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Remember how this was originally made by four different countries doing the same format?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.

TV

Agatha Raisin
3x04 As the Pig Turns [season finale]

Friday Night Dinner
6x04 Dad's Birthday
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off
10x10 The Final [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x10 Episode 10 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Lucifer
5x08 Spoiler Alert
And that's it for now -- this is a "mid-season finale", because Netflix have decided to split the fifth run in two.
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Films

Dressed to Kill (1946)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #37. That completes my rewatch of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films. The first time it took me eight years; this time it's taken eight months.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x09 Pâtisserie Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
5x00a The Grinning Man [Christmas special]
There was a five-year gap between the last series of Creek and this one-off special, which led to it doing big numbers in the ratings, and then more specials being commissioned. iPlayer and stuff like that list those specials as part of series 4, which is daft given that big gap; but they're also not part of series 5, which came several years later. Numbering systems for TV series aren't really built for shows that pop back and forth between one-offs and full series... Anyway, for now I'm going to number all those specials as "5x00" because I don't have a better answer.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Lucifer
5x06 BlueBallz
5x07 Our Mojo
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x17 Control

this week on 100 Films

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


Ready or Not (2019)

definitely a comedy-horror, with more laughs than scares and an appropriate amount of gore. It obviously owes a debt to other movies, or at least has points of similarity (You’re Next particularly comes to mind), but it also has a few nice subversions and doesn’t always go the way you’d think

Read more here.


Venom (2018)

I wasn’t sure what I thought of Venom. It’s kind of fun, in a juvenile way (juvenile like teenagers who think violence and edgy dialogue is “grown up”). But it’s also kind of rubbish in places, in part because it can be so juvenile (juvenile like… yeah, same again).

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Jonathan Creek
4x06 Gorgons Wood [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Lucifer
5x05 Detective Amenadiel
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x16 The Overnight

Films

Entrapment (1999)
[#198 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Collection Count

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

Even as I try to cut back, I can't help buying more! This week's lot includes three titles from Masters of Cinema (one new release, two from a sale), with 6 films between them.

I also bought Arrow's new edition of The Game, which duplicates most (but not quite all) of the special features from the Criterion edition I already own. So I ought to sell that, probably, but haven't made up my mind entirely, so it remains for now.

Number of titles in collection: 2,441 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,352 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 71 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,276 [up 9]
Number of films: 2,758 [up 8]
Number of additional cuts: 185 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [no change]
Number of short films: 762 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Friday Night Dinner
6x03 The Au Pair
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x05 The Chequered Box
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Lucifer
5x04 It Never Ends Well for the Chicken
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x15 Hand-Off

Films

The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019)
[#197 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

This documentary was originally produced for US TV, but it's now being pitched as a film by Netflix, so I'm counting it.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x08 Pastry
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x04 The Seer of the Sands
Kinda far-fetched, even by Creek's standards, though I liked how important punctuation was!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Lucifer
5x03 ¡Diablo!
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x14 Casualties

Films

Terror by Night (1946)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #36

TV

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x03 The Tailor's Dummy [2nd watch]
As I noted on its first episode, series 4 is when I fell irreparably behind watching Jonathan Creek, but I can’t remember exactly how far I got. I’m sure I watched some of the series, but I haven’t remembered any specifics from any of these first three episodes. At this point there was a year-long gap (effectively splitting it into two three-episode series, not that they get labelled like that, obviously), and I’m fairly certain I never watched any of the second half, so I’ll just leave this as the final “2nd watch” episode.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Lucifer
5x02 Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x13 Follow-Up Day

Films

Tolkien (2019)
[#196 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x07 Festival Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x02 Angel Hair [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x12 Now and Then

Films

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
[#195 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

Friday Night Dinner
6x02 The Plastic Bag
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Lucifer
5x01 Really Sad Devil Guy
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x10 The Dark Side
2x11 Day of Death

Collection Count

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

It's much later than usual this week thanks to several big additions to factor in, and just in time for the monthly running time update, making it that much more thorough.

So, this week's biggest addition is Arrow's complete Gamera box set -- big physically (it's an over-sized box set including two big books) and in terms of content (8 discs with 12 films and 4 alternate cuts, plus bags of extras, including an audio commentary on every film). It's going to take me a while to get through that! Well, I'm still working my way through the Criterion Zatoichi set I bought years ago, and I haven't started their Godzilla set I got for Christmas, so... yeah.

