Category Archives: Editorials

2019: The Full List

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Here we are once again, dear readers: another year over, another long list of films.

The final tally of new feature films I saw in 2019 is 151. Throw in an alternate cut and my Rewatchathon, and the overall total is 181. That’s not a patch on the 311 I got to last year (it’s 42% less, in fact) but it’s not bad in itself. Indeed, getting to #151 makes 2019 my 5th highest year ever, and is higher than anything before 2015 — five years ago, I would’ve considered it a wonder.

More analysis along those lines when I get to my stats post. For now, here are some nice long lists…


  • As It Happened — 2019’s monthly updates, containing a chronological list.
  • The List — an alphabetical list of every new film I watched in 2019.
  • Television — an alphabetical list of every TV programme I reviewed in 2019.
  • Next Time — there’s more analysis of last year still to come…

Below is a graphical representation of my 2019 viewing, month by month. Each image links to the relevant monthly review, with a chronologically numbered list of everything I watched this year. There’s other exciting stuff in there too, like my monthly Arbie awards and what I watched in my Rewatchathon.

The main thing you can interpret from these is how much the number of films I was watching dropped and fluctuated in the second half of the year…












And now, the main event…


An alphabetical list of all the new-to-me films I watched in 2019, followed by the sundries I also watched (alternate cuts, shorts, etc). Where I’ve already reviewed a film, there’s a link. In the past, not-yet-reviewed titles linked to my “coming soon” page, but as there are so many of those now I decided they’d be better left link-less.

Alternate Cuts
The 100 Films Guide To…
Shorts
1941

BlacKkKlansman

Captain Marvel

Deadwood: The Movie

Dr Mabuse, der Spieler

Eyes Wide Shut

The Favourite

Godzilla

Green Book

Hereditary

Isle of Dogs

Jojo Rabbit

The Meg

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

The Red Shoes

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Sherlock, Jr.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

Waltz with Bashir

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo

Deadpool 2: Super Duper $@%!#& Cut

The Matrix Reloaded

Battle at Big Rock

La jetée

Pleased to Eat You!

.

This year I reviewed many and various television programmes across a dozen(ish) monthly columns. It would be pretty meaningless just to list those roundups, so instead here’s an alphabetical breakdown of what they covered, with appropriate links.


Always the highlight of the year: it’s the statistics.

My Most-Read Posts of 2019

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2019 may’ve given us the highest grossing film of all time, amongst numerous other big events, but TV reviews once again dominate my most-viewed posts of the year — in the rankings of new posts, there’s no film until 8th (if we widen that to include older posts, it’s all TV until 14th).

But this is still theoretically a film blog, so — as usual — I’ve compiled my five most-read TV posts (which, obviously, is the same as my outright five most-read posts) and then my five most-read film reviews.

My Top 5 Most-Viewed New TV Posts in 2019

5) The Past Month on TV #45
including Game of Thrones season 8 episodes 1-2, Thronecast specials and series 8 episodes 1-2, Deadwood season 3, and The Twilight Zone ‘best of’ selection 2.

4) The Past Month on TV #43
including The Punisher season 2, Russian Doll season 1, Hanna episode 1, Les Misérables episodes 4-6, the 91st Academy Awards, the British Academy Film Awards 2019, Great News season 2 episodes 8-13, and Mark Kermode’s Oscar Winners: A Secrets of Cinema Special.

3) The Past Christmas on TV 2018
including Doctor Who: Resolution, The ABC Murders, Watership Down, Not Going Out: Ding Dong Merrily on Live, Upstart Crow Christmas special, Click & Collect, Goodness Gracious Me: 20 Years Innit!, Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You, Insert Name Here, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Simon Callow’s A Christmas Carol, The Dead Room, Mark Kermode’s Christmas Cinema Secrets, and Les Misérables episode 1.

2) The Past Fortnight on TV #46
This attracted almost three times as many views as the post in 3rd (that graph in the header image is accurate — the top two were out well ahead of everything else). What attracted such attention? Nothing less than the final season of the biggest TV show of the decade: Game of Thrones. This post included Game of Thrones season 8 episodes 3-4, Ghosts series 1 episodes 1-3, Columbo: Murder by the Book, The Twilight Zone ‘best of’ selection 3, Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema: Disaster Movies, and Thronecast series 8 episodes 3-4.

1) The Past Fortnight on TV #47
My comments about IMDb voters of the Game of Thrones finale attracted some degree of ire, which helps lead this one to first place. In fact, it’s already my 4th most-viewed post of all time. It only included Game of Thrones season 8 episodes 5-6, The Twilight Zone ‘best of’ selection 4, Eurovision 2019, and Thronecast series 8 episodes 5-7.

My Top 5 Most-Viewed New Film Posts in 2019

5) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Jumping in here in the final days of the year, the much-anticipated conclusion of the 42-year nine-film Skywalker Saga. Shame it was such a load of rubbish.

4) The Highwaymen
Netflix films often do well in these rankings, especially if I review them promptly, and that applies to both this and the film in 3rd. There were also Netflix films in 6th, 8th, and 9th places, and a Sky Cinema debut in 7th.

3) The Silence
Mind, there are better Netflix films people could’ve chosen to read about than this.

2) Glass
That said, a promptly-reviewed big theatrical release can top even Netflix titles, as these next two show. Alternatively, they say something about the continued dominance of superhero movies.

1) Avengers: Endgame
Well, it is the biggest film of all time.

The Whimper-Not-a-Bang Monthly Review of December 2019

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Happy New Year, dear readers. In fact, Happy New Decade!

Well, kinda. Yeah, sure, technically it isn’t, but when people talk about “the 2010s” they’re going to mean “2010–2019” and when they talk about “the 2020s” they’re going to mean “2020–2029”, so…

Anyway, as usual I’m going to spend the first week (give or take) of this new year looking back at the old one. I already started that in my Christmas Day post — which contained the kind of thing I’d normally be writing about here, so now might be an appropriate time to read that if you haven’t already.

