Films

Lost in La Mancha (2002)
[#217 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

He Dreams of Giants (2019)
[#218 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Completing a triple-bill with yesterday's film. (For those who don't know, Lost in La Mancha is about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, while He Dreams of Giants documents his success in making it almost 20 years later.)

Films

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
[#216 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

Fanny and Alexander (1982)
[#215 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Blindspot 2020 #9

Films

Mission: Impossible II (2000)
[6th watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #39. Continuing the 4K M:I rewatch that I started back in May. Didn't necessarily intend for them to be so spread out, but there's no rush either.

TV

Jonathan Creek
5x01 The Letters of Septimus Noone
What an odd episode! We see the murder happen when it happens, leaving Jonathan to solve a mystery we already know the solution to. It’s like it was written and/or directed and/or edited by people who’ve never seen a murder mystery before. No wonder it’s the series’ lowest-rated episode on IMDb.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Enola Holmes (2020)
[#214 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

The Hippopotamus (2017)
[#213 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Collection Count

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

I promised one of those stats this week would be the delayed monthly running time update, but I've been too busy to sort that out; not to mention that this week's additions include some uncertainties.

How so? Well, I upgraded a DVD to Blu-ray, but I'm not sure if I'm keeping the DVD too; and I upgraded a pair of Blu-rays to a 4K box set, but I'm not sure if I'm keeping the Blu-rays too. I should probably get rid of them all (my collection can't keep expanding indefinitely!), but, I don't know, it's some kind of sentimental attachment, I guess.

For now, I've just added the additions and made no subtractions. My plan is to make decisions (hopefully "get rid of"!) by next week, in time for the very-delayed-but-definitely-going-to-happen 'monthly' running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 2,447 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,358 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 74 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 6,295 [up 10]
Number of films: 2,768 [up 4]
Number of additional cuts: 187 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,964 [no change]
Number of short films: 764 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Criminal: United Kingdom
2x04 Sandeep [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Elementary
7x04 Red Light, Green Light

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
7x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

TV

Criminal: United Kingdom
2x03 Danielle
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Elementary
7x03 The Price of Admission

The Great British Bake Off
11x01 Cake Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

TV

Elementary
7x02 Gutshot

Jonathan Creek
5x00c The Clue of the Savant's Thumb [Easter special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Who Dares Wins
12x03 (13/7/19 edition)

TV

Criminal: United Kingdom
2x02 Alex
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Elementary
7x01 The Further Adventures

Strike
3x04 Lethal White Part 4 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Rookie
2x19 The Q Word
2x20 The Hunt [season finale]

Strike
3x03 Lethal White Part 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Who Dares Wins
12x02 (11/5/19 edition)

TV

Criminal: United Kingdom
2x01 Julia
Remember how this was originally made by four different countries doing the same format? Only the UK one seems to have been recommissioned, and in all the press pushing this second season (of which there's been a surprising amount) I don't think I've seen a single mention of the original multi-country setup. Considering that was a selling point first time round, you'd think it'd at least warrant a mention...
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Friday Night Dinner
6x06 The Females [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Insert Name Here
4x08 Rob [series finale]

Strike
3x02 Lethal White Part 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Out of Africa (1985)
[#212 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

this week on 100 Films

9 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Bait (2019)

The past and the present — the old ways and the new — clash head-on in Mark Jenkin’s Bait, both in its storyline and its production... It was shot on 16mm black-and-white stock with a wind-up camera, with all the sound post-synced... it’s actually a wonderful marriage of form and content; the earthy, hand-hewn visuals reflect the film’s themes.

Read more here.


Bill & Ted’s Double-Bill

As Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) slightly belatedly face the music in UK cinemas, now seemed a good time to review their first excellent adventure and second bogus journey…

Read more here.


Safety Last! (1923)

The first two-thirds of the film are a very solid 4-out-of-5 farce, but the final act mixes laughs with thrills in a perfectly executed, constantly escalating sequence that is a 6-out-of-5-level climax.

Read more here.


Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

“I’ll be back,” the Terminator famously said in The Terminator, and he has been proven right — again and again. And again. This may be a franchise about time travel, but it’s us who seem to be stuck in some kind of time loop, because this is now the third attempt at creating a direct sequel to Terminator 2... As well as being the third Terminator 3, Dark Fate is also the third attempt to start a new trilogy, and is now the third to see those plans aborted after poor box office.

Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup XII

Featuring...
- Bridget Jones's Baby
- Network
- Prevenge
- Ran

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Insert Name Here
4x06 Liz
4x07 Jules

The Rookie
2x18 Under the Gun

Strike
3x01 Lethal White Part 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Waking Ned (1998)
[#211 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Collection Count

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

Two new additions this week, one a box set, so plenty of bits & bobs to add.

