TV

Poirot
2x04 The Cornish Mystery
2x05 The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
[Watch The Cornish Mystery and The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

Best Christmas Ever with Alexander Armstrong
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

The Royal Variety Performance 2018
I used to watch this every year but haven't for yonks (this ever-handy blog informs me it was 2012). This year I only watched because it was on shortly after the aforementioned Christmas programme and I got sucked in. And it was actually rather good on the whole, I thought.
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

this week on 100 Films

The week began with a special announcement at 100 Films in a Year...





Click the image for more.

After that, 5 brand-new reviews were published this week...


Light the Fuse... Sartana is Coming (1970)

Arrow’s blurb claims this “brings the series to a fine conclusion”; that it “sees Sartana sign off on a high [in] one of the best entries in the series”. I’d almost go so far as to say the opposite — it was one of my least favourite. There’s fun along the way, to be sure, but the plot borders on the meaningless and therefore becomes a tad boring. It’s not a bad film, as this series goes, but it certainly feels like a generic one.

Read more here.


A Monster Calls (2016)

The most immediately striking element of A Monster Calls may be that it stars a giant tree monster with the grumbling voice of Liam Neeson, but this isn’t just a fantasy adventure, it’s a powerfully emotional drama about the pain of impending loss and grief. In this respect it’s not just a good movie, but potentially an important one — I can imagine it being of great help to children who find themselves in similar circumstances

Read more here.


The Shape of Water (2017)

I still can’t quite believe a creature-feature fantasy romance won Best Picture. It remains surreal to see a genre movie conquer the Oscars like that. Even The Lord of the Rings, for all its so-Fantasy-it-defined-the-genre-ness, has a lot of the “historical war epic” in its form (not to mention the genre-transcending cultural impact that film trilogy had), and so its win seems less striking than this out-and-out monster movie. Naturally, The Shape of Water doesn’t actually conform to the commonly-understood connotations of what a “monster movie” is, and therein lies what makes it something fresh, and therefore Best Picture material.

Read more here.


Shrek Forever After (2010)

DreamWorks’ golden-goose animated franchise was running out of fairytales to subvert, so this fourth — and final (for the time being) — movie turns its attention on the series itself... The filmmakers take this as an opportunity to give us a look at how characters might’ve turned out in a Shrek-less world... and it’s in this upending of familiarity that the film finds its greatest entertainment value.

Read more here.


Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

lives up to the hype, if you give it the time to get there. It's a movie that will satisfy comic book fans in particular, I think, but also anyone who enjoys animation as an artform. This isn't your standard Disney/Pixar/Illumination/etc fare, but a thrillingly-realised vision of what animation can do.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Michael McIntyre's Big Show
4x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Strictly Come Dancing
16x25 The Final [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
12x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

Normally this post would have a running time update, because it's been four weeks since the last one, but I've decided to put that back a couple of weeks in order to do my usual "end of year" numbers post-Christmas.

For now, all there is to report is one new Blu-ray box set, its increases half wiped out by selling an old DVD.

Number of titles in collection: 2,175 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,145 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,030 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 9 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 5,588 [up 2]
Number of films: 2,444 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes: 8,312 [no change]
Number of short films: 649 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader, when (depending on the whims of Royal Mail) there may see a pre-Christmas surge.

TV

Have I Got News For You
56x08 (30/11/18 edition)
56x09 (7/12/18 edition)
56x10 (14/12/18 edition) [season finale]
[Watch these episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Graham Norton Show
24x11 (14/12/18 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967)
[#257 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Great News
2x07 A Christmas Carol Wendelson
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Live at the Apollo
14x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Death Becomes Her (1992)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2018 #48

Films

The Shape of Water (2017)
[#256 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

TV

Great News
2x06 Pool Show
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Films

Music in Darkness (1948)
[#255 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Scooby-Doo (2002)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2018 #47

TV

Doctor Who
37x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Light the Fuse… Sartana is Coming (1970)
[#253 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
[#254 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

this week on 100 Films

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


Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Entertainment is definitely the name of the game here, and to that end director Peyton Reed and the five credited screenwriters (including star Paul Rudd) set out to tickle various emotional responses. The most obvious one is, as mentioned, the funny — there are laugh-out-loud moments here, as well as a never-ending barrage of one-liners and comedic business. But it also takes time to be emotive and heartfelt.

Read more here.


Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)

a frustratingly imperfect experience. I believe it’s fundamentally a unique-enough variation on the material that it could’ve escaped the shadow of Disney’s film, but a few misguided creative decisions have dragged it down almost irreparably.

Read more here.


Sorry to Bother You (2018)

It felt like everyone was on about Sorry to Bother You early this year, after it was released in the US in July. It’s taken ’til now to make it to UK screens — I don’t know if that was a conscious delay, or if the outpouring of recommendations from critics and audiences on social media had something to do with creating demand for distribution. Anyway, it’s fortunate that, as a small movie, most of the discussion (that I saw) was about urging people to see it and not giving away the twist (naturally, this review is equally spoiler-free.), because it is indeed a helluva turn to come across unaware. As for the rest of the movie, well, I was less convinced.

Read more here.


February Review Roundup

Featuring:
- Being John Malkovich
- I Origins
- WarGames

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

This post is a bit later than usual (not that there's anyone who'll notice) because a whole bunch of stuff only arrived this morning that required some working out to add to (and subtract from) the tallies below.

For starters, there's a 4K UHD Blu-ray box set which upgrades several Blu-rays... except I'm also keeping the original releases because they all have bonus discs. That's a whole bunch of discs I don't need and cases taking up space. Ugh. But I do love special features.

There's also a Blu-ray box set which upgrades a bunch of DVDs... except I'm keeping most of the DVDs too, for now, because the box set doesn't duplicate all of their special features. Ugh. But I do love special features.

As well as that, there's quite simply a pile of brand-new Blu-rays. It's been like Christmas here! Heck, I'll probably get fewer things than this for Christmas itself...

Number of titles in collection: 2,175 [up 8]
Of which DVDs: 1,146 [down 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,029 [up 10]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 9 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,586 [up 26]
Number of films: 2,441 [up 14]
Number of TV episodes: 8,312 [up 18]
Number of short films: 649 [up 8]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
24x10 (7/12/18 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
[#252 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]

Snowpiercer (2013)
[#251 in 100 Films in a Year 2018]
Blindspot 2018 #12

TV

Great News
2x05 Night of the Living Screen
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Live at the Apollo
14x02 Episode 2
14x03 Episode 3
[Watch episodes two and three (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Princess Bride (1987)
[3rd watch]
Rewatchathon 2018 #46