Otherwise, onwards to my final monthly review of the decade…


#147 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
#148 Eighth Grade (2018)
#149 Brightburn (2019)
#150 Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar (2019)
#151 Death on the Nile (1978)


  • So, I watched five new feature films in December.
  • The last of those came on New Year’s Eve, granting December a last-minute reprieve from being in my bottom 10% of months ever, and also from being one of my lowest months of 2019. Instead, that (dis)honour is shared by June and October.
  • 2019 was the first year since 2014 that any month tallied fewer than 10 films — and, with December now included among them, in total there were five such months.
  • That finalises the monthly average for 2019 as 12.58, which obviously December was well below.
  • It was also below the rolling average for the last 12 months (previously 13.3, now… 12.6, of course), and the average for December itself (previously 11.7, now 11.2).
  • There’ll be more on where this puts 2019 in relation to previous years in my annual statistics post, later in the week.
  • Nothing from Blindspot nor WDYMYHS again this month, meaning I got nowhere near completing either. Oh dear. But I did watch 17 films between the two this year, which is a better result than if I’d only been doing one of those challenges, so that’s good.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Brightburn and Eighth Grade.



The 55th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Well, this is easy-peasy. Of the five films I watched, four scored 3 stars. The other was Eighth Grade, which gets a full 5.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I watched some distinctly middle-of-the-road films this month, but plain old mediocrity is nothing in the face of the disappointment that was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
I only made four posts in December, and only one of those was an opening-weekend review of a highly-anticipated, much-talked-about final film in a 42-year-old ultra-popular franchise, so it should surprise no one that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the victor here.



I’d’ve had to rewatch 24 films in December to reach my goal of 50 for 2019. No surprise, that didn’t happen. But I did watch a few, at least.

#27 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Extended Edition (2001/2002)
#28 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Extended Edition (2002/2003)
#29 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Extended Edition (2003/2004)

That’s the first time I’ve watched The Lord of the Rings since I started doing Rewatchathons. They’re still great.

And so my 2019 Rewatchathon ends on #29 — far lower than intended, but it’s better than 0, and that’s really the point.


The streamers seem to have gone absolutely bloody mental with new additions this month — Netflix could boast 87 additions yesterday alone, while literally thousands of films poured onto Amazon’s Prime Video across the month… at least according to the site I use to track it. In reality, a lot of the stuff that picked up as ‘new’ was already available (for some reason it seems much harder to track what’s new on Amazon than Netflix). Whatever — I didn’t watch any of them, so everything worthy of note pops up down here in my failures.

But before I get onto rattling off those titles, some comparatively short lists. Like for the cinema, where I missed what’s supposed to be one of the best films of the year, and another that’s supposed to be one of the worst. Those are Little Women and Cats, respectively. One I’ll surely pounce on when it hits disc is sequel/threequel/fourquel (depending how you want to count it) Jumanji: The Next Level, which is hopefully a bit of fun (I’ve not really read any reviews of that one).

Speaking of discs, a mix of new purchases and Christmas presents bulked out my to-watch list this month. The single biggest addition was Criterion’s Godzilla box set, with its 15 giant monster movies. I also got my mitts on their release of the Koker trilogy. Further catalogue additions came via Master of Cinema’s release of A Fistful of Dynamite and Arrow’s of The Exorcist III, while newer titles included Anna and the Apocalypse, Happy Death Day 2U, and Men in Black: International (it was on offer). This month’s discs were rounded out by a trio of rewatchers: Toy Story 4 (in 3D!), Deadwood: The Movie (without the much-desired deleted scenes), and miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (in its controversial HD restoration).

So, we return to Netflix and Amazon. The former had a few high-profile originals this month: possible awards contenders Marriage Story and The Two Popes, plus Michael Bay’s latest, 6 Underground. Some other 2019 releases I’ve yet to see elsewise also cropped up, including the new Hellboy, Missing Link, Mrs. Lowry & Son, Fighting with My Family, A Private War, and Mid90s. Amazon didn’t have any brand-new titles to brag about, but they did have some similarly recent acquisitions, including Wild Rose, Fisherman’s Friends, and Horrible Histories: The Movie. As for older titles popping up… well, there were many, but select ones of note across both services included Roman J. Israel, Esq. (with its Oscar-nominated turn from Denzel Washington), The Rover, The Breadwinner (moving from Amazon to Netflix), the original Benji, Blackfish, Young Mr. Lincoln, and The Great Escape (that’s right, I’ve never seen The Great Escape).

I’m gonna need to start watching considerably more films again to even touch the sides of that lot.


After I’ve done my usual array of posts analysing 2019, it’ll be on to 2020 — my 14th year. And it’s entirely possible it’ll be the year I reach #2000…

A seasonal message from 100 Films

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It’s Christmas Day now here in the UK, so time for some seasonal good will and reflection.

You see, it’s been a funny old year here at 100 Films. On the one hand, the number of new films I’ve watched already puts it in my top five years ever (as I mentioned in November’s monthly review). And I’ve had easily my most number of visitors ever, with the number of hits already up over 24% from last year (the second highest).

But on the other, my sub-goals have faltered: my Rewatchathon only recently passed the halfway mark, and neither Blindspot nor WDYMYHS look likely to be completed (I expect both to fall around 25% short). My actual blogging has been much more sporadic too, with only 124 posts published so far this year (for comparison, every year from 2015 to 2018 ended up with over 200). And consequently my review backlog has reached insane proportions — that page now lists a whopping 178 films I’ve watched but not reviewed.

So, some rethinking might be needed going forward (e.g. am I really going to get round to writing reviews for 178 films, some of which I watched almost two years ago, especially when there are still new ones being added?) But the time for that reflection will come later… as will my usual reviews of the year, of course — starting a week from today (give or take), in fact.

