Films

A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)
[2nd watch]

The fourth and final (for now?) Wallace & Gromit short didn't blow me away as much as it did when I first saw it, but back then I watched it in isolation whereas now it's coming straight off the first three. It may not quite reach their heights, but it's damn close; in any other series, this would be a comfortable high watermark, but those others are just so good.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 18th: The Cudgeled Constable (Conclusion)

Games

Final Fantasy VII

What's this? Starting another game?! Yeah.

Well, here's the thing: I've recently discovered (or remembered, because I did know about some of these methods before) more ways of being able to play computer games (the disadvantage of owning a Mac is it's not always straightforward, though nowadays it's almost always possible; if you're machine's up to running a game, of course (I won't be playing Baldur's Gate 3 anytime soon)). And I've become more interested in gaming again since playing through the Monkey Islands (which was back in 2022 — these are the kind of timescales I operate on!) And older games are so cheap nowadays — I picked up this revered classic for under £4! New games cost an arm and a leg, I know, but diving into the back catalogue of games I've wanted to play for years (in some cases, for decades) has never been more affordable.

So that's why I'm trying multiple things out right now — different platforms; different games. And quite a few of these games I've been acquiring require dozens of hours to complete (FF7 is cited at 36–50 hours of gameplay for the main story, rising to 80+ if you're a completionist. I also recently got Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Neverwinter Nights for free via Amazon, which together are clocked at anything from 120 to 365 hours, depending on play style (and I err towards the latter, which is Completionist)), so it's a more pronounced choice which to devote my time to next (I've got dozens of games awaiting and I want to dive into them all at once!)

So, I'm not committing to 80+ hours of FF7 right now (although I did play for the best part of two hours today, mainly thanks to having to find a save point — it would've been considerably less if the game just let me save whenever I want!), but I'm giving it a go and, well, maybe.

Though, yeah, I do need to finish off that last bit of Syberia.

Films

A Close Shave (1995)
[3rd or so watch]

More Wallace & Gromit, of course. Gotta wait til Saturday for Curse of the Were-Rabbit to be on TV (I could watch my DVD, but why when an HD version is imminent?), so I'll probably go out of order and watch A Matter of Loaf and Death before then. I don't think it really matters.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 17th: The Cudgeled Constable
Dr. Watson Takes the Case

This book also includes the latter as a bonus story, after the end of the 'advent calendar' part (I skipped ahead). I assumed it would be something seasonally appropriate, but aside from a one-sentence mention of winter at the start, the tale has nothing to do with Christmas or even winter. Ho hum.

Films

A Grand Day Out (1989)
[3rd or so watch]

The Wrong Trousers (1993)
[3rd or so watch]

The first two Wallace & Gromit films, which I've seen I-don't-know-how-many times, but not at all recently (never in this blog's lifetime, and it's been running for almost 17 years!); which also probably means I haven't seen them anything like as often as I think I have. It's a moot point anyway, because however many times I've seen them, their brilliance is seared into my brain.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 16th: The Mysterious Violinist (Conclusion)

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 15th: The Mysterious Violinist

Videos

Talks Machina
#117 'Reflections'
As I mentioned last time, this episode isn't available via Internet Archive, but you can find torrents for Brian W Foster-related content here.

Collection Count

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

A grand total of seven new titles this week, but three of them were upgrades so don't really show below.

Number of titles in collection: 3,436 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 993 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,443 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 414 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 8,286 [up 7]
Number of films: 4,324 [up 7]
Number of additional cuts: 423 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,195 [no change]

You might think next week would be quiet, what with it being the final update before Christmas, but nope, I'm expecting plenty of stuff — including yet more multi-film box sets. See you next week for all that, faithful reader.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 14th: The Auction of the Prehistoric Beast (Conclusion)

Films

Wonka (2023)

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
A Book for Christmas: A Memory from Childhood
(translated by Sarah Death)
I can't remember how I discovered this book, but it looked like a beautifully-presented little volume of eight short Swedish Christmas stories, and what better time for nice traditional stories than Christmas?

