TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
9x02 (15/5/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Car Share
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mad Men
7x14 Person to Person [series finale]
Well.

Person of Interest
3x08 Endgame
Maybe HR will finally be done with in the next episode! (I live in eternal hope.)
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

TV

Mad Men
7x13 The Milk and Honey Route
The last ever episode is on in the US tonight and the UK on Thursday. I imagine I shall watch it somewhere between those two times. What will happen? Nobody knows!

Pointless Celebrities
7x04 Game Shows
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)
[#65 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]


Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980/2011)
[goodness-knows-what-th watch]

Continuing my Star Wars HD re-watch with the movie that was previously #82a in 100 Films 2007.

this week on 100 Films

Four brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


Mad Max 2 (1981)

The most memorable part, however, is the climax... An almighty action sequence, a speeding battle through the outback. It feels wrong to just call it “an action sequence”, like that’s selling it short. You get the sense that this is why the movie exists; that co-writer/director George Miller’s goal with the entire rest of the film has been to get us to this point. It’s not just “the climax”, it’s “the third act”, and it’s stunning

Read more here.


Tarzan (1999)

Disney's '80s/'90s renaissance more-or-less came to an end with this adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's jungle hero... The animated medium is put to excellent use in thrillingly fluid jungle-swinging action scenes (normally the purview of CGI, but here peerless in 2D)

Read more here.


Time Lapse (2014)

Shallow Grave meets Primer in this indie thriller that sees three housemates discover a camera that takes photos 24 hours into the future. They initially use it to their financial advantage, but soon Things Go Wrong™... a sci-fi setup, but it’s a film driven by its characters rather than its high concept.

Read more here.


Tropic Thunder: Director's Cut (2008)

A bunch of obstreperous actors are too much to handle for the director of a Vietnam war movie, so he dumps them in the jungle to shoot it with hidden cameras. Things go awry; hilarity ensues.

Read more here.


Plus nine archive reviews were reposted on the new blog...


Brigadoon (1954)

“Oh dear,” is surely the initial reaction to Brigadoon. The Scottish accents are appalling, the costumes and setting gratingly twee, the Highlands recreated entirely on a soundstage... But, importantly — and thankfully — it does grow on you as it goes on. The ill-conceived cast, costumes and studio-bound setting begin to pale under the charm of Gene Kelly and the machinations of the plot.

Read more here.


The Day of the Locust (1975)

a slightly scrappy film about the seedy underside of Hollywood’s golden age. The plot is neither here nor there in many respects — the film is about the grotesques who are attracted to Hollywood, and that being exactly what it feeds on. The bizarre, surreal ending definitely makes more sense if you’re already thinking about the film in this way.

Read more here.


Death Wish (1974)

Paul’s encounters aren’t all easily won; he gets injured; his crimes create a media storm, on which public opinion is divided... There are still unrealistic bits, certainly, but by employing enough believability and leaving aside certain rules of the revenge thriller — for one thing, he never actually gets revenge — Death Wish manages to rise a little above the “heroic vigilante” sub-genre.

Read more here.


The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

Disney's 40th (canonical) animated film had a very troubled production, which, from what I can tell, turned it from a derivative riff on The Prince and the Pauper into this load of tosh.

Read more here.


Juno (2007)

The most discussed aspect is Diablo Cody’s screenplay, with its idiosyncratic slang-laden dialogue and accusations that every character speaks the same. The first is true, the latter is rubbish, and one has to wonder if whoever thinks it watched beyond the first ten minutes. Most of the film’s teenage characters speak similarly… in that they use the same bits of slang, have similar speech patterns, employ a similar sense of humour — you know, like groups of teenagers tend to.

Read more here.


Manhatta (1921)

Another ’20s city film, showing off (as you might guess from the title) parts of New York. The focus appears to be industrial — skyscrapers under construction, finished architecture, tug boats, trains near the docks; the people of the city only crop up at the start and close, and then only in faceless crowds.

Read more here.


À propos de Nice (1930)

Short film about the French city of Nice, mixing documentary-style footage of people with shots of the architecture, as well as clearly staged scenes (a man getting sunburnt, for example).

Read more here.


Skyscraper Symphony (1929)

It’s probably hard to ‘appreciate’ this without getting a little pretentious; certainly, it’s much more aimed at creating the feeling of a city, or a visual representation of it, or something like that, than it is with, say, showing pretty views of New York’s buildings.