Also from Arrow this week is a 4K release of Pitch Black, which I thought upgraded my DVD copy, but I own the Riddick Collection Blu-ray and, of course, got rid of the DVD when I bought that (why I thought I'd kept the DVD, I don't know). The Riddick Collection also includes short film Dark Fury in SD, which the new Pitch Black includes in HD, and The Chronicles of Riddick film, which means I still need to hang onto it for now.

I also bought another new DVD set this week (silent films again)... but then I upgraded an old DVD set to Blu-ray copies, so they cancel each other out.

Number of titles in collection: 2,436 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,347 [up 4]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 71 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 6,267 [up 13]
Number of films: 2,750 [up 16]
Number of additional cuts: 184 [up 6]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [no change]
Number of short films: 760 [up 1]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
456 days, 4 hours, and 43 minutes.
(Up 3 days, 9 hours, and 38 minutes from last month.)

It's a year of big increases, because that's second place for the year (behind March) and the fourth to have an increase over 3 days (that means 50% of months this year have seen increases that large). The final tally for 2020 might be a huge one...

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x06 Dessert Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x01 The Coonskin Cap [2nd watch]
We're getting into the era of Jonathan Creek where I accidentally stopped watching, so I can't remember for certain which of these episodes I've seen; but I'm pretty sure I at least started series 4. (I appreciate this matters to no one but me.)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x09 Breaking Point

this week on 100 Films

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


The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Perhaps because of the connections to other horror films, and because it inspired such a violent character in the Joker, and because of the publicity stills that inspired that look, and because its production studio (Universal) would shortly become renowned for their iconic interpretations of the cornerstones of horror (Dracula, Frankenstein, et al), The Man Who Laughs has often been cited as a horror movie. It isn’t. It's a romantic melodrama, with a bit of antiestablishment satire and a swashbuckling climax thrown in for good measure.

Read more here.


Yes, God, Yes (2019)

It would be easy to label this a “cumming of age movie” (such a pun is certainly not below my level of humour), but it would feel slightly inaccurate. Put another way, if you’ve come to see Nancy Wheeler cum, you’ll be disappointed... Indeed, despite it providing the plot hook and title, wanking is only one part of the film’s exposure of religious hypocrisy.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years
1x03 Playing Pool with Planets [finale]
[Watch it (again) on UKTV Play.]

TV

The Twilight Zone
3x21 Kick the Can
5x01 In Praise of Pip
+ the commentary on Kick the Can by Marc Scott Zicree and the episode's writer, George Clayton Johnson, and the one on In Praise of Pip by Zicree and Neil Gaiman

TV

Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years
1x02 In Studio Space No One Can Hear You Scream
[Watch it (again) on UKTV Play.]

The Twilight Zone
3x01 Two

Films

Bad Boys for Life (2020)
[#194 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
[#193 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

The Twilight Zone
2x16 A Penny for Your Thoughts
+ audio commentary by Marc Scott Zicree and the episode's writer, George Clayton Johnson

Films

The Assistant (2019)
[#192 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

Derren Brown: 20 Years of Mind Control
I've been a fan of Derren's since the start, so this special was both a welcome celebration and made me feel old (20 years!) The reminiscences and clips were nice (it makes me want to go back and properly rewatch so much stuff), but the new live trick was a bit of a damp squib. The ‘subliminal’ messages were so obvious (it seems like all of Twitter spotted them) that I assumed there was a double-bluff coming... but no, it was what it appeared. Ho hum. (Of note, the version on All 4 last night omitted all the live bits (fortunately I recorded it because I wasn't free to watch live), but it has now been updated.)
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Films

Yes, God, Yes (2019)
[#191 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Articles

Derren Brown on 20 years of blowing our minds and why he’s planning to do less TV in future
by Simon Hattenstone (from Radio Times)
A long-ish interview tied to Derren's 20th anniversary TV special.

Films

Pearl Harbor (2001)
[#190 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Fiction

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1 A Scandal in Bohemia [2nd read]
The first Sherlock Holmes short story (after two novels), and it reads like it -- it feels quite like an introduction (not a total introduction, but a bit of one) compared to the other stories I've been reading lately. Also, I suspected I might've actually read this one before, and now I'm fairly sure I had. It's good though, so not exactly harm done reading it again!

this week on 100 Films

I suppose I could call this post "this fortnight on 100 Films in a Year", because I didn't do a post last week; but that was because there was nothing to share, so it is still a week's worth of stuff.

Anyway, just 1 new review was published this week...


Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

plays with a lot of the same comedic ideas as its predecessor — i.e. the mismatch between real-life person and in-game persona — but mixes up who’s imitating who. [Then] they head off on an Indiana Jones-type adventure — again, much like the first movie. For many, this repetition of ideas has been a stumbling block. [But] to me, it feels like they took what worked in the first movie and polished it. It’s still fundamentally the same kind of comedy action-adventure — if you disliked the first movie, there’s no reason this should appeal to you more — but refined.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

The Dancing Pig (1907)
[#189a in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

The Man Who Laughs (1928)
[#189 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ reading the booklet accompanying Masters of Cinema's new Blu-ray release

Collection Count

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

I actually bought two DVDs this week! Both silent serials, one of which I very much doubt will ever end up on Blu-ray (if it were going to, it would've been released at the same time as this DVD edition), the other of which might but, well, there's no sign of it. Both were second-hand bargains on eBay -- the pair cost less than just one would have new. I'm very pleased.

But I also upgraded a DVD to 4K, so the DVD total only increases by one. Still, that's the first time it's actually gone up in over a year -- although it was over 40 titles higher back then.

Number of titles in collection: 2,432 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,343 [up 4]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 70 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 6,254 [up 11]
Number of films: 2,734 [up 3]
Number of additional cuts: 178 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [up 23]
Number of short films: 759 [no change]

FYI, the serials are counted under TV episodes. Although they're really films (what with TV not existing at the time), they're also all under feature-length, making them shorts... but they're not really shorts, because they're episodes. So, yeah, not really TV, but that still seems the fairest place to count them. (It's also what I've previously done for other serials whose episodes are below feature length.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

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

Films

Color Out of Space (2019)
[#188 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Frankenstein (1910)
[#188a in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
The first screen adaptation of the novel. There's a restored HD version on YouTube here if you're interested.

TV

The Twilight Zone
1x25 People Are Alike All Over

Films

RoboCop 3 (1993)
[#187 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

The Twilight Zone
1x18 The Last Flight
1x21 Mirror Image

Films

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #35. Disney seemed to have officially retitled this in the UK as of it being on Disney+, but it'll always be Basil the Great Mouse Detective to me.

TV

Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years
1x01 Boys from the Dwarf
Three-part history of the show currently airing on Dave. I imagine it covers a lot of the same ground as the extensive documentary series they made for the DVDs, albeit with new talking head interviews recorded now (but presumably the heads' memories are the same!) Of course, those DVD docs will only have been seen by relatively die-hard fans, whereas this series is being broadcast on a popular TV channel, so fair enough (especially nowadays, what with physical media sales being what they are). Presumably this'll get a DVD release eventually, thereby completing the circle! (The series was originally supposed to air alongside The Promised Land back in April (it was delayed by (what else) the pandemic), so I guess it would've been a special feature on that disc if all had gone to plan. Whether or not it'll still be remembered by the time Series XIV rolls around...)
[Watch it (again) on UKTV Play.]

Films

The Stunt Double (2020)
[#186a in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Short film by Damien "La La Land" Chazelle, designed to show off shooting on the iPhone 11 Pro and a vertical aspect ratio. It is of mixed success. You can watch it here.

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1 The Adventure of Silver Blaze

Expanding on that 1999 poll I mentioned yesterday, the guy who ran it has a website about it with lots of additional facts and stuff -- more than I'm personally interested in, to be honest. But one thing he's done is produce a table that compiles the results from major Sherlockian polls run in 1944, 1954, 1959, 1989, and his 1999 poll, giving a sort of "poll of polls" ranking of all 56 short stories. I'm not necessarily using this as a slavish guide for which stories to read next, but it's nice to have the info.

On this ranking, The Speckled Band and The Red-Headed League remain first and second, with A Scandal in Bohemia third, and Silver Blaze fourth. It's not a favourite of the Pocket Essentials guy (who scores it 3 out of 5, describing the plot as "rather on the dull side"), thereby justifying my search for a more objective ranking!

Films

The Mystery of the Rocks of Kador (1912)
[#186 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Fiction

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2 The Red-Headed League

Yesterday I expressed a desire to find a more 'definitive' ranking of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Well, I've not got one yet, but I did discover an international poll from 1999 that generated a readers' top 12. First place went to The Speckled Band, which I read yesterday, and second to The Red-Headed League, hence today's reading. Incidentally, those were also the first and second stories in Doyle's own list of favourites. (I presume these rankings were limited to the short stories, because neither includes a single one of the novels, which I find unlikely.)