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 13th: The Auction of the Prehistoric Beast

Videos

Critical Role
2x68 Reflections [2nd half]
With this episode, I've watched just under 353 hours of Critical Role Campaign 2 content, including both the actual campaign and Talks Machina. There are 351½ hours to go — meaning that, time wise, this is halfway.* Or, to put it another way: I'm only halfway through!?
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

* Halfway in episode count terms is still a few episodes away. During the pandemic, Talks took longer to return to air than the main show, and then it was only on fortnightly, so there are far fewer episodes in the second half of the campaign (in the first half, 100% of CR episodes have an accompanying Talks; in the second it's just 60%), thus skewing the combined running time toward the first half.

Films

Goblin Slayer: Goblin's Crown (2020)
Back into the world of Goblin Slayer (has it really been over seven weeks since I finished the series?!) This movie was released a couple of years after season one; I believe season two, although released three years later, picks up right after it.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 12th: The Adventure of the Dreadful Author (Conclusion)

Videos

Critical Role
2x68 Reflections [1st half]
"What do you mean, 'Caleb killed his whole family?'"
"You know, it's a figure of speech where I'm from."
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Fiction

NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapters 23–25
Epilogue [the end]

So, despite what I said the other day, I'm now tempted to continue with the next book in this series. My opinion on the quality of the prose hasn't changed, and that's the main thing putting me off; but the last act of this one finally engaged with some of the ideas the setup had promised, if only for a little bit. So while the prose bugs me, the story and characters have hooked me just enough that I want to find out what happens next.

That said, I can kinda tell this is setting itself up to be serialised across multiple volumes (that's literally what this first book does: finally gets somewhere, then ends on a cliffhanger), and I know there's already five books with the story not yet wrapped up — should I be letting myself in for all that?


Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 11th: The Adventure of the Dreadful Author
Pot, kettle...

Fiction

NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapters 21–22

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 10th: The Ostentatious Art Collector (Conclusion)

Films

Le Trou (1960)
[#124 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Blindspot 2024 #12

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 9th: The Ostentatious Art Collector

Films

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
[#97 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2024 #11

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 8th: The Adventure of the Gentle Axe Murderer (Conclusion)

this week on 100Films.co.uk

We're more than a week into December now, but last week ended on the 1st and I wasn't timely with posting my November monthly review, so the past 'week' on 100Films.co.uk kicks off with that...





And then, as always, there were the "failures"...





And what about regular reviews? Um, nope. Maybe next Sunday.

Films

The Holdovers (2023)
[#96 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 7th: The Adventure of the Gentle Axe Murderer

Collection Count

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

The Christmastime post changes are in full effect, with some stuff taking longer than expected to arrive, and others... well, not. So, only a small handful of titles this week, with several more still dashing through the post. I think it's going to be a smaller month overall, but still probably with new titles every week. (There probably shouldn't be new stuff every week, eh?)

Number of titles in collection: 3,432 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 994 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,438 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 412 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,279 [up 8]
Number of films: 4,317 [up 3]
Number of additional cuts: 422 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,195 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Hotel Rwanda (2004)
[#95 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2024 #10

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 6th: The Adventure of the Assaulted Cabbie (Conclusion)

Films

Look Back (2024)
[#94 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Fiction

NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapters 15–20

I'm 80% through this now, and I think I have to admit: it isn't very good. The inciting concept is neat, but has barely been a factor for most of the novel — this could be any story of novice adventurers in a high fantasy / RPG world; the fact they used to be NPCs is immaterial. That said, this has begun to change in the last couple of chapters, so maybe the final act can pull something out of the bag.

