Category Archives: Editorials

Blindspot 2017

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In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Blindspot, it’s where you pick 12 films you’ve never seen but feel you should have and resolve to watch one per month over the course of the year. Some people review them every month too, but I’m far too disorganised in my posting schedule for such things (I still have pieces on four of my 2016 picks in draft stage).

It’s also what I used to call “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” (aka WDYMYHS), but in a foolhardy move to mark my 10th blogiversary (did I mention that yet?) I’ve decided to make these two goals. I mean, when you’re already trying to watch 100+ films in a year, why not specify what almost a quarter of them will be? Okay, I don’t have a 100% track record with even trying to watch 12 a year, but I have hit 91.7%, so…

In the past I’ve developed a complicated system using multiple “greatest films” lists to dictate what my picks should be, but I’ve used a variation on that for WDYMYHS this year, so instead I’ve just chosen these 12 myself. The criteria? I went through every unwatched DVD and Blu-ray I own and tried to pluck out films that it shocked me I haven’t seen — and I am me, so I dread to think what you all think (probably “why does he think we care about what films he has or hasn’t seen?”) I’ve tried to keep some variety in era, genre, country, etc, though there’s a slight bent towards sci-fi because, as an avowed SF fan, those gaps glowered at me the most.

Anyway, that’s enough ado. Here are the 12, in alphabetical order:


The 39 Steps


The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari


The Conversation


Dances with Wolves


District 9


The Exorcist


Forbidden Planet


Jackie Brown


A Matter of
Life and Death


Nashville


Planet of the Apes


Yojimbo

Now, on to my WDYMYHS picks…

The Best & Worst of 2016

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I watched so many films in 2016 that I’d forgotten I saw some of them so recently. Going back over the list, there were films I watched as late as March that I was amazed weren’t things I’d seen a couple of years ago. I don’t know what this signifies, really, other than that watching almost 200 films in a year has warped my perspective.

Anyway, it’s now time to consider the quality of that viewing: which films were the worst? Which the best? And what did I miss?

So without further ado…



The Five Worst Films I Saw For the First Time in 2016

This year I saw some films so bad that Home on the Range hasn’t made my bottom five! In alphabetical order, they were…

300: Rise of an Empire300: Rise of an Empire
300 was hardly the height of cinematic class, but this makes it look like an accomplished work of auteurism (though, considering how Zack Snyder has continued down a similar aesthetic path, perhaps it always was). It’s just poorly made, with flat performances, cheap direction, aimless violence, and CGI that wouldn’t look great in a computer game.

Cool WorldCool World
Maybe if director Ralph Bakshi had got his way Cool World would be a masterpiece. Maybe not, too. Torn between conflicting interests (it’s a kid-friendly movie with adult content) and with distractingly poor technical aspects (the animation and live action often seem mismatched), it’s an unappealing mess.

HomeHome
DreamWorks’ animated movies never quite achieve the crossover acclaim that greets almost anything Pixar spit out, which is sometimes a shame… and sometimes it really isn’t, like with this irritating movie about an irritating alien and his irritating human friend. Pixar have never made anything this annoying. Not even Cars.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp AgainThe Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
“Is this even worse [than The Rocky Horror Glee Show]? Well, that’s a bit like someone forcing you to eat a dog shit and a cat shit before asking you which tasted nicer.” Most accurate review I’ve ever written.


The Twilight Saga: New MoonThe Twilight Saga: New Moon
New Moon contains the single funniest scene in any movie I’ve seen this year. Unfortunately, New Moon is not a comedy (not deliberately, anyway) and that scene is not a comedy interlude (not deliberately, anyway). For all the Twilight saga’s other sins, I will forever love it for giving us Face Punch. (Oh, but the rest of the film is pretty terrible.)



The Twenty Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2016

Last year I commemorated the fact I’d doubled my titular target by also doubling the size of my top ten, joking about having never done a percentage increase before. But that got me thinking: what if I did? So from now on my “top 10” will be a “top 10%” — which this year means it’s a top 20 again.

My guiding principle when ranking this year’s picks became films that excited me — not in the adrenaline-pumping sense of having fantastic action sequences, but in the sense of films which left me feeling thrilled by their cinematic achievements. Not that I’m saying every film here is some wonder of Cinema, just that the notion guided some of my choices. It’s ended up with some very good, perhaps even better, films slipping down the chart. But never mind: as is usually the case with lists like this, it’s only a snapshot of my thinking right now.

Finally: as always, this list is created from the movies I watched for the first time this year, not just new releases. However, I did watch 38 films that had their UK release in 2016, and six of them are in my top twenty, so I’ve noted their ‘2016 rank’ too.

An intelligent, considered sci-fi movie that ponders artificial intelligence and its potential right to life, but also a gripping psychological thriller about three individuals locked in a bunker. And there’s Oscar Isaac’s dance scene too.

Sion Sono’s comic book epic mixes battle rap, comic grotesques, ultra violence, gratuitous nudity, more barmy notions than you can shake a stick at, and probably the kitchen sink too, into possibly the most batshit-crazy movie I’ve ever seen. Is it trash or art? It can be two things.

Wes Anderson described his typically-idiosyncratic young-love adventure as “an autobiography about something that didn’t happen”, which is possibly my favourite description of a film ever. A movie for the romantic adventurer in every childhood bookworm.

The best comedy or musical of 2015 is neither of those things, but it is one in a pleasing run of intelligent sci-fi movies Hollywood is offering these days. Trust Ridley Scott and Matt Damon to make a movie about using science to grow potatoes into a gripping adventure.

An underrated le Carré thriller starring Sean Connery as a book publisher coerced into helping MI6 and the CIA bring over a defector, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer as his Russian contact. Strong performances enliven a typically le Carré plot: grounded, plausible, unguessable, with a surprising conclusion.

2016 #6 A neo-noir crime thriller about racism featuring nudism and drug abuse… from Disney! It’s still a kid-friendly animated comedy, of course, but one that functions particularly well — arguably even better — for adult fans.

It looks like such a boilerplate indie movie that I kinda expected to hate this, but it caught me off guard with characters I related to and a story that I found affecting without being saccharine. Probably the most emotional a movie has made me feel this year.

Famed for Daniel Day-Lewis’ awards-scooping performance that is arguably one of the greatest of all time, there’s actually much more to Spielberg’s biopic. Playing like a gorgeously-shot period version of The West Wing, if you like men politicking in gaslit rooms, this is heaven.

Now we move into my Top Ten. Yeah, I know it’s #12, but I really thought these two would make it. I guess they’re kinda =10th, then; though that would be cheating… Anyway: I hadn’t even heard of this movie before this year, but the coincidence of a blog post and a Blu-ray release led me to purchase it and I was so glad I did. It’s Rear Windscreen meets Duel Down Under in a superb Ozploitation thriller.

