April 2012

Posted on April 30, 2012 by badblokebob

33.3% through 2012…

41% through 100 films

Another month over with not many reviews posted. That backlog is getting quite ridiculous now. No significant strategy for getting caught up with it, I’m afraid to say, other than that I do aim to tackle it. Plus the leftovers from last year! Some may need a re-watch; alternatively, I may attempt another Ip Man-style summary.

Viewing progresses well though. Not as many new titles as previous months — down to seven features versus 10, 13 and 11 from previous months — but as #41 is the target for the end of May, I’m happy.

April’s films

#35 Repo Chick (2009)
#36 Chatroom (2010)
#37 Thor (2011)
#37a Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant (2011)
#38 Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
#38a Marvel One-Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer (2011)
#39 Drive Angry (2011)
#40 Special (2006)
#41 Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Catching up on 2011

Recent weeks seem to have seen a fresh inundation of 2011 releases hitting home entertainment formats — The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol are all among my purchases this month, with The Artist, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, War Horse and more imminent. That’s not to mention stuff released earlier that I’ve still not got round to, like Cowboys & Aliens, Green Lantern, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (not that I’ve deigned to buy all of those). As the 2012 blockbuster season officially kicks off (I think we can call The Avengers‘ already-happened international debut & forthcoming US release that), it’s about time I performed my usual trick of catching up on last year’s big hitters.

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

Goodness knows. But some of the above, I should imagine. And I haven’t even mentioned all the exciting catalogue releases that have been happening recently!

March 2012

Posted on April 1, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 is one-third done already. Honestly, where does the time go?

March madness?

March hasn’t gone quite as well as previous months, with 11 films watched. Nonetheless, 11 isn’t bad at all — the average needed to reach 100 by the end of December is just eight, and I ‘only’ watched 10 in January, and with a boost of 13 from February I’m still well ahead of target (which, for the end of March, is 24).

Things feel worse than they are because I haven’t really been writing or posting reviews. Just five all month, in fact, which has left me with a quite extraordinary backlog of 36. And to think, the reason I started that “coming soon” page was because I’d reached a ludicrously high number of unposted reviews, and that number was 10. Shame on me, etc.

March’s films

#24 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
#25 The Lady Eve (1941)
#26 The Other Guys (2010)
#27 Stepping Out (1991)
#28 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
#29 The Court Jester (1956)
#30 Serpico (1973)
#31 The Last Airbender (2010)
#32 Rules of Engagement (2000)
#33 Megamind (2010)
#34 Despicable Me (2010)

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

Every last one of those is courtesy of Sky Movies, the lingering after-effect of the Oscars. That’s gone now though (I think), so it’s time to start work on my DVD/BD pile and LOVEFiLM’s whims. I should start (as mentioned last month(!)) with those Marvel films I’ve not watched. Other than that, I make no promises. And it would be foolish of me to even promise them, based on my track record.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 6

Posted on March 3, 2012 by badblokebob

As a final salvo in my fifth birthday celebration (yes, normal service resumes next week), here’s something I was kindly awarded by Colin of Riding the High Country… back in December. Couldn’t find quite the right outlet for it. Or, to be more honest, couldn’t think of the answer to one of the questions. You’ll spot my solution.

But now is most appropriate, because what better time for such a self-reflective award than when I’m already looking back at five years of my own blog? Hurrah! Thank you, Colin.

1) Tell everyone something that no one else knows about.

100 Films is certainly my most successful blog, in terms of both longevity and readership, but over the years I’ve set up loads of others for various reasons. To give you some idea of how good I am at sticking at them, there are nine blogs currently associated with my Blogger account and here’s how long each lasted, arranged from shortest to longest:

0 posts
1 post
1 post
1 post
29 posts
40 posts
91 posts
3,749 posts

OK, one other I stuck at.

2) Link to one of my posts that I personally think best fits the following categories:

Most Beautiful Piece
I suppose there’s an element of interpretation involved when applying this category to a film review blog. I toyed with a few where I got clever with the pictures (try the filenames on that last one), but decided that was too literal and I should look at the writing. So I say Is Anybody There?, because I think I did a decent job of tapping in to and explaining the film’s own beauty.

