Films

Ten Little Indians (1974)
[#120 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]
aka And Then There Were None

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,871 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 669 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,811 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 2,060 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,306 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Agatha Raisin
1x04 Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener

Person of Interest
5x06 A More Perfect Union

TV

Agatha Raisin
1x03 Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

Gilmore Girls
7x21 Unto the Breach

Person of Interest
5x05 ShotSeeker

TV

Gilmore Girls
7x20 Lorelai? Lorelai?

Person of Interest
5x04 6,741

TV

Agatha Raisin
1x02 Hell's Bells

Films

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
[2nd watch]
This was #92 in 100 Films 2008.

TV

Agatha Raisin
1x01 Walkers of Dembley
Following on from the one-off they did a couple of years ago, Sky have produced a full series of these light and fluffy murder mysteries. It seems each episode adapts a whole novel in 45 minutes, which means either they must've cut a lot or those novels are really slight...

Gilmore Girls
7x19 It's Just Like Riding a Bike

Opera

Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)
at Glyndebourne

this week on 100 Films

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


Cinderella (2015)

Disney’s animated classic is re-imagined in live-action, losing the songs but expanding the story. The latter serves to find a little more realism in the setup (how Cinders became a servant to her stepmother, etc), as well as in the characters’ motivations and actions.

Read more here.


Crimson Peak (2015)

If you’ve not at least heard of The Castle of Otranto then there’s a chance your expectations of Crimson Peak may be misaligned. Which is not to say you won’t like it, especially if you’re of an open-minded disposition, but if having heard it’s “Gothic” and a “horror movie” has conjured up something Hammer-esque in your mind, then you are indeed off base. [It's] a Gothic Romance, which is as distinct from “horror” as it is from “romance”.

Read more here.


Spy (Extended Cut) (2015)

Apparently [writer-director Paul] Feig is a fan of James Bond and developed, wrote, produced, and directed Spy because he knew no one would ever let him do a real Bond movie. I guess that explains why some of it does work passably well as a genuine action/thriller.

Read more here.


Superman Returns (2006)

Sitting down to Superman Returns cold, it feels like you’re watching a sequel — and in many respects, that’s what it is. Singer loves the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, quite rightly, and when offered the chance to make a new movie with the character essentially set out to make Superman III... What was daft was making a sequel to a 26-year-old movie and assuming that the audience would be instantly familiar with the whole setup.

Read more here.


Also, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Although he’s covered by CGI in the final film, it’s Andy Serkis that really brings Gollum — and his alter ego, Sméagol — to life. It may have led to Serkis becoming the go-to expert in performance capture, but it’s also a great acting performance, full of light and shade, and creating sympathy for an ultimately villainous character.

Read more here.


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

made infinitely better by its extended cut, which does clock in at a whopping four and a half hours. It’s a wonderful end to one of the most epic tales in all of fiction (and if I hear anything about the “five million endings” I’ll reach through your screen and slap you unless you can tell me how you would have ended an 11 hour film better).

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: 1,870 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 668 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,810 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 2,059 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,306 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 473 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Gilmore Girls
7x18 Hay Bale Maze

Person of Interest
5x03 Truth Be Told

Poldark
1x08 Episode 8 [season finale]

Films

American Ultra (2015)
[#119 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Cowboy Bebop
1x17 Mushroom Samba
1x18 Speak Like a Child
Right, let's try this again (again).

Gilmore Girls
7x17 Gilmore Girls Only

Person of Interest
5x02 Snafu

Poldark
1x07 Episode 7

Preacher
1x05 South Will Rise Again
[Watch it (again) on Amazon Prime Instant Video.]

TV

Gilmore Girls
7x16 Will You Be My Lorelai Gilmore?
One of the few genuinely good episodes in the otherwise fairly dismal seventh season.

Person of Interest
5x01 B.S.O.D.
I think this final season has already ended in the US. Goodness knows when Channel 5 will show it here, so we're just getting on with it by... other means.

Poldark
1x06 Episode 6

Films

Cold in July (2014)
[#118 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Gilmore Girls
7x15 I'm a Kayak, Hear Me Roar

Poldark
1x05 Episode 5
The new series seems to be imminent, so finally getting on with finishing the first (only 1¼ years since I left off!)

Films

Superman Returns (2006)
[#117 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

The South Bank Show [Sky Arts]
5x03 Russell T Davies

this week on 100 Films

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


Ghosts of Mars (2001)

There are a good number of well-regarded John Carpenter films I’ve not seen that I could spend my time on, but I chose to expend it on this critically-mauled sci-fi-horror-Western from the first year of the current millennium. But sometimes watching poorly-regarded films pays off, because while Ghosts of Mars is no classic, it is actually pretty entertaining.

Read more here.


Grand Piano (2013)

Running under 80 minutes before the credits roll, Grand Piano is a brisk thriller that barely has time to be anything less than engrossing. It relies on keeping you entertained with its series of quick reveals, twists, and sequences of tension

Read more here.


Pillow Talk (1959)

The “they hate each other, will they get together?” storyline is, of course, obvious, but that’s beside the point. The leads spark off each other wonderfully, director Michael Gordon finds enjoyably inventive uses for split-screen and voiceover, and the Eastmancolor cinematography looks gorgeous in HD.

Read more here.


Also, my 100 Favourites series continued with 2 more posts...


The Lion King (1994)

Big romantic number Can You Feel the Love Tonight won the Oscar, and there were nominations for epic opener Circle of Life and quotable comedy hit Hakuna Matata, and you shouldn’t overlook the fun and impressive choreography of I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, but for me the best number is Scar’s Be Prepared. I do love a good villain’s song.

Read more here.


The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Now that it’s fêted as one of the greatest film trilogies ever made, it’s easy to forget what a gamble a three-film, $300 million adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s unfilmable novel seemed back when production started in the late ’90s; especially as it was to be made by a director whose track record was low-budget horror films, with a cast mostly without star names, filmed on the other side of the planet, where little news leaked out to the wider world, and with all three films shot at once... [But] the quality of the work is unquestionable: this is exciting, funny, emotional, transportive, epic filmmaking of the highest order.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.