TV

Deadwood
1x12 Sold Under Sin [season finale; 2nd watch]

+ the audio commentary by stars Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane, which is perhaps the least genuinely informative of the season, but once they warm up it is quite irreverently fun.

this week on 100 Films

You could say this is the "last fortnight on 100 Films in a Year" because I didn't post an update last week, but that's because there was nothing to report! In the last week, though, there have been 6 new reviews...


Deadpool 2: Super Duper $@%!#& Cut (2018)

It runs almost 15 minutes longer than the theatrical cut... The Blu-ray’s scene selection menu offers an indication of which chapters feature new material, and the answer is “most of them” — those 15 minutes are spread relatively thinly throughout almost the entire film. There are a handful of wholly new scenes (as many as ten, depending how you count it), most of them quite short (one is under nine seconds), a couple of extended fight sequences, and then lots of added lines here and there. Plus there’s a smattering of gags that have been changed for alternatives.

Read more here.


Free Solo (2018)

“Anyone can be happy and cosy. Nothing good happens in the world by being happy and cosy.” So says Alex Honnold, the subject of this documentary, when discussing the different approaches to life of his girlfriend, who he thinks wants to be “happy and cosy”, and himself, who seeks perfection in extreme endeavour. It’s as succinct a summation of his attitude to life as any in this Oscar-winning documentary.

Read more here.


Mandy (2018)

Mandy is today’s premiere on Sky Cinema, which feels like an ill fit to me. Maybe I’m being unfair, but I always feel like Sky Cinema (and by extension its viewer base) is much more focused around mainstream blockbuster kind of movies, especially for a Saturday premiere. Instead, it feels like Mandy should be making its TV debut on Film4 at about 11pm in the middle of the week. I can see some tuning in expecting a violent revenge action-thriller and giving up after a few minutes of its particular weirdness. For those on its wavelength, however, it’s an experience (and it’s definitely an experience) that’s thrilling in very a different way.

Read more here.


Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Princess Mononoke's original Japanese trailers emphasise that it’s “13 years after Nausicaä”, which intrigued me, because director Hayao Miyazaki had made plenty of other films in between. But, having watched the earlier movie, the connection and similarities become clear: Nausicaä features an ecological message, a threat from nature that isn’t, industrial humans (with a female general) being the actual villains, innocent townsfolk that need saving, a princess who’s the only one who understands, and a boy from a different kingdom who helps her. They’re not identical, of course, but there’s a lot of overlap…

Read more here.


Princess Mononoke (1997)

Miyazaki has imagined a very lyrical and meaningful story, about nature vs industry, and their possible coexistence. The theme isn’t exactly subtle in the film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well portrayed. He’s populated the narrative with interesting characters, too. There’s little easy right or wrong here, with those on all sides coming across as nuanced individuals, with complicated relationships.

Read more here.


Triple Frontier (2019)

It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but I think some of the commentary dismissing it as mere standard fare has done it some disservice. As a heist/action movie it’s more than competent, with some turns and developments that keep it surprising and fresh, and visuals that reward seeing it on the best-quality screen you can.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.