For now, I’m here primarily to wish you a merry Christmas — and if it isn’t, I hope it’s at least peaceful and safe.

The Past Months on TV #52

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I didn’t post a TV column again last month, so this roundup is thoroughly overdue. So before the Christmas TV season gets properly underway (it kind of already has, but shh), here’s my final regular TV review for 2019. (I still intend to post my usual Christmas-TV-focused one at some point.)

His Dark Materials  Series 1 Episodes 1-3
His Dark Materials series 1If I’d posted this column on time, this series would’ve just been getting underway. As it is, the final episode airs tonight. And, obviously, I’m quite far behind. I do intend to catch up, but I’m not entirely sure what I make of it.

Philip Pullman’s novels are acclaimed and beloved, of course; there’s a starry and talented cast, naturally; the production values are sky high; there are plentiful interesting ideas and threads to be explored… but the execution is a tad confusing, offering little quarter to those of us who are pretty new to this world (I have seen the film, but that made significant changes) and need it explaining to them — well, aside from a text prologue that feels like it was a late addition when someone realised they hadn’t explained things particularly clearly for newcomers. Even if you get a handle on it all, though, it feels like there’s an indefinable spark missing that would really bring it all to life as an engrossing drama.

Or maybe I’m just expecting too much — this has been a long time coming, with an attendant amount of hype. Perhaps it’ll all cohere as it goes on. As I said, I do intend to stick with it to find out, but I don’t feel it hit the ground running in quite the way I’d hoped.

Watchmen  Season 1 Episodes 2-9
Cause for celebrationWhen I reviewed the premiere episode of this last time, I said “there’s a lot of promise and potential here.” Well, reader, I do believe the series lived up to that and then some — it just got better as it went along, with a lot of the very best stuff coming in the final third.

Last time I also wrote about how it was both a sequel and a so-called ‘remix’ of the original novel, and that only became more apparent as the season went on. For the former, there’s no denying this is a follow-up to the book — it explicitly references and builds out of events and characters from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s original work. But it also takes a lot of the iconography, themes, and storytelling devices from the book and rearranges them to help support its own narrative. That kinda makes it sound like just a remake, but that undervalues it — creator Damon Lindelof and his team of writers have brought a lot of other ideas to the table too, mixing those with what’s taken from the book to make a work that is new. So, whereas a traditional sequel would just be “the next adventure of the same characters”, maybe this is more of a companion piece. Whatever you want to call it, I think it’s a worthy addition. But it’s definitely an addition — I dread to think how this plays if you haven’t read the book.

And just like the book, there’s an awful lot more that could be written about what this series has to say and how it says it. I’ll leave that to others — there’s plenty of writing out there about it already. Some of that is a bit clickbaity (well, when isn’t stuff nowadays?), in particular with reference to the ending, which some sites have taken to calling a “cliffhanger”. It isn’t. Indeed, there may not even be a season two — not because HBO don’t want one, but because Lindelof doesn’t necessarily have a story to tell. It’s admirable that they’re not forcing it to happen just because season one has been a success (learning their lesson from True Detective, I suspect), but I also hope Lindelof does alight on an idea for more — if it can equal this, it would certainly be worth seeing.

Indeed, some commentators have been calling Watchmen a late entry for best TV series of the decade, or even one of the very best TV series of all time. Well, I don’t know about that, but it is very good — certainly better than it has any right to be, considering its provenance. That’s an achievement not to be undervalued.

World on Fire  Series 1 Episodes 3-7
World on FireThis is good enough that it probably would’ve been A Major Series if it had been made 15 to 20 years ago; heck, maybe even 10 years ago. Today… well, as my previous comment implies, it just doesn’t feel slick enough in the modern TV landscape. It has its plus points (the recreation of Dunkirk was suitably epic, at least compared to the low-key-ish earlier episodes, and Lesley Manville is always magnificent), and it’s done well enough to get recommissioned (thank goodness, because the finale left a tonne of stuff dangling as if it was a midseason episode), but I’ll be surprised if it ends up in the zeitgeist in the manner of, say, Downton Abbey. (Brief thoughts on episodes 1 and 2 last month.)

Shetland  Series 5
Shetland series 5This ITV-produced BBC-aired crime drama is so popular that they recently recommissioned it for both a sixth and seventh series. Originally it took the form of two-parters adapted from novels, but for the past few series they’ve done original season-long six-episode storylines. For this run, the gang find themselves up against human traffickers, using Shetland as a waypoint to get slaves into the UK. Overall it’s not as engrossing or remarkable a story as the ones told in the last two series, but it remains a more-than-solid cop show bolstered by a likeable regular cast. That double series recommission is welcome news.

Also watched…
  • Comedians Giving Lectures Series 1 — Dave’s latest comedy concept is to give comedians the titles of real scientific lectures and have them deliver their own version, judged by an actual expert and a studio audience. Some go for all-out laughs, some actually deliver surprisingly decent lectures with gags thrown in. As with all mixed-bill standup, the overall result is variable depending on the skill of the performers, but it’s a nice little format.
  • Death on the Tyne — Comedy murder mystery sequel to Murder on the Blackpool Express, which aired back in 2018 but I’ve only just got round to watching (because they’ve recently aired a third). My review of Blackpool Express sounds quite dismissive, but I did enjoy it overall. Sadly, this follow-up is quite a bit worse. I’ll still watch the third one, though it may yet take me another year to get round to it…
  • Doctor Who Series 12 Trailers — At the risk of getting ahead of ourselves, the new series of Who looks like an attempt to move away from the slower-paced, kinda-serious Series 11 and back into the action-packed monster-stuffed fun that made the show a hit on its return in 2005 (almost 15 years ago now! Jeez…) It begins with a Bond-parodying two-parter in the new year.
  • The Great Model Railway Challenge Series 2 — A fabulously nerdy show. As this is a film blog, I have to recommend the second semi-final (episode 7), in which the teams created magnificent layouts based on Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and James Bond.
  • There’s Something About Movies Series 1 — This Sky comedy panel show about (you guessed it) movies passed me by when it was on back in April, only coming to my attention by coincidence when the second series started. Unsurprisingly, it’s daft and aimed at general audiences — nothing special for avowed film buffs.
  • World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys Series 1 Episodes 3 — No offence to the featured people of New Zealand, who all seem thoroughly lovely and likeable, but this travel doc kind of plays like a Taika Waititi mockumentary.