2016 #5 Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling reveal rarely-seen comic talent as a pair of not-actually-that-nice guys who nonetheless have some morals in Shane Black’s spiritual sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This has just as convoluted a plot, and it matters just as little — its major asset is that it’s frequently hilarious.

2016 #4 Yes, really. And, just so we’re clear on what’s going on here, neither Civil War nor Doctor Strange are in my Top 9. Is BvS ‘better’ than anything Marvel Studios put out this year? Hm. But is it a more interesting movie? I thought so. Zack Snyder made a dark, morally ambiguous, imperfect movie that reflects the dark, morally ambiguous, imperfect days we live in. Perhaps it’s just too timely for its own good? People don’t seem to want a movie that questions our heroes and our relationship towards them in a world where real-life heroes feel in short supply. It’s clearly not the movie a lot of people think they need, but maybe it’s the one they deserve right now.

Of all the films on this list, Cold in July has arguably the most surprising plot: it takes sharp right-angle turns at several points, never breaking the style and genre it sets itself in, but instead shuttling the viewer off in entirely different directions than expected. By the time it reaches its action-packed climax, you have no idea quite what it’s going to do — and how better to end a neo-noir thriller than that?

2016 #3 This may be all the way down in 8th place, but in some respects it’s #1: I’m not sure I’ve had more pure fun watching a movie this year than I did during Deadpool (The Nice Guys would be closest). Okay, so it’s a little puerile really, but the humour comes thick and fast, and the regular fourth-wall breaking undercuts not just the film but the whole superhero genre. Having talked about the excitement of great Cinema at the start, this isn’t that, but it is a fantastically good time.

Steven Soderbergh transforms a pretty straightforward revenge story into an elliptical narrative that has you constantly questioning what you’re watching — is it flashback, flash-forward, a dream, a plan, a fantasy…? In the end it’s probably none of those things, but Soderbergh’s unusual editing techniques create an arthouse/mainstream mash-up that is a uniquely querying, mystifying, yet satisfying experience.

2016 #2 In an era when Hollywood considers “science-fiction” a byword for “action-adventure”, it’s all the more remarkable that an intelligent, adult drama like this was backed by a major studio. It’s partly a timely message about the need for mankind to understand each other across nations and work together, but it’s also a thoughtful meditation on the human condition — what it means to be human, what it costs us, and if it’s worth it. Director Denis Villeneuve paces events sublimely, imbuing the alien spacecraft with a wonder and fascination that you’d’ve thought lost in modern “anything is possible” cinema, but the film really belongs to Amy Adams and her layered, affectingly real performance.

Another thought-provoking science-fiction movie (for those not keeping count, it’s the fourth in this list), Predestination has been less heralded but deserves to be better known. Adapted from a short story by genre giant Robert A. Heinlein, it’s satisfying both as a tangled time travel mystery (with some great twists, whether you guess them or not) and as a consideration of human and historical issues about things like identity and feminism.

2016 #1 I’m as surprised as anyone by how much I liked The Revenant, having not been particularly enamoured of the previous Alejandro G. Iñárritu films I’d seen, but this gruelling survival-story Western oozes excellence from every frame. Leo’s pretty good, as are the rest of the cast, but Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is the highlight: appropriately crisp depictions of wintery nature, an incredible use of natural light, and single-shot sequences that blow Birdman out of the water. By telling the story primarily with these visuals, Iñárritu has created a work of true cinema.

Like Lincoln, this is a beautifully-shot biopic about people stood around in rooms talking. The big gun it has in its corner, however, is an actual West Wing writer — its creator, no less — Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin’s screenplay is a precisely constructed marvel, brought to the screen by a quality cast capable of wrapping their tongues around his magnificent dialogue, and in Danny Boyle a director with the right visual sensibilities to make the material sing. What could have just been an Apple fanboy’s wet dream is instead a gripping character drama with a surprising corporate thriller vibe at times.

An orange to The Raid’s apple, this sequel is bigger and grander in every conceivable aspect. A sprawling crime epic, spanning many years, many locations, and many characters, it’s the antithesis of the tightly-focused first film — but all the better for it. Even with the more intricate plot, there’s still plenty of time for elaborate action sequences, crafted with even greater skill and inventiveness than the first movie. It’s surely one of the greatest action movies ever made.

In a top twenty filled with crime thrillers (see: #15, #11, #9, #7, #2), gorgeously-shot movies (see: #13, #6, #4, #3), and remarkable female leads (see: #20, #15, #6, #5), it’s only fitting that a film which does all of these so skilfully should top my list. Emily Blunt is the powerhouse FBI agent who finds herself out of her depth in a complex cross-agency investigation that leads her, and us, to some dark and morally questionable places. It’s all incredibly shot by the reliably amazing Roger Deakins. Between this and his other entry in my top ten, I think Denis Villeneuve has marked himself out as one of the most exciting directors working right now.


I always want to include this section of my post, but sometimes I’m not quite sure what to put in it — if it was just some more ranked films, I’d’ve included them above. But this year I have something concrete to begin with, because there were several films that I surprised myself by not including in my top twenty. They were films that I really liked — and, perhaps even more so, lots of other people really liked and include in their lists — but which, for some reason, when I was sorting through my options, fell by the wayside in favour of… well, in favour of the films that did make it in. I’m talking about films like Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (maybe that’s not on many other lists, but I really enjoyed it), The Iron Giant… and, of course, Rogue One. My already mixed feelings about the latest Star Wars movie were massaged by happening to read Andrew Ellard’s Tweetnotes and Film Crit Hulk’s dissection of the film while preparing this list, and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything they have to say, between them they managed to clarify and illuminate some problems I already had with the movie, and that kinda put me off its inclusion.

A shout out, too, for those less-widely-loved films that I really, really liked but couldn’t quite justify being in this top twenty — films like Crimson Peak, Dragon (Wu Xia), The Good Dinosaur, Grand Piano, Lost River, Pan, and Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. And despite all those Shaw Brothers movies I watched, none ended up charting — but One-Armed Swordsman came close.

Finally, I can’t end this without mentioning the 26 films that earned 5-star ratings this year — especially as I haven’t actually published reviews for nine of them yet! So, 15 made it into the top twenty, but as they’re spread throughout the list I’ll name them again: Arrival, Cold in July, Deadpool, Ex Machina, The Limey, Lincoln, The Martian, The Nice Guys, Predestination, The Raid 2, The Revenant, Road Games, The Russia House, Sicario, and Steve Jobs. The other 11 were: 12 Years a Slave, Barry Lyndon, Hamlet, The Iron Giant, Macbeth, Napoleon, The Pianist, Spotlight, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Witness for the Prosecution, and Wuthering Heights. Additionally, short film The Present also got full marks.


During 2016 I watched 38 movies that were released in 2016, but of course that means there were plenty I missed. As usual, then, here’s an alphabetical list of 50 films that are listed as 2016 on IMDb (unless IMDb got it glaringly wrong) that I’ve not yet seen.