Most Helpful Piece
I don’t know if I’m ever particularly helpful, but my review of Inception is ludicrously long and detailed and was described as “great” — that must have something useful in it, right?

Most Popular Piece
I looked to my hit stats for this, but the top few are bolstered by regular spam hits (based on where my spam comments go) so I thought I best discount them. Instead I’m going to say my reviews of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight: The IMAX Experience, a connected pair that sat pretty atop my list of most-viewed posts until the spam started flooding in. (Neither are in the top 10 any more, but, as I said, I don’t trust that.)

Most Controversial Piece
I wouldn’t say I’m all that controversial… though I did put the widely reviled Alien Resurrection in a top ten, so… But it’s not my love for that I’ve chosen, but instead Sucker Punch. It was slagged off by everyone, but I was impressed enough to defend it for over 1,900 words.

Most Surprisingly Successful Piece
Looking back, this one surprises me even now: Wallander: The Revenge, the theatrically-released second season premiere of the Krister Henriksson Wallander series. It got three comments — that’s a lot for me anyway, especially on something like that — and is the second most-viewed post. But that might be spam.

Most Underrated Piece
All of them! No, I jest. There are a few lengthy in-depth ones I could choose, but maybe I’d go with Trainspotting — I was very pleased with the concept behind that one.

Most Pride-worthy Piece
I could say the fact that I’ve written lengthy reviews of all seven Saw films, but that would be seven posts not one. Looking back, I surprised myself with how many of my reviews I’m actually quite proud of, so I’m going to really cheat and say two, for different reasons: Ministry of Fear, because I liked the idea of how much I go on about the cake and I think I nailed it (unlike some of my other attempts at humour), and Watchmen, because it’s rare one gets to write a well-informed review on a blog all about first viewings, and I think that (and its companion Director’s Cut review) are exactly that.

I feel like I should now go on to highlight seven that fail in these regards (especially as I’ve basically cheated and linked to 23 posts across those seven categories), and I’m sure I could, but maybe that wouldn’t be in the spirit.

3) Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.

This is where I once again realise I don’t read enough blogs. It rather defeats the object to leave this one out (it’s called a “link” award, after all), but I fear I shall have to return to it at a later date. But I will — I’m making a list, and checking it twice.

(That I’m actually Santa would’ve been good for that first fact, eh.)

That’s it!

Time to stop patting myself on the back and get back to regular business. And so, I shall.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 5

Posted on March 2, 2012 by badblokebob

100 Films in a Year is five years old this week, and to mark the occasion I’m having five days of top fives from the past five years. On Monday I bemoaned the five worst films I’ve seen as part of this project, on Tuesday I slammed the five most overrated, on Wednesday I lamented the five most underrated, and yesterday I selected the five best.

For today’s final list, then, I’ve chosen…

My 5 Favourite Films

Dark City
A strong contender for “most underrated” — despite being championed by the likes of Roger Ebert, Dark City still seems to have slipped largely under the radar. It’s a dystopian sci-fi tale that thematically prefigures The Matrix trilogy, without getting as bogged down in its own self-importance as those sequels did.

The Dark Knight
I haven’t seen this since the cinema, so maybe there’s a degree of nostalgia in my love for it. Or maybe it’s just a great action-thriller that happens to star a man who dresses as a bat (not that Batman actually looks like a bat). At the time I asserted it was one of the greatest films ever made, and IMDb’s Top 250 continues to bear that out: it’s currently 8th.

Kick-Ass
Controversy dogged Kick-Ass‘ release, both for its foul-mouthed murderous pre-teen and geek hype not translating to box office dollars. Those who dismiss it underrate it (some high-profile critics were shockingly blind to its intentions) and only a US-centric view holds it a flop: it did OK Stateside, well worldwide, and was a huge hit on DVD & Blu-ray.

Sherlock Holmes
After placing this 8th on my 2010 favourites (behind six not included here) and seeing it again, I’ve realised I love it. Funny, exciting, with some of the best-directed examples of how it would feel to be Holmes. Plus it’s got a proper mystery with a proper solution. It may not be a traditional take on the character, but it’s surprisingly faithful and bloody good fun.

