Films

Song of the Thin Man (1947)
[#19 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

Five brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


Another Thin Man (1939)

Husband-and-wife detective duo Nick and Nora Charles — now with a baby in tow — are once again coerced into investigating a crime when the manager of Nora’s estate fears a dismissed employee is plotting murder.

Read more here.


Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)

It’s genuinely laugh-out-loud funny in places, buoyed by a quality cast that includes the likes of Honor Blackman and Richard Briers, the latter of whom stars in a genius “why has no one thought of this before?!” moment

Read more here.


The Tourist (2010)

Much maligned on its release, I thought The Tourist was actually a decently entertaining light thriller.

Read more here.


Transcendence (2014)

best known for the massive negative reaction it received on release, from critics and viewers alike. To be frank, I don’t really know why. Some say it’s too slow — well, I thought it moved like the clappers. What I thought was going to be the story was done in under an hour, from which point it spiralled off in new and interesting directions.

Read more here.


The Wall (2012) aka Die Wand

It’s adapted from an enduringly popular Austrian novel, one of those many books labelled “unfilmable”. Unfortunately the solution seems to have been an over-reliance on voiceover narration, meaning at times it feels more like a prettily-illustrated audiobook than a proper film.

Read more here.


Plus nine archive reviews were reposted on the new blog...


4 short films

Featuring...
The End (2005)
Bus Stop (2004)
Park (2005)
Nine 1/2 Minutes (2002)

Read more here.


Cinderella (1965)

This clearly made-for-TV adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella is a rather weak affair, easily demonstrating why no one seems to remember it... The musical numbers are quite entertaining, if mostly insipid, not that any approach R&H’s best anyway.

Read more here.


Fist of Legend (1994)

I’m no expert on martial arts, but I do like a good fight (on film) and Fist of Legend serves up plenty of those. In fact, there’s approximately one every five minutes, an impressively high ratio that consciously — and very pleasingly — fulfills what you want from this kind of film. This quantity doesn’t seem to have damaged quality either

Read more here.


Get Smart (2008)

mostly quite good fun. Not all the jokes hit home, but enough do to keep it amusing — which is better than some comedies manage. Even after three Austin Powers films it seems there’s enough left to do with the spy genre to keep a comedy rolling along

Read more here.


Nirvana (1997)

Most sci-fi we see is of the American variety... that tends to mean tonnes of CGI, a fast pace and action sequences up to the eyeballs. Nirvana is more stereotypically European, however: it’s clearly a Deep and Meaningful film, though unlike many examples of Thoughtful cinema it at least has a slightly thriller-ish plot and a hefty dose of cyberpunk styling for us plebs to pick up on.

Read more here.


Romance & Cigarettes (2005)

The characters occasionally sing along to some popular songs (and sometimes to ones you’ve never heard in your life), and sometimes do fun dance routines. This sits at odds with the gritty-ish melodrama of the plot, but that’s the fun.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
8x05 (6/2/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2x04 Halloween II
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Room 101
15x04 Episode 4

The Voice UK
4x05 The Blind Auditions 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,734 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,208 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 526 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,331 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,872 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,464 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 441 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
8x04 (30/1/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Castle
4x15 Pandora
Finally caught up with 5USA... just in time for them to have only aired the first half of a two-parter!
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Outnumbered
2x07 The Long Night [season finale; 2nd watch]

Wolf Hall
Part 1 Three Card Trick
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2x03 The Jimmy Jab Games
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Death in Paradise
4x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled
2x05 Thwarted Sex Pests
[Watch it (again) on Dave OD.]

Castle
4x14 The Blue Butterfly

The Last Leg
6x04 (30/1/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2x02 Chocolate Milk
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Room 101
15x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher
3x01 Beyond the Pale
I had mixed feelings about the second Whicher, but this third (the first of two that aired back in September) was rather good.

Films

Gone Girl (2014)
[#18 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Broadchurch
2x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Castle
4x13 An Embarrassment of Bitches

Films

The Black Cauldron (1985)
[#17 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Death in Paradise
4x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Newsroom
3x06 What Kind of Day Has It Been [season finale]

Films

Transcendence (2014)
[#16 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

It's the first day of a brand new month, which means over at 100 Films in a Year it's time to look back on the one just gone. Here's to my best January ever:




On top of that, five brand-new reviews were published this week. They were...