They’re chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — though I’ve decided to not include any more bloody Ice Age films on these lists, because they keep making them, they keep doing pretty well at the box office, and I keep not watching them.

The BFG
Ghostbusters
The Jungle Book
La La Land
Moonlight
Nocturnal Animals
Finding Dory
The Handmaiden
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
The Neon Demon
Silence
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Allied
Assassin’s Creed
Ben-Hur
The BFG
Blair Witch
Bridget Jones’s Baby
Don’t Breathe
Eddie the Eagle
Everybody Wants Some!!
Finding Dory
Ghostbusters
The Girl on the Train
Gods of Egypt
Hail, Caesar!
The Handmaiden
Hell or High Water
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
I, Daniel Blake
Independence Day: Resurgence
Inferno
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
La La Land
The Legend of Tarzan
Live by Night
London Has Fallen
The Magnificent Seven
Manchester by the Sea
Me Before You
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Moana
A Monster Calls
Moonlight
The Neon Demon
Nocturnal Animals
Now You See Me 2
Passengers
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Sausage Party
The Secret Life of Pets
Silence
Sing
Sing Street
Sully: Miracle on the Hudson
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Warcraft: The Beginning
Your Name

…and many more.


And that’s 2016 over… apart from the 36 reviews I still have to post, of course. I think that’s one of my worst ever. That’s what comes of not doing my advent calendar.

It’s also the end of 100 Films’ first decade, which I intend to make even more of a fuss about than I already have when the official birthday rolls around at the end of February. I’m thinking lists, and probably statistics. Any excuse for some statistics.

But, for now, all that remains is for me to thank you for reading and wish you all the best with your own film-watching endeavours. Let’s hope 2017 is a better one for us all.

2016: The Full List

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2016 is set to go down as a very bad year: everybody died, nasty people won things, and it felt like there was a lot of disappointment at the movies too. Will 2017 be better? Probably not. I mean, people will still die, and we’ve got the fall-out of last year’s votes to endure for the next goodness-knows-how-many years.

…I hadn’t intended to be so doom and gloom. Sorry.

In the world of 100 Films, it was my 10th year (did I mention that already?) Part of that was my celebratory 100 Favourites series, which I covered pretty thoroughly in its own conclusion so won’t get into again here. As for the main point of this site, I watched 195 new-to-me films — not as many as last year, but then I expressly didn’t want to go that crazy again. I was thinking a little less than almost-the-same-again, though!

Anyway, it’s time to wrap all that up. Today, the usual array of factual analysis of my viewing (lists! statistics! yay statistics!), then later in the week (whenever I’ve finished writing it) will be my top ten & all that.

But first of all: as this post is a long scroll past a lot of words and pictures if you don’t like reading a long list of films (I mean, you can read it all if you like — that’s why it’s here), some handy links so you can jump straight to the good bit.



Below is a graphical representation of my 2016 viewing, month by month. Each image links to the relevant monthly update, which contains the numbered list of everything I watched this year — plus other thrills, like my monthly Arbie awards.













Alternate Cuts
Shorts
10 Cloverfield Lane

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Barry Lyndon

Beverly Hills Cop II

Brooklyn

Captain America: Civil War

Dallas Buyers Club

Deep Blue Sea

Electric Boogaloo

Ex Machina

The Good Dinosaur

The Hateful Eight

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

The Last Temptation of Christ

The Magnificent Seven

The Man from UNCLE

Napoleon

Our Kind of Traitor

Pride

Return of the One-Armed Swordsman

Road Games

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Star Trek Beyond

The Survivalist

Ted 2

The Visit

White God

Independence Day

The Present

.

In the end, I watched 195 new feature films in 2016. (They’re all included in the following stats, even if there’s no review yet.) That’s not quite as high as last year’s 200, but is otherwise far ahead of every other year — it’s more than double my worst year.

I also watched three extended or altered cuts of films I’d seen before, one of which (Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition) was different enough to count on the main list. For the first time since 2010 I didn’t review any films & cuts I’d seen before — other than the 100 in my Favourites series, of course.

And if you did happen to be wondering what that might look like with my 100 Favourites included… well…

Finally, I watched seven short films this year — though four of those are counted in the main list as The Quay Brothers in 35mm. For the purposes of these statistics, that will be counted as one feature rather than four shorts. As usual, none of the other shorts are counted in the following statistics (except the one stat that mentions them).

The total running time of new features was 362 hours and 58 minutes, which — as will become a running theme if I keep mentioning it — is a little way behind 2015 but far ahead of every other year. Throw in those handful of alternate cuts and shorts and the total running time of all films was 367 hours and 57 minutes.

For the second year in a row my most prolific viewing format was streaming. In fact it saw an increase on last year, accounting for 113 films, 57.4% of my viewing. For most people the reason for that would be Netflix, but I only subscribe to that sometimes — there’s also Now TV, Amazon Prime, renting stuff, plus YouTube, Vimeo, and iPlayer too. Unfortunately I didn’t bother to keep a record of which service I used when and can’t be bothered to go back through 113 films and work it out, but maybe I’ll note it next year.

Second place once again belonged to Blu-ray, but with a reduced 41 films, which amounts to just 20.8%. Considering I keep buying the things (I know exactly how many I acquired in the last year and, compared to how many I watched, it’s embarrassing), I really ought to upend this equation. Maybe in 2017. (Yeah, right.)

It’s another repeat of last year in third place, where television accounts for 19 films, under 10% of my viewing. That’s also down from last year, continuing a slide that’s been going on for four years now. I keep recording stuff, but then they’re always there, just waiting, while stuff on streaming services has a habit of getting removed…

In a number that has held exactly the same, nine films were downloads, but this year that’s enough to boost it to fourth place. The number of DVDs I watched halved to just eight, a little over 4%. Considering I have literally hundreds of these unwatched, this is getting silly.

The final format was cinema, though the seven trips I made this year is my highest since 2008. I was going to go more over the summer but sometimes life gets in the way. Is there enough exciting stuff due in 2017 to boost this number next year? Time will tell.

As the final word on formats, I’ve once again tallied how many I watched in HD vs. SD. In the former camp we’ve got the vast majority of my streaming views (94.7% of them, to be precise), all the Blu-rays, most of the downloads, over half the TV viewings, and all the cinema visits. In ye olde standarde definitione there’s a handful of streaming and TV views, a single download, and those meagre DVD spins. The final tally says that 88.3% of my 2016 viewing was in glorious high definition. Hurrah!

It wasn’t just the technology that was modern: the most popular decade among my 2016 viewing was the 2010s with 121 films (61.4%). That’s marginally down from 2015, but it’s not like the gains were particularly felt elsewhere: distant second went to the 2000s with 18 (9.1%), exactly the same number of films as last year, while the ’90s came third with 15 (7.6%).

In fourth place was an uncommonly strong turnout for the ’70s with 14 films (7.1%), while the last decade in double figures was the ’80s with 12 (6.1%). As for the next few, they showed an element of name/tally synergy: the ’60s had six (3%), the ’50s had five (2.5%), and the ’40s had four (2%). Finishing it off, there was one each for the the ’20s and ’30s.

