Films

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
[#153 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Polytechnique (2009)
[#152 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

TV

Archer
7x01 The Figgis Agency
7x02 The Handoff

Films

3:10 to Yuma (2007)
[#151 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

Man on Wire (2008)
[#149 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010)
[#150 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
What do you mean you've never heard of it? It's the 243rd greatest film of all time!

Films

Chicken Run (2000)
[#148 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Crawl (2019)
[#147 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

Shazam! 3D (2019)
[#146 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ a couple of featurettes on the Blu-ray

TV

Hey Duggee
2x44 The Comedy Badge
Apparently this is my little nephew's favourite show, so we thought we'd watch an episode. It was actually quite fun (as programmes aimed at 2-to-5-year-olds go).
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Shelf Isolation
1x02 Denise Mina
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The South Bank Show [Sky Arts]
5x01 George R.R. Martin
This was filmed back in 2015, when Martin was being criticised for taking so long to finish The Winds of Winter. Five years on, there's still no publication date in sight.

Films

Do the Right Thing (1989)
[#145 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Blindspot 2020 #6
+ a look through some of the Criterion Blu-ray's special features, including one where Spike Lee reads out some of the contemporary racist reactions from the mainstream media

this week on 100 Films

7 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Gemini Man (2019)

a film that, at every point I can remember it being talked about, was discussed more for its various technical feats than anything else. Partly that’s because there are a couple of angles. Firstly, the most obvious: it stars Will Smith as an ageing assassin who must fight… a 25-years-younger Will Smith, achieved with motion capture and CGI. Secondly, director Ang Lee shot it in 3D 4K HFR — that’s High Frame Rate, if you don’t know, with the picture running at 120 frames per second rather than the 24fps we’ve been used to for the past 90-odd years. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that Gemini Man often feels more like a tech demo with a plot grafted onto it than it does a fully functioning movie in its own right.

Read more here.


Tomb Raider 3D (2018)

successfully recreates the running, jumping, shooting, puzzle-solving action of its inspiration without too overtly abandoning real-life logic for video game logic. Well, I say “real-life logic” — it’s actually “action/adventure movie logic”, but I think that’s allowed in an action/adventure movie. As an entry in that genre, it’s fun enough. It’s not going to compete for greatest-of-all-time status with its urtext, the Indiana Jones films, nor does it quite challenge the heights of more-overt homages like The Mummy, but it’s not a bad couple of hours’ entertainment in their mould.

Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup V

Featuring...
- Blade of the Immortal
- Cash on Demand
- Free Enterprise
- Iron Monkey
- Muppet Treasure Island

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

7500 (2019)
[#144 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Tomb Raider 3D (2018)
[#143 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Collection Count

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

Oh dear, I'm at it again: although it doesn't beat the new record I set back in April, this week slots into second place in the rankings of my most new purchases in one week, with 16... not that you'd know it from looking at the top stat. That's thanks to one box set replacing eight previous individual releases (Red Dwarf series I-VIII), and kept low by three more DVD-to-BD upgrades.

Hidden by that drop in DVD numbers is a rare purchase on the format (I say "rare": the last time I bought a DVD was only two weeks ago. You wait ages for one to come along, etc).

Number of titles in collection: 2,387 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,091 [down 10]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,296 [up 15]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 62 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,178 [up 15]
Number of films: 2,687 [up 13]
Number of additional cuts: 174 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 8,901 [up 1]
Number of short films: 751 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Cairo Station (1958)
[#142 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Theatre

Fleabag
Available to rent via Amazon, the original one-woman stage version of the successful TV show. I've never seen the TV version, so I guess I didn't quite know what to expect from this -- more than just "a comedy", given the level and kind of praise it's attracted. But jeez, I wasn't expecting it to get so dark. Lovers of small furry animals, beware.

Films

Gemini Man (2019)
[#141 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

On 4K UltraHD Blu-ray, where it's also in high frame rate (HFR) at 60fps (as opposed to the usual 24fps. It was actually shot at 120fps, but nothing supports that. And it was shot in 3D, but 4K doesn't do 3D, annoyingly).

Articles

How A Filmmaker Got The No. 1 Movie In America During A Pandemic
by Lisa Finn (from Patch)

In short: they made a short horror film on Zoom, rented a cinema to screen it, bought all the tickets, and with virtually nothing else showing that was enough to get them to #1. Ingenious. The short is now available to rent online, so maybe I will...

Films

The Armour of God (1986)
[#140 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

The Vast of Night (2019)
[#139 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

The Old Dark House (1932)
[#137 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

The Rhythm Section (2020)
[#138 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Films

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
[#136 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

this week on 100 Films

No new film reviews over at 100 Films in a Year this week, but there was a new TV column...





More next Sunday.