Collection Count

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

Nowt this week. Next is Christmas, so we shall see...

Number of titles in collection: 1,823 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,211 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 612 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,660 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,992 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,051 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 465 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Live at the Apollo
11x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Outnumbered
1x02 The Special Bowl [4th watch]

TV

Elementary
4x02 Evidence of Things Not Seen

Have I Got News For You
50x09 (4/12/2015 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
4x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Le Mépris (1963)
[#190 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]
aka Contempt

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2015 #9

TV

Castle
5x24 Watershed [season finale]

Detectorists
2x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Escape from Tomorrow (2013)
[#189 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Arrow
4x08 Legends of Yesterday
Part 2 of 2

The Flash
2x08 Legends of Today
Part 1 of 2

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
4x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Begin Again (2013)
[#188 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Tomorrowland: A World Beyond (2015)
[#187 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

this week on 100 Films

As the 100 Films in a Year advent calendar continues, brand-new reviews of 14 films were published this week. They were...


The Babadook (2014)

Perhaps it’s best to not say too much about what’s going on, because the film does a fantastic job blurring the lines between reality and dreams, facts and imaginings, whether it’s all happening or is all in Amelia’s head. For the majority of the film you’ll wonder: is this real? Is she being pranked? By who? A stalker? Her kid? Is she going insane and imagining it all?

Read more here.


Blue Ruin (2013)

Its guiding principle is neat: a semi-comedic version of what would actually happen if an Ordinary Joe tried to enact violent vengeance on murderous criminals.

Read more here.


Circle (2015)

The way the characters interact and the decisions they make are rooted in human nature, and the film keeps you engrossed by exposing their prejudices and how that affects their decision making... This is more of a “what would I do?” kind of film, though; a high-concept thriller, rather than a true character exposé.

Read more here.


A Clockwork Orange (1971)

writer-director Stanley Kubrick adapts Anthony Burgess’ novel into a film so controversially violent the director himself eventually banned it from release in the UK for decades. Almost 45 years on, it’s testament to the film’s power that it is still in parts shocking.

Read more here.


Coherence (2013)

It’s a more gentle kind of sci-fi, though; more domestic. It’s about how these particular people react to the strange situation, rather than being about the situation itself

Read more here.


The Dark Crystal (1982)

there’s fantastic puppetry and strong design… but the story and the manner of its telling — the dialogue, structure, and characters — alternate between boring, annoying, and laughable.

Read more here.


The Decoy Bride (2011)

it’s a standard rom-com, of the form we’ve seen dozens of times, but it’s no worse than most and better than plenty.

Read more here.


The Grandmaster (2013)

As a Western viewer, if you know anything about Ip Man beyond “he’s the chap who trained Bruce Lee”, it’s probably thanks to the pair of eponymous biopics starring Donnie Yen. Heck, if you know that much there’s a fair chance it’s due to those films. This take on the man, directed and co-written by Wong Kar Wai and starring Tony Leung as Ip, is tonally very different

Read more here.


Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

This melancholic apocalyptic comedy wasn’t too well received, which is a shame because I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

Read more here.


sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

Four acquaintances partake in duplicitous relationships and candid sexual discourse in writer-director Steven Soderbergh’s debut drama.

Read more here.


Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Aardman’s stop-motion silent comedy will certainly lose to Inside Out across the board come awards season (apart from at the BAFTAs, perhaps), but it’s the more inventive, amusing, innovative, accomplished, and impressive achievement. Delightful.

Read more here.


Stranger by the Lake (2013)

It’s the arthouse gay sex thriller! I’m just going to mention that before it comes the elephant in the room: this movie features lots of ultra-explicit gay sex... it’s worth getting past the initial titillation, because pornography isn’t the point. Rather, it’s an intriguing dramatic thriller about what we’re prepared to accept, risk, or ignore in the name of attraction

Read more here.


They Live (1988)

the meat is satire. Thirty years on, it remains thematically relevant; perhaps even more so. That no one’s actively considering a remake suggests how Hollywood has lost its political teeth.

Read more here.