Similarly, while it's clearly meant to be a parody (not an outright Naked Gun-style piss-take, but certainly looking at RPGs with a raised eyebrow and degree of amused cynicism), I've found it mostly lacking in humour. That's not just a taste issue — I'm not saying I don't think it's funny, I'm saying it's not even trying to be as often as it perhaps should. The prose is largely adequate, but also clunky; unnecessarily verbose, with an abundance of wholly redundant words, phrases, and even whole sentences; relatedly, it's often irritatingly repetitive in minor ways (in a careless fashion, not a stylistic one). It's self-published, and that doesn't surprise me. Indeed, I was surprised when I saw there are two credited editors. And if the quality of the writing didn't give it away, the amateurish typesetting would. It feels like that shouldn't be a criticism, and I guess if you were reading a high-quality work it would be easier to let slide, but it's surprisingly aggravating.

I'll stick with it to the end, because it's not outright terrible and I've come this far so want resolution from the plot — though I hope the fact there are multiple sequels doesn't mean I'm denied that, because I don't intend to read more.


Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 5th: The Adventure of the Assaulted Cabbie

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 3rd: The Mystery of the Businessman's Body
December 4th: The Mystery of the Businessman's Body (Conclusion)

I'm not deliberately leaving these for every other day, because that feels against the point of a calendar, but it's just how my time for reading has panned out so far. Equally, I don't think I want to be puzzling over each of these mysteries for a whole 24 hours. So, going forward, I think I'm going to aim to read each half either side of midnight. Ok, arguably that's practically the same as reading them every other day, but at least it involves some semblance of the original intent.

Films

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)
Finally watched the Blu-ray I bought 13½ years ago, to see if I like it enough to upgrade to the Arrow 4K that’s out next week, which I quite possibly won’t watch for another 13½+ years. But I’m still gonna buy it, because this was awesome.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
How to Read This Book
December 1st: The Adventure of the Wiry Eel
December 2nd: The Adventure of the Wiry Eel (Conclusion)

I'm trying to not have too many books on the go at once, honest, but this is a timely one. Aside from what's obvious from the title (i.e. that it's set around Christmas), it's also designed to be read as an 'advent calendar': each of the stories is split in two, with a mystery posed one day and a conclusion offered on the next. Neat.

Articles

Critical Role Cast Teases Its Future and a Potential ‘Passing of the Torch’
by Dana Reboe (from Rolling Stone)

It feels like there's a CR profile in a major magazine every other week at the moment. I guess it's all because their tenth anniversary is rapdily approaching, and they've been doing (and continue to do) so much stuff. Still, they're almost always worth a read (if you're a fan, anyway) because there's always a few more titbits about what's to come.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x79 Redemption Week 1: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

My Favorite Brunette (1947)

TV

Friends
4x12 The One with the Embryos [5th or so watch]
4x13 The One with Rachel's Crush [5th or so watch]
4x14 The One with Joey's Dirty Day [5th or so watch]
4x15 The One with All the Rugby [5th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x78 Redemption Week 1: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Fletch (1985)

Wolfs (2024)

Collection Count

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

Only a few titles this week — well, six is still a strong number for just one week, really, but by my stsnsdards... Either way, several of those are box sets, so the number of discs and films still jump up considerably. One is also technically an upgrade from DVD, so I ought to ditch the old disc, but it includes a commentary track not on the new edition. I'll probably never actually listen to it... but I might...

Number of titles in collection: 3,429 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 994 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,435 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 409 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 8,271 [up 18]
Number of films: 4,314 [up 19]
Number of additional cuts: 420 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [up 6]
Number of short films: 1,195 [up 10]

Also this week, the final regular monthly running time update of the year.

Total running time of collection (approx.):
581 days, 14 hours, and 57 minutes.
(Up 4 days, 10 hours, and 17 minutes from last month.)

I say "final running time update of the year", but next month will have a monthly running time update too, of course, it's just that it will also contain the increases for the whole of 2024. It's felt like a big year, with a constant stream of additions, but has it been notably bigger than usual? We'll see in a month's time...

Before that, there's a couple of 'regular' weeks to go. See you then, faithful reader.

