TV

Stranger Things 3
3x02 Chapter Two: The Mall Rats
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Films

Dollman (1991)
[#126 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

Fiction

Shōgun by James Clavell
Chapters 13-14

TV

Stranger Things 3
3x01 Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?
Finally getting round to this! Thought it was a really good opener -- reminded me why the show's so enjoyable. Well, one of the reasons: in this case, the characters, which is good because the episode spends quite a lot of time hanging around with them.
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Films

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. Zweiter Teil: Inferno. Ein Spiel von Menschen unserer Zeit. (1922)
[#125 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

aka Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Part Two: Inferno. A Game of People of Our Time.

Blindspot 2019 #9b

Fiction

Shōgun by James Clavell
Chapters 10-12

Films

Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler. Erster Teil: Der groBe Spieler. Ein Bild der Zeit. (1922)
[#124 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]

aka Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler. Part One: The Great Gambler. An Image of the Time.

Blindspot 2019 #9a

Fiction

Shōgun by James Clavell
Chapters 8-9

End of Book One. Not really sure why, but maybe the structural reason will become clearer as I read on. It's undoubtedly a long, complicated book (I'm on page 187, just 15% of the way through, and there are already dozens of characters, but there are major ones we've not yet met), but it's a good read.

Films

The Red Shoes (1948)
[#123 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]
What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2019 #8

Fiction

Shōgun by James Clavell
Chapters 3-7

TV

BBC Two's night of programmes to mark the 50th anniversary of Monty Python, with one new archive-trawl clip show and two repeats...

Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The BBC Lawyer's Cut
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Monty Python's Flying Circus
1x01 Whither Canada?
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Python at 50: Silly Talks and Holy Grails
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Shōgun by James Clavell
Prologue
Chapters 1-2

A more successful "let's try this" than the last one (coincidentally, both begin with an adventure at sea; this one's more entertaining, despite the other author's acclaim for exactly that). Shogun is a damn long book, though (the edition I'm reading is 1,210 pages of fairly small text), and I don't have a good track record with those, so we'll see...

Collection Count

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

This week, I upgraded my DVD of In Bruges to the recent limited edition Blu-ray release, plus added a selection of Indicator series titles from their sale. There were even more I wanted, but one has to find limits somewhere... especially as Arrow and Eureka recently announced their November slates and, coupled with their October ones and what Criterion are also putting out, it's going to be a very busy (i.e. expensive) run up to Christmas.

Number of titles in collection: 2,252 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,130 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,122 [up 4]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 32 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 5,856 [up 3]
Number of films: 2,604 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes: 8,637 [no change]
Number of short films: 673 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

this week on 100 Films

A new month begins today, so it's time once again to look back at the old one on 100 Films in a Year...





Plus, there were 3 new reviews this week...


Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

feels like an imitation of latter-day Tarantino flicks. At least writer-director Drew Goddard has the good sense to dodge the carbon-copy style of Reservoir Dogs mimics by shifting genre, taking some of what QT brought to war movies in Inglourious Basterds and Westerns in The Hateful Eight and applying it to a neo-noir mystery-thriller. He even preempts Tarantino’s own oeuvre by including a Charles Manson-esque cult leader, thereby prefiguring Manson’s role in QT’s own Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Read more here.


Sholay (1975)

There’s every chance you’ll’ve only heard of Sholay (if you’ve heard of it at all) as “one of those Indian films that’s on the IMDb Top 250 nowadays”. But in Indian culture it’s a much bigger deal, a huge and longstanding success; like Star Wars or something is to us, I guess, only without the reams of sequels and spinoffs and merchandise and theme parks. Instead, it’s enjoyed remarkable success of its own: it topped the Indian box office for 19 years, was the first film in India to celebrate a Silver Jubilee at over 100 cinemas, and eventually set a record of 60 Golden Jubilees across India. From a British perspective, in 2002 it topped the BFI’s “top ten Indian films of all time” poll, and in 2004 it was voted the “Greatest Indian Movie” in a Sky poll of 1 million British Indians. I first heard about it years ago in that context, and my desire to see it was only exacerbated when it made it onto IMDb’s list. All of which is why I chose it to be my second-ever #200.

Read more here.


Their Finest (2016)

much of Their Finest follows the expected shape of a story like this (the love triangle; the woman coming to be respected by her initially dubious colleagues; etc). Two things work to stop it feeling too staid: an engaging lead cast, and some weightier developments and subplots. The latter includes at least one wholly unexpected twist, which helps make this a more powerful film than the potentially-light “people go on a jolly to make a movie during the war” premise initially seems. There’s a somewhat classical balance of comedy and tragedy there, which is reminiscent of movies from the era the film’s set.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

Two last-minute arrivals led to this update being slightly later than normal: Avengers: Endgame on 3D Blu-ray (out on Monday, but it turned up early), and a Blu-ray box set of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films from Italy, which I've had my eye on for ages and finally dropped in price to a steal. Which means a lot of additions to the films total this week.

Number of titles in collection: 2,249 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,131 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,118 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 32 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 5,853 [up 10]
Number of films: 2,599 [up 15]
Number of TV episodes: 8,637 [no change]
Number of short films: 671 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Les diaboliques (1955)
[#122 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]
Blindspot 2019 #8

Films

Rififi (1955)
[#121 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]
Blindspot 2019 #7

TV

Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes
1x03 Under Fire [series finale]

Edinburgh Nights
2019 Episode 2 (of 3)
2019 Episode 3 (of 3)
[Watch episodes two and three (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes
1x01 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker
1x02 A Stripe for Frazer

Live at the Apollo
Pride Part 2 (of 2)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
[#120 in 100 Films in a Year 2019]