In another case of unsurprising business-as-usual, this year’s dominant language was English, featuring in 177 films. However, that works out as 89.8% of the films I watched — the first time that percentage has dipped below 90%. Nothing else comes even vaguely close, but nonetheless second place is a surprise: Russian, with 14 (7.1%). I watched two Russian films and one Russian co-production this year, so quite where the other 11 come from I don’t know. US/UK-produced spy movies, probably. Just behind that is Mandarin with 13 (6.6%), which is more explicable as I watched all those Shaw Brothers movies. Fifth place was split four ways, with eight films (4.1%) each for French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. In all, there were 24 languages this year (plus one “silent”), which is the exact same number as last year. More unusual ones included Ancient Egyptian, American Sign Language, Pawnee, and Xhosa.

It’s a similar story in countries of production: the USA remains dominate with 145 films, but the percentage — 73.6% — is marginally down from last year. In its usual second place, but also with its numbers slightly down, was the UK, with a hand in 47 films (23.9%). As always, these aren’t all films you’d identify as “American” or “British”, but most of the other countries I’ll mention are present thanks to co-productions as well, so it kinda balances out.

Among the rest, France was third with 18; joint fourth were Canada and Hong Kong on 12 each; and just behind them was Germany with 11. Counting down to round out the field were Australia (eight), China (seven), Japan (six), Ireland (five), Spain (four), and three each from Belgium, Italy, and Russia. A further five countries could claim two films, and 11 countries contributed to one apiece. Those with a definite claim to “country of origin” include Hungary, Indonesia, South Africa, and Taiwan.

A total of 157 directors plus 13 directing partnerships appear on 2016’s main list — and one film where I only credited an editor, too. Of those, 15 had multiple credits to their name. Easily the most prolific director on my blog this year was Steven Spielberg: his five main list films join his six entries in my 100 Favourites to almost triple the number of his films I’ve covered in this blog’s lifetime. Denis Villeneuve was second with four films, while Shaw Bros regular Chang Cheh had three plus a fourth with a co-director. There were three features from John Carpenter, Liu Chia-liang, and Zack Snyder (thanks to counting BvS twice), while Wes Anderson has two features plus one short. With two features there was Alexander Payne, Ben Wheatley, Bryan Singer, Guy Ritchie, Kenneth Branagh, Paul Feig, Ridley Scott, and the Spierig Brothers. Finally, David Ayer has one main list film and one alternate cut… of the same film. Unlike studio stablemate Snyder, he didn’t make enough changes to get on the main list twice.

Last year I specifically counted the number of female directors. The number wasn’t pretty… and this year it’s even worse: there were just two female directors in this year’s viewing, plus one who’s half of a partnership and another who’s a third of one. That’s 1.66%, which looks like this:

If that was a graph of the population, we’d be bloody extinct. I could blame myself, or I could blame the state of the industry. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

On a cheerier note, as of New Year’s Day 2017, 19 films from the main list appear on the IMDb Top 250 — more than last year, or the year before! Their positions ranges from 16th (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to 239th (Barry Lyndon). However, I still have 76 left to see, which is only seven less than last year. How’d that happen? I guess new stuff came on and barged out stuff I’d seen. Shame.

At the end of my annual “top ten” post I always include a list of 50 notable films I missed from that year’s releases, and continue to track my progress at watching those ‘misses’. In 2016, I’ve seen at least one more movie from every year’s list. To rattle through them (including in brackets the overall total I’ve now seen), this year I watched: one from 2007 (33); one from 2008 (20); three from 2009 (26); two from 2010 (27); five from 2011 (32); two from 2012 (30); two from 2013 (31); and 16 from 2014 (36).

Finally, in the first year of 2015’s 50, I watched 28 of them. That’s the best ‘first year’ ever, and the first time I’ve seen over 50% of the 50 in a first year. It’s also more in one year than I’ve managed in the six since 2010, seven since 2009, and eight since 2008. Tsk.

In total, I’ve now seen 263 out of 450 of those ‘missed’ movies. That’s 58.4% of them, a jump up from last year’s 50.75%, and even more from two years ago’s 43.7%. (As usual, this year’s new 50 will be listed in my next post.)

To finish off 2016’s statistics, then, it’s the climax of every review: the scores.

At the top end of the spectrum, this year I awarded 26 five-star ratings. That’s a lot less than last year’s 40 — indeed, it’s 13.2% of my viewing this year, while my all-time five-star percentage is 16.7%. On the bright side, I gave 101 four-star ratings, the most ever. Representing 51.27% of this year’s viewing, it’s well above the lifetime percentage of 45.99%.

A distant second were the 53 three-star films. That’s also their highest total ever, though at 26.9% it’s only just higher than the all-time figure of 26.18%. There were also 14 two-star films, which is pretty normal, and an above-average total of three one-star films — though, at 1.5% of my viewing, I’m not going to be losing any sleep over that.

Last but not least, the average score — the single figure that (arguably) asserts 2016’s quality compared to other years. The short version is 3.7, the same as last year (and 2007 and 2009 before that). Looking with greater precision, it’s actually a bit down: to three decimal places, 2016’s score is 3.675. That places it 4th all time (behind 2011, 2014, and 2015, and just a smidge ahead of 2009).

And that’s 2016’s statistics!

I know, it’s sad they’re over. It’s okay, you can read them again — I know I will.


Next time: the best (and worst) films I saw for the first time in 2016.

My Top 5 Most-Read New Posts in 2016

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…and why I think they made the cut.

5) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition
Reviews of alternate cuts always seem to do well for page hits, especially when they’re new releases.

4) The Last Dragonslayer
This had just been on TV, and in fact was repeated on the night I reviewed it; plus there were some retweets. Also, as a TV movie I’d guess it was less widely reviewed, so if you’re looking you’re more likely to find me.

3) Starman
Posted this when it was on Film4 and it got retweeted by their official Twitter account. Normally that’d be enough to get it #1, I think, but not this year.

2) The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
Again, it was on TV the night I reviewed it. And, again, a TV movie… though there were quite a lot of reviews when it aired in the US. Advantage of being in the UK, then, maybe.

1) The Witches of Eastwick
No idea.

The Decadal Monthly Update for December 2016

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Happy New Year, dear readers!

And with that, 100 Films’ 10th year is at an end.

Well, apart from the fact that I’ll spend the next few days going on about it, and the blog’s actual 10th birthday is in February, so I’ll go on about it some more then. But in terms of films that will be watched within that first decade, here are the last dozen…


#185a Come Together (2016)
#186 Wizardhood (2016)
#187 Rogue One (2016), aka Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
#188 Disney’s A Christmas Carol (2009)
#189 Partners in Crime… (2012), aka Associés contre le crime… “L’œuf d’Ambroise”
#190 Dragon (2011), aka Wu xia
#191 Our Kind of Traitor (2016)
#192 Mr. Nobody (2009)
#193 Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), aka Hauru no ugoku shiro
#194 The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (1962), aka Zoku Zatôichi monogatari
#195 The Last Dragonslayer (2016)
#195a Suicide Squad: Extended Cut (2016)
Rogue One

Dragon

.