TV

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x01 Never Mind The Buzzcocks Does Rock

Films

First Knight (1995)
[2nd watch]
[#93 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x76 Redemption Week 1: Monday
7x77 Redemption Week 1: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Videos

Talks Machina
#116 'Beyond the Eyes of Angels'
For some reason, episodes 116 and 117 don't seem to be available via the Internet Archive as normal, which is a shame. Fortunately, I found torrents for piles of Brian W Foster-related content here, so I've used that to fill the gaps.

Videos

Critical Role
2x67 Beyond the Eyes of Angels [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Videos

Critical Role
2x67 Beyond the Eyes of Angels [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Films

Dragons Forever (1988)
[#92 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Films

The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
[#91 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Blindspot 2024 #11

Games

007: Everything or Nothing
Continuing my Amazon Luna experience, I hooked it up to my Mac via Bluetooth and used it as any old wireless controller to have another crack at this classic James Bond game. When I tried it out a month ago, I struggled with keyboard-only controls; as hoped, using a controller made the world of difference. As discussed yesterday, I'm still finding the analogue sticks a little oversensitive (especially the one assigned to controlling the camera), but it was a huge improvement. Now I might actually try to play this whole game, something I've wanted to do for, oh, only twenty years.

TV

The Wheel
5x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Blitz (2024)
[#90 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Games

A Plague Tale: Innocence

So, I just got an Amazon Luna controller in their Black Friday sale, and this game is currently free to Prime members and is compatible with Luna, so I thought I'd give the pair a go to test them both out. The controller is good, though as I haven't played with one for a very, very long time, I find it hard to be fair — I mean, are the analogue sticks a little oversensitive, or is it just me not being used to using them?

As for the game, I'm still in the early tutorial-ish stages, though towards the end of my session I was moving out of them and kept dying, so, er, don't know if that bodes well. And as for cloud gaming, it seemed to be responsive enough to controls, though the visual quality was a bit blurry and muddy at times. Considering regular video streaming is mostly fine for me, that's a little disappointing; equally, it might've been a quirk of the service during bad weather on a Saturday afternoon. We'll see how it goes over time.

Collection Count

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

Well, this week doesn't quite live up to last week's forecast that it could be a "stonker" (a large box set is still in the post, which means next week will have a far lower number of titles but a higher number of films and discs), but it's still a larger-than-average week — again. There's just so much interesting stuff coming out from the boutique labels nowadays — this isn't even everything I'd like to buy; I'm trying to be at least a little restrained. It's madness, really.

Number of titles in collection: 3,423 [up 11]
Of which DVDs: 994 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,429 [up 11]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 407 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,253 [up 16]
Number of films: 4,295 [up 13]
Number of additional cuts: 418 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 9,850 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,185 [up 4]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Comics

X-Men — Magik: Storm & Illyana by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema & Tom Palmer
#4 Darkchild [the end]
Enjoyed this overall, but it's very wordy — a lot of "tell don't show". Unusual for such a visual medium as comics; or maybe just how it was done back then (it's 40 years old now, after all).

Videos

Critical Role
A Daggerheart Critmas Story: Session Zero
I was aware this Session Zero had happened, and thought I'd probably watch it at some point because I expect I'll watch the Christmas special at some point too, but then I happened to see another video with a clip of this, which suggested it featured a lot of Omar, Matt and Marisha's corgi, and, well, I had to see that ASAP. The rest of it was fun as ever — I like feeling like we're just hanging out with these guys — but I appreciated the Omar cam, too.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Games

Syberia
Another hour-and-a-half. Definitely in the final stretch, though it seems there's still a little bit to go. I kinda just want to get to the end now — the puzzles are linear and repetitive (sometimes dressed up differently, but almost all functioning in the same way), and the story is no great shakes. (Knowing me, I'll still end up feeling compelled to play the sequels...)

