Films

Partie de Campagne (1946)
+ the audio commentary on the BFI Blu-ray by Philip Kemp

TV

Would I Lie To You?
17x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Would I Lie To You?
16x11 More Unseen Bits [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

2000 AD #2352

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Chapters 9–10

Films

In the Name of the Father (1993)
[#9 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2024 #1

Audio Drama

Hell Cats 2
2x02 The Dandy Highwayman
[Listen to it (again) on Audible.]

Comics

Helium by Ian Edginton & D’Israeli

So, here's the series I was referring to in yesterday's 2000 AD listing. Glad I bothered to read this, both because I enjoyed it a lot (it's an action-packed pulp 'dieselpunk' adventure) and because I reckon I'd've been floundering about what's going on in the new run without this grounding. Crazy to think it’s taken eight years for the next part to appear — if I’d read this when originally published, by this point I’d probably assume it’d just come to a downbeat, borderline-unique ending, rather than a cliffhanger.

Read Helium for free here.

Games

The Leaf Riders of Wrenwood
22–28 January 2024
We're only four weeks into the year? Somehow, it feels a lot more. And also, like it can't be (almost) February already. Perception of time is a funny thing, eh...

this week on 100Films.co.uk

5 new reviews were published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


Archive 5, Vol.8

Featuring...
- One Cut of the Dead (2017)
- The Breakfast Club (1985)
- Chopping Mall (1986)
- Dead Man's Folly (1986)
- Wild Target (2010)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Big Night of Musicals 2024 by the National Lottery
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

Comics

2000 AD #2351
Three new series start this Prog, and one of them they had the kindness to provide the previous run online for free. Fortunately, I downloaded it at the time (though, as of posting this, it's still available anyway), so I think it makes sense to read that first before embarking on series two. Which means I'm gonna let these Progs pile up as not-quite-finished until I do that. Hopefully, I'll bother to do it soon... but knowing me...

Collection Count

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

Normally the end of a month feels a bit busier, as it seems to be the favourite release window for all the boutique labels nowadays. No idea why. But my titles from Eureka turned up early, and one from Arrow is coming from the US, so it's just a bundle from Radiance this week.

Number of titles in collection: 3,230 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,016 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,214 [up 4]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 327 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 7,866 [up 4]
Number of films: 3,970 [up 4]
Number of additional cuts: 353 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,678 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,110 [no change]

To liven things up, it's also time for the monthly running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
553 days, 21 hours, and 54 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 14 hours, and 17 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Bottoms (2023)
[#8 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Bottoms (2023)
[2nd watch]
Arguably this belongs in tomorrow's Films post, because most of my viewing was after midnight; but that would obscure an important fact: that after I finished watching Bottoms, I more-or-less turned right around and watched it again. That's only the second time in my life I can remember doing that (the last was Serenity, on the big screen at my uni's film society, back in 2006).

TV

Would I Lie To You?
16x10 The Unseen Bits
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 3D (2018)
[2nd watch]
[#7 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Chapters 4–8

TV

Would I Lie To You?
16x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Steamboat Willie (1928)
The original Mickey Mouse short, which is now in the public domain. Ironically, I watched it on Disney+.

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Chapter 3

TV

The Black Adder
1x04 The Queen of Spain's Beard
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
16x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Best of the Martial Arts Films (1990)
[#6 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Games

The Leaf Riders of Wrenwood
15–21 January 2024
A week introducing Playable Character #3. I didn't think this was a character I'd want to play as, but I had more success than with either of the other two so far. Of course, that's partly just the luck of dice rolls. Several more to go yet before I have to make a final decision about the rest of the year.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

Can you believe it? I barely can! But it's true: last week, I published 8 new reviews on 100Films.co.uk! They were...


2024 | Week 2

Featuring...
- Lift (2024)
- Only Yesterday (1991)
- Jackass Forever (2022)

Read more here.