Number of titles in collection: 2,444 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,355 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 72 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,285 [up 7]
Number of films: 2,764 [up 5]
Number of additional cuts: 186 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,964 [up 6]
Number of short films: 764 [up 2]

It's also meant to be the running time update this week, but I've been too busy to get that ready to go, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll get it sorted in time for next week, but it may even have to get pushed to the week after.

Either way, see you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2019/2020 Episode 6 (of 10)

Friday Night Dinner
6x05 The Cage
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
5x00b The Judas Tree [Easter special; 2nd watch]
When I first watched this in 2010, I commented it wasn't "vintage Creek". It's far-fetched even by the series' own standards, and whether it all really hangs together is certainly debatable.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Twilight Zone
5x13 Ring-a-Ding Girl
5x30 Stopover in a Quiet Town
And that completes my "best of" selection! From now on they're just "episodes" (until I do another "worst of", anyway).

Music

Under Stars by Amy Macdonald

TV

The Twilight Zone
4x13 The New Exhibit
+ audio commentary by TZ expert Marc Scott Zicree and Bill Warren, author of a book about classic sci-fi films.

I'm almost at the end of my "best of" picks here, which represent the top 33% of the series (according to the average of various ranking lists), and this is the second and last episode included from season 4. It really is a widely disliked season. On the commentary, even the usually praise-full Zicree is mostly quite critical of this episode!

Films

Blind Fury (1989)
[#210 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Twilight Zone
1x02 One for the Angels
2x05 The Howling Man
2x23 A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
3x19 The Hunt
Starting on my 10th (and final) "best of" selection.
+ the commentary on The Hunt by the episode's writer, Earl Hamner, and TZ expert Marc Scott Zicree

Films

Guinevere (1994)
[#209 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
[#207 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

For the Love of Spock (2016)
[#208 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Music

A Curious Thing by Amy Macdonald

Life in a Beautiful Light by Amy Macdonald

I can't post listen counts for these older Amy MacDonald albums, because for some reason iTunes has lost that information; but it has been over seven years since I listened to any of them. They all feel very familiar, though, because they were listened to a lot and they're good. (Next up: the one I only just bought.)

this week on 100 Films

8 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Before Midnight (2013)

The first two films are marked by an unreserved romanticism. Midnight is notably different, abandoning that lovey-dovey-ness and replacing it with a powerful examination of the tension in a long-term relationship. In some respects, it’s all the better for it. That’s in no way a criticism of the previous films, but it’s realistic that, as time goes on, people change. They can’t be young-spirited and full of the joys of first love forever.

Read more here.


Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

the crazy story of how a director of surrealist Mexican art-films came this close to making an epic space opera out of one of the most acclaimed science-fiction novels ever written, but, in his failure, accidentally helped give birth to Star Wars (sort of), Alien (indirectly), and possibly the entire history of screen science-fiction that did actually get made in the ensuing 40 years. Sounds like a bit of a stretch? Um, well, yeah… but that doesn’t stop some of this documentary’s contributors from asserting it, and they do kind of have evidence.

Read more here.


Le Mans ’66 (2019) (2019)

It might look like a film for car nuts, and I’m sure they’ll get a lot out of it... but the rest of us are by no means left out, thanks to involving characters and exciting race scenes, even if some plot beats border on clichéd. Le Mans ’66 may not reinvent the wheel, but it works hard at refining it.

Read more here.


Love on a Leash (2011)

how do you rate a film like this? As an exercise in moviemaking, it’s a 1. The storyline is borderline nonsensical; it’s shot like an amateur using a camcorder for the first time; the sound mix is so unfinished I’m not sure it was ever started… And yet it’s constantly enjoyable, partly through a “so bad it’s good” hilarity (see the aforementioned terrible filmmaking), but also for the barminess with which it conducts itself, the relentless forward momentum of the storyline leading us in unpredictable narrative directions.

Read more here.


Memories of Murder (2003)

Loosely based on the true story of Korea’s first serial murders, and taking a procedural approach to the crime thriller genre, Memories of Murder invites comparison to David Fincher’s Zodiac for its methodical, realistic narrative style and plot that follows obsessed investigators chasing unsolved murders in the past. Zodiac is one of my favourite films, so it’s a tall order to be pitched against it. Fortunately, Memories of Murder is strong enough to withstand the comparison.

Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup XI

Featuring...
- Compulsion
- Courage Under Fire
- Heathers

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
[#205 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Vice (2018)
[#206 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
With this, I've finally seen every Oscar Best Picture nominee from the last five years. Next stop: the last ten years (got ten more films to see before I've managed that, though).

Collection Count

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

Just two new additions this week, one a BD-to-4K upgrade, so it looks like just one. There's a few things currently in the post though, which should arrive just in time for next week's monthly running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 2,442 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,353 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 72 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 6,278 [up 2]
Number of films: 2,759 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 185 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [no change]
Number of short films: 762 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Cobra Kai
1x10 Mercy [season finale]
This show is so good, fyi.
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6 The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
Another of the top-ranked Holmes stories. Not my favourite, but it has its clever points.

TV

Cobra Kai
1x08 Molting
1x09 Different but Same
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Films

All About Eve (1950)
[#204 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
As part of Blindspot 2020, a leftover from WDYMYHS 2019.

Music

This Is the Life by Amy Macdonald

Amy Macdonald has a new album on the way; and, like the Killers recently, this made me realise I'd never bought her last one, and hadn't listened to any of it for years. So, similar to the Killers, here I go again, relistening to the back catalogue before getting to the unheard ones.

Films

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #38. On my mind, with the new Dune trailer out tomorrow(!)

TV

Cobra Kai
1x06 Quiver
1x07 All Valley
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Films

The Man Who Sleeps (1974)
[#203 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

Anand (1971)
[#201 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Ikiru (1952)
[#202 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
As part of Blindspot 2020, a leftover from WDYMYHS 2019.
+ Alex Cox’s 15-minute introduction on the BFI DVD, over half of which is a Kurosawa biography rather than specifically about the film

Apropos of nothing, these are both films about men dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis. (After watching Anand I read that it was partly inspired by Ikiru, so that planted the seed of choosing to watch the latter.)

Music

Imploding the Mirage by the Killers

I've not read any full reviews, but I get the impression this has been the Killers' best-received album for years, and I'd agree -- even though I've only listened to the last two recently, and they did grow on me, I instantly enjoyed this a lot more than either of those. I'm not entirely sure about standout tracks yet, but my initial favourites are My God, Caution, Lightning Fields, and the title track.

this week on 100 Films

The big news at 100 Films in a Year this week was a special announcement...





In regular business, a new month began this week, so it was time to look back at the old one...





There was also a new TV column, packed to bursting...





And there were even 4 new film reviews, too...


The 100-Week Roundup X

Featuring...
- Lost in the Space
- Skyline
- April and the Extraordinary World
- I Kill Giants

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Derren Brown: Miracle
[Watch it (again) on All 4 or Netflix.]

Collection Count

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

Except that, for the first time in over three months, there's nothing to report! I'm sure it'll pick up again before I know it...

Number of titles in collection: 2,441 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,352 [no change]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 71 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,276 [no change]
Number of films: 2,758 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 185 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [no change]
Number of short films: 762 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Cobra Kai
1x01 Ace Degenerate
1x02 Strike First
1x03 Esqueleto
1x04 Cobra Kai Never Dies
1x05 Counterbalance
When I sat down to start this, I didn’t intend to watch half the first season in one sitting, but turns out it’s pretty addictive. It helps that the episodes are short, really feeding the “just one more” feeling. In fact, because they’re around 25 minutes each, this still only totals a bit over 2 hours of viewing — like a double-bill of a usual streaming drama.
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Films

In the Mood for Love (2000)
[#200 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Blindspot 2020 #8, and my third-ever #200! I wrote something about that milestone here.

Music

Wonderful Wonderful by the Killers

The second album in my Killers catchup. Battle Born quickly grew on me after just a couple of additional plays, but I can't say the same for this. The Man is great, and The Calling is pretty good, but I didn't care for most of the rest. Oh well.


Hot Fuss by the Killers
[9th listen]

So, I went back to the Killers' debut record to see if it was just that my taste had changed and left them behind. Nope -- this features banger after banger. It's not all perfect (it tails off a bit at the end), but there's at least half-a-dozen all-timer tracks here.

Films

All Is True (2018)
[#199 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Music

Battle Born by the Killers

So, the Killers recently released their sixth studio album, which made me realise I'd never got round to listening to their fourth (from 2012) or even bought their fifth (from 2017). Now I have all three and am catching up. Sadly, I didn't think a great deal of this one on my first listen — I didn't feel like I'd missed out by not listening to it for eight years. I liked a couple of tracks, though (mainly The Rising Tide and Battle Born); and I listened to it again and felt less ambivalent. I'm not sure it's going to be a favourite, but maybe it improves with repeat listens.