Saturday, 19 September 2020

TV

Insert Name Here
4x06 Liz
4x07 Jules

The Rookie
2x18 Under the Gun

Strike
3x01 Lethal White Part 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Waking Ned (1998)
[#211 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Collection Count

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

Two new additions this week, one a box set, so plenty of bits & bobs to add.

Number of titles in collection: 2,444 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,355 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 72 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,285 [up 7]
Number of films: 2,764 [up 5]
Number of additional cuts: 186 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 8,964 [up 6]
Number of short films: 764 [up 2]

It's also meant to be the running time update this week, but I've been too busy to get that ready to go, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll get it sorted in time for next week, but it may even have to get pushed to the week after.

Either way, see you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 18 September 2020

TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2019/2020 Episode 6 (of 10)

Friday Night Dinner
6x05 The Cage
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Jonathan Creek
5x00b The Judas Tree [Easter special; 2nd watch]
When I first watched this in 2010, I commented it wasn't "vintage Creek". It's far-fetched even by the series' own standards, and whether it all really hangs together is certainly debatable.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Thursday, 17 September 2020

TV

The Twilight Zone
5x13 Ring-a-Ding Girl
5x30 Stopover in a Quiet Town
And that completes my "best of" selection! From now on they're just "episodes" (until I do another "worst of", anyway).

Music

Under Stars by Amy Macdonald

Wednesday, 16 September 2020

TV

The Twilight Zone
4x13 The New Exhibit
+ audio commentary by TZ expert Marc Scott Zicree and Bill Warren, author of a book about classic sci-fi films.

I'm almost at the end of my "best of" picks here, which represent the top 33% of the series (according to the average of various ranking lists), and this is the second and last episode included from season 4. It really is a widely disliked season. On the commentary, even the usually praise-full Zicree is mostly quite critical of this episode!

Films

Blind Fury (1989)
[#210 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Tuesday, 15 September 2020

TV

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

The Twilight Zone
1x02 One for the Angels
2x05 The Howling Man
2x23 A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
3x19 The Hunt
Starting on my 10th (and final) "best of" selection.
+ the commentary on The Hunt by the episode's writer, Earl Hamner, and TZ expert Marc Scott Zicree

Monday, 14 September 2020

Sunday, 13 September 2020

Films

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
[#207 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

For the Love of Spock (2016)
[#208 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Music

A Curious Thing by Amy Macdonald

Life in a Beautiful Light by Amy Macdonald

I can't post listen counts for these older Amy MacDonald albums, because for some reason iTunes has lost that information; but it has been over seven years since I listened to any of them. They all feel very familiar, though, because they were listened to a lot and they're good. (Next up: the one I only just bought.)

this week on 100 Films

8 new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Before Midnight (2013)
The first two films are marked by an unreserved romanticism. Midnight is notably different, abandoning that lovey-dovey-ness and replacing it with a powerful examination of the tension in a long-term relationship. In some respects, it’s all the better for it. That’s in no way a criticism of the previous films, but it’s realistic that, as time goes on, people change. They can’t be young-spirited and full of the joys of first love forever.
Read more here.


Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)
the crazy story of how a director of surrealist Mexican art-films came this close to making an epic space opera out of one of the most acclaimed science-fiction novels ever written, but, in his failure, accidentally helped give birth to Star Wars (sort of), Alien (indirectly), and possibly the entire history of screen science-fiction that did actually get made in the ensuing 40 years. Sounds like a bit of a stretch? Um, well, yeah… but that doesn’t stop some of this documentary’s contributors from asserting it, and they do kind of have evidence.
Read more here.


Le Mans ’66 (2019) (2019)
It might look like a film for car nuts, and I’m sure they’ll get a lot out of it... but the rest of us are by no means left out, thanks to involving characters and exciting race scenes, even if some plot beats border on clichéd. Le Mans ’66 may not reinvent the wheel, but it works hard at refining it.
Read more here.


Love on a Leash (2011)
how do you rate a film like this? As an exercise in moviemaking, it’s a 1. The storyline is borderline nonsensical; it’s shot like an amateur using a camcorder for the first time; the sound mix is so unfinished I’m not sure it was ever started… And yet it’s constantly enjoyable, partly through a “so bad it’s good” hilarity (see the aforementioned terrible filmmaking), but also for the barminess with which it conducts itself, the relentless forward momentum of the storyline leading us in unpredictable narrative directions.
Read more here.


Memories of Murder (2003)
Loosely based on the true story of Korea’s first serial murders, and taking a procedural approach to the crime thriller genre, Memories of Murder invites comparison to David Fincher’s Zodiac for its methodical, realistic narrative style and plot that follows obsessed investigators chasing unsolved murders in the past. Zodiac is one of my favourite films, so it’s a tall order to be pitched against it. Fortunately, Memories of Murder is strong enough to withstand the comparison.
Read more here.


The 100-Week Roundup XI
Featuring...
- Compulsion
- Courage Under Fire
- Heathers
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday, 12 September 2020

Films

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
[#205 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]

Vice (2018)
[#206 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
With this, I've finally seen every Oscar Best Picture nominee from the last five years. Next stop: the last ten years (got ten more films to see before I've managed that, though).

Collection Count

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

Just two new additions this week, one a BD-to-4K upgrade, so it looks like just one. There's a few things currently in the post though, which should arrive just in time for next week's monthly running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 2,442 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,089 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,353 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 72 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 6,278 [up 2]
Number of films: 2,759 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 185 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 8,958 [no change]
Number of short films: 762 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 11 September 2020

TV

Cobra Kai
1x10 Mercy [season finale]
This show is so good, fyi.
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6 The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
Another of the top-ranked Holmes stories. Not my favourite, but it has its clever points.

Thursday, 10 September 2020

TV

Cobra Kai
1x08 Molting
1x09 Different but Same
[Watch seasons 1&2 (again) on Netflix.]

Films

All About Eve (1950)
[#204 in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
As part of Blindspot 2020, a leftover from WDYMYHS 2019.

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Music

This Is the Life by Amy Macdonald

Amy Macdonald has a new album on the way; and, like the Killers recently, this made me realise I'd never bought her last one, and hadn't listened to any of it for years. So, similar to the Killers, here I go again, relistening to the back catalogue before getting to the unheard ones.