TV

Lupin the 3rd: Part IV
1x05 The Magician's Left Hand

Films

Body of Lies (2008)
[#168 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Non-Fiction

Space Helmet for a Cow: The Mad, True Story of Doctor Who - Volume 2: 1990-2013 by Paul Kirkley
Chapter 11 (pages 162-170)

this week on 100 Films

Time for the monthly TV roundup at 100 Films in a Year...





Plus 5 brand-new film reviews too...


The Great Wall (2016)

the 3D is spectacular. Although it’s a post-conversion, the film definitely seems to have been shot with it in mind. The massive scale of the wall allows for both deep scenery shots and extreme height, especially when we follow the class of warriors who dive off the wall to fight while abseiling down it. Then there are the arrows, throwing axes, leaping monsters, exploding monsters…

Read more here.


The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)

It’s good in places, most of it ticking along at a level of passable entertainment — but it ticks along for too long, it’s not funny enough, and it can’t bring it all together in the way the other two films did. It suffers most of all from those comparisons, because it’s simply not a patch on the other two LEGO movies.

Read more here.


Mission: Impossible III (2006)

whenever I watch M:i:III I end up loving it more than I think I will — it’s an incredibly proficient, entertaining action-thriller. That I’d still rank it near the bottom of the franchise says more about the quality of the other instalments than it does the film itself.

Read more here.


Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Living up to the hype seemed like an impossible mission all of its own. Well, if there’s one thing Ethan Hunt and his IMF teammates can pull off, it’s… a rubber mask. But if there’s another, it’s the impossible — and how!

...the real point of the movie; the thing the trailers and posters and behind-the-scenes videos have all sold it on: the action sequences. Simply, they’re incredible. Cruise’s dedication to giving the audience something new and exciting and awe-inspiring to watch is second to none.

Read more here.


The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

If the plot sounds like an adventure movie but also a bit, well, weird, then you’ve probably got a handle on The Navigator already. It’s a men-on-a-mission time travel adventure quest filtered through an arthouse sensibility... So, on the one hand, it can play as a straightforward heroic quest, but the sometimes slow pace and occasional presence of symbolism suggest, on the other, a film with greater depths.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.