TV

Red Dwarf
11x04 Officer Rimmer

Ripper Street
5x05 A Last Good Act
[Watch it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.]

TV

Black Mirror
2x03 The Waldo Moment [season finale]
This is by far the lowest-rated episode of Black Mirror according to IMDb users -- whereas all the others range from 8.1 to 9.0, this has 7.1. And they're not wrong. There are some interesting and sometimes amusing ideas, and like all the best Black Mirrors it's sickeningly plausible, but it ends rather abruptly without seeming to have reached an ultimate point, and a future-set coda gets kind of silly. Ah well.

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
5x07 Episode 7

Ripper Street
5x04 The Dreaming Dead
[Watch it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.]

Films

Raising Arizona (1987)
[#164 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
7x08 Tudor Week
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ripper Street
5x03 All the Glittering Blades
[Watch it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.]

Star Trek
1x28 The City on the Edge of Forever

Star Trek: The Animated Series
1x02 Yesteryear
All of the Star Trek TV series are available on Netflix, which I've currently got for Luke Cage, so I thought I'd watch some of the most acclaimed episodes while I can. I picked these two almost on a whim, not realising they're actually connected. How serendipitous.

this week on 100 Films

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


Armageddon (1998)

Many Hollywood blockbusters have ludicrous concepts, but Armageddon feels designed to plow new furrows of ridiculousness. Apparently NASA show the film to new managers and ask them to spot the errors. There are at least 168. It only takes a few minutes before it’s already so OTT that it seems like a spoof of Bay — I mean, the title card explodes for crying out loud.

Read more here.


Cop Car (2015)

The director of minor horror Clown and (more significantly to the history of cinema, maybe) next year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, Jon Watts drew the attention that landed him the latter job with this festival-hit thriller

Read more here.


Deep Blue Sea (1999)

There is definitely a level of “so bad it’s good” about it. It’s definitely not a good movie in the traditional sense, but it is fun; and unlike, say, Armageddon, it’s clearly not taking itself too seriously. Nicely, it gets by without the constant winks-and-nods at the audience you get in today’s deliberately-trashy genre movies

Read more here.


The Quay Brothers in 35mm (2015)

Christopher Nolan made a few headlines last year when his first post-Interstellar film was announced for near-immediate release... an eight-minute short documentary, Quay, about British-based American-born identical-twin animators the Quay brothers. The short was screened theatrically as part of a programme of animated shorts directed by the brothers, curated by Nolan to accompany his documentary, [which included In Absentia, The Comb, and Street of Crocodiles.]

Read more here.


The Salvation (2014)

The spirit of the Spaghetti Western is kept alive in this Euro-minded South Africa-shot revenge Western.

Read more here.


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


Schindler's List (1993)

The stark black-and-white cinematography acknowledges the incomprehensibly horrific events, while Spielberg’s divisive penchant for sentimentality seems well-matched to the tale, offering a measure of hope from humanity’s darkest days.

Read more here.


Se7en (1995)

I normally say Se7en is my favourite movie... There are more easily enjoyable movies in my 100 Favourites, but there are none that are any better made, nor any that better expose the dark heart of humanity.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Ripper Street
5x02 A Brittle Thread
[Watch it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.]

Would I Lie To You?
10x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Moneyball (2011)
[#163 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

Collection Count

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

A number jumble this week, with some new additions, some upgrades, and some just being sold off.

Number of titles in collection: 1,894 [down 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,200 [down 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 696 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,893 [down 4]
Number of films in collection: 2,093 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 7,452 [down 60]
Number of short films in collection: 496 [down 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Black Mirror
2x01 Be Right Back
It's only taken me 3½ years to get round to this (seriously, where does time go?!)

Castle
7x01 Driven
Normally I prefer a gap between seasons of things, but as six ended on a cliffhanger...

Ripper Street
5x01 Closed Casket
[Watch it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.]

Films

Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2016)
[#162 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Castle
6x23 For Better or Worse [season finale]

Red Dwarf
11x03 Give & Take

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
5x04 Episode 4

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Musketeers
2x07 A Marriage of Inconvenience

Films

The Big Short (2015)
[#161 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

TV

Castle
6x22 Veritas

Luke Cage
1x12 Soliloquy of Chaos
1x13 You Know My Steez [season finale]

TV

Castle
6x21 Law & Boarder

The Great British Bake Off
7x07 Dessert Week
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Would I Lie To You?
10x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

A Knight's Tale (2001)
[#160 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]

The Quay Brothers in 35mm (2015)
[#159 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]
Including the shorts In Absentia, Quay, The Comb, and Street of Crocodiles.

this week on 100 Films

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


The Magnificent Seven (1960)

With even less screen time to go round than in Kurosawa’s original, the cast only get to provide thumbnail sketches of their characters. However, bearing that in mind, only Vaughn really feels shortchanged on time, while McQueen manages to steal every scene he’s in, even when he was supposed to just be in the background — much to Brynner’s annoyance.

Read more here.


Mr. Turner (2014)

There are two stars in Mike Leigh’s biopic of famed British artist J.M.W. Turner: Timothy Spall, grunting his way through the title role with a deceptively layered realisation of an apparently simple but deeply complex man; and Dick Pope’s cinematography, which makes almost every frame look like a rich landscape painting, so that you feel you can almost see the brushstrokes.

Read more here.


Pixels (2015)

the virtual definition of brain-off entertainment. The story has the plausibility of a kids’ daydream, the humour is frequently unimaginative, and the action sequences mostly coast on their basic concept rather than trying to elevate them... But for all that mediocrity, I spent 100 minutes feeling gently entertained. I laughed a few times; the action was, as I say, passable

Read more here.


Pride (2014)

Perhaps most remarkable is Dominic West as a veteran homosexual, whose dancing display has to be seen to be believed. Bill Nighy and Paddy Considine are understated as quiet, hesitant characters who have inner steel, and Jessica Gunning makes a similar impact as a housewife who is completely emboldened by the activism. I don’t like just listing actors, but it would be a disservice not to mention Faye Marsay, Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton… I could go on. Screenwriter Stephen Beresford finds meaningful stories and character arcs for each of these, while director Matthew Warchus controls the story so that it never devolves into a collection of subplots.

Read more here.


Westworld (1973)

while the original film does offer Crichton’s superb concept, plus a few straightforward action/suspense thrills, it’s too slight to really deliver on the inherent promise.

Read more here.


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


Saved! (2004)

At the first assembly of the school year, cool headmaster Pastor Skip flips onto stage (“Give it up to the Lord, Jesus is in the house! Let’s get our Christ on, let’s kick it Jesus style! … Who’s down with G-O-D? Alright! Jesus rules! Jesus rules!”), before... Cassandra starts ‘speaking in tongues’ (“mah puhsah issa hot puhsow”), though Hilary Faye sees through it (“she’s saying she’s got a hot p—!”)

Read more here.


Saving Private Ryan (1998)

the greatest war movie ever made? Maybe... It’s certainly the most influential World War 2 movie of modern times — nearly 20 years later, its desaturated colour palette remains de rigueur for films set in the war. So too its realistic depiction of combat, which is more plausible than some of the Boy’s Own adventures that came before, though not so ridiculously gruelling as some that have come in its wake.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Castle
6x20 That '70s Show

Luke Cage
1x10 Take It Personal
1x11 Now You're Mine

Films

The Russia House (1990)
[#158 in 100 Films in a Year 2016]