    Things to Catch Up On
    Jack Ryan season 2This month, I have mostly been missing Jack Ryan season 2 — perhaps not the most high-profile show I could mention here (it’s on Amazon Prime, which never gets the same buzz as Netflix, however hard they try), but I enjoyed the first series a lot so I really do want to make time for this. Speaking of Netflix, they’ve just released The Witcher, which they clearly hope is going to do for fantasy what, er, Game of Thrones did for fantasy — i.e. be a much-talked-about series that brings big ratings. They’re pushing it hard, which for a company that claims to only use word of mouth and let the cream of their output rise naturally… well, it certainly suggests it cost a pretty penny. One show that has generated plenty of word-of-mouth self-promotion is The Mandalorian. Okay, it’s a Disney-produced Star Wars spinoff, it hardly needs the help, but you can’t’ve missed everyone going on about Baby Yoda. It’s not out on this side of the pond until Disney+ launches in the UK on March 31st, but where there’s a will there’s a way… And that’s without mentioning the BBC’s new War of the Worlds (which was poorly received but, as a sci-fi fan, I still feel compelled to watch); or thriller Giri/Haji (which was well-reviewed and sounds right up my street); or… oh, loads of stuff!

    Next month… Diddily-dum diddly-dum diddly-dum ooo-weee-ooo, it’s Doctor Who.

    • The Festive Monthly Review of November 2019

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    Regular readers will no doubt have cottoned on to the fact this year has been rather turbulent in my life away from the blogosphere — nothing terrible or tragic, thank goodness, but time- and attention-consuming nonetheless. Well, it’s hopefully the (beginning of the) end for that now, as November ends and December begins with me finally moving into a new permanent home.

    I know people have “moving day”, but geez, it’s a process, isn’t it? One I’m in the middle of — and has affected my blogging once again at the end of November, as I missed another TV review (which would’ve covered the likes of His Dark Materials, Watchmen, The Mandalorian (even though I’m in the UK), and the BBC’s long-awaited take on War of the Worlds), and didn’t post reviews of major new releases like The Irishman and The Report (both of which I’ve seen, neither of which I’ve had time to write about in full).

    My film viewing has suffered once again as well. I’m way behind on both Blindspot and WDYMYHS, not to mention various new releases — not only on the big screen but also stuff I missed earlier in the year that’s now on disc / streaming.

    On the bright side, earlier in November was the 2019 FilmBath Festival, and that’s almost single-handedly responsible for this being my highest-totalling month since the summer.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself slightly. Here are the films I watched last month…


    #135 The Report (2019)
    #136 The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)
    #137 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), aka Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
    #138 Little Monsters (2019)
    #139 Harriet (2019)
    #140 La Belle Époque (2019)
    #140a My Theatre (2019)
    #141 Filmfarsi (2019)
    #141a Terra (2019)
    #141b Spooning (2019)
    #142 And Then We Danced (2019)
    #142a Woman in Stall (2018)
    #143 Judy & Punch (2019)
    #144 Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019)
    #145 Jojo Rabbit (2019)
    #145a Hey You (2019)
    #145b Gladiators on Wheels (2019)
    #145c Tight Spot (2018)
    #145d When Voices Unite (2017)
    #145e Facing It (2018)
    #146 The Irishman (2019)


    • So, I watched 12 new feature films in November.
    • I also watched 9 short films, which is more than I’ve seen in entire years before now.
    • The latter were all thanks to FilmBath Festival, as were 92% of the features — as I said at the start, it almost single-handedly rescued this month from being another disappointment.
    • Talking of disappointment, I didn’t watch any of last month’s “failures” either.
    • Comparisons of averages are hardly “not disappointing”, but they’re also not a total disaster. 12 is above the November average (previously 10.3, now 10.4), though it is slightly below the average for 2019 to date, which even with all those ‘bad’ months was still 13.4. It’s now 13.3, and the rolling average of the last 12 months also comes down to the same (it was previously 14.4).
    • One final positive worth mentioning: I passed #137 this month, which puts 2019 into my top five highest-totalling years. So much for all those “terrible” months, eh? Getting any higher than 5th place is unlikely, because for that I’d have to watch 29 films in December… but I have watched more than that in a single month on a handful of previous occasions — so, literally speaking, it’s not impossible.



    The 54th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

    Favourite Film of the Month
    It’s a closely-fought field this month, with about four 5-star films and a couple of highly likeable 4-star-ers too. For the surprise factor — because I hoped I’d like it but ended up absolutely loving it — I’m going to give this to La Belle Époque, but I fully expect a certain other French film to end up above it in my end-of-year rankings.

    Least Favourite Film of the Month
    I hate to dunk on what’s probably the smallest, most obscure, least-likely-to-get-seen-anyway (feature) film I saw this month, but I’m afraid to say this has to be Filmfarsi. It’s not that I thought it was bad, just a bit rough around the edges, for various reasons. But if its subject sounds interesting to you, I’d still encourage you to see it if you can.

