Michael McIntyre's The Wheel
1x01 Episode 1
Over-complicated and kind of silly, but also passably entertaining.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
Saturday, 28 November 2020
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
More titles from my US spending spree arrived this week, alongside a couple of UK new releases. I'm just waiting on two more of the former now. As for the latter, those never end...
Number of titles in collection: 2,484 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 1,081 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,403 [up 7]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 87 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 6,404 [up 16]
Number of films: 2,860 [up 17]
Number of additional cuts: 200 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [no change]
Number of short films: 785 [up 14]
It's also time for the monthly running time update. It's been a pretty busy month (a net increase of 28 titles), so how big a bump has that generated?
Total running time of collection (approx.):
463 days, 19 hours, and 4 minutes.
(Up 3 days, 9 hours, and 19 minutes from last month.)
That's the fifth month this year to have an increase in excess of 3 days. Next time I do one of these I'll be including the year-on-year increases, and I think it's gonna be a biggy!
See you next week, faithful reader.
More titles from my US spending spree arrived this week, alongside a couple of UK new releases. I'm just waiting on two more of the former now. As for the latter, those never end...
Number of titles in collection: 2,484 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 1,081 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,403 [up 7]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 87 [no change]
Number of discs in collection: 6,404 [up 16]
Number of films: 2,860 [up 17]
Number of additional cuts: 200 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [no change]
Number of short films: 785 [up 14]
It's also time for the monthly running time update. It's been a pretty busy month (a net increase of 28 titles), so how big a bump has that generated?
Total running time of collection (approx.):
463 days, 19 hours, and 4 minutes.
(Up 3 days, 9 hours, and 19 minutes from last month.)
That's the fifth month this year to have an increase in excess of 3 days. Next time I do one of these I'll be including the year-on-year increases, and I think it's gonna be a biggy!
See you next week, faithful reader.
Friday, 27 November 2020
Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Tuesday, 24 November 2020
Films
FilmBath Shorts
[#250j–v in 100 Films in a Year 2020] And that's the last thing I'll be watching from AMPLIFY! as the festival is now well and truly over (although I do still have some screeners knocking about...)
[#250j–v in 100 Films in a Year 2020] And that's the last thing I'll be watching from AMPLIFY! as the festival is now well and truly over (although I do still have some screeners knocking about...)
Monday, 23 November 2020
Sunday, 22 November 2020
Films
My Mexican Bretzel (2019)
[#250 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ the Q&A that followed the film on AMPLIFY!, which you can also watch on YouTube.
Plus, I finally got round to watching some of the festival's shorts programmes. Across these I watched 26 short films today, so I'll list the programmes rather than every individual short...
Cornwall Film Festival South West Regional Shorts
[#249a–k in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Cornwall Film Festival International Shorts
[#249l–s in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
New Voices Shorts
[#249t–z in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
[#250 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ the Q&A that followed the film on AMPLIFY!, which you can also watch on YouTube.
Plus, I finally got round to watching some of the festival's shorts programmes. Across these I watched 26 short films today, so I'll list the programmes rather than every individual short...
Cornwall Film Festival South West Regional Shorts
[#249a–k in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Cornwall Film Festival International Shorts
[#249l–s in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
New Voices Shorts
[#249t–z in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
this week on 100 Films
2 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...
The IMDb New Filmmaker Award 2020
Some Beasts (2019)
More next Sunday.
The IMDb New Filmmaker Award 2020
Why would you watch an awards show after its happened? Well, in this case, you get to hear the judges’ musings on what makes a good film — and when those judges are BAFTA-nominated director Coky Giedroyc, Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning producer Amanda Posey, and the CEO of IMDb, Col Needham, those are opinions worth listening to. Even better, you get to watch the five nominated shorts in full, and they’re good a bunch. But don’t just take my word for it: take my, er, word for it, in the form of these reviews…Read more here.
Some Beasts (2019)
Sometimes, one thing can ruin an entire movie. Depending on how harsh a critic you are, I’d say that’s quite rare. Unless it’s threaded throughout the entire film (like, say, a terrible lead performance, or a consistently poor cinematography decision), a small constituent part would have to be truly horrendous to take the entire rest of the movie down with it. Some Beasts is one of those films. The problem arrives in the final 20 minutes, which makes it a massive plot spoiler. Out of some lingering respect for storytellers, I provide this spoiler warning; others would argue content of this nature doesn’t deserve such courtesy.Read more here.
More next Sunday.
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
I went a bit crazy with orders from the US recently (thanks to Barnes & Noble's Criterion sale being price-matched by Amazon.com), and that's bearing fruit now as they start to arrive. Every title is a Blu-ray, but it's a real mix of upgrade types (including DVD-to-BD, DVD-to-4K, BD-to-4K, BD-to-BD, and BD-but-I'm-keeping-the-DVD-too), as well as plain ol' new acquisitions. Consequently, the net title increase doesn't tell the whole story -- though even that's higher than normal. I really need to learn some self control...
Number of titles in collection: 2,478 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,082 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,396 [up 12]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 87 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 6,388 [up 14]
Number of films: 2,843 [up 10]
Number of additional cuts: 197 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [no change]
Number of short films: 771 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
I went a bit crazy with orders from the US recently (thanks to Barnes & Noble's Criterion sale being price-matched by Amazon.com), and that's bearing fruit now as they start to arrive. Every title is a Blu-ray, but it's a real mix of upgrade types (including DVD-to-BD, DVD-to-4K, BD-to-4K, BD-to-BD, and BD-but-I'm-keeping-the-DVD-too), as well as plain ol' new acquisitions. Consequently, the net title increase doesn't tell the whole story -- though even that's higher than normal. I really need to learn some self control...