  • My final total for 2016: 195 new films. Slightly less than last year; way above every other year. (More on this kind of thing in the next few days.)
  • I watched exactly ten new feature films this month, making it the 31st consecutive month to reach double figures.
  • This year’s WDYMYHS / Blindspot list is rounded out by Miyazaki fantasy Howl’s Moving Castle. I’ve not even started thinking about 2017’s list yet…
  • The Jim Carrey Christmas Carol was my only Christmassy film all season — and I thought it was crap. Poor Christmas. (I guess Scrooge and It’s a Wonderful Life are going to sit on my TiVo for the next 11 months…)
  • I finally watched the second Zatoichi movie, only 38 months after the first. Hopefully this will be the start of more regular viewing, because even if I watched the rest of them at a rate of one per month it would take until the start of 2019 to finish.
  • I ended the year with the extended cut of Suicide Squad. I watched the theatrical in November but didn’t get round to reviewing it, so I guess I’ll do them both at once now.



The 19th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It had its problems, and whether it’s better or less-good than The Force Awakens is still something that’s percolating in my mind, but the film I most enjoyed this month was definitely Rogue One.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
While the French take on Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence in Partners in Crime was certainly (shall we say) off-book, I didn’t think it was a crushing disaster like Disney’s A Christmas Carol. What most amazes me about that is the number of positive reviews online, especially those that praise the animation — I thought it looked cheap and terrible. Maybe it’s just aged badly.

Most Unrealistic CGI Human Beings of the Month
Say what you will about Tarkin, it’s bloody good CGI. On the other hand, thank goodness Robert Zemeckis has returned to live-action films — after The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol, I’ve had enough of his not-real-enough-to-be-in-the-uncanny-valley motion-captured ‘humans’.

Best Donnie Yen of the Month
Between being one with the Force in Rogue One and chopping off an arm to fight the original one-armed swordsman in Dragon, Donnie Yen is the best Donnie Yen in this and every other month.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
It looked like a certain Star Wars story was going to easily bag this award, until a pair of unexpected last-minute sweeps knocked it down to third. First its place was taken by a martial arts bear’s threequel, but that too was leapfrogged — within just a single day as well — by my review of Sky1’s The Last Dragonslayer.



The final selection from my favourites includes superheroes, comic book adaptations, and superhero comic book adaptations. Plus cartoons come to life and a moody literature adaptation.


Oh, forget January — I’ve got a bunch of 2016 stuff to post yet! There’s the full list of my 2016 viewing, my bottom five, my top ten (or so), the major new films I missed, the 36 reviews I haven’t gotten round to… and, of course, the highlight of the entire year: the statistics.

Good times.

The Last Dragonslayer (2016)

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2016 #195
Jamie Stone | 101 mins | download (HD) | 2.00:1 | UK / English

The Last DragonslayerI’m not sure whether to commend or condemn Sky1 for having the balls to schedule a light family-friendly fantasy drama against Doctor Who on Christmas Day — that seems like damning yourself to low ratings. But then Sky never exactly stands at the pinnacle of the charts, and, in the catch-up-driven landscape of modern TV, does it even matter? I mean, as if to show their disregard for schedules, the premiere broadcast was actually at 3am the night before.

Anyway: adapted from the novel by Jasper Fforde (the first in a series, as will eventually become clear), The Last Dragonslayer is the story of Jennifer Strange (Ellise Chappell), a teenage orphan living in the Ununited Kingdom (a name never uttered on screen, perhaps for fear of looking like political commentary in the current climate). This is an alternate-world Britain where magic exists but is on the wane — it’s powered by dragons, but they’re dying out; besides which, the public have become more enamoured with things like technology and supermarkets. Adopted by the kindly wizard Zambini (Andrew Buchan), Jennifer learns about the importance of magic, and the importance of dragons to magic, which is a bit of a problem when the country’s seers have a mass vision that the last dragon will be slain on Sunday, and shortly thereafter Jennifer discovers her long-prophesied role as the last official dragonslayer.

Jennifer StrangeAbout now you’re probably thinking The Last Dragonslayer is completely derivative of every other major young-adult fantasy franchise of the last… well, forever. It’s hard to deny that the plot is, at least in its broadest thematic strokes, a pretty familiar affair. What makes the enterprise worthwhile is its humorous execution. This isn’t a spoof of the genre, more a satirical mash-up of familiar fantasy building blocks and modern life. So, for example, the king’s chief knight is also a pop star, followed around by a gaggle of adoring female fans; when Jennifer finds herself in need of money, her dragonslaying assistant signs a sponsorship deal with soft drink brand Fizzipop that requires her to film an advert, make at least two promotional appearances, and wear a branded T-shirt until the dragon is slain. It’s this whimsical slant on our world that is arguably Dragonslayer’s most successful aspect.

Another would be its characters. Chappell makes Jennifer a capable hero without having to resort to the kind of self-serious moping that dogs so many current young adult leads (Katniss, I’m looking at you). Buchan also gets to move away from the moping that’s so often called for in series like Broadchurch, making the affectionate, skilful Zambini an easily likeable character within just a few deceptively simple scenes. Without meaning to spoil the plot, he’s not in it enough. The slack is taken up by the likes of Pauline Collins and Ricky Tomlinson as a pair of batty magicians, Matt “Toast” Berry as the immature monarch, and Anna Chancellor as the smarmy corporate head of supermarket giant Stuff Co. The only weak like for me was Richard E. Grant as the voice of Maltcaisson, the last dragon — it just didn’t feel like he had the vocal presence to be playing a huge majestic beast. But not everyone can be John Hurt or Benedict Cumberbatch, I suppose.

Dragon breathI guess The Last Dragonslayer’s irreverent, sometimes silly tone won’t be to all tastes, but I enjoyed it very much. Unsurprisingly (all things considered) the book is the first in a series, and so not everything is fully resolved by the film’s end. Let’s hope that, in spite of their scheduling, it’s done well enough for Sky that sequels are forthcoming.

4 out of 5

The Past Christmas on TV

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Christmastime: it’s all about family, food, presents, sweets, more food, alcohol, a bit more food, some kid who was born a while ago, and also food. But most of all, it’s about TV. Oh dear Lord, so much TV.

Is it just me and my insanely broad and forgiving interests, or has there been more TV to watch this Christmas than normal? Every day in our copy of the Radio Times’ “legendary” Christmas issue seems alight with highlighter markings, an endless parade of visual entertainment to… well, to add to the list of stuff to watch later on catch-up, mainly. But I did actually watch some of it, and here is what I thought.