Films

Duel to the Death (1983)
[#89 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

The Seventh Victim (1943)
[#88 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Comics

X-Men — Magik: Storm & Illyana by Chris Claremont, Ron Frenz & Tom Palmer
#3 Soulquest

TV

The Wheel
5x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Inside Out 2 (2024)
[#87 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Comics

X-Men — Magik: Storm & Illyana by Chris Claremont, John Buscema & Tom Palmer
#2 Hot Blood!

Collection Count

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

It's back to being a busy week this week, as a bunch of stuff I thought would turn up last time finally arrives, plus a few new things too. It makes for a larger-than-average week... although it could've been even bigger, because what didn't arrive were next week's new releases. Well, it spreads the fun out some more, at least.

Number of titles in collection: 3,412 [up 12]
Of which DVDs: 994 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,418 [up 13]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 404 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 8,237 [up 22]
Number of films: 4,282 [up 14]
Number of additional cuts: 415 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,850 [up 13]
Number of short films: 1,181 [up 3]

Looking at what might arrive next week, there's enough stuff definitely turning up to almost rival this week... but if the week-after-next's releases turn up early, it's really going to be another stonker for some categories. We'll see about that next week, faithful reader.

TV

Newsnight
15/11/24 edition
I don't regularly watch Newsnight, but I happened to see this had an item on the so-called 'Xodus' — i.e. people finally abandoning the site everyone knows as Twitter, mainly for Bluesky — and was interested to see how it would be covered.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Videos

Talks Machina
#115 'Beneath Bazzoxan'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]

Videos

Critical Role
2x66 Beneath Bazzoxan [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Videos

Critical Role
2x66 Beneath Bazzoxan [1st half]
"Did we just defeat a whole village in, like, 30 seconds? But it took us days to leave a tree?" Ah, D&D.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

this week on 100Films.co.uk

Hurrah — 1 new review was published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

If you came to Rosemary’s Baby without any kind of context about its place in film history, you might well conclude it had been made in the last few years... in terms of its plot, its themes, its characters and their relationships, and what they might be signifying, that all feels quite ‘of the moment’. Maybe it did in the ’60s too. Maybe it has in every time period since — maybe that’s why the film has endured so well for over 50 years.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

I thought it was going to be another busy one this week, but, in the end, a lot of stuff was slow to dispatch or (in one case) got held up at customs, so I guess that might be deferred to next week (or even spread across the next couple of weeks, who knows).

Number of titles in collection: 3,400 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 995 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,405 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 400 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,215 [up 4]
Number of films: 4,268 [up 3]
Number of additional cuts: 414 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,837 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,178 [up 3]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Wheel
5x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Lee (2023)
[#86 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Comics

X-Men — Magik: Storm & Illyana by Chris Claremont, John Buscema & Tom Palmer
#1 Little Girl Lost

Games

Syberia
Another hour-ish, digging into the final section of the game.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
32x07 (8/11/2024 edition)
I didn't set out to watch this, and yet somehow it was on, and I didn't turn it off. Hey-ho.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News for You
68x06 (8/11/2024 edition)
This I did choose to watch. Guest hosted by the regular host of the US version of the show, who did a better job than what (little) I've seen of the US version. I guess he's good at his job, but the writers and editors of the US version, maybe not so much...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapters 12–14

Games

Syberia
Another couple of hours and I've completed 'part two' (of three). The game doesn't divide itself into parts like that, but that's how it's broken down in the walkthrough I've referred to a couple of times when stuck.

Fiction

NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapter 11

Games

Syberia
Another hour. The second main location is kinda more interesting, with more characters to meaningfully interact with. It still showcases numerous game design flaws (screens with absolutely no purpose other than to lengthen your treks back and forth; conversations that don't flow even close to naturally across topics), but at least it's slowly piquing my interest with its central mystery.

Comics

X-Men — Magik: Storm & Illyana by Chris Claremont & Brent Anderson
Introduction by C.B. Cebulski
The Uncanny X-Men #160 Chutes and Ladders

Sure, I'm quite behind on 2000 AD and still need to catch up with current X-Men, and I started Spawn but haven't read it for over six months, but why not start something else? (It's only a four-issue miniseries, with this issue of Uncanny as prologue, so it shouldn't take up too much time. Says the guy who's recently read one issue or less per week...)