Zodiac: Director’s Cut
I love David Fincher’s work, and this was a toss up with The Social Network, but I think I prefer his methodical examination of the real-life hunt for a serial killer and how it affected the lives of the people hunting. With some top-flight performances and virtuoso directing, this might actually be Fincher’s best film. And that’s saying something.

Honourable Mention: Léon (Version Intégrale)
Léon is one of my favourite films. I’ve loved it since a friend lent me the VHS at some point in secondary school. And that’s why, though the extended Version Intégrale was different enough to merit inclusion on the main list (it’s some 23 minutes (21%) longer), I would feel uncomfortable including it in a list culled from new films I’ve seen in the past five years. But it’s still one of my all-time favourites.

P.S.

I note that all but one of these (plus Léon) were new releases during 100 Films‘ existence. Is it a good or a bad thing that my tastes skew modern? I do like older films — I’ve given plenty five stars and regularly enjoy watching them, as I’m sure you’ve noticed — but I don’t tend to place many on my lists of favourites. I wonder why?

And so that’s that…

Five years, 545 new films (not to mention 28 new shorts and 25 other features I decided to review), and just 25 that stuck in the memory. And if you disagreed with any of my choices, particularly if you felt there was something else I’d reviewed that I should have included, then know that I had much longer shortlists for every category. I could do these lists over and quite easily choose another 25; and probably even over again after that; and for some of them, over a few times more beyond that.

But that’s the joy of films, and why we keep searching out new ones rather than only re-watching a few on loop, and why that’s the driving force behind my entire blog — because there’s so much good stuff out there.

Long may it continue.

Tomorrow…

OK, I’m not quite done. One final anniversary-y post tomorrow, then I’ll leave it be. It’s not some stats, but something else I thought appropriate.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 4

Posted on March 1, 2012 by badblokebob

Choosing films for all of these lists has been tough, but I think today’s was hardest of all. I could easily list another five or ten or twenty films here (Let the Right One In came closest, for some reason; I could also have had The Greatest Film of All Time, which was one of the reasons I left it out — you don’t need me to recommend it (not that some of these need that either)), but these are what I’ve settled on as…

The 5 Best Films

Anatomy of a Murder
I’m not one of the hardcore devotees of the crime genre (the many millions who buy the endless stream of crime paperbacks or watch all the TV cop shows), but I love a great thriller, and this is certainly one. Expertly judged by director Otto Preminger, with a barnstorming performance by Jimmy Stewart, this is a procedural tour de force.

Brief Encounter
Truly a film of another era; one where a romantic affair consists of cups of tea, discussions of the weather, trips to the cinema, tea, guilt, indecision, and more tea. First-class writing, direction and acting convey all the repressed emotions that make it truly British. That and the tea. It may be of another era, but it still shines today.

M
Inspired by real cases, Fritz Lang’s prototypical thriller tells of the hunt for a child killer by both the police and the criminal underworld. Innovative filmmaking helps tell a story that still thrills today, with themes that have an enduring relevance. Loaded with moments of pure cinema, M is essential viewing for any fan of the medium.

Rashomon
So influential its name has become an adjective, Akira Kurosawa’s film is still the archetypal story about conflicting accounts of one event because it does it so well. There are many imitators, but few have done it with such conviction. Add beautiful cinematography, music and performances and you have a masterpiece.

United 93
Before he got sidetracked into action filmmaking, director Paul Greengrass helmed documentary-esque dramas about real events. Here he brings those skills to bear on ‘the other plane’ from 9/11, the one crashed in a field by its brave passengers. But he doesn’t deify them — these are ordinary people in a horrible situation. For that truth, it’s all the better.

Honourable Mention: Blade Runner: The Final Cut
After a couple of decades, Ridley Scott was finally able to realise his ideal Blade Runner. Some prefer the 1992 Director’s Cut; some even like the largely-ignored original release; but, unlike his Alien Director’s Cut (which he admits is an older man having a fiddle), this is Scott’s definitive version. It’s a great film, and by finally existing I deemed it eligible for inclusion, but really it’s a tweaked version of the Director’s Cut and I’d seen that before.

To be continued…

Tomorrow 100 Films’ birthday celebrations continue with my final top five: my favourite films from my last five years of viewing.

After that… well, we’ll see.