Doctor Who The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor MysterioThe controversial Steven Moffat era of nuWho is headed towards its end, but before his final full series next year there’s this penultimate Christmas special. There have been 12 of them now and they’re always divisive: some people think they’re too Christmassy, some that they’re not Christmassy enough; some like that they’re standalone adventures suited to a broader audience, but other times they’re not standalone enough… Each year presents a different mix of these elements, pleasing some and alienating others.

This year, Doctor Who taps into the zeitgeist by finally tackling superheroes, with a riff off classic-styled Superman. Personally, I thought it was the best Christmas episode for years — a fun, exciting, witty, entertaining romp, that captured the tone of the superhero genre but gave it Doctor Who’s typical gently-irreverent spin. The tone was perfectly suited to Christmas day.

But was there too much or too little Christmas in it? Well, I’ve seen critics put it in their top five Who Christmasses purely because there wasn’t much Christmas, and Letterboxd fans write it off purely because there wasn’t enough Christmas. When you’re the showrunner of Doctor Who, you literally can’t win.

The Great Christmas Bake Off
The Great Christmas Bake Off“Proper Bake Off” came to an end with what felt a little like a joyous celebration of the series’ unique charms, as well as its highs and lows. Considering the two festive episodes were shot before the controversial move to Channel 4 took place, that’s almost impressive. It’s hard to imagine GBBO without the alchemical mix of Mel, Sue, Paul and Mary, and these episodes showed the format on fine form. And then the BBC went and snuck in that perfectly-edited 60-second tribute to the whole thing. Who knew a programme about baking cake could be so good? Or make some people so emotional…

Bob Monkhouse: The Last Stand
A few months before his death in 2003, Bob Monkhouse gave a one-off gig to an invited audience of fellow comedians which has apparently gone down in comedy legend. I’d never heard of it before, but there you go (I had the same thing with the joke in The Aristocrats and its alleged notoriety, so I won’t say I’m surprised). This was the first time that gig has been televised in a full form, and I confess I’d paid it no heed until it was trending on Twitter. Thanks for that recommendation, Twittersphere, because it’s a very good show: Bob tells jokes, tells stories, and interviews Mike Yarwood in front of an admiring audience who aren’t aware it’s probably his last gig — but, with that hindsight, the themes of sharing a lifetime of wisdom and finding contentment are obvious.

Grantchester
GrantchesterThe problem with Christmas specials of on-going shows is you’re sometimes left with on-going plots that must be acknowledged, and Grantchester has a particularly major one with its hero’s life-long love leaving her husband while pregnant. If you don’t watch, it’s set in the ’50s, so this kind of behaviour is the greatest scandal known to man. The special leaps into this without even the by-your-leave of a “previously on”, so I pity any non-regular viewers made to sit down in front of it on Christmas Eve. But it’s an immensely popular show with big ratings, apparently, so who can blame ITV for wanting it in their always-underpowered Christmas schedule? I imagine it fared better than Maigret did the next night…

Revolting Rhymes
Revolting RhymesThe team behind previous Christmas specials The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, and Stick Man returned this year with a two-part adaptation of Roald Dahl’s retold fairy tales. Dahl’s individual tales have been intelligently remixed into a pair of stories (one per part, of course), with a framing narrative that actually contains a neat cliffhanger twist at the end of part one. Maybe it just caught me unawares because I wasn’t expecting it, but I thought it was very effective. Anyway, Dahl’s witty rhyming couplets are retained, delivered by a well-chosen cast, not least Dominic West as a smooth, charming, suspicious Wolf. The claymation-ish visual style of the CG animation is familiar from the makers’ previous films, but as polished and well-applied as ever, with some beautiful details. It makes for a visual treat to equal the excellent words they have to work with.

The Witness for the Prosecution
The Witness for the ProsecutionI thought And Then There Were None was one of the highlights of last year’s Christmas schedule, turning Agatha Christie’s most popular novel into a dark, slasher-movie-esque thriller, the first English-language adaptation to remain faithful to the original’s glum ending. I don’t know if this year’s Christie is faithful to her original short story, but it isn’t to the play adaptation (at least as I know it from the excellent film version). It seems to have deliberately followed in And Then There Were None’s tonal footsteps, shooting for a bleak tale about the fundamental darkness of human nature. Instead it’s diluted the satisfying mystery and removed the tension, with a two-hour running time feeling ponderous and its cinematography trying for atmospheric but instead hitting murky. Some people don’t approve of Christie-esque narratives that make a guessing game out of murder, but if you want you can always write your own gloomily realistic meditation on the nature of evil rather than co-opting her work into a grim treatise.

Comedy round-up
WILTYThere’s always a lot of special episodes of comedy shows on over Christmas, with varying degrees of success. I thought this year’s Live at the Apollo was woeful, with Romesh Ranganathan the only truly bright spot in 45 minutes of flat observations and unfunny daftness. Conversely, Would I Lie To You? proved to be as good value as it always is, thanks to the quick wit of the regulars plus Tom Courtenay’s affected (I presume) dodderiness. Mock the Week’s clip show format was perhaps improved by the fact I didn’t watch the most recent series, while the imperfect Insert Name Here makes a nonetheless welcome return. In the comedy gameshow sub-genre, Alan Carr’s 12 Stars of Christmas was the kind of trash I’d never watch at any other time of year yet stuck with for all five hours and kind of enjoyed (helped by watching on catch-up and fast-forwarding the really repetitious bits), while the David Walliams-fronted Blankety Blank revival provided as much charm as the format ever has. And normally it wouldn’t count as comedy, but this year’s run of Celebrity Mastermind began with CBBC puppet Hacker T. Dog as a contestant. At least he didn’t win.

Also watched… (stuff that wasn’t Christmassy)
  • Castle Season 7 Episodes 22-23 — the last episode feels very much like someone thought they might get cancelled. After the quality of this season, I don’t blame them.
  • Class Series 1 Episode 8 — it’s been an uneven series, but the tease for season two’s big plot is very intriguing. Fingers crossed for a recommission.
  • The Grand Tour Season 1 Episode 3 — in which they actually do a version of the Grand Tour.

    Things to Catch Up On
    OutnumberedMy list of Christmas TV to get round to remains pretty extensive. There are all those regular series that insert a seasonal episode — The Grand Tour (that’d be the episode with Richard Hammond’s ice cream comments that you might’ve heard about), Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs, Yonderland (not that I’ve watched any of the latest series), QI, Inside No.9 (which I’ve never watched before, but the special sounds good)… And there are series coming back for one-offs too, like Outnumbered and Jonathan Creek (which I loved during its original run but have been surprisingly lax about watching in the last few years). I’ve also not yet caught a couple of this year’s animated adaptations, Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and Raymond Briggs’ Ethel & Ernest (which I figure will count as a film). Documentaries like Lego’s Big Christmas and West Side Stories also sit on my list, likely to get forgotten. There’s Sky1’s big Christmas Day drama, The Last Dragonslayer (which I wager I’ll also count as a film); Eric Idle’s comedy musical science thing, The Entire Universe; and Charlie Brooker’s 2016 Wipe, which apparently manages to make 2016 funny (I’ll believe it when I see it). Finally, I always save Channel 4’s The Big Fat Quiz of the Year for either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, because that just seems more appropriate.

