TV

The Americans
2x10 Yousaf
Ooh, you can feel the climax looming... and yet there's three whole episodes to go!

Gilmore Girls
1x16 Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers [2nd watch]

Mock the Week
13x04 (3/7/14 edition)

TV

The Americans
2x09 Martial Eagle

Family Guy
12x01 Finders Keepers

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x07 (18/7/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Gilmore Girls
1x15 Christopher Returns [2nd watch]
In Germany, this episode is called Sex mit den Ex. Classy. Spoilery.

Films

Romancing the Stone (1984)
[2nd or so watch]

I remember really liking this when I was much younger, but I haven't seen it for a very very long time. Fortunately, I'm happy to report it was still great fun. (And, by complete chance, I've watched it just before it reaches exactly 30 years old. Anniversarytastic.) Must catch the sequel sometime, too.

this week on 100 Films

One brand-new review was published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and it was...


Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010)

feature-length documentary exploring the ‘video nasty’ scare that gripped early-VHS-era Britain. Starting with a primer on the birth of home video, and what it was like to watch movies in those days (because, ladies and gents, we’ve now reached a point where even fans of that (second-)most adults-only of genres, the gory horror flick, are young enough to not recall a time before DVD), archive news clips and a wide array of new talking head interviews take the story from the UK’s first video recorders in 1978, through a newspaper-led panic, up to the infamous Video Recordings Act of 1984, which irrevocably changed the face of home entertainment releasing in the UK.

Read more here.


Meanwhile, my new goal of re-posting at least one archive review every day continued apace, with the following eight gems...


Alfie (1966)

If you’re only familiar with the Jude Law-starring remake, most of the original might come as a shock to you — whereas the 2004 version was pretty light and amusing, this is actually a more serious affair.

Read more here.


Basil the Great Mouse Detective (1986)

A seriously underrated Disney film... if you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan you should definitely catch it.

Read more here.


The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

There are some good lines, and it’s a Christie so obviously the fundamental story is good, but the direction is flat and lacks suspense, half the cast phone in their performances, and Angela Lansbury, lumbered with a sprained ankle and premature aging, seems to be in a dry run for Murder, She Wrote.

Read more here.


Sherlock: Case of Evil (2002)

Holmes is recast as a kind of Victorian James Bond, both in terms of his character and the plot structure. It begins with the end of the previous mission, before progressing through various familiar beats... Dr Watson is revealed to be “a bit of an inventor” — a Q in the making? Even Holmes himself is not immune: young, dashing, and womanising. Yes, womanising. He even has a threesome, shot and scored like soft porn

Read more here.


Titanic (1997)

it's over-reaching itself size-wise. This is true of both vessel and film, one being too big to dodge an iceberg, the other simply too long. I can't be certain, but it feels like the entire film following the iceberg's arrival is in real-time, which would make the length an excusable narrative trick, were it not for Cameron padding it out with endless contrivances to have Jack and Rose running around the ship.

Read more here.


True Lies (1994)

The comedy is quite broad, but it’s definitely a comedy, as opposed to an action movie that’s aware it’s a bit silly. Situations are pushed to extremes, clichés are played up, things go wrong in a way they’re liable to in real life but rarely do in films, action sequences are played for laughs as well as genuine excitement… The advantage to Cameron is he’s allowed to do some audacious things that might get laughed out in a straight actioner.

Read more here.


Zodiac (2007)

Zodiac is really a film about obsession, and it makes for as engrossing a tale as the case was for those investigating it. In following the story the film chooses to eschew normal structural niceties... it jumps from character to character, and if you step back and analyse it that’s odd, but while watching it doesn’t matter one jot — this is more like real life than some shallow crime thriller dependent on a twist ending.

Read more here.


Zodiac: Director's Cut (2007/2008)

Despite the minimal number of changes, the Director’s Cut of Zodiac is certainly the superior version. Not by a lot, obviously, but if you had to choose between the two, everything else being equal, then it’s the Director’s Cut to go with. And it’s still an exceptional film, one of the very best I’ve seen in this blog’s lifetime.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Americans
2x08 New Car

Gilmore Girls
1x14 That Damn Donna Reed [2nd watch]
Guest starring a younger Superman!

Films

Pacific Rim (2013)
[#62 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: 1,686 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 485 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,191 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,823 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 435 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Americans
2x07 ARPANET

Gilmore Girls
1x13 Concert Interruptus [2nd watch]

TV

The Americans
2x06 Behind the Red Door

Friday Night Dinner
3x04 The Anniversary
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Gilmore Girls
1x12 Double Date [2nd watch]

TV

The Americans
2x04 A Little Night Music
2x05 The Deal
I've been trying to ration this, because it's so good and there's only so much of it; but A Little Night Music ended on an almighty cliffhanger, and indeed this is really a two-parter without that name attached, so I don't feel so bad bending the 'rules' just this once.

Gilmore Girls
1x11 Paris is Burning [2nd watch]

TV

The Americans
2x03 The Walk In

Gilmore Girls
1x10 Forgiveness and Stuff [2nd watch]

Mock the Week
13x03 (26/6/14 edition)

Films

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
[#61 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

The Americans
2x02 Cardinal

Gilmore Girls
1x09 Rory's Dance [2nd watch]
I know some would brand it 'soapy' and it's certainly 'girly', but pfft, season one of Gilmore is really good. (And later seasons may be too, I can't quite remember. Though it definitely got less good once Rory went off to college.)

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x07 Kiss and Tell [2nd watch]
1x08 Love & War & Snow [2nd watch]

this week on 100 Films

This week on 100 Films in a Year, I started a new initiative to post at least one archive review every day.