    Favourite Short Film of the Month
    Last month I watched so many short films that I gave them a category. This month I watched almost twice as many, so it’s back. There are several great ones among the nine I watched, but for being an incredibly impressive technical achievement — all in aid of conveying real emotions and experiences, not showing off for the sake of it — my pick is Facing It.

    Best Film Festival of the Month
    Okay, I only attended one film festival this month, and I may be a little biased, but FilmBath was a great experience — a nice atmosphere and I saw some fantastic films.

    The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
    Two posts were closely vying for this award in November, but in the end… it was a tie! I’m not sure I’ve ever had a tie in this category before. (There are 53 previous editions of these awards and I can’t be bothered to check them all right now, sorry.) So the joint winners were my coverage of FilmBath Festival’s opening night and my review of Judy & Punch. (If you really wanted to break the tie, the latter was online for 8 days vs the former’s 23, so therefore amassed a higher average of views per day.)



    We begin this month with a Rewatchathon first: a rewatched short.

    #24a Pleased to Eat You! (2019)
    #25 What We Did on Our Holiday (2014)
    #26 Easy Virtue (2008)

    I first saw Pleased to Eat You last month as part of the prep for FilmBath Festival, then saw it again before the screening of Little Monsters. It merits revisiting, though, because it’s such great fun.

    As for the two features rewatched, they’re both movies I feel have been somewhat undervalued. My original reviews of both are linked above, as always. Sometimes I re-read old reviews and am pleasantly surprised by the quality of my own writing (which sounds rather smug and self-gratifying, but I’m talking about very old reviews re-read with some distance, not going back over something I just wrote, which I think makes it different). Sometimes, however, I’m less impressed (which hopefully shows I’m not simply uncritical of my own work). Unfortunately, my review of Easy Virtue from 2011 is one of the underwhelming ones. I stand by its sentiment, but I don’t think I expressed that sentiment very well.

    My piece about What We Did on Our Holiday is better, though still not totally clear. I also think it’s a film that improves with rewatching — any faults fade into the background behind the bits that are hilarious, heartfelt, humanist, and sometimes quite beautiful.


    Unsurprisingly, there’s plenty to mention here — more than normal, in fact. I say that because there are usually three or four cinema releases I name, but November brought loads. From high-profile releases such as Frozen II, Knives Out, Last Christmas, and Le Mans ’66 (that’s Ford v Ferrari to some of you); to films that were surprises, either because they were hits, or flopped, or provoked controversy, or just seemed to come out of nowhere, like Midway, The Good Liar, Charlie’s Angels, and Blue Story (you can match up which of those is which); to smaller releases of note, like The Nightingale (the new one from Jennifer “The Babadook” Kent) and Greener Grass; to ones that probably fit into one or more of those other categories, though I’m not sure which, like The Aeronauts and 21 Bridges. Sure, some of those are films I never would’ve made the effort to see in the cinema anyway, but they’re all ones I’ll look out for in the future nonetheless.

    It was also an uncommonly productive month for Netflix — they release new series all the damn time nowadays, but it feels like their original films that are worthy of note congregate at the end of the year. As well as the obvious one (see #146) there was The King, Earthquake Bird, and Christmas movie Klaus (which I’ve saved for December, because duh). Talking of the incoming season, there were a bunch more tacky-looking Christmas originals, foremost among which is surely The Knight Before Christmas — a film where they definitely came up with the title first and worked backwards. It looks and sounds terrible, obviously, and yet there’s something about its reputed awfulness (and that marvellous pun) that’s tempting me to watch it… Back on the sensible end of the spectrum, festival winners like Atlantics and I Lost My Body also popped on in the last couple of days.

    Also added in the past month was Dragon Ball Super: Broly. That’s a franchise that’s never otherwise interested me, but I’m tempted to see what all the fuss was about for this particular entry: it was the highest-grossing anime film of 2018 and one of the highest of all time, including in the UK, where it became the second highest-grossing anime ever (behind only Spirited Away) and an advance screening sold out in just 23 seconds. Is its success thanks to a dedicated fanbase and limited number of screenings, or is it actually something special? There’s one way to find out… Lastly on Netflix, not a film but a series about films: The Movies That Made Us, a spin-off from their successful series about toys that, as far as I can tell, basically trades in ’80s nostalgia. Of course, the making of movies is a lot better documented than the making of toys, so whether it has anything new to say about the likes of Die Hard or Ghostbusters seems doubtful.

    Amazon didn’t have too many originals to offer — or perhaps any, besides one (see #135). But there were a few catalogue additions I want to see, like Magic Mike and Umberto D (not two films you’d normally see mentioned side-by-side…), and a few oddities that caught my eye, among them Tsui Hark’s directorial debut, Butterfly Murders, and Too Late, which is billed as “a sexy, smart noir detective thriller… told in non-linear fashion, in a series of five true long takes… with stunning 35mm cinematography.” They also say the latter is “a cinephile’s dream” and, yeah, it does sound a bit like that. They also have a bunch of reduced price rentals for Prime members, in which I recently hoovered up Missing Link, Booksmart, Brightburn, and Eighth Grade — now I’ve just got to make sure to make time for them before the rentals expire.

    Finally, there’s the new stuff I bought on disc, like Apollo 11 in 4K, and in 3D Spider-Man: Far from Home, Aladdin, and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (the latter two only thanks to sale prices). Then there were new catalogue releases, like Masters of Cinema editions of The African Queen and Der Golem, and Arrow’s release of RoboCop; a sale purchase of Candymen: Farewell to the Flesh (I enjoyed the first one a lot so figured this sequel was worth a punt); and the HD box set of Batman Beyond… which, for its UK release, replaced the Blu-ray disc of spin-off movie Return of the Joker with a censored DVD copy. WTF, Warner?

    And all that without even dipping into any Black Friday deals! Which, actually, are mostly still ongoing. Hmm…


    It’s been a very up and down kind of year here at 100 Films — will December end it on another higher, or in another dip? There’s only one place to find out: right here, in 31 days’ time.