Number of titles in collection: 2,478 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,082 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,396 [up 12]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 87 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 6,388 [up 14]
Number of films: 2,843 [up 10]
Number of additional cuts: 197 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [no change]
Number of short films: 771 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
Saturday, 21 November 2020
Friday, 20 November 2020
Films
Influence (2020)
[#248 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ the Q&A that followed the film on AMPLIFY!, which you can also watch on YouTube.
I also watched tonight's live Q&A about You Will Die at Twenty (having watched the film itself yesterday, of course).
[#248 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
+ the Q&A that followed the film on AMPLIFY!, which you can also watch on YouTube.
I also watched tonight's live Q&A about You Will Die at Twenty (having watched the film itself yesterday, of course).
Thursday, 19 November 2020
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Films
The IMDb New Filmmaker Award 2020
Including the 5 nominated shorts, which become 100 Films in a Year 2020 #247a—e.
[Watch the ceremony and shorts (again) on AMPLIFY!]
Including the 5 nominated shorts, which become 100 Films in a Year 2020 #247a—e.
[Watch the ceremony and shorts (again) on AMPLIFY!]
Tuesday, 17 November 2020
Sunday, 15 November 2020
TV
Small Axe
Mangrove
[#246 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Should this count as Film or TV? It's a series of five thematically-linked feature-length episodes, directed by filmmaker Steve McQueen, and this first one was the opening night film at the London Film Festival. So it's a film... but it's a TV series... but it's a series of films... that most people will watch on TV, one per week... though in the US, the promos don't call it "a series" or "miniseries", but "a collection of five films"... but... Oh, the line is so blurry now!
Anyway, I've listed it as TV, because that's where I watched it, but I'm also going to count it for 100 Films.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
Mangrove
[#246 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Should this count as Film or TV? It's a series of five thematically-linked feature-length episodes, directed by filmmaker Steve McQueen, and this first one was the opening night film at the London Film Festival. So it's a film... but it's a TV series... but it's a series of films... that most people will watch on TV, one per week... though in the US, the promos don't call it "a series" or "miniseries", but "a collection of five films"... but... Oh, the line is so blurry now!
Anyway, I've listed it as TV, because that's where I watched it, but I'm also going to count it for 100 Films.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
this week on 100 Films
4 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Patrick (2019)
Waxworks (1924)
More next Sunday.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
some people really took against the film. Others, less vitriolic, thought it didn’t measure up to writer-director Taika Waititi’s high standard. I don’t think it’s as good as Hunt for the Wilderpeople or What We Do in the Shadows (both modern classics, more or less), but I did like it a lot. When it hit the mark with its humour, it was very, very funny; but it balances this with emotional and hard-hitting bits.Read more here.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
the film’s tension crushes in all the time, throughout. Or perhaps not tension, exactly, but worry; uncertainty; anxiety. What’s going to happen? What’s going to go wrong? How are they going to deal with this, that, and the other? Horribly, this is probably what it’s like to be a young woman a lot of the time, especially in America. That’s the film’s power: it takes a real-life experience lived by so many, and it doesn’t just show it to us, it makes us feel it.Read more here.
Patrick (2019)
To sum this up as “Agatha Christie meets the Coen brothers in a nudist camp” doesn’t feel too wide of the mark. Okay, there’s no murder, so perhaps mystery-genre fans could think of a better author than Christie to sub in. But the fact remains that the missing hammer isn’t just a story hook to hang something else on: it’s a solid mystery narrative, with clues and red herrings and twists. Conversely, it’s not just a mystery... It’s very much a comedy-drama, in that it’s not out-and-out seeking to provoke laughs, but it’s frequently absurd to the point of being laughableRead more here.
Waxworks (1924)
Often billed as the first portmanteau horror movie, Waxworks only fits the bill in the loosest sense: its “three stories” are actually two stories and a dream sequence, the first (and longest) of which is, if anything, a swashbuckling farce... It’s a welcome watch for fans of silent cinema or early horror (with caveats about its “horror” content duly noted), and there are enough good parts to recommend it, but I wouldn’t argue it’s a classic in any enduring senseRead more here.
More next Sunday.
Saturday, 14 November 2020
Films
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)
[#244 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Normally I try to leave Christmas movies 'til December, but when you've got multiple family members to keep happy... Maybe I'll let this open the floodgates for 2020 early (I really want to watch Klaus, and Christmas Chronicles 2 is out in something like 10 days).
[#244 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Normally I try to leave Christmas movies 'til December, but when you've got multiple family members to keep happy... Maybe I'll let this open the floodgates for 2020 early (I really want to watch Klaus, and Christmas Chronicles 2 is out in something like 10 days).
Collection Count
Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.
A couple of hours after I posted last week's count, I realised I'd accidentally left out an entire release. Oops! That was a 4K upgrade for the Three Colours Cornetto trilogy, with one box set replacing my three individual editions (a mix of DVD and BD copies). So that's factored in this week now, alongside eight brand-new acquisitions.
Number of titles in collection: 2,469 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,085 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,384 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 85 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 6,374 [up 15]
Number of films: 2,833 [up 7]
Number of additional cuts: 194 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [up 6]
Number of short films: 771 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
A couple of hours after I posted last week's count, I realised I'd accidentally left out an entire release. Oops! That was a 4K upgrade for the Three Colours Cornetto trilogy, with one box set replacing my three individual editions (a mix of DVD and BD copies). So that's factored in this week now, alongside eight brand-new acquisitions.
Number of titles in collection: 2,469 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,085 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,384 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 85 [up 2]
Number of discs in collection: 6,374 [up 15]
Number of films: 2,833 [up 7]
Number of additional cuts: 194 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,982 [up 6]
Number of short films: 771 [no change]
See you next week, faithful reader.
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