TV

Elementary
3x07 The Adventure of the Nutmeg Concoction

The Flash
1x09 The Man in the Yellow Suit

Not Going Out
7x11 The Outtakes [special]
Some places listed the title of this bloopers special as Not Going Outtakes, which I rather liked.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Knights of Badassdom (2013)
[#135 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

Live at the Apollo
10x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless Celebrities
6x30 Comedians
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
[2nd watch]

This was #92 in 100 Films 2013 -- I re-watched it before posting my review today.

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2014/2015 Episode 5 (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

James May's Toy Stories
Action Man at the Speed of Sound
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wrong Mans
2x02 Action Mans/Wise Mans [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)
[#134 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

this week on 100 Films

Christmas is over for another year -- well, apart from all the remaining special TV entertainment, and no doubt a big pile of leftovers to eat (am I right?)

Still, technically it's over -- and that means the 100 Films in a Year 2014 Advent Calendar came to a close too. Here are its final reviews, plus one other, making five this week:


Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

the problem with Marvel’s massive shared universe (where the events of one film impact not only on future films but tie-in TV series, etc) is that, watching Cap 2 just seven months after its release, the film already feels like very old news... it now feels like watching a press conference after you’ve read a summary of the key points: there’s probably something to be gained from experiencing the whole thing, but it’s also like a slow-paced unveiling of surprises you already know.

Read more here.


Frozen (2013)

You don’t need me to tell you that Frozen is a phenomenon [but] you don’t actually have to go very far on the internet to find people baffled by its success. Plenty of people think the music is bland, the characters underdeveloped, the moral and emotional arcs not fully thought-through, the visual style a rip-off from Tangled, and more. While they do have some points, they’re also being a tad harsh.

Read more here.


Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

leaves you with an instant feeling of having seen a top-quality blockbuster, thanks to its likeable heroes, abundant humour, frequent irreverence, uncommonly colourful visual style, retro-cool soundtrack, and so forth. Unfortunately, once you dig underneath that there’s a little too much that’s rote ‘modern blockbuster’

Read more here.


John Carter (2012)

I was expecting, or perhaps hoping, to like it; to find a misunderstood old-style adventure full of entertainment value. It may be an old-style adventure, but that’s beside the point, because whatever it is, I just felt it wasn’t particularly well made: poorly constructed, weakly performed, lazily (and wrongly) assumptive of the audience’s familiarity with the material.

Read more here.


Seven Samurai (1954)

Despite its epic running time, Seven Samurai isn’t really an epic film — this isn’t the story of a war, or even a battle, but of a skirmish to defend one village. How does it merit such length, then? By going into immense detail, by having plenty of characters to fuel its narrative, and by using the time to familiarise us with these people, so that when the final fight comes, we care what happens.

Read more here.


More next Sunday -- when my year-end wrap-up posts will have started, because it'll be 2015!

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2014/2015 Episode 4 (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
13x13 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Lego Movie (2014)
[#132 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger! (2012)
[#133 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

This is the first post-Christmas update, as I'm sure you could have guessed, and is also handily time for a four-weekly running time update. It's also the last update of the year, and, even though there's still a few days of 2014 left, I'm not expecting anything in that time... so let's also look at how things have changed this year.

Number of titles in collection: 1,719 [up 5 this week; up 75 in 2014]
Of which DVDs: 1,205 [no change this week; up 8 in 2014]
Of which Blu-rays: 514 [up 5 this week; up 67 in 2014]

Number of discs in collection: 4,303 [up 24 this week; up 184 in 2014]
Number of films in collection: 1,852 [up 3 this week; up 80 in 2014]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,452 [up 135 this week; up 354 in 2014]
Number of short films in collection: 438 [no change this week; up 32 in 2014]

Those are all smaller increases than during 2013 -- except short films, which is exactly the same. Bizarre.

And finally for 2014...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
311 days, 6 hours, and 59 minutes.

(Up 3 days, 21 hours, and 12 minutes from last month.)
(Up 15 days, 12 hours, and 9 minutes from last year.)

The very-high nearly-four-days increase is thanks to those 135 TV episodes, while the 15½ days increase is lower than last year's 19-day leap. So there.

See you next week, faithful reader, when it will be 2015. Happy New Year!