    (Unless I also mention it on Twitter.)

    (Or Instagram.)

    (Or Letterboxd.)

    (So… yeah.)

    FilmBath Festival – Opening Night

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    I’ve never been to a film festival before. The expense and organisation of travel and accommodation, battles for tickets and/or never-ending queues for entry, racing to dozens of screenings a day… it’s just not my thing. (I don’t know if major festivals are really like that, it’s just an impression I’ve picked up from attendees on social media, etc.)

    But when there’s a film festival one stop on the train away from your house, well, you can’t say “no”, can you? (Doubly so when you work for said festival and get comp tickets…)

    FilmBath Festival isn’t among your Sundances or your Canneses or your Venices or your Londons. Nor is it one of those festival that just specialises in one thing, like documentaries or shorts. There are no red carpets or world premieres; no overtired critics trying to review 5,000 films every day or websites setting up media centres to churn out slightly stilted YouTube interviews with cast and crew desperate to promote their movie. Instead, it’s a local festival giving local people a chance to see previews ahead of general release; films that have already been released but didn’t make it to one of Bath’s cinemas; and smaller, interesting movies that might be difficult to see at all outside a festival.

    Yesterday’s opening night kicked off the festival with a double bill of the first of those, including an exciting late addition to the lineup — so late it didn’t even make the brochure. (Ooh, look at all the beautifully precise punctuation and spelling and whatnot in that brochure! What geniuses must have worked on such a thing!) I saw both films, and I’ll write full reviews nearer their wide releases, but for the time being…

    The Report at FilmBath Festival

    First up was The Report, an All the President’s Men-style thriller about the investigation into the CIA’s use of torture post-9/11. It’s written and directed by Scott Z. Burns, who’s probably best known for writing a handful of Steven Soderbergh movies, plus contributing to arguably the best Bourne movie and Daniel Craig’s final Bond film. At the centre of the story is Star Wars’s Adam Driver as Daniel J. Jones, the senate staffer tasked with combing through millions of pages of secret documents to find the truth. As if to highlight the significance of the story, there’s an all-star supporting cast, led by Annette Bening and Jon Hamm, plus Michael C. Hall, Maura Tierney, Tim Blake Nelson, Matthew Rhys, Corey Stoll, Ted Levine, Jennifer Morrison, and several other recognisable faces. It’s a methodical and gripping film, seemingly as dedicated to explaining the truth as is its protagonist. Imagine if we lived in a world where this was the R-rated war-related true story that became the year’s highest-grossing film at the US box office (as opposed to the one that was).

    The Personal History of David Copperfield at FilmBath Festival

    Next, that late addition: Armando Iannucci’s new adaptation of Charles Dickens’s The Personal History of David Copperfield. It’s got another all-star cast, headed by Dev Patel as the eponymous young man. Obviously such colourblind casting has provoked comment, and I guess some people won’t be able to get over that, but it doesn’t matter. Dickens’s novel is a thick tome, here condensed briskly into two hours, and there’s a lot more going on than the colour of people’s skin. Its whipcrack pace is both one of its greatest assets (it moves like the clappers) and its biggest drawbacks (it winds up feeling a bit too long). But it’s frequently riotously funny, and the namey cast are sublime, including (deep breath) Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi, Ben Whishaw, Gwendoline Christie, Anna Maxwell Martin, Benedict Wong, Paul Whitehouse, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Aneurin Barnard, plus many other faces you might recognise depending how much British TV you watch. Plus, its affection for the emotional power of the act of writing is sure to make it a favourite for many authors (and wannabes).

    Two completely different films, then, but both very much in my wheelhouse — as I said, I’ll review them later, but I enjoyed them both immensely. An exceptionally strong opening to a festival that promises many more delights (Jojo frickin’ Rabbit!) to come.

    FilmBath Festival continues until 17th November. For information about what’s screening and to buy tickets, look here. You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and/or Letterboxd for timely updates about what I’m seeing.

    The Fluctuant Monthly Review of October 2019

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    October was very nearly my weakest month in almost a decade (9½ years, to be precise), saved from that fate at literally the last minute, as the story of what may very well be 100 Films’ most fluctuant year continues…


    #130a Fifteen (2018), aka Quince
    #130b Cumulus (2018)
    #130c Pleased to Eat You! (2019)
    #130d Special Delivery (2018)
    #130e Allan + Waspy (2019)
    #131 Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans (2019)
    #132 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part Two (2012)
    #133 For Sama (2019)
    #134 The Fear of God: 25 Years of “The Exorcist” (1998)


    • So, I watched four new feature films in October.
    • It was very nearly just three, until I watched that Mark Kermode Exorcist documentary (which was freshly added to BBC iPlayer for Halloween) late last night. And whether or not that counts as a film is debatable. (The one on iPlayer is an extended cut that Kermode calls the “festival cut” because it was only shown at film festivals, which I think means it’s a film, so it counts.)
    • As I said at the start, you’d have to go back 9½ years, to April 2010, to find another month with so few films.
    • But for four you only have to go back to June this year. Nonetheless, that means October is tied as the lowest-totalling month of 2019 (for now…)
    • Unsurprisingly, it’s not even close to any of the usual array of averages I mention, and so it brings them all down — taking October’s average from 14.0 to 13.2; the average for 2019 to date from 14.4 to 13.4; and the rolling average of the last 12 months from 15.4 to 14.4.
    • The run of shorts I watched at the start of the month almost doubles that tally for the year. It was a FilmBath thing, which also means there’ll be more next month.
    • Neither a Blindspot nor a WDYMYHS film this month, which leaves me with quite a few to catch up (seven in total) with just two months of the year left.
    • From last month’s “failures” I watched only Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (see Rewatchathon).