Games

The Booze of Monkey Island
What's this? Another game I'm starting instead of continuing Syberia. Ah, but I also finished this one, because it's only short (it took me three hours, and that was with exploring most of the dialogue trees, which are extensive). And you can't complain about it's length, because it's free. And also unofficial — it's a fan game. But it's really good — the graphics are lovely (like a modern HD version of Curse) and, even more importantly, the humour is bang on. There are a few bugs and translation issues, but nothing that hinders gameplay. If you're a fan of Monkey Island, it's definitely worth playing... and soon, before the Disney lawyers learn about it and nuke it.

Films

Flashdance (1983)

Comics

Absolute Batman #1 by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta

I wasn’t sure I was going to bother with this new Elseworlds variant of Batman. On one hand, it’s written by Scott Snyder, whose Batman work I greatly enjoyed back when I was regularly buying comics the last time in 2011–14. On the other, it sounded like it perhaps deviated too far from what makes Batman Batman; plus, it’s not as if I don’t buy enough other comics that I’m not getting round to reading (including two regular Batman titles). But then it became “the comic everyone was talking about” when it released, and that talk all seemed to be positive, so I bought issue one — and only just got round to reading it, because hey, that's what I'm like.

Anyway, it is indeed absolutely fantastic and I can't wait for more. Thanks, general chatter, for persuading me to read it.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

A new month began just before the weekend (I'm sure you noticed), so it was time for 100Films.co.uk to look back at October...





And that includes the October "failures", of course...





More, hopefully, next Sunday.

TV

The Wheel
5x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Old Oak (2023)

Collection Count

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

So, after last week turned out to be considerably smaller than expected, it all came pouring in this week instead — just in time for the monthly running time update.

Indeed, there was even more than I'd expected, thanks to an early arrival for Eureka's Louis Feuillade box set (which should replace three DVDs, but they have extras I'm not yet ready to ditch) and Indicator throwing up a sale, from which I ordered two big box sets (and a couple of regular titles), which also managed to arrive before week's end.

Altogether, it makes for a bunch of very sizeable increases — including a frankly ludicrous 48 new feature films! I feel like that must be some kind of record, but I don't have the energy to check.

Number of titles in collection: 3,397 [up 10]
Of which DVDs: 995 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,402 [up 10]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 397 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 8,211 [up 34]
Number of films: 4,265 [up 48]
Number of additional cuts: 414 [up 10]
Number of TV episodes: 9,837 [up 40]
Number of short films: 1,175 [up 4]

I always have a dilemma with film serials: are they one film; or a bunch of TV episodes; or a bunch of films? Because they're not really one film; but counting each episode as a film is a bit daft; but they're not really TV episodes either. I tend to end up counting them there, though, because it seems like the fairest option. That's what I've done with this new Feuillade set, anyway — no 'actual' TV was added to the collection this month.

No debate about where to count the running time, at least: it all goes into the same massive pile...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
577 days, 4 hours, and 40 minutes.
(Up 6 days, 8 hours, and 11 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

Music

The Guest II: Original Soundtrack
I vaguely remember them releasing this a couple of years ago. It's a soundtrack album for a film that doesn't exist; a kind of concept album in lieu of any sequel to The Guest actually getting made. I never got round to listening to it before because, you know, it's not actually a sequel to The Guest; but having rewatched The Guest yesterday and been reminded of how awesome and essential the soundtrack is, I thought I'd finally stick this on.

Warriors
by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Eisa Davis
I feel like I should have something significant to say about this — as someone who loves both The Warriors and Hamilton — but, well, not for now. Maybe after I listen to it a few more times. What I will say is: at the start I wasn't convinced — the more of Miranda's work you listen to, it begins to feel like he only has so many ideas and tricks to deploy — but I did get into it the more it went on and liked lots of it.

