count

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

Technically the monthly running time update isn't due until next week, but this is the last update of 2017 so I thought it would be better to bring it forward a week and do all my past-year increases... but I'm away from home at the minute, and home is where my full records are, so it'll have to wait after all. On the bright side, I'm not expecting any new additions in the next week that aren't technically already here (they're waiting for me when I get home), so it'll still be accurate for my 2017 increases.

Aaaanyway! On with the stats for what I got for Christmas...

Number of titles in collection: 2,072 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,166 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 906 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 5,314 [up 3]
Number of films: 2,307 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 8,005 [no change]
Number of short films: 599 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special
Mistook this for a Christmas special in Sky One's listings, but it's actually from the summer. Despite the title, it's really just a Late Late Show special -- presumably they put Carpool Karaoke in the title because it's famous and therefore a draw.

Live at the Apollo
13x07 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

QI
15x09 O Christmas (XL edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Tim Vine Travels Through Time
Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

University Challenge
Christmas 2017 St John's College, Cambridge v St Edmund Hall, Oxford
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #51, although this time I watched the colourised version, just out of curiosity. It wasn't bad, but it doesn't look quite real -- everything's too washed out, too pastel-y, without enough nuance in the shades and range of colours, despite their best efforts. It's not distracting, at least, but it's ultimately pointless.

TV

Michael McIntyre's Big Show
3x06 Christmas Special [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Miranda Does Christmas
On the same set from those Christmas specials Ruth Jones used to do, I swear.
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Romesh Ranganathan: Irrational Live
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

University Challenge
Christmas 2017 University of Leicester v UCL
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Upstart Crow
2x07 A Christmas Crow [Christmas special]
Followed by scouring through Love Actually for the scenes being referenced.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2017
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Miniaturist
Part 2 (of 2)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

University Challenge
Christmas 2017 University of York v University of Southampton
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Miniaturist
Part 1 (of 2)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Snow Bears
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Travel Man
6x00 48 Hours in Hong Kong [Christmas special]
with John Hamm.
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

University Challenge
Christmas 2017 Selwyn College, Cambridge v St Andrews University
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

As usual, it was a busy Christmas Day in front of the telly...

300 Years of French and Saunders
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who
37x00 Twice Upon a Time [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Dresser
Finally got round to watching this 2015 re-adaptation of Ronald Harwood's play. With its Oscar-calibre cast and feature-length running time, it's the kind of thing that's perfectly positioned to fall between stools in the "what's film and what's TV?" debate.

Have I Got News For You
54x11 Have I Got a Bit More 2017 News for You
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Highway Rat
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mrs Brown's Boys
Mammy's Mummy [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

University Challenge
Christmas 2017 Durham University v Keble College, Oxford
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Gogglebox
10x16 The Best of 2017
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Joanna & Jennifer: Absolutely Champers
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Elf (2003)
[#173 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

this week on 100 Films

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


Hidden Figures (2016)

Based on a true story, Hidden Figures is about three black women working at NASA in the early ’60s, a time when segregation was still in force in the US. It’s a double whammy of timely issues, then: they struggle to prove they’re clever and have scientific know-how because they’re women, and they struggle to prove they’re worth treating with respect because they’re black. How depressing that these things are still relevant over 50 years later.

Read more here.


John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

For anyone who particularly liked the snippets of this world’s mythology from the first movie, Chapter 2 delivers what they’re after in spades... Of course, it’s all still in service of people shooting and stabbing and punching and whatever-else-ing each other. Maybe that’s doing it a disservice. Nonetheless, there’s lots of intricately choreographed, cleanly staged action — and what more do you want from a film like this?

Read more here.


The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)

You might think the story is almost by the by, because the real point is the gags — and fortunately the movie is indeed consistently funny, with a Flash-like pace to keep things moving... But don’t disregard the narrative offhand, because it also summons up surprisingly effective character arcs. Who expected that, right?

Read more here.


Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

I’ve felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if a small but vocal group of fanboys suddenly cried out in terror and were unfortunately not silenced because on the internet such complaining goes on forever. Yes, something terrible has happened: a new Star Wars movie has come out and, rather than go the Force Awakens route of appealing to nostalgia and familiarity, it’s attempted to boldly go where no Star Wars movie has gone before. Well, it’s maybe not quite that innovative, but writer and director Rian Johnson has given us an Episode VIII that eschews rehashing former glories for an attempt to push the franchise forward in interesting new ways. It’s not an unmitigated success, but it is considerably more than just “a good effort”.

Read more here.


I also wrote a piece about my continuing experience with 4K UHD...





More next Sunday.

TV

Peter Pan Goes Wrong
[2nd watch]
My parents had this recorded from last year. It's still hilarious on a second viewing. Sadly it's not being repeated for the sake of anyone who missed it.

Collection Count

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

Although it's nearly Christmas, and so by rights things should quieten down until after the big day, I haven't played by the rules: there are six additions this week.