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2014/2015 Episode 3 (of 10)
Skipping the original episode 3 thanks to a round on the recently-deceased Joe Cocker. That seems to have really confused the /programmes site, what with the original ep3 still being there, as well as the new ep3...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Michael McIntyre's Very Christmassy Christmas Show
Michael McIntyre's Shockingly Mediocre Christmas Show.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wrong Mans
2x01 X-Mans/White Mans
Being episodes one and two (hence the two titles), while episode two has episodes three and four. What's up with the BBC and episode numbers today?!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

John Carter (2012)
[#131 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Celebrity Fifteen to One
Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Celebrity Mastermind
2014/2015 Episode 2 (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who
35x00 Last Christmas [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Miranda
4x01 I Do, But to Who?
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
at Christmas [2014]
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Strictly Come Dancing
Christmas 2014
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

John Bishop's Christmas Show 2014
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
28x12 Christmas Show
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Not Going Out
7x10 Christmas Special [season finale]
Was that the last-ever episode? It certainly felt like it, and some people seem to be under the impression it was, but I haven't seen any official confirmation. I rather hope they do more, though.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
[3rd watch]
Still as relevant as ever -- which, considering it's now 14 years old, is almost depressing.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

All is Lost (2013)
[#130 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

With this, 2014 overtakes 2007 to be the most successful (in terms of number of films watched) year of 100 Films ever!

And I'm not done yet!

TV

Arrow
3x08 The Brave and the Bold

The British Comedy Awards 2014
Plus The British Comedy Awards 2014: Even More Awards, the E4 after-show featuring awkward interviews, montages, and (you guessed it) even more awards.
[Watch The British Comedy Awards and Even More Awards (again) on 4oD.]

Castle
4x02 Heroes and Villains
Watching this immediately after Arrow felt a little deconstructionist...

Would I Lie To You?
8x08 At Christmas [special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2014/2015 Episode 1 (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Elementary
3x06 Teri Pericolosa

The Flash
1x08 Flash vs. Arrow

Live at the Apollo
10x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Gotham
1x10 LoveCraft
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Pointless Celebrities
6x29 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

It's the third week of 100 Films in a Year's 2014 Advent Calendar, in which a further seven brand-new reviews were published...


Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

This isn’t the kind of blockbuster that sets out a simple premise then follows it up with half a dozen action sequences, possibly with a twist at the end. No, this is the story of Ape and Man learning to interact and coexist — or, rather, failing to. Political machinations abound — and that’s just in the Ape camp.

Read more here.


Machete (2010)

When it’s on its game, Machete is the best kind of spoof: innovative, comical... Unfortunately it’s far too long, with an overabundance of characters and conflicts dragging things out.

Read more here.


Sin City (Recut & Extended) (2005)

The lack of notable new material isn’t the issue, though. The real problem is the re-structure. Let’s not beat around the bush: it scuttles the film. Individually, each of the three longer narratives is fine, but when watched back-to-back as if it were still one film, the structure is unbalanced.

Read more here.


Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

a collection of hyper-noir short stories, connected by location and overlapping characters, that flits between time periods with abandon — this is both a prequel and sequel to the first film... If the first was noir with a comic book mentality, then the second is a comic book with a noir mentality.

Read more here.


The Spirit (2008)

Comic book creator Frank Miller brings what he learnt co-directing Sin City to this adaptation of Will Eisner’s classic newspaper strip. Turns out, that’s not much.

Read more here.


The World's End (2013)

This is a more mature work than its two predecessors. While they were clever genre mash-up/pastiches, this goes lighter on that crowd-pleasing bumf. There are still generous segments of that in the film, but the genre being manipulated is less clearly defined and occasionally co-writers Pegg and Wright have substituted character development and thematic points for send-up.

Read more here.


X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

There’s an awful lot going on in Days of Future Past, which, if you want to dig into it, makes for quite a rich film. There’s the obvious need to balance major storylines taking place in both the past and the future... but there’s enough [character] material for a quality actor like James McAvoy to sink his teeth into.

Read more here.


Plus one new to the new blog...


Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

at times it reminded me of Pride & Prejudice — a family of daughters seeking marriage — albeit a version of Pride & Prejudice with much of the dramatic tension removed. For instance, Austen’s tale spends a long time creating a bad impression of Mr Darcy, only to eventually reveal his (mostly) good intentions. St. Louis, on the other hand, manages all of five minutes

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Have I Got News For You
48x10 (12/12/2014 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]