TV

Celebrity Mastermind
2020/2021 Episode 6 (of 14)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Damages
1x01 Get Me a Lawyer [3rd watch]
Starting Damages again from the beginning, because it's about a decade since I watched season 3 (the last season to air on regular UK TV, as far as I'm aware) and I'd like to see seasons 4 and 5. I'd forgotten I already watched season 1 twice until after finishing this episode, but that's ok because it's really good.

Leverage
1x04 The Miracle Job
1x05 The Bank Shot Job

WandaVision
Part 9 The Series Finale [finale]

Films

Con Air (1997)
[#58 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001)
[#57 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home (2018)
This ad for Australian tourism, released back in 2018, initially got people excited because it looked like it was a trailer for a surprise fourth Crocodile Dundee movie. Eventually, the truth was revealed (I think during the Superbowl?) Anyway, they never released a 'complete' version — it only exists as a collection of four or five teasers/trailers/adverts, which you can find on YouTube edited together by just being stuck one after another. They tend to be called "extended version"s, but really it's just playing all the clips back to back. If they'd properly cut all the variants together into one complete version, I'd probably count it and review it as a short on 100 Films; but they didn't, so I'm just mentioning it here (and on Letterboxd).

TV

For All Mankind
1x02 He Built the Saturn V
1x03 Nixon's Women

Films

Dead Man's Eyes (1944)
[#56 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]
The third Inner Sanctum Mystery.

Films

David Byrne's American Utopia (2020)
[#55 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Films

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)
[#54 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]
+ the audio commentary on Arrow's Blu-ray, which was very academically-minded but not without interest

TV

The Twilight Zone
3x35 I Sing the Body Electric
+ commentary by Twilight Zone expert Marc Scott Zicree

Films

Frankenstein (1931)
[#53 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]
Blindspot 2021 #2
+ commentary by film historian Sir Christopher Frayling

this week on 100 Films

Time flies: this week, it was already time for a new monthly TV column at 100 Films in a Year...





Plus 2 new film reviews...


Creed II (2018)

The film’s title is, obviously, meant to be read “Creed 2” because it’s a follow-up to “Creed 1”, but if you chose to read it as “Creed the 2nd” it wouldn’t be inappropriate to the movie’s themes. This is a movie all about parents and children, what they owe to each other, and how they live up to that — or fail to. It’s a meaty subject to chew on, and [the film] examines it from almost every conceivable angle.

Read more here.


Zatoichi in Desperation (1972)

The 24th and penultimate film in the original Zatoichi series is also the first to be directed by star Shintarô Katsu. Despite such fundamental creative control by the man who arguably knew the character best, it's widely regarded as one of the series’ worst instalments, and yet you’ll find some people full of praise for it. It’s one of the series’ darkest entries, and I suspect it’s unpopular overall because it’s so grim; but for those who do like it, they love it.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Dial M for Middlesbrough
Sequel to Murder on the Blackpool Express and Death on the Tyne. I thought it was the best one yet.

Films

Radioactive (2019)
[#52 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)
[#51 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Collection Count

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

It was supposed to be a new running time update this week, but it's been a busy month and a bunch of titles arrived just this morning, so I haven't found time to add it all up. That's bumped to next week, then. In the meantime, this week's pile of new arrivals: one recent release, and four sale pickups.
Number of titles in collection: 2,549 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,081 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,468 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 96 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,532 [up 6]
Number of films: 2,956 [up 6]
Number of additional cuts: 209 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,048 [no change]
Number of short films: 843 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

WandaVision
Part 8 Previously On

Films

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
[#50 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

TV

Would I Lie To You?
14x05 Episode 5
14x06 Episode 6
[Watch these episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

For All Mankind
1x01 Red Moon

The Twilight Zone
3x27 Person or Persons Unknown

TV

The Twilight Zone
1x10 Judgment Night
2x11 The Night of the Meek
+ commentary on The Night of the Meek by Twilight Zone expert Marc Scott Zicree and comic book author Len Wein.

These episodes see me pass the halfway mark of watching the whole series: I've now seen 79 episodes, and I've got 77 to go...

Films

Vampyr (1932)
[#49 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Xchange (2001)
[#48 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

Articles

What Peter Jackson’s original two-movie Lord of the Rings almost looked like
by Drew McWeeny (from Polygon)
I don't share any articles for ages and then two really good ones come along almost at once...

Films

Apollo 13 (1995)
[3rd or so watch]
Rewatchathon 2021 #6. Plus a few bits from the audio commentaries by Jim & Marilyn Lovell and director Ron Howard, which were quite interesting.