TV

Arrow
4x01 Green Arrow

James Bond's Spectre with Jonathan Ross
The 10 minutes they spent actually talking about Spectre were good...
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Mock the Week
14x11 (8/10/15 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Machine (2013)
[#167 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Spectre (2015)
[#168 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
3x06 Episode 6

The Flash
2x01 The Man Who Saved Central City

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
4x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Life Itself (2014)
[#166 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

Mr. Holmes (2015)
[#165 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Outnumbered
5x06 Spartacus The Musical [series finale; 2nd watch]

Films

Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
[#164 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

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


Back in Time (2015)

Wednesday just passed was “Back to the Future Day”, the exact date Marty McFly and Doc Brown (and Marty’s girlfriend) travel forward to in Back to the Future Part II. As one of the many, many (many) things that went on to mark the occasion, Netflix debuted this crowdfunded documentary worldwide. Apparently it began life as a film just about DeLorean owners, but then expanded to include Back to the Future fans in general, and ultimately includes many of the trilogy’s cast and crew talking about the movies themselves, too.

Read more here.


The Falling (2014)

it does have a distinctly unnerving air a lot of the time, and there are definite references to and hints about some kind of mysticism playing a role. It’s often incredibly atmospheric, with some beautiful cinematography courtesy of DP Agnès Godard and effective editing by Chris Wyatt.

Read more here.


Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

like two films playing at once: the dramatic/romantic story of President FDR’s (Bill Murray) burgeoning affair with his distant cousin Daisy (Laura Linney), and the comedy-drama of his meeting with King George VI (aka “the one Colin Firth played in The King’s Speech”; here, Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth 1.5 (Olivia Colman) in the build up to World War 2

Read more here.


Ladyhawke (1985)

Ladyhawke is an ’80s medieval fantasy, though relatively light on the fantasy — it’s not Conan the Barbarian. It’s more like an old romance, in the “classical literature” sense rather than the “movie genre” one.

Read more here.


Plus six archive posts were reposted on the new blog...


January 2011

Following the success of 2010, 2011’s off to a good start. For one thing I’ve got every review from last year posted... More pertinently, though, the film-watching is off and running. Though I started later than ever this year, I’m suitably far ahead as January closes.

Read more here.


February 2011

Another month down sees the year reach ½ of ⅓ complete (or, to put it another way, “one sixth” — but they don’t do a little symbol for that). Last month I watched 12 films and talked about continuing at that rate; this month I’ve watched 13, so that’s grand — and sees me quarterway toward my goal already.

Read more here.


March 2011

March saw me reach the 500th feature film to be reviewed on this blog. Not #500, mind you (that’ll be later this year), because I’ve also reviewed a variety of films that don’t count — hardly-different alternate cuts, a couple I’d just seen before, that kind of thing. About 25 of those, as it turns out. But still, 500 reviews — that’s a lot!

Read more here.


April 2011

This month I watched nine feature films I’d never seen before (plus one short). That looks a bit weak compared to previous months this year, which averaged out at (just under) 13 each. I blame TV — lots on this month

Read more here.


May 2011

Much of watching 100 films is the long, sometimes slow, slog of getting through so many films. Oh I know some people watch far more than that in a year, but I think most would agree getting to such a number is a marathon rather than a sprint. If you watched one a day, it would still take over three months. Sometimes, though, it's broken up by my arrival at key points. And this month, I reached not one but two milestones.

Read more here.


June 2011

It’s no news that being halfway through the calendar year sees me more than halfway through my annual goal (because that happened last month), but it’s always a good time to stop and take stock. As you’ll see shortly, this point finds me at 67 films.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
35x06 The Woman Who Lived
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Outnumbered
5x05 Communication Skills [2nd watch]

Films

The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920)
[#163 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,804 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,209 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 595 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,534 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,955 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,805 [up 4]
Number of short films in collection: 457 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Stoker (2013)
[#162 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

Back in Time (2015)
[#161 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

The Grandmaster (2013)
[#160 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

Europa Report (2013)
[#158 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
[#159 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

Circle (2015)
[#157 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Coherence (2013)
[#156 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Films

The Decoy Bride (2011)
[#155 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Jurassic World (2015)
[#154 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

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


The Crying of Lot 49 (2007)

it appears to be a student short, possibly only made for some school project. It adapts the entire novel in just seven minutes, solely through meaningful images and music — there are no actors, no dialogue, no voiceover. A solid knowledge of the book is essential to understand what’s going

Read more here.


Dreams of a Life (2011)

In 2006, the body of 38-year-old Joyce Vincent was found in her London bedsit, surrounded by Christmas presents and with the TV still on. Sad, but largely unremarkable, were it not for the fact that she’d been dead for three years. Carol Morley’s documentary attempts to uncover the story of Joyce’s life, and how it reached a point where no one noticed she’d been gone for so long.

Read more here.


Parabellum (2015)

Alfred Hitchcock once said said that “movies are real life with the boring parts cut out.” Valenta Rinner’s movie is the opposite of this in every respect: it isn’t real life, which is fine, but he only left the boring parts in, which isn’t.

Read more here.


Supermen of Malegaon (2008)

It’s an incredible, one-of-a-kind film; more powerful and life-affirming than it perhaps has any right to be. But then the filmmakers of Malegaon don’t really care about such things. They make movies because they want to, whether they ‘should’ or not; they make them better than you might expect; and it enriches their lives. Their story may do the same for you. In my opinion, it’s an essential film; a true must-see.

Read more here.


Terror by Night (1946)

For what is the shortest film in the series, screenwriter Frank Gruber and regular director/producer Roy William Neill have constructed a contained, almost claustrophobic version of a Holmes tale. There are definite pros to this: it’s effectively a locked room mystery, with an element of howdunnit closely tied to the whodunnit.

Read more here.


Just five archive posts were reposted this week, finishing off 2010. Next week, 2011 begins.


August 2010

At this exact point last year, as we head into the year's final third, I was 22 films behind The Target -- i.e. the rate of film-watching that would get me to exactly 100 films by December 31st at a regular, consistent pace. This year, I'm 23 films ahead. I'm having a little party. By myself. Nibbles?

Read more here.


September 2010

And lo, in the 9th month of the 10th year, I didst see 11 new films, and one of them was Number One-Hundred! Excuse me while I do a little victory dance.

Read more here.


October 2010

October last year was something of a tipping point, when I finally stopped falling behind and actually began catching up. This year, I’m just forging ahead...

Read more here.


November 2010

After doing so well for most of the year — including last month, where I made appropriate headway toward my new goal of 130 films — it’s rather slipped in November. Just four new films (and a couple of others I’ll review, but that don’t count in the slightest). I blame TV.

Read more here.


December 2010

So here we are, the final few new films I watched in 2010... And, as you’ll see in just a few lines, I sadly didn’t beat my previous record of 129 films. Hey ho — I made it to 100 (and comfortably over it), and after failing last year and barely scraping through the year before, I’m more than happy with that.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
35x05 The Girl Who Died
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Outnumbered
5x04 Into the Wilderness [2nd watch]

Films

Wings (1927)
[#153 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]