February 2012

Posted on February 29, 2012 by badblokebob

In the middle of my self–congratulatory fifth anniversary posts, it’s time to pause to look back at the month that just was.

More and less

I watched 13 films this February, exactly the same number as I watched last year. I’ve ended up two behind this point last year, though, because I watched two less in January. Damn you January! Funny thing is, last year it felt like a sprint to get to this point, whereas this year it feels like I’ve been pushing less hard. Either way, I’m seven films ahead of target and that’s always good.

Part of the thanks for viewing going so well can be attributed to the Oscars. Not because I’ve been catching up on the nominees (based on form, that’ll take me the next few years/decades), but because in order to watch the increasingly irrelevant ceremony I added Sky Movies to my Virgin Media package for a month, and that now includes hundreds of movies available on demand. Getting value for money ‘n’ all, I’ve been trying to get stuck in to those — hence lots of watching and not so much reviewing. Everything from #14 on is thanks to that.

February’s firteen

#11 The Book of Eli (2010)
#12 Unknown (2011)
#13 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
#14 Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
#15 Priest (2011)
#16 Knight and Day (2010)
#17 Unstoppable (2010)
#18 102 Dalmatians (2000)
#19 Devil (2010)
#20 Burke & Hare (2010)
#21 Legion (2010)
#22 The Sum of All Fears (2002)
#23 The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

The influence of Sky Movies may not be over: I subscribed mid-February and it’s for a minimum of one month, meaning I should have it until mid-March (provided I remember to cancel in time). Hopefully it’ll give a similar kick to next month’s total too.

And I really ought to get round to Thor and Captain America — Marvel Avengers Assemble will be irritating us with its needless title change in gloating (but week-before-the-US) 3D before we know it.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 3

Posted on February 29, 2012 by badblokebob

100 Films in a Year was five years old yesterday, and to mark the occasion I’m having five days of top fives from the past five years. On Monday I bemoaned the five worst films I’ve seen as part of this project, while yesterday I slammed the five most overrated. It’s all nice from here on though, starting with…

The 5 Most Underrated Films

Easy Virtue
I’ve called up Easy Virtue before (recently) as underrated, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing again. I really don’t see why it came in for such a drubbing (see my review for more details) — I thought it was witty and funny, with a distinctly mischievous streak, all wrapped around a surprisingly dramatic core.

Gambit
Gambit‘s underratedness is beginning to be called into question — “thank you”s for Drew McWeeny‘s recommendation are still popping up on my twitter feed — but only so many people will see that, so I’m doing my bit. Watch it, but don’t give in to temptation and read about it first — the opening deserves to be seen unspoiled.

The King of Comedy
There are many films Scorsese is praised for, and deservedly so, but having watched Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and more in the past five years, I think this is my favourite. A black comedy about a wannabe-famous comic whose obsession goes too far, apparently “Scorsese has called De Niro’s role… his favorite of their collaborations.” What better endorsement?

Speed Racer
Someone somewhere recently commented that if Speed Racer had been a CG ‘toon by Pixar it would be beloved, and they may be right. In fact it’s live action, but exists in the kind of heightened candy-colour cartoon world only the digital era has made possible. It’s fast, exciting, funny, not perfect, but visually astounding, and great.

Stranger on the Third Floor
This only seems to get mentioned as “the first film noir”, a nominal title established after the fact. It was tricky to see too — it’s available on UK DVD now, but I caught it on a rare TV airing, at which point it didn’t even have a BBFC certificate. It’s not the greatest noir, certainly, but I think it’s better than its lowly reputation would suggest.

This week’s featured images

You may have noticed a theme developing in this week’s Big Picture At The Top Of The Post (or, as WordPress calls them, “featured images”; or, as I normally call them, “banners” — whatever will do). I realised that the look of 100 Films has undergone five phases, which equates to one a year and makes it sound more turbulent than it really was, and decided that would be a neat way to top these five posts.

Monday was taken from the blog’s origins on deviantART. When I realised I was going to continue this project past the first year and make it a ‘proper’ blog (rather than just an on-going part of my dA journal), I got a Blogger site — the one seen on Tuesday. That was short-lived, because I found FilmJournal and that was better. The initial FJ look of 100 Films forms today’s picture, then.

