Films

Ocean's Eleven (2001)
[3rd watch]
Rewatchathon 2017 #21

War for the Planet of the Apes 3D (2017)
[#98 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

Twin Peaks
3x09 The Return Part 9

Films

Jersey Boys (2014)
[#97 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Planet of the Apes (1968)
[#96 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]
Blindspot 2017 #7

this week on 100 Films

It's a busy time on the telly right now, so I brought 100 Films in a Year's monthly TV update forward a fortnight to this week...





Plus, there were 6 brand-new reviews this week...


The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

I’ve found it quite hard to tell what I thought of Buckaroo Banzai. On the one hand, I can definitely see where it gets its cult appeal, and I appreciate some of the ways it’s being different and boundary pushing. On the other, there’s been a definite backlash to it and I can appreciate where that comes from too — the criticism that some of that “boundary pushing” is merely sloppy storytelling and crazy overacting. There are parts where it’s hard to tell if it was deliberate and quite clever, or just incompetently done.

Read more here.


Blair Witch (2016)

the first Blair Witch was the father of found footage, so it only makes sense to retain the form. However, I’d argue that everything that worked about the original movie did so because of how it was filmed — that the cast had been put in that situation ‘for real’ and the filmmakers were fucking with them. It gave it all a rough plausibility, which is largely what made it scary. Conversely, this Blair Witch feels scripted and constructed from the off. That’s fine for most movies, even found footage ones, but here it stands in sharp contrast to how the original worked, and I think it undermines this movie.

Read more here.


The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

we’re introduced to Melanie (Sennia Nanua), a young girl who sits in a concrete bedroom treasuring her photo of a kitten. Then soldiers enter and, at gunpoint, strap her to a chair, before wheeling her to a classroom with similarly restrained children. It’s just the beginning of a fantastic first act, full of atmosphere and intrigue as this world is rolled out before us. The less you know the better, though the chances of going in so cold that it’s a total mystery are sadly slim. If you’re intrigued enough already to check out the movie on my recommendation alone, stop reading now! Go watch it! If not…

Read more here.


Inferno (2016)

Inferno is a bit silly. Not utterly silly, but silly in the kind of way the previous Dan Brown movies have been silly — pretending they’re taking place in a plausible real world, when they’re not. The kind of silly where a villain leaves a trail of clues for someone to follow and make sure his scheme is executed, rather than, I dunno, putting a timer on it. The kind of silly where apparently the World Health Organisation is some international enforcement agency with gun-toting special ops units and the power to override local police.

Read more here.


Road Games (1981)

The film's low-budget roots and exploitation-derived genre tag may give the impression it’s a slasher movie or something, but nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it could best be described as Rear Windscreen, because fundamentally it’s the same story: our hero spies on a guy from a distance because he thinks he saw him commit a murder, but is it all in his head? Where Hitchcock staged that impressively in a single confined location, writer-director Richard Franklin opens it up to the whole Australian outback.

Read more here.


Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (2016)

I liked Sully a lot while it was on. It’s well made (though sadly not available in its IMAX format for home viewing), Hanks is always watchable, the supporting cast are good too, and the headline incident is effectively staged, including the post-landing rescues. It’s a heartwarming story of real-life drama and heroism, with a punch-the-air-type moment when Sully is vindicated.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Pitch Battle
1x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

'71 (2014)
[#95 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Collection Count

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

At one point I thought this was going to be a quiet week... then loads of stuff turned up. There were three brand-new acquisitions; a Blu-ray box set that replaces three individual DVDs; and two DVD-to-Blu-ray upgrades where I'm yet to decide if I'm ditching or keeping my DVD copy (so those subtractions may happen next week).

That works out as changes to every stat:

Number of titles in collection: 1,996 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,178 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 818 [up 6]

Number of discs in collection: 5,116 [up 16]
Number of films: 2,215 [up 12]
Number of TV episodes: 7,799 [up 15]
Number of short films: 581 [up 15]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Automata
1x01 The Neon Rose
1x02 Mice Plans
1x03 Confirmation Day
1x04 Anointed
1x05 Just Murder [season finale]
I'd love to point you towards where you can see this, but it's currently exclusive to its Kickstarter backers (like me!) It's good though. Impressive production values, likeable characters, decent story, interesting world being set up. I hope they get to do more.

Films

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
[#94 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Films

Inferno (2016)
[#93 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

Preacher
2x01 On the Road
2x02 Mumbai Sky Tower
[Watch On the Road and Mumbai Sky Tower (again) on Amazon Prime Video.]

Talking Preacher
2x01 Talking Preacher on On the Road and Mumbai Sky Tower

Films

Headshot (2017)
[#92 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

TV

Pitch Battle
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Big (1988)
[#91 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

this week on 100 Films

July has reached us this weekend, so it was time for 100 Films in a Year to look back at June...





There were also 3 brand-new reviews published this week...


Baby Driver (2017)

the main thing the film has attracted attention for is the driving. Done for real by stunt drivers with not a lick of CGI, that knowledge means it packs a viscerally real punch. But it’s not just snobbery: this is genuinely breathtaking action, slickly planned, masterfully performed, magnificently shot and edited. It’s this year’s Fury Road — a kinetic action spectacle made with skill rather than hand-waiving fast-cuts.

Read more here.


Dragon (Wu Xia) (2011)

when the action does kick in, it’s fantastic. With the combat directed by star Donnie Yen, these sequences are expertly and inventively choreographed dust-ups. It’s stylishly directed by Peter Chan — classy, but also thrilling, exciting, and sometimes innovative; and the whole is majestically shot by DP Lai Yiu-Fai

Read more here.


Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

When J.K. Rowling wrote the seven-book Harry Potter series, she didn’t just make it all up as she went along — it was well planned in advance. And she didn’t just envisage a seven-book story, either — she built a whole world, including a massive history that is only fleetingly referred to in Potter itself. It’s part of that history that the five-film Fantastic Beasts series is setting out to explore. (Despite sharing a title with a short tie-in book Rowling once wrote, Fantastic Beasts isn’t somehow an adaptation of that tiny tome, despite what some pithily moronic internet commenters who think they’re funny would believe.)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Americans
5x13 The Soviet Division [season finale]

Doctor Who
36x12 The Doctor Falls [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Transformers: Age of Extinction 3D (2014)
[#90 in 100 Films in a Year 2017]

Collection Count

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

Five acquisitions this week, including two lovely multi-film box sets (Sinbad and Marx Brothers), a DVD-to-Blu-ray upgrade, and that rarest of things nowadays: a new purchase on DVD.

Number of titles in collection: 1,993 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,181 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 812 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 5,100 [up 11]
Number of films: 2,203 [up 10]
Number of TV episodes: 7,784 [no change]
Number of short films: 566 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Americans
5x12 The World Council of Churches

The Persuaders!
1x13 The Morning After

Films

Transformers: Dark of the Moon 3D (2011)
[2nd watch]

Rewatchathon 2017 #20