    The 53rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

    Favourite Film of the Month
    A film that, frankly, I might’ve overlooked were it not for most of the rest of the FilmBath office talking about how great it was, Channel 4’s hard-hitting war documentary For Sama.

    Least Favourite Film of the Month
    This is an even easier choice: of course it’s Breaking Dawn: Part Two.

    Favourite Short Film of the Month
    Sorry to recommend this when I don’t think it’s freely available to see anywhere, but Pleased to Eat You! is bloody brilliant. Look out for it. (If you’re in the area, FilmBath are screening it before Little Monsters.)

    Most Disappointing Non-Appearance of the Month
    Not meaning to spoil anything (it’s kinda shown in the trailer anyway), but the storyline of Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans involves amassing different iterations of the Titans from across the multiverse… but that doesn’t include the cast of the live-action version, Titans. Okay, it might’ve been hard to integrate them with the animation, plus they’d’ve had to actually get the cast together, but it still seemed like a missed opportunity.

    The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
    Even though I’ve been posting a lot less recently, my number of monthly hits has stayed within the same range — but, over the past few months, the number of unique visitors has started dropping a lot. This month, it dropped to its lowest level since June 2017. Well, fair enough. But what I find weird is that the ups and downs of both views & visitors have always been in sync before, so I don’t know why they’ve started separating. Anyway, this is meant to be about this month’s posts. Despite going up just 38 hours before October ended, the winner is this month’s TV column.



    Things aren’t looking any rosier down here. I should be at #41 by now, but instead all I’ve got is this…

    #24 Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)

    My brief review (linked above) possibly doesn’t do justice to my feelings about this movie (i.e. I love it!) I mean, I didn’t even mention the guest voice cast, which has some superb cameos. Partly that’s to do with not ruining gags and surprises, I guess. Still, I feel I could’ve and should’ve done better on that one. I did include it on my best-of-year list, at least.


    No cinema trips this month, so I’ve missed a bunch of big releases, not least the super-discourse-provoking Joker; the third attempt at Terminator 3, Dark Fate; the inevitable flop Gemini Man (and it was showing in 3D HFR near me too, which I’m never likely to have a chance to see it in again); and the second Shaun the Sheep movie, Farmageddon.

    More big-screen misses resurfaced on disc this week, namely X-Men: Dark Phoenix (in 4K) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (in 3D). I also picked up a handful of Criterion titles in a Zoom sale (Do the Right Thing, The Magnificent Ambersons, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and Panique); a selection of Asian movies (re)released by Arrow (Oldboy, with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Lady Vengeance) and Eureka (King Hu’s The Fate of Lee Khan and three films with Sammo Hung (Eastern Condors, The Magnificent Butcher, and The Iron-Fisted Monk); I finally managed to get a great deal on the Spider-Man Legacy 4K set (containing Sam Raimi’s trilogy and Marc Webb’s duology); and I ended the month with Arrow’s new release of An American Werewolf in London, which made me glad I never got round to upgrading from DVD to the previous BD. (Whew! That’s quite a lot, really, isn’t it?)

    Finally, there were a few big name releases on streaming this month. Most discussed was probably Netflix’s Breaking Bad sequel, El Camino. Well, I’ve still not seen any of Breaking Bad, so it’ll be a long time before I watch that. Higher on my watch list are the new Steven Soderbergh, The Laundromat, and Eddie Murphy true-story comedy Dolemite is My Name, which looks like a lot of fun. There was also In the Tall Grass, which I’ve heard mixed things about. Amazon had no brand-new additions to equal that lineup, but I did spot a few archive adds of interest, including Robin Williams sci-fi thriller The Final Cut, arthouse classic La Dolce Vita, and Liam Neeson’s latest revenge thriller Cold Pursuit.


    FilmBath Festival should guarantee a tally over ten films, as the rollercoaster of my 2019 monthly totals continues.

    The Past Months on TV #51

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    When I mentioned in September’s monthly review that I hadn’t posted a TV column that month, I was intending to get one up within a few days. As it turned out, for various fundamentally unimportant reasons, it’s taken until now — so, really, this one covers two months.

    Much like my film viewing, my TV watching hasn’t been as prolific as normal, including some regulars falling by the wayside (no Twilight Zone again). But there are still a few things worth talking about.

    Stranger Things 3
    Stranger Things 3On what you might unkindly call a superficial level, the third season of Netflix’s signature series was thoroughly entertaining — it’s frequently funny and exciting, with cool moments aplenty (especially in the last couple of episodes), and many enjoyable callbacks to both ’80s pop culture and within the show itself. But dig any deeper and it begins to seem less surefooted, with what felt to me like muddled themes and character arcs, and a sense that the mythology was treading water. I don’t particularly object to the way any characters were treated, nor the destinations any of them reached (especially as a fourth season was inevitable, so wherever this run finished up was only ever temporary), but I didn’t feel like they were being guided anywhere with any real purpose. There’s something to be said for storylines like that, but when you’re trying to play some kind of redemption arc, or a coming-of-age tale about burgeoning independence (or whatever), I feel like you need to be a bit clearer-eyed. But hey, I still enjoyed it a lot — it’s a fun watch, and I imagine even more so if you have nostalgic memories of an ’80s childhood — I just think there’s still some room for finessing.

    Watchmen  Season 1 Episode 1
    WatchmenAlan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel Watchmen is a seminal work of the form — I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you about that at this point. Over the past decade it’s been adapted into a film, and both prequelised and sequelised (I think? I dunno, I stopped paying attention) in comic books, to varying degrees of success and controversy. So when HBO announced they were bringing it to TV, there was much trepidation. Early promises that it wasn’t a remake or prequel or sequel, but instead a ‘remix’, just added to the confusion.

