Great News
1x09 Carol Has a Bully
1x10 Carol's Eleven [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
We Are Most Amused & Amazed
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]
Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Music
Simulation Theory by Muse
Muse are one of the few bands where I'll still buy any new album they release, but this... wasn't great. I mean, it has some decent tracks, but overall... it's okay-ish. Ah well.
Muse are one of the few bands where I'll still buy any new album they release, but this... wasn't great. I mean, it has some decent tracks, but overall... it's okay-ish. Ah well.
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
TV
Great News
1x08 Celebrity Hacking Scandal
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
What Do Artists Do All Day?
Peter Jackson
About the making of They Shall Not Grow Old.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
1x08 Celebrity Hacking Scandal
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
What Do Artists Do All Day?
Peter Jackson
About the making of They Shall Not Grow Old.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
Monday, 12 November 2018
TV
The Great Model Railway Challenge
1x06 Grand Final: A Journey Through Time [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on My5.]
1x06 Grand Final: A Journey Through Time [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on My5.]
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Films
Bao 3D (2018)
[#233a in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
[#234 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
[#233a in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
[#234 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
this week on 100 Films
5 brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Darkest Hour (2017)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Outlaw King (2018)
Persepolis (2007)
More next Sunday.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
[There has been] a huge divide in the opinions of critics and audiences: whereas the former gave it a Rotten Tomatoes rating of just 55% when it released, audiences have driven it to be the #1 film at the worldwide box office and placed it on the IMDb Top 250 (at #126 as of writing). Well, there’s a scene in the film where Bohemian Rhapsody debuts on the radio, and as it plays the screen gradually fills with quotes from contemporary reviews, all of them mercilessly slagging it off — the irony, obviously, being that we all know what a ginormous hit the song would become. Some things never change, eh?Read more here.
Darkest Hour (2017)
The Dunkirk connection was certainly played up in the film’s marketing (the trailers made it look like Dunkirk 2), but while that situation does have a significant role to play, it’s only part of what this film’s actually about. Which does actually make it quite a neat companion piece to Nolan’s movie: it expands on the political backdrop surrounding Dunkirk, placing those events in a wider context. In doing that, it presents a different perspective on familiar events.Read more here.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Fallen Kingdom is built on decent ideas and concepts, and it’s executed with some stylish direction by franchise newcomer J.A. Bayona, but it’s all let down by a terrible screenplay from Jurassic World co-writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow. The story is poorly constructed — not in the sense that it’s unfollowable, but in that it’s wonkily put-together, frequently showcasing scenes that are nothing but exposition, with a pace and emphasis that feels unbalanced. [...] If they’d bothered to hire some solid writers, instead of just People Who Have Ideas, then maybe those ideas could’ve been turned into a cohesive whole that’d be a worthy sequel.Read more here.
Outlaw King (2018)
Outlaw King kicks off in style, with a superb eight-minute single-take that moves in and out of a candle-lit tent during daytime (a feat of camera operating to seamlessly handle the changing exposures required… assuming it wasn’t faked), during which we take in important scene-setting political discussions, a playful (but not really) sword fight, and the siege of a distant castle by a gigantic trebuchet. As opening salvos go, this is first rate.Read more here.
Persepolis (2007)
Adapted from co-director Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, this is the story of an Iranian girl coming of age in the ’70s and ’80s, during and after the Iranian Revolution. Such a broad description is probably the only way to succinctly summarise it, because it’s kind of a sprawling film, about many different things — just like a life, I suppose. As well as being part biography, it’s also part history lesson, with a normal-family’s eye-view of the revolution and what followed.Read more here.
More next Sunday.
Saturday, 10 November 2018
TV
The Great Model Railway Challenge
1x05 Heat Five: Waterworld
[Watch it (again) on My5.]
Great News
1x06 Serial Arsonist
1x07 The Red Door
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
1x05 Heat Five: Waterworld
[Watch it (again) on My5.]
Great News
1x06 Serial Arsonist
1x07 The Red Door
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
Four new titles this week, but it's one of those times when they play silly buggers with the stats. Mainly, the acquisition of a box set (as mentioned last week) which replaces five DVDs with one Blu-ray set containing fewer discs. The disc count evens out to "no change" thanks to two of the other newcomers, while the fourth is a Blu-ray-to-Blu-ray upgrade that changes nothing but my bank balance.
Number of titles in collection: 2,163 [down 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,148 [down 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,015 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 4 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 5,545 [no change]
Number of films: 2,421 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,294 [no change]
Number of short films: 641 [up 2]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Four new titles this week, but it's one of those times when they play silly buggers with the stats. Mainly, the acquisition of a box set (as mentioned last week) which replaces five DVDs with one Blu-ray set containing fewer discs. The disc count evens out to "no change" thanks to two of the other newcomers, while the fourth is a Blu-ray-to-Blu-ray upgrade that changes nothing but my bank balance.
Number of titles in collection: 2,163 [down 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,148 [down 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,015 [up 3]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 4 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 5,545 [no change]
Number of films: 2,421 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,294 [no change]
Number of short films: 641 [up 2]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 9 November 2018
TV
Great News
1x05 Snowmageddon of the Century
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
Mars
1x01 Novo Mundo
With a second season of this coming at the weekend, I thought it was about time I got round to my Blu-ray of season one (which aired two years ago!) Turns out, it's not that good. Maybe it'll improve...