Films

The Guest (2014)
[2nd watch]
[#85 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Films

Eyeball (1975)

Possession (1981)
[#84 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Blindspot 2024 #10 — the second horror film I mentioned.

Games

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket

I've never been that fussed about Pokémon. When I got my first GameBoy (it was a Color, if I remember correctly) back in the '90s, I did have one of whichever iteration of the game was then-current, but I didn't play it a huge amount in the end. I mean, the fact I can't even remember which game it was tells you something. But now my nephew is the right age to be really into it, so when I saw this app was coming out today, I thought I'd give it a go.

It's based around opening packs to collect cards (all digitally), which after a couple of levels you can use to build decks and battle (a slightly simplified version of the real card game's rules, I believe). I ended up spending all morning on it, and then some time in the afternoon too. Oh dear... I mean, that's probably a good sign to the developers and the Pokémon company, but not so much for my free time.

Films

Dreadnaught (1981)
[#83 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

Games

Syberia
Another hour or so, which this time actually featured some other characters and meaningful conversation! I still have various other niggling complaints, but I'm trying to give it a fair chance...

TV

Friends
4x11 The One with Phoebe's Uterus [5th or so watch]

Games

Syberia
Hadn't forgotten nor given up on this, just been busy with other stuff. Played about another hour-and-a-quarter until I ran out of immediately-obvious things to do. There's a fair bit of back-and-forthing and 'puzzles' that amount to "figure out the right order to pull random levers", with little conversation and no monologuing from our 'hero', which makes the character feel rather distant and bland. In other words, it's no LucasArts game.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x72 Week 15: Tuesday
7x73 Week 15: Wednesday
7x74 Week 15: Thursday
7x75 Week 15: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Slow Horses
4x05 Grave Danger
4x06 Hello Goodbye [season finale]

Films

Young at Heart (1954)

TV

Friends
4x09 The One Where They're Going to Party! [5th or so watch]
4x10 The One with the Girl from Poughkeepsie [5th or so watch]

The Rookie
5x21 Going Under

The Rookie: Feds
1x21 Bloodline
The final Rookie / Rookie: Feds crossover — which was barely that, more two scenes in Going Under that led into Bloodline, and gave them an excuse to feature Nolan in the latter. Anyway, the show got cancelled, so this is the last episode of Feds I'll ever have to watch.

Slow Horses
4x03 Penny for Your Thoughts
4x04 Returns

Collection Count

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

I alluded last week to a deluge of stuff turning up this week. Well, it didn't. Fair enough — it was all preorders due out on Monday, anyway. So, next week should have a pile of stuff (just in time for the monthly running time update, which means I've got one week to work out how long the Lars von Trier box set runs — unusually, it doesn't say on the packaging).

This week does have one new title: Doctor Who Season 25. We've reached something of a tipping point in the Doctor Who Blu-ray range at last: as well as upgrading DVDs of stories from season 25 itself, this allows me to also officially pass on stories from seasons 12 and 24. How? Those seasons are already out on Blu-ray, but the DVD editions are in box sets with stories from season 25, so I'd been hanging on to them. There should be more of this kind of thing going forward; as well as, hopefully, special features that have gone walkabout turning up again, meaning even more DVDs can officially be 'removed'.

Number of titles in collection: 3,387 [down 2]
Of which DVDs: 995 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,392 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 397 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 8,177 [up 3]
Number of films: 4,217 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 404 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,797 [down 3]
Number of short films: 1,171 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x71 Week 15: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Slow Horses
4x01 Identity Theft
4x02 A Stranger Comes to Town

TV

Friends
4x05 The One with Joey's New Girlfriend [5th or so watch]
4x06 The One with the Dirty Girl [5th or so watch]
4x07 The One Where Chandler Crosses the Line [5th or so watch]
4x08 The One with Chandler in a Box [5th or so watch]

Videos

Talks Machina
#114 'Chases and Trees'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]