I have literally hundreds of them left languishing on my old blog still (having been moved to the new one for several years now), and I only repost them now and again when they're on TV or a sequel comes out or something. There are dozens -- hundreds, probably -- of more obscure films that would never get brought over if I stuck to that, so I'm making a concerted effort to change it. Nonetheless, there are so many posts left that I think it will take me a full year or more to finish this -- and that's if I keep it up non-stop.


Anyway, we'll come to what was posted in a minute. First, there were two brand-new reviews published this week. They were:


Journey into Fear (1943)

Remembered largely thanks to the involvement of Orson Welles (he has a supporting role, produced it, co-wrote it, and reportedly directed a fair bit too, though he denied that), Journey into Fear is an adequate if unsuspenseful World War 2 espionage thriller, redeemed by a strikingly-shot climax.

Read more here.


The Raid (2011)

perhaps the other film that The Raid is most like is Mamma Mia: a perfunctory plot that exists purely to link together the bits we’re really here for — Abba songs. Or “fights”, in The Raid’s case… though, let’s be honest, how much more original and interesting would it be if they were fighting to Abba songs?

Read more here.


And as promised, the bumper crop new to the new blog were...


Calendar Girls (2003)

The film could so easily have been quite a lowly, cheap TV movie effort, what with its apparently farcical premise, worthy cause and older characters. But instead the filmmakers have crafted a movie that is both utterly hilarious and deeply moving — even for this younger male viewer.

Read more here.


Doom (2005)

When it does kick off it’s brief and only vaguely entertaining. And the much-discussed first-person sequence is far too much like watching someone play a video game.

Read more here.


Mystic River (2003)

The acting is the main draw of this Oscar-winning murder drama, in which three childhood friends who grew apart are brought back together when one of their daughters is murdered. Tim Robbins is particularly excellent, easily earning his Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Read more here.


The Reckless Moment (1949)

probably only the second or third film noir I’d ever seen, and I don’t think I properly appreciated what I was watching. It doesn’t really come across in this ‘review’, but I’ve felt for several years now that the sense of apathy I felt then (which I think is implied) no longer reflects my memory of the film.

Read more here.


Troy: Director's Cut (2004/2007)

This director’s cut adds almost half an hour of new material, which is about a 15% increase in length. That said, I can’t spot most of what’s new. If you know it well enough to spot the differences then you surely already like it, in which case I expect you’ll like this cut too. If you didn’t like Troy first time round, I doubt you’ll be swayed now.

Read more here.


Tu£sday (2008)

The high-profile cast frequently belie what you’re watching. Most of the production has an amateurish feel. It’s hard to pinpoint, but it seems to be a combination of photography and editing: the look is like plain digital video, the choice of shots often obvious and lacking variety, the editing not as tight as it should be.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x06 (11/7/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Episodes
3x09 Episode 9 [season finale]
Considering we're very used to six-episode sitcoms over here, this seemed to be over very quickly! Await season four eagerly.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Gilmore Girls
1x05 Cinnamon's Wake [2nd watch]
1x06 Rory's Birthday Parties [2nd watch]

Collection Count

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

This week, I acquired the huge Hitchcock: The Ultimate Filmmaker Collection 16-film box set. This replaces an old 14-film set and my Psycho Blu-ray (but duplicates To Catch a Thief, which I own on DVD with special features not included here, and North by Northwest twice, because I own it in a DVD box set with titles not yet available on Blu-ray, and in a Blu-ray box set with titles not included here, and that has special features that aren't here).

To show after all that were just a couple of small but strange number shifts... until I also got a new DVD, leaving virtually no trace of anything. Funny thing, my DVD collection...

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: 4,187 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,821 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 435 [up 3]

All that does have an effect on the running time, though -- upgrading from DVD to Blu-ray means all those films are devoid of PAL speed-up. Plus there's everything else I've bought recently because, handily, it's the time of the month for an update!

And that is exciting, because, for the first time...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
300 days, 12 hours, and 16 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 1 hour, and 18 minutes from last month.)

...it's crossed 300 days! Madness.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Americans
2x01 Comrades
Here we go, then -- and it's as good as last season, which is by no means a given and so is great news. It's quite wedded in some of the plot lines left over from last year's finale/season in general, which is something I'm generally fond of TV series doing, but is a little awkward when it's been a year or so since you watched it and the "previously on" is a little inadequate. But hey-ho, I kept up well enough.

Mock the Week
13x02 (19/6/14 edition)

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x06 The Baby Arrives [season finale]

TV

Gilmore Girls
1x04 The Deer-Hunters [2nd watch]

How I Met Your Mother
9x23 Last Forever Part 1
9x24 Last Forever Part 2 [series finale]
As E4 have decided to split the clearly-conceived-as-an-hour series finale into its constituent parts, I downloaded the US version and watched it all in one go. No idea where the split would be, actually; quite tempted to watch Part 1 on catch-up and see (or just read about it on Wikipedia -- it's where I thought it might be).
Anyway, a lot of people seemed to hate it -- some have branded it the worst finale ever. Personally, I quite liked it. Kinda obvious it's been going somewhere like that all along, surely? Not to many/most, it would seem...
[Watch Last Forever Part 1 (again) on 4oD. Part 2 will be available next week.]

Live at the Apollo
9x05 Episode 5
First of two Apollo episodes I missed in the last series -- and I stumbled on it completely by accident on BBC Three, while simply looking for any old (decent-ish) comedy to pass the time! Coincidencetastic.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]