Collection Count

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

This week, I acquired the huge Hitchcock: The Ultimate Filmmaker Collection 16-film box set. This replaces an old 14-film set and my Psycho Blu-ray (but duplicates To Catch a Thief, which I own on DVD with special features not included here, and North by Northwest twice, because I own it in a DVD box set with titles not yet available on Blu-ray, and in a Blu-ray box set with titles not included here, and that has special features that aren't here).

To show after all that were just a couple of small but strange number shifts... until I also got a new DVD, leaving virtually no trace of anything. Funny thing, my DVD collection...

Number of titles in collection: 1,684 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 483 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,187 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,821 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 435 [up 3]

All that does have an effect on the running time, though -- upgrading from DVD to Blu-ray means all those films are devoid of PAL speed-up. Plus there's everything else I've bought recently because, handily, it's the time of the month for an update!

And that is exciting, because, for the first time...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
300 days, 12 hours, and 16 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 1 hour, and 18 minutes from last month.)

...it's crossed 300 days! Madness.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Americans
2x01 Comrades
Here we go, then -- and it's as good as last season, which is by no means a given and so is great news. It's quite wedded in some of the plot lines left over from last year's finale/season in general, which is something I'm generally fond of TV series doing, but is a little awkward when it's been a year or so since you watched it and the "previously on" is a little inadequate. But hey-ho, I kept up well enough.

Mock the Week
13x02 (19/6/14 edition)

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x06 The Baby Arrives [season finale]

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x04 The Deer-Hunters [2nd watch]

How I Met Your Mother
9x23 Last Forever Part 1
9x24 Last Forever Part 2 [series finale]
As E4 have decided to split the clearly-conceived-as-an-hour series finale into its constituent parts, I downloaded the US version and watched it all in one go. No idea where the split would be, actually; quite tempted to watch Part 1 on catch-up and see (or just read about it on Wikipedia -- it's where I thought it might be).
Anyway, a lot of people seemed to hate it -- some have branded it the worst finale ever. Personally, I quite liked it. Kinda obvious it's been going somewhere like that all along, surely? Not to many/most, it would seem...
[Watch Last Forever Part 1 (again) on 4oD. Part 2 will be available next week.]

Live at the Apollo
9x05 Episode 5
First of two Apollo episodes I missed in the last series -- and I stumbled on it completely by accident on BBC Three, while simply looking for any old (decent-ish) comedy to pass the time! Coincidencetastic.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x03 Kill Me Now [2nd watch]

Mad Men
7x07 Waterloo [mid-season finale]
But what does it all mean?!

Films

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010)
[#60 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Top Gear
21x06 Burma Special Part 1
21x07 Burma Special Part 2 [season finale]
The 2013 Christmas special, shown in the middle of March 2014. Goodness knows why -- perhaps an editing thing: it's just over two hours long in this form, and the DVD/Blu-ray version has a further 35 minutes!

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x05 (4/7/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Gilmore Girls
1x02 The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton [2nd watch]

Mad Men
7x06 The Strategy

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x01 Pilot [2nd watch]
It's been 5½ years since we accidentally abandoned Gilmore Girls, so rather than try to pick it up -- and struggle to access years-old memories of what was going on -- it felt best just to start again from the start.

Wimbledon 2014
Men's Final Build-Up & Men's Final
Ah well.
[Watch the build-up and the mens' final, plus many other matches, on iPlayer.]

With Wimbledon now over, and most shows on a summer break, hopefully the next few weeks will finally see me make good on the notion of starting all the stuff I need to catch up on.

Films

We're the Millers (2013)
[#59 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

this week on 100 Films

First up this week from 100 Films in a Year, it's my look back at June.


Elsewise, two brand-new reviews were published this week, and they were...


The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976/1978)

Ever since I read the blurb for Masters of Cinema's DVD of Maurice Pialat's Police, I've been casually enticed by The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Said blurb asserts that "Police is a genre-defying excursion rivaled only by John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie in the pantheon of cinema’s most idiosyncratic thrillers", which is both a nice turn of phrase and an intriguing one. The thriller is very much a Genre — that is to say, it's a label loaded with rules and expectations, and to be idiosyncratic within such a form is an interesting notion. Both "thriller" and "idiosyncratic" are pretty accurate labels for Chinese Bookie, though

Read more here.


Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

It starts off well, with a virtuoso eight-minute pre-credits sequence that reconfigures the past 50 years of Earth’s spacefaring in the story’s image. OK, so it contains a seriously ill-advised, incredibly poorly-realised CGI JFK, but we can let some things go. Unfortunately, from here on out the movie does its best to pile on stuff we can’t let go.

Read more here.


Finally, several older reviews were new to the new blog...


The Three Musketeers (1973)

I like a good swashbuckler. I don’t know exactly what it is about sword fights, but they’re probably my most favourite kind of action sequence. The 1973 Three Musketeers, then, is a film I’m slightly amazed I’ve not seen before. Especially as I absolutely loved it.

Read more here.


The Four Musketeers (1974)

It’s a bit grim too [and] none of it sits well with the jolly swashbuckling tone that still dominates. There are some good action sequences nonetheless — for instance, the ice-covered lake; breakfast/siege in the ruined fort; and the burning-building finale — which go some way to make up for the shortcomings.

Read more here.


Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

It gets off to a flying start. The first 20 or 30 minutes in particular move at a rate of knots, churning through plot in a way no blockbuster would seem to dare these days...: a Borg attack; the Enterpise ordered not to join the fight; Picard doing so anyway; the destruction of the Borg cube; the Borg, erm, ball flying into the past; the Enterprise following; meeting Zephram Cochrane and his lot… It’s boom boom boom, moving on. It’s nice to rattle through a tale

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Friday Night Dinner
3x03 Mr Morris Returns
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Raid (2011)
[#58 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,684 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 483 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,185 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,819 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 432 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Episodes
3x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x22 The End of the Aisle
Well, who guessed The Big Wedding would be in the penultimate episode? Not me!
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

A Late Quartet (2012)
[#57 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Law & Order: UK
8x08 Repeat to Fade [series finale]
This certainly feels more like a first episode than a finale -- and, as they've now decided to "rest" the series (i.e. "cancel by any other name", I should imagine) it's even weirder.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player].

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x05 Father's Clinic
The one with the famous rollerskating sequence. The rest of the episode doesn't have as much to recommend it, unfortunately.

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x21 Gary Blauman
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x04 Frank and Marvin

Films

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
[#56 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Friday Night Dinner
3x02 The Fox
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x04 (27/6/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Episodes
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
13x01 (12/6/14 edition)