You're Next (2011)

a horror-thriller that’s really a dark comedy. Murderous home invaders get a surprise when one of their targets is a secret badass.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Films

A Most Wanted Man (2014)
[#186 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Terminator Genisys (2015)
[#185 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

Collection Count

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

Not the final pre-Christmas update, but the final one that's likely to have anything to report. Probably. I also suspect it'll be a small Christmas for this Collection Count -- possibly even nonexistent, in fact. But we'll see in a fortnight. For now:

Number of titles in collection: 1,823 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,211 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 612 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,660 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,992 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,051 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 465 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Castle
5x23 The Human Factor

Detectorists
2x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Jessica Jones
1x12 AKA Take a Bloody Number
1x13 AKA Smile [season finale]

TV

Elementary
4x01 The Past is Parent

TV

Castle
5x22 Still

Live at the Apollo
11x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Arrow
4x07 Brotherhood

Films

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
[#184 in 100 Films in a Year 2015]

TV

Castle
5x21 The Squab and the Quail

The Flash
2x07 Gorilla Warfare

Articles

Ranking all 9 series of Doctor Who (and the specials) from 2005 to 2015
by Morgan Jeffery (from Digital Spy)

This starts off with an act of pure stupidity (no way series one is the worst), but then pretty quickly gets pretty accurate. Not necessarily the exact order I'd put them in, but not bad.

TV

Castle
5x20 The Fast and the Furriest

Detectorists
2x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who
35x12 Hell Bent [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Jessica Jones
1x10 AKA 1,000 Cuts
1x11 AKA I've Got the Blues

this week on 100 Films

Lots to cover on 100 Films in a Year this week!

Firstly, it's a new month, so here's a look back at the old one:




Then, my 2015 advent calendar kicked off. Read all about that here:




As you'll learn if you read that, my plan is to post two reviews a day throughout advent. So that means, this week, 12 new reviews were posted(!) They were:


Ant-Man (2015)

Marvel are currently fond of mixing “superhero” with “another genre” to produce their movies — which makes sense, given the standard two-or-three superhero narratives were already becoming played out by the time Iron Man came along, never mind in the raft of movies Marvel Studios have released since. Here, “superhero” is mixed with “heist movie”; more specifically, “heist comedy”. It’s superheroes by way of Ocean’s Eleven, basically.

Read more here.


L'Atalante (1934)

my view hews closer to the original reception. Reportedly a French distributor called it “a confused, incoherent, wilfully absurd, long, dull, commercially worthless film,” while critics called it “amateurish, self-indulgent and morbid.” OK, maybe it’s not that bad, but there are nuggets of truth in there.

Read more here.


Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

I didn’t expect to care for this all that much… but I actually thought it was really fun. It’s not the funniest movie ever, nor does it have the most thrilling action, or the most engrossing or surprising plot, but it does all those things — well, the first two — well, maybe just the first one — well enough. It’s sort of incessantly likeable.

Read more here.


Brazil (1985)

It’s clever, it’s funny, it’s massively imaginative in both its visuals and its storytelling, and its influences on the 30 years of dystopian fiction that have followed is… well, fairly clear, because it also has influences of its own, so whether future works are influenced by the original influence or whether the influencee has become the influencer is an over-complex matter for over-complex people to discuss ad infinitum.

Read more here.


End of Watch (2012)

Ah, found footage. Some despise it. I’m not sure anyone loves it. I don’t mind it, so long as it’s used appropriately. Here, the found footage aspect is abandoned literally as soon as it’s introduced, rendering it absolutely pointless.

Read more here.


Europa Report (2013)

Astronauts head to a Saturnian moon to examine its water in this scientifically-accurate drama. The voluminous “special thanks” to space-related organisations shows how seriously the filmmakers took that accuracy, and it pays off in the exploration of some neat ideas.

Read more here.


The Fifth Estate (2013)

It’s The Julian Assange Movie, in which Benedict Cumberbatch dons a lanky white wig and an Australian accent to portray one of the most significant figures of our times, whether you like it or not.

Read more here.


Force Majeure (2014)

At its best, writer-director Ruben Östlund’s YouTube-inspired film is a droll dark comedy. Told in wisely-deployed long takes that benefit the cast, there’s also gorgeous photography and a dramatic score

Read more here.


Go (1999)

When people call 1999’s Fight Club “the first film of the 21st Century”, it sounds a bit clever-clever. When you watch 1999’s Go, you see what they mean. Fincher forged forward; Liman encapsulated “just been” — indeed, it’s been called the most ’90s movie ever made.

Read more here.


Life Itself (2014)

Roger Ebert was an influential, respected, beloved critic for decades, and one with an interesting life: he began in old-school newspaper journalism, defined TV movie criticism, and eventually spearheaded the profession’s move online. So it merits recounting in this documentary

Read more here.


The Swimmer (1968)

A strange air means this quickly begins to feel like a Twilight Zone-esque mystery, but it’s actually something else entirely… though to reveal too many secrets would spoil it.

Read more here.


Tank Girl (1995)

Critically derided, this anarchic adaptation of the rebellious comic has become a cult fave. You can see why: a ramshackle plot allows for plenty of outré zaniness, including a big musical number to a punky Cole Porter cover, and surely no one predicted the bizarre truth about the Rippers!

Read more here.


More next Sunday.