TV

Thronecast
Gameshow of Thrones
Only a fortnight to go until the final season begins! Helping tide us over, this hour-and-a-half of panel game jollity from Sky.

The Twilight Zone
1x05 Walking Distance

Films

The Howling (1981)
[#50 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

Waltz with Bashir (2008)
[#49 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

TV

Deadwood
2x12 Boy-the-Earth-Talks-To [season finale]

+ the second commentary on episode 11, by Ian McShane and Paula Malcolmson, which is probably the weakest so far -- lots of pauses, hardly any information. As a set, these tracks have almost been enough to put me off ever listening to a cast commentary ever again!

Films

Paperman 3D (2012)
[#48a in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

Wreck-It Ralph 3D (2012)
[2nd watch]
Rewatchathon 2019 #12

this week on 100 Films

As March draws to a close, it was time for the monthly TV review at 100 Films in a Year...





Plus, there were 4 new film reviews...


Black Narcissus (1947)

It’s difficult to sum up and rate my reaction, because I feel like I missed something — not literally (I followed the plot ‘n’ that), but like I didn’t understand something about it. And yet I was engaged throughout, it’s gorgeous to look at, and the final 20 minutes are stunning on every level.

Read more here.


The Highwaymen (2019)

There’s a fair chance you know the story of Bonnie and Clyde, but what about the story of the guys who got ’em? For all the Robin Hood-esque heroism that was conveyed upon them by the media at the time and then cemented in subsequent fictional retellings, they were still murder-happy criminals. The Highwaymen sets out to do its part in rectifying this by introducing us to Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson), a pair of retired Texas Rangers who were reinstated in early 1934 to track down Bonnie and Clyde and put an end to their crime spree.

Read more here.


Skyscraper (2018)

It’s an undemanding 90-minutes-or-so of derring-do, where the scenarios are so extreme and OTT they can’t elicit much tension, but occasionally achieve a modicum of suspense nonetheless. And as so much of it is about doing things at great distances above the ground, it’s highly effective in 3D. One near-miss moment even made me gasp, so it was obviously doing something right with its sense of jeopardy.

Read more here.


You Were Never Really Here (2017)

if the combination of “genre: thriller” and “using a hammer to take out bad men” makes you think the film is about to unleash a low-budget action-fest upon your eyeballs, I refer you back to the writer-director being Lynne Ramsay and my mention of “arthouse idiosyncrasies”. I thought I’d mention this point upfront because I’ve seen others be disappointed by the lack of overt action in the film. Ramsay has instead chosen to keep most of the violence offscreen

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Deadwood
2x11 The Whores Can Come
+ the audio commentary by actors Timothy Olyphant and Anna Gunn. As ever, Olyphant is committed to offering no useful information, but the track is at least amusing at times.

Films

The Highwaymen (2019)
[#48 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

Collection Count

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

Only one new addition this week. However, I noticed that somehow my Blu-ray count had got completely out of whack, dating all the way back to the start of February! I've now corrected all the posts in between (I think), so all the maths makes sense now.

Number of titles in collection: 2,199 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,134 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,065 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 24 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,700 [up 2]
Number of films: 2,517 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,427 [no change]
Number of short films: 654 [no change]

Also this week, time for the monthly running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
419 days, 3 hours, and 33 minutes.
(Up 17 hours and 31 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Deadwood
2x09 Amalgamation and Capital
2x10 Advances, None Miraculous

I would say this was as much of a two-parter as the season opener, yet no such labelling this time. It doesn't matter, obviously, it's just the kind of silly inconsistency that bothers me.

Also listened to the commentary on Advances, None Miraculous by John Hawkes and Paula Malcolmson, who are an odd pair to choose as they’re not in this particular episode that much. Maybe whoever was organising the commentaries hoped the commentators would talk more generally about their experience on the show, but so far they've all stuck pretty thoroughly to just discussing what's on screen.

TV

Death in Paradise
8x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Poirot
11x03 Third Girl [2nd watch]

TV

Death in Paradise
8x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Father Brown
7x03 The Whistle in the Dark
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless
The Good, the Bad and the Bloopers
Marking ten years of the quiz show. Ten years! Where does time go?!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Death in Paradise
8x05 Beyond the Shining Sea Part One
8x06 Beyond the Shining Sea Part Two
[Watch parts one and two (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

The surreally incompetent Not Another Not Another Movie is beneath contempt
by Nathan Rabin (from the A.V. Club)

This was recently added to Amazon Prime Video, so I looked up reviews. It sounds so unremittingly terrible that, perversely, I now want to watch it.

TV

Deadwood
2x08 Childish Things
+ the second audio commentary on episode seven, by actors Powers Boothe and Garret Dillahunt.

I'm going to be away from home for most of next week, so my Deadwood viewing will have to take a brief hiatus. At time of writing HBO still haven't scheduled the new movie, so there should be plenty more time for me to finish the series before that comes along.

Death in Paradise
8x04 A Different Story
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

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


Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Normally I’d explain the plot round about now, but, frankly, I can’t be bothered. It entirely spins out of what transpired in the first movie; having not seen that since it was in cinemas over two years ago, I frequently struggled to keep up, scrounging around in my memory for the ins and outs of a story I didn’t realise I needed to thoroughly revise. That’s to say nothing of all the other stuff it dregs up from the depths of Harry Potter mythology.

Read more here.


Sanjuro (1962)

I found it more readily enjoyable than Yojimbo. It’s got a straightforward but clever plot, plenty of funny bits that don’t undermine the rest, and some decent bursts of action.

Read more here.


Zatoichi and the Fugitives (1968)

The fugitives provide quite the challenge for Ichi, almost defeating him at one point. Naturally, our hero comes out on top in the end: spurred by righteous anger, his final-act slaughter is even more brutally efficient than normal. Having been shot and nearly killed in his first attempt at a climactic showdown, Ichi ain’t messing around the second time. Well, they have it coming. They’re a vicious lot, happily slaughtering innocents on practically anyone’s say-so, at one point even coming this close to murdering a baby. Indeed, this is quite a tonally dark instalment of the series.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Deadwood
2x07 E.B. Was Left Out

+ the audio commentary by actors Kim Dickens, William Sanderson, and Dayton Callie, a very laidback and chatty trio. I think Sanderson was trying to do a proper commentary, at least at times, but Callie keeps derailing it.

Films

Escape from New York (1981)
[#47 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

Starship Troopers (1997)
[#46 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]
Blindspot 2019 #3

Collection Count

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

Six new purchases this week, including a DVD-to-BD upgrade, a BD-to-4K upgrade, and four fresh Blu-rays.

Number of titles in collection: 2,198 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,134 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,064 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 23 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 5,698 [up 8]
Number of films: 2,516 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes: 8,427 [up 4]
Number of short films: 654 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Deadwood
2x06 Something Very Expensive

The Twilight Zone
3x24 To Serve Man
The top episode according to IMDb users seemed to pack more of a punch to me, even if it's main success lies in waiting 25 minutes for a killer punchline.

DVD Extras

Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create - Sanjuro
As I watched all of Yojimbo's extras when I watched the film (apart from the audio commentary), here I am settling up with Sanjuro's. Yes, I've been meaning to watch this since I watched that film 9 months ago -- where does time go?!