After the Thin Man (1936)

For my money, a more successful venture than the first film, however good that was. From the start it has its focus in the right place: rather than a lengthy preamble with the supporting cast (as in the first film), here we begin with Nick and Nora arriving in San Francisco and teasing the horde of journalists that greet them.

Read more here.


All is Lost (2013)

It’s hard to succinctly pigeonhole All is Lost. It’s a survival movie, if that’s really a genre; man vs the elements. It’s an adventure movie, a little bit in the old-fashioned sense, as here’s a man who, through no choice of his own, has what you might describe as “an adventure”.

Read more here.


Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

I’ve never seen a Wes Anderson film before, but his reputation is such that I don’t think you need to have to spot that Mr. Fox has been heavily Anderson-ised... So it’s Quirky with a capital Q, and yet, miraculously, not irritatingly so

Read more here.


The Running Man (1987)

In an ever-so-’80s vision of the future (my God, those costumes!), Arnie’s wrongfully-convicted fugitive ends up on TV’s most popular show, where criminals fight for their freedom against a variety of imposing opponents. Secretly, he’s there to try to overthrow the corrupt regime.

Read more here.


This is Not a Film (2011)

After being banned from filmmaking for 20 years, and while waiting for a decision on his appeal against the sentence, [Iranian director Jafar] Panahi invites his friend and fellow filmmaker Mojtab Mirtahmasb to his house, where the latter films the former as he reads and enacts portions of the screenplay for his intended next project, as well as chatting about the nature of filmmaking.

Read more here.


Finally, six archive reviews were reposted on the new blog...


Burn After Reading (2008)

It's nothing like No Country for Old Men, other than being occasionally obtuse, but that's the Coen's style. Still, I'm sure No Country is the better -- or Better -- film, but in the same way I prefer eating a bacon cheeseburger to a pile of vegetables, I think I enjoyed watching Burn After Reading more.

Read more here.


His Girl Friday (1940)

an acknowledged classic — 19th on the AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Laughs, 58th on Empire’s 500 Greatest, 106th on They Shoot Pictures’ 1,000 Greatest, 245th on IMDb’s Top 250, preserved by the US’s National Film Registry, and countless other such accolades — so you probably don’t need me to tell you why it’s so good. But it really, really is.

Read more here.


An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Famous/infamous documentary centred on Al Gore’s presentation about global warming.

Read more here.


Léon: Version Intégrale (1994/1996)

personally, I prefer this version. Not because there's anything wrong with the original -- far from it -- but because this one has more... The additions build on the characters and relationships, primarily between the two leads, and also add extra doses of humour and action.

Read more here.


Texas Across the River (1966)

a fairly entertaining film. Little more than a comedic Western runaround, it sees Alain Delon — as a Spanish nobleman — trying to get to Texas to escape the Cavalry (led by Jim Phelps himself, Peter Graves) and marry his betrothed. On the way he enlists the help of Dean Martin and his Indian sidekick. Hilarity ensues!

Read more here.


The Wraith of Cobble Hill (2005)

its modern, urban story seems to clash with the cartoonish style employed to bring it to the screen. There are no flights of fantasy, few implausible shots, nothing that couldn't be achieved in live action even on a low budget. Ultimately the only reason for it being animated is, why shouldn't it be?

Read more here.


More next Sunday!

TV

The Voice UK
4x04 The Blind Auditions 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
[#15 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,732 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,208 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 524 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,329 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,870 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,464 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 441 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled
2x04 A British Asian Comedian Can No Longer Afford to Buy a House Because of James Brown
[Watch it (again) on Dave OD.]

Castle
4x12 Dial M for Mayor

The Last Leg
6x03 (23/1/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Outnumbered
2x06 The Football Match [2nd watch]

TV

Castle
4x11 Till Death Do Us Part

The Last Leg
6x02 (16/1/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
8x03 (23/1/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]