1x05 Snowmageddon of the Century
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
Mars
1x01 Novo Mundo
With a second season of this coming at the weekend, I thought it was about time I got round to my Blu-ray of season one (which aired two years ago!) Turns out, it's not that good. Maybe it'll improve...
Films
Attack the Block (2011)
[#231 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Blindspot 2018 #11
+ the audio commentary with writer/director Joe Cornish and executive producer Edgar Wright... though not all of it, because I dozed off (not because of the quality of the track, just because it was late and I was, clearly, tired!)
Outlaw King (2018)
[#232 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
[#231 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Blindspot 2018 #11
+ the audio commentary with writer/director Joe Cornish and executive producer Edgar Wright... though not all of it, because I dozed off (not because of the quality of the track, just because it was late and I was, clearly, tired!)
Outlaw King (2018)
[#232 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Thursday, 8 November 2018
Films
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
[#230 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Have a Good Funeral My Friend... Sartana Will Pay (1970)
[#229 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ the audio commentary on Arrow's Blu-ray release
[#230 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Have a Good Funeral My Friend... Sartana Will Pay (1970)
[#229 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ the audio commentary on Arrow's Blu-ray release
Wednesday, 7 November 2018
Tuesday, 6 November 2018
Films
Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)
[#228 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ the 46 minutes of deleted scenes included on the Blu-ray. Some were interesting and could've been kept in the film. Others... less so.
[#228 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ the 46 minutes of deleted scenes included on the Blu-ray. Some were interesting and could've been kept in the film. Others... less so.
Monday, 5 November 2018
TV
Batman: The Animated Series
1x14 Heart of Ice
2x19 Deep Freeze
The complete series was released on Blu-ray in the UK today, and now I own it -- hurrah! So why am I starting with this random selection of episodes? Well, the box set also includes the two films that are canon with the TV series, Mask of the Phantasm (which I watched relatively recently*) and SubZero (which I've never seen). The SubZero disc also includes four TV episodes to present the whole story of Mr Freeze in chronological order. I decided to inaugurate my set by watching SubZero, because I've been meaning to get round to it for years, but it seemed to make sense to watch all the lead-up episodes first. As well as these two, there's the New Batman Adventures one and the Batman Beyond one (see below!), which are both set after SubZero. I'll watch all of these again when I reach their respective places in the series proper... whenever I get round to watching that (goodness knows when that'll be!)
Batman Beyond (aka Batman of the Future)
1x05 Meltdown
I've arranged everything in alphabetical order here as normal, and SubZero is of course in a separate post, so here's the order they actually go in (and the order I watched them in): Heart of Ice, Deep Freeze, SubZero, Cold Comfort, Meltdown. Sorted.
Great News
1x01 Pilot
1x02 Bear Attack
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
The New Batman Adventures
1x03 Cold Comfort
This is counted as season three of B:TAS by the box set, but everywhere online (well, Wikipedia and IMDb, at least) count it as a separate series, for various reasons I won't go into here. On the evidence of this episode, it's not as good as the prior series.
* It turns out "relatively recently" here means "a whole year ago this week"! Where does time go?!
1x14 Heart of Ice
2x19 Deep Freeze
The complete series was released on Blu-ray in the UK today, and now I own it -- hurrah! So why am I starting with this random selection of episodes? Well, the box set also includes the two films that are canon with the TV series, Mask of the Phantasm (which I watched relatively recently*) and SubZero (which I've never seen). The SubZero disc also includes four TV episodes to present the whole story of Mr Freeze in chronological order. I decided to inaugurate my set by watching SubZero, because I've been meaning to get round to it for years, but it seemed to make sense to watch all the lead-up episodes first. As well as these two, there's the New Batman Adventures one and the Batman Beyond one (see below!), which are both set after SubZero. I'll watch all of these again when I reach their respective places in the series proper... whenever I get round to watching that (goodness knows when that'll be!)
Batman Beyond (aka Batman of the Future)
1x05 Meltdown
I've arranged everything in alphabetical order here as normal, and SubZero is of course in a separate post, so here's the order they actually go in (and the order I watched them in): Heart of Ice, Deep Freeze, SubZero, Cold Comfort, Meltdown. Sorted.
Great News
1x01 Pilot
1x02 Bear Attack
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]
The New Batman Adventures
1x03 Cold Comfort
This is counted as season three of B:TAS by the box set, but everywhere online (well, Wikipedia and IMDb, at least) count it as a separate series, for various reasons I won't go into here. On the evidence of this episode, it's not as good as the prior series.
* It turns out "relatively recently" here means "a whole year ago this week"! Where does time go?!
Films
Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998)
[#227 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
[#226 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ a 40-minute documentary about how The Other Side of the Wind was finally put together, A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making, which is hidden under the "trailers" tab on Netflix and is definitely worth a look.
[#227 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
[#226 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
+ a 40-minute documentary about how The Other Side of the Wind was finally put together, A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making, which is hidden under the "trailers" tab on Netflix and is definitely worth a look.
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