Read more here.


Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

our bed-ridden heroine overhears a threat on someone’s life and begins to wonder if it’s actually about her... Barbara Stanwyck portrays a not-very-sympathetic lead character, which makes the viewer question how we feel about her possibly being murdered. We should be against it, but she’s not nice, but she is ill…

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,766 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,210 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 556 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,388 [up 7]
Number of films in collection: 1,905 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,508 [up 26]
Number of short films in collection: 448 [no change]

Plus this week it's time for a running time update, so...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
316 days, 21 hours, and 59 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 2 hours, and 32 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Arrow
3x23 My Name is Oliver Queen [season finale]

Car Share
1x02 Episode 2 [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Critical
1x12 Episode 12

Films

Red Sonja (1985)
[#64 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2x18 Captain Peralta
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Have I Got News For You
49x05 (8/5/2015 edition; extended repeat)
aka Have I Got Election News For You, allegedly.
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
7x13 White Orchids [series finale]
Cheerio, The Mentalist! It may be past its best, but I'll still miss it.
[Watch episodes 12 and 13 (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

Star Wars Begins (2011)
[#63 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Watch it on Vimeo.

TV

Episodes
4x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Flash
1x21 Grodd Lives
Rather overstretched their CGI capabilities with the giant gorilla, there.

Mad Men
7x12 Lost Horizon

Films

21 Jump Street (2012)
[#62 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Arrow
3x22 This is Your Sword
He's good! He's bad! He's winning! He's losing! He is! He isn't! Deja vu!

Car Share
1x01 Episode 1 [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
7x12 Brown Shag Carpet
[Watch episodes 12 and 13 (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

Forty Guns (1957)
[#61 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Elementary
3x20 A Stitch in Time

The Flash
1x20 The Trap

Game of Thrones
5x05 Kill the Boy

This is the 6,000th post on here. Crikey.

TV

Forever
1x19 Punk is Dead

Person of Interest
3x07 The Perfect Mark
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Pointless Celebrities
7x03 Outdoors
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x19 Legends of the Dark Mite!
3x01 Joker: The Vile and the Villainous!
Two more recommended episodes. Only slightly further down the list I compiled, but already feeling noticeably less good -- not bad, just 'average'. Aside from the show's very best turns, I wonder if my initial view was right after all...

The British Academy Television Awards 2015
[Watch it (again) soon on iPlayer.]

Films

Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope (1977/2011)
[goodness-knows-what-th watch]

This was #81a way back in 100 Films 2007, which was the last time I watched it. First time I've watched it in HD on Blu-ray though, which is what makes this the 2011 edition, thanks to even further tweaks after those already made for the 1997 and 2004 releases(!)

this week on 100 Films

Two brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher (2014)

Anime take on Marvel properties... A clichéd, heavy-handed screenplay and stilted line delivery tell a rote story through talky exposition scenes and uninspired action sequences

Read more here.


Killing Them Softly (2012)

Dominik uses news audio about the financial crisis to comment on the plot, an inclusion somewhere between neat dramatic irony and heavy-handed affectation. He gets better mileage from the mundane mechanics and economics of organised crime, but it's small consolation among flabby storytelling

Read more here.


Plus three archive reviews were reposted on the new blog...


Cathy Come Home (1966)

a powerful piece of work... As an important and timely history lesson, a challenge to prejudices that some of us may hold, and a reminder of how close most of us are to such a fate — especially right now — it remains essential viewing

Read more here.


Doctor Faustus (1967)

stylistically reminiscent of a Gothic Hammer Horror, which is either wholly inappropriate or an ingenious genre mash-up... There are repulsively horrific corpses, a harem of naked ladies, an array of special effects, plus a medieval-styled gothic atmosphere to all the sets and costumes, though the scene where Faustus mucks about with the Pope feels more Carry On.

Read more here.


Telling Lies (2001)

A simple idea, very well executed: as we listen to a series of phone conversations, the speakers' dialogue appears on screen... except instead of transcribing their exact words, it reveals their true thoughts.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Have I Got News For You
49x04 (1/5/2015 edition; extended repeat)
Not the post-election episode that aired yesterday -- there's an extended version of that on Monday, as per usual -- just last week's episode.
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Outnumbered
5x00 The Sick Party [Christmas special; 2nd watch]

Person of Interest
3x06 Mors Praematura
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

The Eagle (2011)
[#60 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]