Fiction

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6 The Man with the Twisted Lip
8 The Adventure of the Speckled Band

I've never read all of the Sherlock Holmes canon, and I always intend to read more of it but never actually do (the last time was a single story in 2016; before that, a few in 2014). Anyway, here's an attempt to change that. I decided to start with some of the best-regarded stories according to the Pocket Essential Sherlock Holmes -- which is just one author's opinion, so maybe I should look for a more definitive ranking! That said, Doyle once named The Speckled Band as his overall favourite Holmes story, so that's some recommendation.

Collection Count

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

Another big pile of additions this week -- not quite as many as last week, but more than the week before; though it's led me to delay posting this until Sunday again, so...

The most significant package was a bunch of purchases spurred by the latest Barnes & Noble Criterion sale, including their new Bruce Lee box set (which should probably replace my copy of the old Hong Kong Legends DVD set, but I rather like that, so it stays for now) and several titles I've been itching to own, including Come and See, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

No upgrades this week (well, there's the Bruce Lee set, as mentioned, and Criterion's Notorious trumps a DVD I own, but that's part of a box set), so the numbers below are the full account for once. That said, a minor point of order was provoked by the 1966 War and Peace, which was originally released in four parts but now gets considered as one film. I looked at how I've counted previous films of this nature (Dr Mabuse der Spieler; the 1934 Les Misérables) and consequently counted it as four.

Number of titles in collection: 2,428 [up 10]
Of which DVDs: 1,088 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,340 [up 10]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 68 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,243 [up 17]
Number of films: 2,731 [up 19]
Number of additional cuts: 178 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 8,935 [no change]
Number of short films: 759 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x05 The Roaring Twenties
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Rookie
2x08 Clean Cut

TV

Agatha Raisin
3x03 Love from Hell

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
4x00 Satan's Chimney [Christmas special; 2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x06 Fallout
2x06 Safety

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x04 Dairy Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
3x06 The Three Gamblers [season finale; 2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x05 Tough Love

Films

Pursuit to Algiers (1945)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #34

TV

The Crown
2x09 Paterfamilias
2x10 Mystery Man [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Rookie
2x04 Warriors and Guardians

TV

The Crown
2x07 Matrimonium
2x08 Dear Mrs Kennedy
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
3x05 Miracle in Crooked Lane [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Crown
2x05 Marionettes
2x06 Vergangenheit
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Great British Bake Off
10x03 Bread Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Rookie
2x03 The Bet

TV

The Crown
2x03 Lisbon
2x04 Beryl
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
3x04 Ghost's Forge [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x02 The Night General

Films

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
[#185 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

this week on 100 Films

A new month means another monthly review on 100 Films in a Year...





Plus, 1 new review...


Split Second (1992)

Rutger Hauer chomps cigars, chocolate, and scenery as Harley Stone, a badass rogue cop on the hunt for the serial killer who murdered his partner... It starts out almost like budget Blade Runner — it’s the future (so we’re told); it’s night; it’s raining; a hardbitten cop visits a seedy nightclub; etc. But then we get Stone’s first line of dialogue, which comes after a guard dog barks at him. He flashes his warrant card — at the dog — and says “police, dickhead.” To the dog. It’s hilariously terrible and awesome in one fell swoop.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

There were 13 new additions this week, a pile of them arriving last-minute, hence this delayed update -- especially as many weren't just simple additions.

For example, I bought two Hitchcock films on Blu-ray that I already own on DVD as part of a box set. That set is of six films, five of which I now own on Blu-ray. The sixth film isn't available on Blu, so I can't just upgrade the whole set. Normally I'd either have to lose that sixth film or keep the entire box set. But, fortunately, the films are in individual cases and, uncommonly, have individual barcodes, so I can split up the set and sell five of the six. So, in this case, the Blu-ray count goes up, the DVD count stays the same, but the film count goes down, and so does the disc count.

Anyway, with all the various other changes also accounted for, here are the new numbers...

Number of titles in collection: 2,418 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,088 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,330 [up 10]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 68 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 6,226 [up 10]
Number of films: 2,712 [up 4]
Number of additional cuts: 176 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,935 [no change]
Number of short films: 758 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Agatha Raisin
3x02 The Deadly Dance

The Great British Bake Off
10x02 Biscuit Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
3x03 The Omega Man [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
2x01 Impact

TV

The Crown
2x01 Misadventure
2x02 A Company of Men
It's over three years since I watched season one! I hadn't given up on it, just hadn't got round to it.
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Jonathan Creek
3x02 The Eyes of Tiresias [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Woman in Green (1945)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2020 #33

TV

Friday Night Dinner
6x01 The Caravan
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
6x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
3x01 The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
[#184 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
10x01 Cake Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
2x07 Black Canary [Christmas special; 2nd or so watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Clueless (1995)
[#183 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]