Wednesday, 9 July 2014

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x03 Kill Me Now [2nd watch]

Mad Men
7x07 Waterloo [mid-season finale]
But what does it all mean?!

Films

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010)
[#60 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

TV

Top Gear
21x06 Burma Special Part 1
21x07 Burma Special Part 2 [season finale]
The 2013 Christmas special, shown in the middle of March 2014. Goodness knows why -- perhaps an editing thing: it's just over two hours long in this form, and the DVD/Blu-ray version has a further 35 minutes!

Sunday, 6 July 2014

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x01 Pilot [2nd watch]
It's been 5½ years since we accidentally abandoned Gilmore Girls, so rather than try to pick it up -- and struggle to access years-old memories of what was going on -- it felt best just to start again from the start.

Wimbledon 2014
Men's Final Build-Up & Men's Final
Ah well.
[Watch the build-up and the mens' final, plus many other matches, on iPlayer.]

With Wimbledon now over, and most shows on a summer break, hopefully the next few weeks will finally see me make good on the notion of starting all the stuff I need to catch up on.

Films

We're the Millers (2013)
[#59 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

this week on 100 Films

First up this week from 100 Films in a Year, it's my look back at June.


Elsewise, two brand-new reviews were published this week, and they were...


The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976/1978)
Ever since I read the blurb for Masters of Cinema's DVD of Maurice Pialat's Police, I've been casually enticed by The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Said blurb asserts that "Police is a genre-defying excursion rivaled only by John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie in the pantheon of cinema’s most idiosyncratic thrillers", which is both a nice turn of phrase and an intriguing one. The thriller is very much a Genre — that is to say, it's a label loaded with rules and expectations, and to be idiosyncratic within such a form is an interesting notion. Both "thriller" and "idiosyncratic" are pretty accurate labels for Chinese Bookie, though
Read more here.


Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
It starts off well, with a virtuoso eight-minute pre-credits sequence that reconfigures the past 50 years of Earth’s spacefaring in the story’s image. OK, so it contains a seriously ill-advised, incredibly poorly-realised CGI JFK, but we can let some things go. Unfortunately, from here on out the movie does its best to pile on stuff we can’t let go.
Read more here.


Finally, several older reviews were new to the new blog...


The Three Musketeers (1973)
I like a good swashbuckler. I don’t know exactly what it is about sword fights, but they’re probably my most favourite kind of action sequence. The 1973 Three Musketeers, then, is a film I’m slightly amazed I’ve not seen before. Especially as I absolutely loved it.
Read more here.


The Four Musketeers (1974)
It’s a bit grim too [and] none of it sits well with the jolly swashbuckling tone that still dominates. There are some good action sequences nonetheless — for instance, the ice-covered lake; breakfast/siege in the ruined fort; and the burning-building finale — which go some way to make up for the shortcomings.
Read more here.


Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
It gets off to a flying start. The first 20 or 30 minutes in particular move at a rate of knots, churning through plot in a way no blockbuster would seem to dare these days...: a Borg attack; the Enterpise ordered not to join the fight; Picard doing so anyway; the destruction of the Borg cube; the Borg, erm, ball flying into the past; the Enterprise following; meeting Zephram Cochrane and his lot… It’s boom boom boom, moving on. It’s nice to rattle through a tale
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday, 5 July 2014

TV

Friday Night Dinner
3x03 Mr Morris Returns
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Raid (2011)
[#58 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,684 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 483 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,185 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,819 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 432 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 4 July 2014

TV

Episodes
3x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x22 The End of the Aisle
Well, who guessed The Big Wedding would be in the penultimate episode? Not me!
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

A Late Quartet (2012)
[#57 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Thursday, 3 July 2014

TV

Law & Order: UK
8x08 Repeat to Fade [series finale]
This certainly feels more like a first episode than a finale -- and, as they've now decided to "rest" the series (i.e. "cancel by any other name", I should imagine) it's even weirder.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player].

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x05 Father's Clinic
The one with the famous rollerskating sequence. The rest of the episode doesn't have as much to recommend it, unfortunately.

Tuesday, 1 July 2014

TV

Friday Night Dinner
3x02 The Fox
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Monday, 30 June 2014

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x04 (27/6/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Episodes
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
13x01 (12/6/14 edition)

Sunday, 29 June 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x22 Charges and Specs [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Celebrity Fifteen to One
1x04 (27/6/2014 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Mad Men
7x05 The Runaways

Films

Modern Times (1936)
[#55 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #6

this week on 100 Films

No brand-new reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, but there were two new to the new blog...


Hard Candy (2005)
The viewer’s never quite sure of any fact about either of the two characters; never quite sure if they’re being genuine or at any moment will undermine their present emotion with the revelation it’s just an act, an attempt to fool the other.
Read more here.


The Invasion (2007)
Much of the dialogue is on the level of bad exposition, but, to rub salt in the wound, it explains things we’ve already been shown. Normally reliable actors turn in flat performances with such an awkward script, which ponderously works its way through a plot that’s far too slow-moving considering how obvious it is.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.