The Return of Archive 5

Hey, look what else is back! Almost a whole year on from the last instalment in the series, I’ve finally managed to rustle up a new Archive 5. Featuring...
- The Mummy (1932)
- So Dark the Night (1946)
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
- A Brief History of Time Travel (2018)
- Misery (1990)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Blood Actually: A Murder, They Hope Mystery
Can’t tell if these are getting worse or if they’ve always been this bad and it’s only now getting to me.

Films

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
[#5 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Chapter 2

Comics

2000 AD #2350
Having just caught up (er, four months ago), now I've fallen well behind again! Oops. Another casualty of my Doctor Who focus towards the end of 2023. I had intended to try to catch up again in December, during the period when the bumper Christmas issue was on shelves meaning no new Progs until January, but it didn't happen. Hopefully I'll get to that Christmas issue before too long — it's always going to be unseasonal now, but the sooner the better.

Collection Count

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

A goodly haul this month — a mix of January sales & offers (including one DVD-to-4K upgrade, a quality jump that always tickles me) and a handful of new releases (technically out over the coming fortnight) from Eureka.

Number of titles in collection: 3,226 [up 7]
Of which DVDs: 1,016 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,210 [up 8]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 327 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 7,862 [up 12]
Number of films: 3,966 [up 8]
Number of additional cuts: 352 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,678 [up 8]
Number of short films: 1,110 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Barbie (2023)
[#4 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Chapter 1

TV

The Black Adder
1x03 The Archbishop
It does seem to get better with each episode. Still nowhere near the level of later series at their best, though.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Non-Fiction

A City on Mars by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Introduction

Subtitled Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?, this popular science book reportedly offers a thoroughly-researched alternative to the well-popularised view of certain tech bros that we're merrily off to colonise space in the next decade or two.

And yes, that's right: me, who barely manages to read anything most of the time (certainly a lot less than I'd like) is attempting a science book! Well, I heard good things, and the subject matter is up my street. Plus it's "popular science", so I figure it should be accessible and not, like, a textbook. Makes a change from fiction, too; in that, although I don't read as much fiction as I'd like, it is almost all I read when I do read. So there.

TV

Would I Lie To You?
17x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Jackass Forever (2022)
[#3 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Games

The Leaf Riders of Wrenwood
8–14 January 2024

I don't seem to be doing a great job with playing this as intended (i.e. daily). However, each of the first few weeks (six, I think? Which would take us right into February!) is a sort of prequel mini-adventure with one of the possible heroes, at the end of which you choose which one you'll continue with for the rest of the year. So, after I played the first one in one sitting, I feel like I've set a precedent. Equally, if I do keep this up, I won't be playing the calendar 'properly' until mid-February. Hm.

Well, a couple of times this week I nearly just played the week up to that point, but then other entertainment options distracted me (it's not like I'm short of choice — so many films and TV series I want to watch, both old and new; books I want to read; audio dramas I want to listen to; comics I want to catch up on...) So, let's see what happens next week.

As for this second week, it seemed to go much quicker than the first. I don't know if it had less content or I'm just a little more familiar with the gameplay and whatnot than I was. I also didn't have much luck on my rolls. Can't see myself choosing this character to play for the rest of the year!

this week on 100Films.co.uk

Having spent the first week of 2024 wrapping up my regular coverage of 2023 over on 100Films.co.uk (read all about that here), this week was all about kicking off my 2024 challenge.

First up: the overall challenge...





Then, posts dedicated to my Blindspot and "What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" challenges...


Blindspot 2024

This is a challenge in which you pick 12 films you've never seen but should have (your blindspots) and watch them one per month over the next year. It's a great way of ensuring you watch films that you might otherwise not get round to. Or intending to get round to them, anyway, as I've failed to complete the list on various occasions... Below are my 12 picks for 2024, followed by an unnecessarily long-winded explanation of why I chose them.

Read more here.


What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen All of the IMDb Top 250?

Ever since I began my 100 Films in a Year Challenge all the way back in 2007, I've kept track of my progress in completing one of the best-known "best of" lists on the internet: the IMDb Top 250... Ultimately, over the first 17 years of this blog, my annual statistics say I've watched 211 films from the Top 250 — but films come and go from the list, and many of those 211 won't even be on there anymore. For example: since I had 119 films left to go, I've watched 145 more, but I still have 19 outstanding.