    Whew!

    (And to think: this doesn’t even mention all the big specials for things I don’t watch.)

    Still To Come
    Sherlock series 4Things are beginning to wind down now… but as far as TV schedulers are concerned “Christmas” lasts until at least January 1st, so there are a couple of big hitters left. The biggest of all is a new, potentially final, run of Sherlock. No idea what the quality will be like, but expect lots of handwringing on social media and huge ratings either way. On New Year’s Eve there’s stage adaptation Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which I’ve heard such good stuff about it’s probably going to be a disappointment, and a Winnie-the-Pooh documentary that I’m going to watch even though it’s presented by Alan Titchmarsh. Next week (which you could argue is still part of Christmas if you have very forgiving holiday leave) sees lots of police shows kicking off, if that’s your thing: Death in Paradise, Endeavour, Midsomer Murders, No Offence, Silent Witness, Unforgotten… even Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And in the sphere of movies on TV, tonight you can choose between the network premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldier on BBC One at 8:30pm and the subscription premiere of Captain America: Civil War on Sky Cinema at 8pm, an almost-double-bill (I mean, you can’t watch them both live) that I only note because of the “huh, well there you go” factor.

    Next month… Sherlock returns.

    • 100 Films’ 100 Favourites: The Conclusion

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    About four years ago, I had a crazy notion: that for my 10th blogging anniversary (still several years away at that point) I could do a year-long series of posts discussing my 100 favourite movies — an idea in keeping with my blog’s theme and also a grand way to celebrate it lasting a whole decade. After several years spent mulling over options, about 18 months of writing, and literally hundreds of hours dedicated to the project, it’s finally at an end.

    The full list can be found on its dedicated page here. In this post, I’m going to list the second half of my also-rans (the first half can be found here) and do what I always enjoy doing at the end of everything: share some statistics!

    During my selection process for this project, my almost-final long-list stalled at a little over 150 films. Due to posting my final selection in alphabetical order, I was able to list 21 of those almost-made-its at the halfway point. Here are the remaining 34:

    Little Shop of Horrors
    The Living Daylights
    The Mark of Zorro (1940)
    Match Point
    Memento
    Men in Black
    Mission: Impossible
    Mission: Impossible III
    Monsoon Wedding
    Monty Python’s Life of Brian
    The Mummy (1999)
    Munich
    Natural Born Killers
    The Nightmare Before Christmas
    Philadelphia
    Pitch Black
    The Princess Bride
    The Proposition
    Psycho (1960, obv.)
    Ronin
    School of Rock
    The Silence of the Lambs
    Singin’ in the Rain
    Sleepy Hollow
    Spellbound (2002)
    Spider-Man
    Stagecoach (1939)
    The Terminator
    Terminator 2: Judgment Day
    The Truman Show
    Underworld (2003)
    Unforgiven (1992)
    Where the Truth Lies
    You Only Live Twice
    .

    With the list now complete, what can I observe about my favourite movies?

    Well, for starters, the total running time of all 100 films (counted from either their best version or the version that counts for this list) was a smidgen over 209½ hours. That means my average favourite movie runs 126 minutes.

    99 of them include English as a major language. In fact, the only foreign language film on the list (unless you want to argue that For a Few Dollars More or Once Upon a Time in the West are originally in Italian) is Ghost in the Shell… which I’ve only ever watched in its English dub. Oh well.

    26 other languages are represented one way or another, with the most prolific being German (12 times) and French (nine times), I guess in war movies and the like. Other regulars include Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, while the wide variety of one-offs include Latin, Nepali, Urdu, and Klingon (and that not from a Star Trek film).

    A high proportion of English films naturally suggests many of them come from the US, and indeed 91 are wholly or partly US productions. Second place, unsurprisingly, goes to the UK, with a hand in 21 of my picks. Another popular co-production partner of US blockbusters is Germany, leading them to third with 12 films. A further 15 countries put in an appearance, from the likes of France (five), Canada (four), New Zealand (the Lord of the Rings trilogy), to one-timers from the likes of Australia, Hong Kong, Denmark, and Mexico.

    In terms of temporal location, my favouritism towards recent films is abundantly clear: the top decade is the 2000s, despite only seven of its years being eligible for inclusion, providing 41 of my choices. And second is the ’90s, with 34, leading to a full three-quarters of my favourites being from the last quarter-century (and from just 17 years of that time, in fact). The ’80s accounted for 12, before there were five apiece from the ’70s and ’60s, two from the ’40s, and one from the ’30s. Nothing from the ’50s, nor the ’20s or earlier. In terms of specific years, 2003 was most represented with nine, and was also the year when I first saw the greatest number of my favourites, with 14. Every year since 1988 was represented; and since the birth of the blockbuster in 1975 the only missing years are ’76, ’78, and ’87.

    Despite something of a focus on movies I first saw in childhood (thanks to the nominal cut-off being when I was 20), the most prolific BBFC and MPAA ratings are 15 (38%) and R (41%). Every certificate was represented, even one NC-17.

    Across the 100 films, there were 74 directors (or directing partnerships). The most prolific, I think unsurprisingly, was Steven Spielberg, with six films. In second was, of all people, Robert Zemeckis, thanks to Back to the Future being a trilogy (plus Roger Rabbit). Other multi-timers include Martin Campbell, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, and Ridley Scott, all with three; and Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Greengrass, John Lasseter, Sergio Leone, Baz Luhrmann, Tony Scott, M. Night Shyamalan, Bryan Singer, Quentin Tarantino, and John Woo, each with two.

    In front of the camera, the most prolific leading actor was Harrison Ford, mainly thanks to a pile of Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. Second place is shared between Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies, and Hugo Weaving — three of them boosted by Lord of the Rings being a trilogy, so perhaps the crown more properly belongs to Mr Hanks. I don’t feel I can accurately do a full run-down of actors because I didn’t go through the full cast for every film. I mean, for one example, Gabriele Ferzetti is in both On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Once Upon a Time in the West but I didn’t mention him in my abridged cast list for either. Who knows how many stars and supporting actors have slipped through the cracks in this manner?

    Easier to quantify is the top genre. That’d be Action, with 44 films, closely followed by Adventure, with 37. There were also 32 Thrillers, 28 Dramas, and 27 Sci-fi films. Next after that were Comedies on 26, which surprised me a little because, as a rule, I don’t think I like comedy movies all that much. The only other genre with over 20 was Fantasy, while the likes of Anime, Biopic, Film Noir, and Horror had just one representative each.