Number of titles in collection: 2,070 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 1,167 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 903 [up 6]

Number of discs in collection: 5,311 [up 12]
Number of films: 2,305 [up 6]
Number of TV episodes: 8,005 [no change]
Number of short films: 599 [up 4]

I don't know what I'm getting for Christmas, obviously, but I have a sneaking suspicion next week's update will actually be smaller. We'll see in seven days' time, faithful reader.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
22x12 (22/12/17 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge (2017)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #50

TV

Black Mirror
2x04 White Christmas
While a lot of people seem to go on about how much they love season three's San Junipero, this 2014 Christmas special (the last episode broadcast on Channel 4) is still the highest-rated episode of Black Mirror on IMDb by a solid margin. I'm not sure it is the show's best episode (season one's The Entire History of You takes some beating), but it was very good.

And BBC Four had a Star Wars night...

The Galaxy Britain Built
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Hollywood's Master of Myth: Joseph Campbell - The Force Behind Star Wars
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

John Williams Film Prom
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The League of Gentlemen
4x03 Royston Vasey Mon Amour [season finale]
Revivals of once-great comedies can be a mistake -- they're often little more than an exercise in nostalgia -- but this has been really rather good, and gone down very well too. Officially it's a set of 20th anniversary specials rather than a fourth series, but might we see more? I think it would be welcomed.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Forbidden Planet (1956)
[#172 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]
Blindspot 2017 #12. And that completes Blindspot for 2017.

Home Alone (1990)
[2nd or so watch]
Rewatchathon 2017 #49. Haven't seen this since I was a kid. I may well have seen it more than once back then, but I wouldn't swear to it.

TV

The League of Gentlemen
4x02 Save Royston Vasey
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
[#171 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

The League of Gentlemen
4x01 Return to Royston Vasey
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Hidden Figures (2016)
[#170 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

this week on 100 Films

It was time for a TV review this week on 100 Films in a Year...





Plus there were 4 brand-new film reviews...


The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

As someone who still feels new to Wes Anderson’s world and is working through his oeuvre in a roundabout fashion, I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment that it's a lesser work on Anderson’s CV. If you want to find out what’s so great about Anderson, there are certainly other places to start.

Read more here.


Hotel Chevalier (2007)

a kind-of-prequel, kind-of-Part-One to The Darjeeling Limited. It’s probably best remembered for... Natalie Portman’s ass... because oh my God you get to see Natalie Portman’s ass... I don’t know how much it has to offer outside of setting up part of The Darjeeling Limited. Unless you just want to see Natalie Portman’s ass, of course.

Read more here.


The Terminator (1984)

The more mediocre movies you see, or even just “quite good” ones, the more you realise how perfect the great ones are — and The Terminator is a great movie. It’s full of superb sci-fi ideas, well-directed action sequences, quotable dialogue, and memorable characters — not least the instantly iconic title role.

Read more here.


Your Name. (2016)

If you’ve not heard about Your Name then… well, where have you been for the past year? It was a colossal hit in its native Japan during the back end of 2016, spending 12 weeks at #1 to become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time there... Critical acclaim has followed as it’s been released around the rest of the world too, hailing writer-director Makoto Shinkai as the new Miyazaki. It’s hard to imagination higher praise for an animator... So when I finally sat down to watch it this week it had a bit of weight on its shoulders — at this point it runs the risk of being a victim of its own hype.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
22x11 (15/12/17 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
[#169 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Collection Count

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

Four new acquisitions this week, including a BD-to-BD upgrade. It would've been double that, but the post seems to be slow right now. Wonder why...

Note how the numbers of discs and films are both sitting on the cusp of nice round figures. They won't land there though, because next week all those other titles will turn up and storm past it. Hey-ho.

Number of titles in collection: 2,064 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,167 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 897 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 5,299 [up 9]
Number of films: 2,299 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 8,005 [up 7]
Number of short films: 595 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #48

The Last Jedi tomorrow!

TV

Arrow
6x06 Promises Kept

Detectorists
3x06 Episode 6 [series finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Castle
8x15 Fidelis Ad Mortem

The Good Place
1x13 Michael's Gambit [season finale]

TV

Detectorists
3x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Flash
4x06 When Harry Met Harry...

Insert Name Here
3x04 Paul
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
11x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Your Name. (2016)
[#168 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

The Good Place
1x12 Mindy St. Claire

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
6x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

Arrow
6x05 Deathstroke Returns

Detectorists
3x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

For a Few Dollars More (1965)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #47

This was included in my 100 Favourites series, which you can read about here.

this week on 100 Films

There were 7 brand-new reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, with 4 of them bundled into a...


Comedy Review Roundup

Let’s have a laugh (or, perhaps, not) with… Police Academy, Black Dynamite, Four Lions, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Read more here.