Read more here.


With that all out of the way, will there be more next Sunday? Only time will tell...

TV

Would I Lie To You?
17x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Only Yesterday (1991)
[#2 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Blindspot 2024 #1

Fiction

The Spider-Queen by Austin McConnell & Elizabeth McIvor
Chapters 6–8 + Epilogue [the end]

Ironically, this suffers from the same problem that blights 'real' superhero cinematic universes: it's mostly just origin story that teases something bigger and possibly more exciting — including a "credits" scene that, literally, teases something bigger and more exciting. It's not bad, but it could maybe have done with, structurally, making the climax the end of Act Two and having something bigger for Act Three, rather than just teasing.

Collection Count

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

This week, another whole TV series gets upgraded from DVD to BD, plus catching up on some recent releases (from December and earlier in January) means changes across the board.

Number of titles in collection: 3,219 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,017 [down 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,202 [up 7]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 324 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 7,850 [up 9]
Number of films: 3,958 [up 5]
Number of additional cuts: 352 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,670 [down 1]
Number of short films: 1,110 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Lift (2024)
[#1 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Here we go again...

Audio Drama

Hell Cats 2
2x01 Home Coming

I greatly enjoyed the first series of Hell Cats when I listened to it last year, but I was getting to the point of deciding not to bother with series 2 — after all, the first run was based on history and told a complete story, whereas this spins off into semi-fantasy (I presume the stuff with the highwaymen is once again broadly historically accurate, but dragging pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read into it is, well, not). But just as I was about to cancel my Audible subscription, they offered me a cut rate to stay, which I took and, well, it seemed only right to take that as some kind of sign (not that I believe in such things) and actually listen to the series.

This first episode, then, is very much about setting the new scene, but describing highwaymen as "land pirates" feels a clear indicator of where things are headed.

[Listen to it (again) on Audible.]

Fiction

The Spider-Queen by Austin McConnell & Elizabeth McIvor
Chapter 5

TV

The Black Adder
1x02 Born to Be King
Already showing signs of improvement, but the elements are just not aligned correctly for what made Blackadder work to, well, work. At the moment, I'm mostly hopeful that series one will simply remain "bearable" until the genius of series two can arrive.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Black Adder
1x01 The Foretelling

Sometime in the late ’90s, a BBC Two repeat of Blackadder was like catnip to my teenage group of friends — probably the perfect age to be introduced to it. I didn’t get in on it until series 2, and — thanks to its lesser reputation — have never got round to going back to series 1. Well, I just bought the new Blu-ray set, so here we go.

And… yeah, it certainly lives down to that reputation. It’s remarkable how mediocre this is, given the genius that would follow. Maybe the quality improves across the first series? I hope so…

[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

The Spider-Queen by Austin McConnell & Elizabeth McIvor
Chapter 4

TV

Jeopardy!
1x01 (1/1/24 edition)

I was curious about this ever since they announced it, because Jeopardy is an enduringly popular show in the US (as described in this episode, it's the TV show equivalent of a "national treasure") but no UK version has ever stuck long-term. So here we go trying again, with the wonderful Stephen Fry as host. But then I heard it wasn’t actually any good, plus I’m not sure I actually want to watch any game show every single day, hence why it’s taken me over a week to watch it.

They’ve obviously decided to copy the US version as closely as possible, which feels a bit weird on UK TV — we don’t do things the same as the yanks, after all. Part of that is it feels dated and dreadfully slow. You could easily condense the same content into 30 minutes and it wouldn’t feel like it was taking forever. Of course, it doesn’t help that watching it on catchup means unskippable ad breaks.

[Watch it (again) on ITVX.]

TV

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Neil Brand's fully-scored adaptation for orchestra and actors, which was first staged in December 2022, broadcast on radio in February, and finally aired on BBC Four on Christmas Day 2023. I enjoyed it a lot on radio (the Brand intro I mention in the above link sadly wasn't included on TV, though you can find it on YouTube) and enjoyed it again with visuals... not that they add a lot, considering it's a staged reading, but actors are actors and can't help inject at least some physicality. I also wrote more about it on Letterboxd.