    I classed 45 of the films as adaptations, which possibly says something about how much movies rely on other media. And speaking of originality, 20 of them are sequels. Similarly, there were nine superhero movies (not counting the likes of Blade or Flash Gordon) and four true stories. There were five James Bond movies (I limited myself!) and three animations each from both Disney and Pixar. There were also three remakes, all of them re-adaptations.

    Obviously I love all of these movies, but what do other people think? Well, 34 of them have Oscars, sharing 103 gongs between them, and a further 19 were at least nominated for one. The average Rotten Tomatoes score is a lofty 91% — the highest being shared by Mary Poppins, Toy Story, and Toy Story 2, all of which can boast 100% tallies; the lowest, somewhat unexpectedly, is Man on Fire, with just 39%. Over at IMDb, the average rating is a much lowlier 7.9, spreading from The Shawshank Redemption’s high of 9.3 to the 5.3 shared by Daredevil and Josie and the Pussycats. At the time of posting, 38 of my choices appeared on the IMDb Top 250.

    And that’s just about it! I feel like I need a rest…

    …though, it’s a bit unfair that I didn’t bother to pick any favourites from my last 10 years of viewing… and it is almost my blog’s anniversary, too…

    Hmm…

    Young Adam (2003)

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    100 Films’ 100 Favourites #100

    Everyone has a past.
    Everyone has a secret.

    Country: UK & France
    Language: English
    Runtime: 98 minutes
    BBFC: 18
    MPAA: NC-17 (uncut) | R (cut)

    Original Release: 4th September 2003 (Netherlands)
    UK Release: 26th September 2003
    First Seen: DVD, c.2005

    Stars
    Ewan McGregor (Shallow Grave, Big Fish)
    Tilda Swinton (Orlando, We Need to Talk About Kevin)
    Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, Tyrannosaur)
    Emily Mortimer (Lovely & Amazing, Match Point)

    Director
    David Mackenzie (Starred Up, Hell or High Water)

    Screenwriter
    David Mackenzie (The Last Great Wilderness, Hallam Foe)

    Based on
    Young Adam, a novel by Alexander Trocchi.

    The Story
    Joe is earning his keep helping transport coal on a barge between Glasgow and Edinburgh, spending his free time lusting after his employer’s wife, when he spots a woman’s dead body floating in the canal — something Joe knows more about than he lets on…

    Our Hero
    Joe is a young drifter, who’s wound up working on a barge with Les and Ella Gault and their son. He’s a horny bugger, sex obsessed to the point of distraction, which will have an effect on everyone’s lives.

    Our Villain
    It wouldn’t be quite accurate to say the film is a murder mystery — especially as it’s not clear if the woman was indeed murdered. But how did she die? How was Joe involved? He’s the main character, which makes him the hero, but is he actually a bad’un?

    Best Supporting Character
    Harried barge wife Ella is not anyone’s typical image of desirability, but nonetheless becomes the object of Joe’s own brand of affections, which brings her some happiness… for a while. Mainly, it’s a brilliant, layered performance by Tilda Swinton.

    Memorable Quote
    Joe: “Are you sorry?”
    Ella: “Fat lot of good that would do me.”

    Memorable Scene
    Cathie, another of Joe’s lovers, comes home soaking wet. As she undresses, she berates him for doing nothing useful with his time. He informs he has made custard, which he throws over her, followed by various other condiments. Then there is, shall we say, an act with (at best) debatable consent. I believe this is a version of something called “sploshing” (thanks, internet).

    Memorable Music
    David Byrne’s ambient score haunts the soundtrack, as essential to the film’s grey mood as the drizzly Scottish locations and overcast photography. My favourite part is the plaintive closing song, The Great Western Road.

    Awards
    4 BAFTA Scotland Awards (Film, Actor in a Scottish Film (Ewan McGregor), Actress in a Scottish Film (Tilda Swinton), Director)
    4 British Independent Film Award nominations (British Independent Film, Actor (Ewan McGregor), Actress (Tilda Swinton), Director)
    3 Empire Awards nominations (British Film, British Actor (Ewan McGregor), British Actress (Emily Mortimer))

    What the Critics Said
    “Joe is a hard case. Opaque. Not tender, not good with the small talk. Around women, he has a certain intensity that informs them he plans to have sex with them, and it is up to them to agree or go away. He is not a rapist, but he has only one purpose in his mind, and some women find that intensity of focus to be exciting. It’s as if, at the same time, he cares nothing for them and can think only of them. […] He is not a murderer but a man unwilling to intervene, a man so detached, so cold, so willing to sacrifice others to his own convenience, that perhaps in his mind it occurs that he would feel better about the young woman’s death if he had actually, actively, killed her. Then at least he would know what he had done and would not find such emptiness when he looks inside himself. This is an almost Dostoyevskian study of a man brooding upon evil until it paralyzes him. […] The death of the girl and the plot surrounding it are handled not as a crime or a mystery but as an event that jars characters out of their fixed orbits. When you have a policy of behavior, a pose toward the world, that has hardened like concrete into who you are, it takes more than guilt to break you loose.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    Score: 62%

    What the Public Say
    “McGregor, putting his meat and two veg on show once again, is really good as the conflicted and sex addict, Swinton does almost steal the show as the sex-craving barge woman, who also gets naked, and Mortimer in the flashbacks is very good, with her clothes off too. The film is just stuffed with sexual scenes, and with the dead body premise it combines film noir and melodrama, all adding up to a well crafted and most watchable period drama.” — Jackson Booth-Millard @ IMDb

    Verdict

    Part murder mystery, part beat character study, part erotic drama, Young Adam is an enigmatic, moody, conflicted film — in a good way. It presents a grimily realistic view of life and sex, around which writhes a murder mystery that, as it turns out, doesn’t contain a murder and, relatively quickly, isn’t much of a mystery. Instead it’s something of an ethical dilemma, presented to a character who’s not exactly unethical but isn’t necessarily concerned about doing what’s right either, especially if it’s against his own interests. Not a cheery one, then, but a film of grey morals, grey imagery, and grey mood — in a good way.

    Next time… looking back over my 100 favourites.

    Back from the U.S. of A.

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    I have returned, dear readers! (If you’re thinking “returned from where?”, the last section of this post may be enlightening.)

    I left dear old Blighty behind to travel halfway around the world to visit…

    London

    London

    But it’s not like the real London, oh no! Partly because its sense of our capital’s geography is entirely fictional, partly because that frontage hides…

    Diagon Alley

    Diagon Alley

    Also because apparently Scotland is both covered with snow and warm enough for shorts…

    Hogsmeade

    Hogsmeade

    If you’ve enjoyed these few holiday snaps, that’s fantastic, because I’ll be sharing 372 more in a series of posts beginning next week!

    (Not really.)

    Anyway, I’m relatively freshly back, so have a whole pile of comments and posts to catch up on, not to mention actually writing some of my own backlog of reviews. And getting on with wrapping up 100 Favourites — indeed, #100 is tomorrow.