    Now it’s finally here, it’s clear that such bold reports were perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Well, I say “clear” — I’ve only watched the first episode (two have aired, out of nine) so there’s plenty of room for things to change, but (so far at least) it seems to be definitively set in the world of the comic book (and not the movie, which made some significant modifications to the climax) and in 2019 (whereas the comic is set in the ’80s). So it is a sequel… but it’s not a direct sequel, because very few of the original characters have a part to play (yet, anyway). So it’s a new story set in the same world… albeit one where the events of the first story have had a massive impact, and some of the same thematic concerns are coming into play — not to mention a load of familiar iconography. Okay, maybe “remix” wasn’t a wholly terribly epithet after all.

    Anyway, it’s early days, but there’s a lot of promise and potential here. Reading the original before viewing may not be essential, but it’s going to help a lot (besides which, it’s a damn good book). And if you want to go even further down the rabbit hole, be sure to check out the tie-in Peteypedia website, which provides a lot of extra info to help bridge the gap between book and series.

    Catherine the Great
    Catherine the GreatHBO and Sky Atlantic have teamed up for this lavish four-parter about the life of the famous Russian ruler, conceived by and starring Helen Mirren. The big bucks those broadcasters are known for are all over the screen here — it looks suitable sumptuous, with grand locations that positively shine, especially in UHD. Unfortunately, nothing else about the production is up to scratch. The writing is thoroughly mediocre — it most reminded me of The Tudors, although that seemed to know it was a bit of trashy fun, whereas I think Catherine the Great wants to be taken very seriously. But the dialogue is uninspiring, the characters uninteresting and underdeveloped (we’re told the relationship between Catherine and Potemkin is some great love affair, but they strop around like moody, jealous teenagers), and the flat performances do nothing to elevate any of it — and despite her general acclaim, Mirren is probably the weakest of the lot. Pretty, then, but vacant.

    Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes
    Dad's Army: The Lost EpisodesThe BBC’s 1970s policy of junking programmes because they supposedly no longer had commercial value is a familiar topic for Doctor Who fans, who’ve spent decades hoping and hunting for copies of missing episodes. But it was an organisation-wide policy, so Who was far from the only show that suffered — Dad’s Army was another. It’s a perennially popular sitcom here (even today repeats land among the most-watched programmes of the week), so you can see why it made commercial sense to invest in recreations of the missing episodes — especially as there’s only three of them.

    The pre-broadcast press and ads emphasised heavily that these were intended as a tribute (presumably because that attempt at a feature film revival from a couple of years ago went down so badly). The sense of affection for the original seeps off the screen, from the faithfully recreated set to the performances, which ably tread the fine line between flat impersonation and respectful imitation. By that I mean the cast were clearly trying to play the roles as they were originally performed, but without getting stuck in a rut of mere emulation, instead injecting a reasonable amount of their own interpretation of the characters.

    So, taking the project as it was intended — as a loving salute to the original programme, which also plugs a gap in its record — The Lost Episodes should be classed as a success.

    Also watched…
  • The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco Season 1 Episodes 1-4 — ITV’s cancelled period crime drama is revived in this US sequel/spin-off, because it was relatively popular on the other side of the pond. Unfortunately, this iteration does look and feel like cheap US network filler. It’s gently watchable enough, if you don’t mind that sort of thing.
  • Japan with Sue Perkins — The former Bake Off host pops over to Japan for a two-part exploration of modern cultural quirks and fads. Open-minded and consequently insightful, I feel like it could’ve been a longer series to dig in even deeper. Maybe a more indicative title, too — by getting so specific, it was hardly the overview/travelogue of Japan that you might’ve expected.
  • Monty Python Night — BBC Two marked the 50th anniversary of arguably the most influential comedy troupe ever with an evening of archive-derived programming. So, that was two repeats — of documentary Almost the Truth: The BBC Lawyer’s Cut and the first-ever episode of Flying Circus — and one new programme that was compiled from archive interview clips, Python at 50: Silly Talks and Holy Grails. If you missed it… it’s no longer on iPlayer because I’ve been so tardy in posting this column. Sorry.
  • World on Fire Series 1 Episodes 1-2 — Now, here’s a good idea: a returning series that follows multiple loosely-connected characters in multiple different countries as they make their way through World War 2. I’m not convinced by the execution so far (it feels remarkably small-scale for a premise that’s all about scope, and visually it looks a bit too “TV” for a major prime-time series in the present climate), but, eh, we’ll see.

    Next month… the golden compass leads us to the northern lights as His Dark Materials is readapted for TV.

    • All quiet on the 100 Films front

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    If you thought last month was a slow’un for reviews, hoo boy, look how this one’s going!

    The main reason is I’ve been keeping myself busy working at FilmBath Festival, spending my days editing other people’s writing about films (amongst other things). One of the main tasks has been editing all the text for the brochure, which is officially out today — if you live in or around Bath, look out for a physical copy; everyone else, you can read it online here. (If you spot any mistakes, they were all deliberate. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

    The 2019 festival has a genuinely exciting lineup — a mix of previews for high-profile movies you’ve heard of and smaller gems that have primarily been on the festival circuit. (If you’re the kind of person who attends film festivals, especially big-name ones, there’s a fair chance there’s nothing new here. Some of the stuff on show has even been on general UK release, it just hasn’t played in Bath.) And there’s at least one advance preview of a film tipped to be an awards season frontrunner, so that’s particularly exciting. Even if on an initial flick through only a couple of movies jump out, I’ve found when you start to read about these films they almost all get really interesting. I figure most of my readership is outside the Bath area (heck, stats say most of my hits come from the US nowadays), but, nonetheless, I’ll also mention that tickets are on sale to the general public from today. (FYI, I don’t get anything for promoting this, I’m just mentioning it because it’s what I’ve been up to.)

    As for 100 Films, hopefully I’ll get back on its case soon. Though I’ve been meaning to post a review of Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans all week and haven’t got it together, so…