[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

The Spider-Queen by Austin McConnell & Elizabeth McIvor
Chapters 2–3

Some books have long chapters; some books have short chapters; and this book has long chapters that should be short chapters. "***" has its uses to mark a passage of time or change of scene or whatever, but here it's too often used when a new chapter would feel appropriate. (I guess there are no rules about these things, it's just a personal feeling about pace or structure or whatever, but still, that's how I feel about it.)

Games

The Leaf Riders of Wrenwood
1–7 January 2024

Having made sure to finish the 2021 calendar before the end of 2023, and having had my worries allayed when the 2024 calendar actually arrived before the end of 2023... I haven't actually got round to starting it on time. Oops. But here I go now, playing the whole first week of the year. They've obviously made improvements over the years, so while it's familiar it's also slightly different to the 2021 calendar. All to the good though, not least the way it gets going so quickly.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

It's been all about 2023 on 100Films.co.uk this week, as I've spent the first week of the new year wrapping up the old one.

There are quite a lot of posts to get through, so let's get cracking. First up:


100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023: Final Standing

As the challenge tracker page will soon be replaced with a version keeping tabs on 2024’s effort, here’s an archive of how it looked at the very end of 2023. Sadly, it’s incomplete...

Read more here.


Next, my regular monthly posts: the review of December 2023...





...and all the films I failed to watch that month:





Next, my "review of the year" proper, across four posts...











Whew! Now, 2024 can begin. Will I be any better at regularly posting reviews this year than I was last year? Find out next Sunday.

TV

The 1% Club
2x09 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on ITVX.]

Sarah Millican: Bobby Dazzler
[Watch it (again) on Channel 4.]

The Wheel
4x06 Christmas Wheel
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

A fair few new additions this week; all titles that really should have shown up before the end of 2023, but for one reason or another slipped to this first week of 2024. Well, it would've been a dead one otherwise, so that's something I suppose. They include two box sets from Australia (one upgrading a BD to 4K, the other upgrading two DVDs to BD) and the latest batch of releases from Radiance and their partner labels.

Number of titles in collection: 3,214 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,019 [down 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,195 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 322 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 7,841 [up 6]
Number of films: 3,953 [up 6]
Number of additional cuts: 351 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,671 [up 3]
Number of short films: 1,109 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x24 Week 5: Thursday
7x25 Week 5: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Podcasts

The Official Doctor Who Podcast
Christmas Special 2023 - The Church on Ruby Road
[Listen to it (again) on BBC Sounds.]

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x23 Week 5: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie: Feds
1x04 To Die For
I had no intention of watching this spinoff from The Rookie (last seasons's backdoor pilot did nothing to win me round), but they did a handful of direct crossovers throughout this season — four, to be precise (at least according to Wikipedia) — so of course I'm watching those. On the evidence of this episode, not watching it was the right decision. (Fortunately (for me), Feds was cancelled after just this one season, so I won't have to worry about keeping up with such crossovers after The Rookie season five.)

Slow Horses
3x05 Cleaning Up
3x06 Footprints [season finale]

TV

Friends
1x10 The One with the Monkey [many-th watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x22 Week 5: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
5x04 The Choice

Slow Horses
3x04 Uninvited Guests

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x21 Week 5: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Slow Horses
3x02 Hard Lessons
3x03 Negotiating with Tigers

TV

Friends
1x09 The One Where Underdog Gets Away [many-th watch]
aka the first Thanksgiving one — a setting that would become a Friends staple.

New Year's Eve Fireworks
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
2x09 Week 2: Thursday
2x10 Week 2: Friday [season finale]
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Rick Astley Rocks New Year's Eve
Part 2 (of 2)
[Watch it all (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
5x03 Dye Hard

Slow Horses
3x01 Strange Games
A bit of a slow-burn start to the third season, but exciting and enticing in its own way. Long may this show continue (there are still plenty of books to go).