TV

DC's Legends of Tomorrow
1x06 Star City 2046

Game of Thrones
6x02 Home

Gilmore Girls
6x19 I Get a Sidekick Out of You

TV

Gilmore Girls
6x18 The Real Paul Anka

Person of Interest
4x18 Skip
[Watch it (again) on My5.]

TV

Gilmore Girls
6x17 I'm OK, You're OK

Have I Got News For You
51x03 (22/4/2016 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Sword in the Stone (1963)
[2nd or so watch]

this week on 100 Films

It was 1999 Week on 100 Films in a Year this week! Read my introduction here:




As part of that, 5 brand-new reviews were published:


Election (1999)

the whole film has a conflicted idea of identification. It has you side with a teacher who wants to tear down the dreams of a bright, dedicated, enthusiastic young student. And I don’t mean it tries to get you to side with him — you do side with him. But then it proceeds to tear his whole life apart, as if in punishment for what he wanted to do; and, by extension, it punishes you for wanting him to do it.

Read more here.


The Iron Giant (1999)

The animation is stunningly well done, exhibiting exceptional fluidity and detail in its character animation, in particular. That’s in spite of the film having a reduced budget and time schedule thanks to the box office failure of previous animations by the studio — in Bird’s words, they had “one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule”, but that meant greater production freedom

Read more here.


The Limey (1999)

The movie jumps back and forth in time — not from scene to scene, but from shot to shot. For instance, Stamp’s arrival at the home of his daughter’s friend, and the conversation that follows, is jumbled up with shots of him on the plane, driving in the city, the people his daughter was associating with, and even within the conversation itself, sometimes speech continues on the soundtrack while we watch the characters not talking, or doing something else. This isn’t a conceit Soderbergh uses for one scene, or wheels out now and then, but an overall approach.

Read more here.


Office Space (1999)

there’s sort of a wish-fulfilment thing going on here, which must partly explain its popularity. It’s a film about low-level white collar workers, stuck in unfulfilling office jobs, having to do the repetitious and sometimes stupid bidding of the higher-ups — guys who don’t actually do anything, really, but will certainly get to keep their jobs when lay-offs are needed, even as the little guys who actually do the work get the sack. Wouldn’t it be great to find yourself in a position where you could stick it to Management?

Read more here.


The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Throw in a couple more sex scenes (and a few less high-profile contributors) and you’d have late-night TV filler. There’s virtually no swearing and certainly no violence, but with some gratuitous boobs you’ve got a 15/R-rated flick. The film doesn’t really need such titillation to attract attention, because it’s a strong cat-and-mouse thriller in its own right. On the other hand, it doesn’t shy away from sexuality and the part that could play in such a ‘game’, so in that respect it’s more plausible than a million other neutered movies.

Read more here.


My 100 Favourites series got in on the action too, with 2 related posts:


Fight Club (1999)

Quote Most Likely To Be Used in Everyday Conversation: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” — Tyler Durden

Read more here.


Galaxy Quest (1999)

Our heroes arrive in the bowels of their screen-faithful ship to find “a bunch of chompy, crushy things” impeding their path — for absolutely no reason. “We shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?… This episode was badly written!”

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,859 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,211 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 648 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,755 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 2,031 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,211 [up 14]
Number of short films in collection: 472 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Gilmore Girls
6x16 Bridesmaids Revisited

Films

Pixels (2015)
[#88 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Elementary
4x18 Ready or Not

Game of Thrones
6x01 The Red Woman
It's back! A slow start to the season, but then they almost always are on Thrones -- reminding you what's happened, dealing with some of its repercussions, and positioning pieces for what comes next. I suspect considerable excitement is just around the corner...

Gilmore Girls
6x15 A Vineyard Valentine

Person of Interest
4x17 Karma
[Watch it (again) on My5.]

Films

Badlands (1973)
[#87 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Arrow
4x15 Taken

Gilmore Girls
6x14 You've Been Gilmored

Have I Got News For You
51x02 (15/4/2016 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Gilmore Girls
6x13 Friday Night's Alright for Fighting

Grantchester
2x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

this week on 100 Films

First up this week at 100 Films in a Year, my latest TV round-up:




As well, 4 brand-new reviews were published this week:


Locke (2013)

“Tom Hardy goes for a drive and makes some phone calls” is the plot of this film, which is often mislabelled as a thriller. That’s not to degrade its thrillingness, but rather to say that if you’re expecting a single-location single-character phone-based thrill-ride... you’re not going to get it. In reality, Locke is a drama about a man dealing with some woes that are both everyday and life-changing, but as a film it’s been made in an unusual and interesting manner.

Read more here.


Maleficent (2014)

a revisionist re-telling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of its villainess... It's an interesting idea to take an archetypal villain who's evil for evil's sake and try to give her motivation, to understand why she did terrible things. Maleficent makes a fair fist of this

Read more here.


Super 8 (2011)

Before he started star warring and between bouts of star trekking, director J.J. Abrams teamed up with producer Steven Spielberg for this homage to the kind of movies Spielberg produced in the ’80s. Those films have endured down the decades; I’m not sure Super 8 endured as far as Abrams’ next lens flare showcase... Which is a little bit of a shame because, by being Abrams’ most personal film, it may also be his best.

Read more here.


Veronica Mars (2014)

There’s no denying that this is primarily a film for fans of the TV series — well, they did fund it, after all. The best way to get the most out of the film is to have watched all 64 episodes of the show first; preferably soon before, in fact, so you can remember who all the minor characters are. However, creator-cowriter-director Rob Thomas is no fool... [It's] accessible to neophyte viewers. You might sense there’s references and whatnot that are passing you by, but everything that’s relevant is explained.

Read more here.


Finally, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts:


For a Few Dollars More (1965)

The Man With No Name (who this time is called Monco) is played as coolly as ever by Clint Eastwood. This time he teams up with The Man In Black — not Johnny Cash, but Colonel Douglas Mortimer. Much older than Monco, but played with equal amounts of cool by Lee Van Cleef.

Read more here.


From Russia with Love (1964)

They may not be as grandiose as the volcano-dwelling types that came later in the series, but From Russia with Love has two of Bond’s most memorable adversaries: the hard former KGB officer Rosa Klebb, with her deadly shoe (well, it sounds silly when you put it like that), and assassin Red Grant, who may not know what wine to have with fish but could certainly gut you like one. A fish, that is. Not wine. You can’t gut wine.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Gilmore Girls
6x12 Just Like Gwen and Gavin

Person of Interest
4x16 Blunt
[Watch it (again) on My5.]

Films

The Iron Giant (1999)
[#86 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2016 #4

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,857 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,211 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 646 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,751 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 2,030 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,197 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 472 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Flash
2x15 King Shark

Gilmore Girls
6x11 The Perfect Dress

Films

Christine (1983)
[#85 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Elementary
4x17 You've Got Me, Who's Got You?

Gilmore Girls
6x10 He's Slippin' 'Em Bread... Dig?

Films

Veronica Mars (2014)
[2nd watch]

This was #22 in 100 Films 2014, but I never got round to reviewing it, so I'm re-watching to jog my memory. Also because it's great.