TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
5x04 Episode 4

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Musketeers
2x07 A Marriage of Inconvenience

Films

The Big Short (2015)
[#161 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Castle
6x22 Veritas

Luke Cage
1x12 Soliloquy of Chaos
1x13 You Know My Steez [season finale]

TV

Castle
6x21 Law & Boarder

The Great British Bake Off
7x07 Dessert Week
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Would I Lie To You?
10x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

A Knight's Tale (2001)
[#160 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

The Quay Brothers in 35mm (2015)
[#159 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]
Including the shorts In Absentia, Quay, The Comb, and Street of Crocodiles.

this week on 100 Films

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


The Magnificent Seven (1960)

With even less screen time to go round than in Kurosawa’s original, the cast only get to provide thumbnail sketches of their characters. However, bearing that in mind, only Vaughn really feels shortchanged on time, while McQueen manages to steal every scene he’s in, even when he was supposed to just be in the background — much to Brynner’s annoyance.

Read more here.


Mr. Turner (2014)

There are two stars in Mike Leigh’s biopic of famed British artist J.M.W. Turner: Timothy Spall, grunting his way through the title role with a deceptively layered realisation of an apparently simple but deeply complex man; and Dick Pope’s cinematography, which makes almost every frame look like a rich landscape painting, so that you feel you can almost see the brushstrokes.

Read more here.


Pixels (2015)

the virtual definition of brain-off entertainment. The story has the plausibility of a kids’ daydream, the humour is frequently unimaginative, and the action sequences mostly coast on their basic concept rather than trying to elevate them... But for all that mediocrity, I spent 100 minutes feeling gently entertained. I laughed a few times; the action was, as I say, passable

Read more here.


Pride (2014)

Perhaps most remarkable is Dominic West as a veteran homosexual, whose dancing display has to be seen to be believed. Bill Nighy and Paddy Considine are understated as quiet, hesitant characters who have inner steel, and Jessica Gunning makes a similar impact as a housewife who is completely emboldened by the activism. I don’t like just listing actors, but it would be a disservice not to mention Faye Marsay, Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton… I could go on. Screenwriter Stephen Beresford finds meaningful stories and character arcs for each of these, while director Matthew Warchus controls the story so that it never devolves into a collection of subplots.

Read more here.


Westworld (1973)

while the original film does offer Crichton’s superb concept, plus a few straightforward action/suspense thrills, it’s too slight to really deliver on the inherent promise.

Read more here.


Also, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


Saved! (2004)

At the first assembly of the school year, cool headmaster Pastor Skip flips onto stage (“Give it up to the Lord, Jesus is in the house! Let’s get our Christ on, let’s kick it Jesus style! … Who’s down with G-O-D? Alright! Jesus rules! Jesus rules!”), before... Cassandra starts ‘speaking in tongues’ (“mah puhsah issa hot puhsow”), though Hilary Faye sees through it (“she’s saying she’s got a hot p—!”)

Read more here.


Saving Private Ryan (1998)

the greatest war movie ever made? Maybe... It’s certainly the most influential World War 2 movie of modern times — nearly 20 years later, its desaturated colour palette remains de rigueur for films set in the war. So too its realistic depiction of combat, which is more plausible than some of the Boy’s Own adventures that came before, though not so ridiculously gruelling as some that have come in its wake.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Castle
6x20 That '70s Show

Luke Cage
1x10 Take It Personal
1x11 Now You're Mine

Films

The Russia House (1990)
[#158 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,897 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,205 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 694 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 4,897 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 2,088 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,512 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 498 [up 25]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Line of Duty
1x05 Episode 5 [season finale]

Luke Cage
1x09 DWYCK

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
5x06 Episode 6

Line of Duty
1x04 Episode 4

TV

Line of Duty
1x03 Episode 3

Luke Cage
1x07 Manifest
1x08 Blowin' Up the Spot

TV

Castle
6x19 The Greater Good

Line of Duty
1x02 Episode 2

Luke Cage
1x05 Just to Get a Rep
1x06 Suckas Need Bodyguards

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
5x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

Line of Duty
1x01 Episode 1

Luke Cage
1x03 Who's Gonna Take the Weight?
1x04 Step in the Arena

Red Dwarf
11x02 Samsara
Has it really been four years since Series X? Where does time go?! Anyway, I accidentally left it too long to see episode 1 on catch-up, but I get the impression watching them out of order doesn't matter, so I'll find it later.

Collection Count

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

I'm a couple of days late this week because it's time for the mega monthly running time update, and I'd got behind on keeping track of said running times. It's all good now, though, so here we go:

Number of titles in collection: 1,892 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,204 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 690 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,891 [up 10]
Number of films in collection: 2,084 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,512 [up 64]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
360 days, 16 hours, and 55 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 21 hours, and 33 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Castle
6x18 The Way of the Ninja

Would I Lie To You?
10x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

2016 entered its final quarter this week, which meant it was yet again time for 100 Films in a Year to reflect on the past month...




Additionally, 4 brand-new reviews were published this week...


High-Rise (2015)

I was looking forward to this sci-fi-ish ’70s social satire, but, having let it percolate for a few months, I still have no real grasp of what it was about. I mean, it’s obviously about society, but what its point about society is… I have no idea.

Read more here.


Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A story of young love, Wes Anderson style, the writer-director has described Moonrise Kingdom as “an autobiography about something that didn’t happen”. That feels like a good way to regard the film. There’s clearly an emotional truth to Sam and Suzy’s discontented lives and their desire to connect with a like-minded individual, especially at an age when romantic feelings are beginning to emerge; but there’s no way the rest of the events — which unfold with Anderson’s typical almost-real / almost-fantastical quirkiness — actually happened.

Read more here.


Rushmore (1998)

Having only seen Anderson’s three most recent films, it’s interesting to observe the early days of his distinctive style. The squared-off framing and blocking, the mannered acting, the interludes and asides, the not-quite-real / not-quite-fantasy quirkiness of it all… These things have only become more pronounced since, presumably as Anderson has become more confident in his own voice, or possibly as other behind-the-scenes forces have become more comfortable letting him do his thing.

Read more here.


Spotlight (2015)

As a film, this story is effectively a conspiracy thriller: a team of journalists expose a wide-reaching criminal cover-up within a respected and powerful institution. If it were fiction, you’d struggle to believe it, the scale of the conspiracy so vast that the very notion of it would be implausible. So it’s all the more astonishing — and horrifying — that it was real.

Read more here.


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


The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The outré style belies an underlying cleverness, with witty writing that features abundant references to sci-fi B-movie classics, precisely pitched performances, and, of course, the unforgettable toe-tapping tunes. Whether alone or in a packed auditorium throwing stuff and shouting back at the screen, it’s just fun. To watch it is to, indeed, give yourself over to absolute pleasure.

Read more here.


Romeo + Juliet (1996)

I alluded to critics’ dismissal of this adaptation — here are some choice quotes: “the kind of violent swank-trash music video that may make you feel like reaching for the remote”; “a classic play thrown in the path of a subway train”; “destined for the trash heap of Shakespeare adaptations”; “a monumental disaster.” I’d argue its subsequent, and largely enduring, success has put those old fuddy-duddies on the wrong side of history.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Castle
6x16 Room 147
6x17 In the Belly of the Beast

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
3x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Luke Cage
1x01 Moment of Truth
1x02 Code of the Streets

Films

The Nice Guys (2016)
[#156 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
[#157 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]