Life (2017)

Playing like a cross between Gravity (a near-future thriller where space technology is almost identical to our present capabilities) and Alien (a violent alien lifeform attacks the crew of a space vessel), Life clearly aspires to be little more than a straight-up sci-fi/horror thrill ride, and on that score it’s a pretty effective piece of entertainment.

Read more here.


Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (2014)

As is a common fate among so many trilogy-closers, I thought Rurouni Kenshin 3 was sadly the series’ weak link. That said, it’s not a bad action movie — if you’re only in it for the swordplay then it satisfies with bells on; it’s the storyline around that is disappointing.

Read more here.


Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)

Film Twitter has been getting itself in a bit of a tizzy over the past couple of days about David Lynch’s return to TV [after] respected British film magazine Sight & Sound went and named Twin Peaks: The Return as the second best film of 2017... Personally, I’m not really sure where I come down on the issue. I mean, it’s definitely a TV series, isn’t it? But it’s also virtually an 18-hour movie, isn’t it? Can it be both? Why can’t it be both?

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

As promised last week, there's a whole load of stuff here -- eight additions, to be exact, with just one being a DVD-to-BD upgrade. That all makes its presence felt in the monthly running time update, too.

Number of titles in collection: 2,061 [up 7]
Of which DVDs: 1,167 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 894 [up 8]

Number of discs in collection: 5,290 [up 18]
Number of films: 2,297 [up 9]
Number of TV episodes: 7,998 [up 18]
Number of short films: 595 [up 1]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
392 days, 5 hours, and 22 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 9 hours, and 24 minutes from last month.)

That's the biggest running time increase since there were silly numbers in July.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Castle
8x14 G.D.S.

The Flash
4x05 Girls Night Out
This is by far the lowest-rated episode of The Flash on IMDb, not just this season but ever. I didn't think it was very good, but it's not that much worse than the show's usual standard.

The Good Place
1x11 What's My Motivation

Films

Men in Black 3 (2012)
[#167 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

Arrow
6x04 Reversal

Castle
8x13 And Justice for All

Detectorists
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Good Place
1x10 Chidi's Choice

Would I Lie To You?
11x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Terminator (1984)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #46

TV

The Flash
4x04 Elongated Journey Into Night

Insert Name Here
3x03 Anne
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Atomic Blonde (2017)
[#166 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Films

Her (2013)
[#165 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2017 #10

And that completes WDYMYHS for 2017.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
22x09 (1/12/17 edition)
I only really watch this nowadays when I'm at my parents' and they bung it on.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Michael McIntyre's Big Show
3x01 (18/11/17 edition)
Same as above for this (as well as a few other random shows that I didn't really pay attention to).
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
[#164 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Despite the mixed-to-poor reviews, I rather enjoyed this. It's also now made over $210 million worldwide, nearly quadruple its budget, so I guess we'll be getting the rumoured sequel.

this week on 100 Films

I'm sure you can't have failed to notice that it's now December (nearly Christmas!), which means it was time to look back at November on 100 Films in a Year...





There were also 4 brand-new reviews published in the last week...


Rurouni Kenshin (2012)

As promised, the action sequences are excitingly staged, full of quick choreography and slick stunts. Couple their impressiveness with the large cast and varied period locations, and it gives the whole thing a glossy, big-budget feel.

Read more here.


Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014)

one of those sequels that benefits from the its predecessor establishing the world of the story and the characters that inhabit it, meaning it can launch off on its own grander scale. Partly we see this in a material sense: it looks even more expensive than the first one... but it’s also in the scope of the story and the way it stretches the characters, both old and new.

Read more here.


Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

It’s probably a bit too barmy — a bit too European, even — for mainstream US tastes, but there’s a lot to like here for those who are so inclined. The main selling point is the imagery. Simply put, it’s incredible. There’s so much going on, all the time. There’s background detail galore. It whizzes through worlds that could be the entire setting for some other story. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of alien species thrown around. It’s so casually inventive, as if it’s got imagination to spare. And it’s mostly vibrantly colourful too

Read more here.


Zatoichi the Fugitive (1963)

the best part of the film is the final 20 minutes, a tour de force of emotion and action that sees Ichi surrounded and, enraged into action, taking down an army that stands between him and vengeance. Said vengeance comes in the form of a one-on-one sword duel, of course. Obviously we know our hero will triumph, but it’s still a tense scene, especially as it seems to be a rare occasion when Ichi’s been out-fought. This third act elevates the whole movie

Read more here.


The third and final (so far) Rurouni Kenshin will be reviewed tomorrow, and therefore feature in next Sunday's roundup.

Collection Count

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

Just one new-release addition this week. A whole load of stuff is out on Monday, but that's all still in the post.

Number of titles in collection: 2,054 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,168 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 886 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,272 [up 2]
Number of films: 2,288 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 7,980 [no change]
Number of short films: 594 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.