I don’t think it will take much guesswork to deduce the final two: tomorrow is the most enduring version, its still-current style at FilmJournal; while Friday is taken from this new one.

I was quite pleased with this linking theme — so pleased I’ve decided to blatantly highlight it to make sure you all know how clever I am. Also, apparently, how fickle.

The individual posts I chose to feature in each banner are also in some way relevant (quite an obvious way, really). But I’ll leave that one up to anyone who cares to think about it.

To be continued…

Overrated, underrated, wombling free… Wait, what? Sorry. Um, tomorrow — the five films I thought were the best from my last five years of viewing.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 2

Posted on February 28, 2012 by badblokebob

100 Films in a Year is five years old today, and to mark the occasion I’m having five days of top fives from the past five years. Yesterday I bemoaned the five worst films I’ve seen as part of this project, and today it’s…

The 5 Most Overrated Films

March of the Penguins
I think March of the Penguins gained such popularity in America because they don’t have the rich history of wildlife documentaries that the BBC has bestowed upon us Brits. This is a solid documentary, but it has a narrow focus and isn’t a patch on something narrated by David Attenborough. I don’t care for it.

Million Dollar Baby
Bad Best Picture winners are two-a-penny — as most film fans know, the Oscars aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of filmic taste that they’re widely perceived to be. Million Dollar Baby isn’t a bad film, but I don’t think it’s a very good one either. It’s also 161st on IMDb’s Top 250, a list I wouldn’t let it near if it was up to me.

No Country for Old Men & There Will Be Blood
I’ve lumped these together as the two titans of the 2008 awards season, which now sit on the IMDb Top 250 at #131 and #164 respectively. And I didn’t really get either of them. I don’t think they’re bad films, but I struggled to get what they were for (especially the latter), and I certainly didn’t like or enjoy either. You don’t have to like a film for it to be great, but these two… Maybe I need to take the time to re-evaluate them, but I’ve already seen No Country two or three times and I’m not sure I can face it again.

Point Break
This isn’t overrated in the traditional sense — it only has 6.9 on IMDb for example, far off troubling the Top 250 — but in recent years it’s garnered a significant cult following, praising it as a great action movie. I blame Hot Fuzz, and probably Swayze’s death, and maybe even Bigelow’s Oscar win. It’s mediocre at best.

Honourable Mention: Avatar
Despite being on the IMDb Top 250 when some of my other choices aren’t (#223 at time of writing), Avatar is down here because I think there’s plenty of dislike for it. There’s no doubt those who really praise it tend to overrate it, especially blind followers of Whatever The Oscars Say (even though it didn’t win), but there’s enough people who know it’s good-not-great, or even outright hate it, to balance that out.

You’re reading this post on my new blog!

Congratulations, you have the good taste to be reading this post on my snazzy new blog (though I do still love the old one). Doesn’t it look great even in this little thumbnail?

For more on why I’ve started this so-called simul-blog, please look here.

To be continued…

Tomorrow it’s the turn of the five most underrated films from my last five years of viewing.

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 1

Posted on February 27, 2012 by badblokebob

100 Films in a Year is precisely five years old tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to me!

I’m aware my fifth year ended in December, but here we’re talking about the fifth anniversary of my first ever post, from 28th February 2007, where in one fell swoop I covered most of the year to date. Sometimes I’m tempted to go back to those teeny-tiny reviews…

Anyway, in celebration of me managing to stick at something for so long, I thought I’d have a little week of it: five top five lists (see what I did there?), culled from the films officially counted as part of 100 Films during those first five years. So that’s the 545 films covered on these five lists, not the 585+ on here.

Five Top Fives

So what five top fives have I come up with? Well, there’s perhaps the obvious two: the five best and the five worst. There’s also my five favourite (distinct from best — essentially, one being Worthy Films and one being Entertaining Films), the five I think are the most underrated and, conversely, the five I think are the most overrated. The only rule is that films are only allowed to appear on one list — so nothing can be both a favourite and underrated, say. These lists are too short to go duplicating things like that.

And at the weekend I may post some statistics, if I can think of something suitably different to say than in my last regular year-end one. I hope I can — I do love some statistics.

If you’re not interested in any of this (party pooper!), normal service will resume next week. And also on Wednesday night, when I post my summary of February.

Oh, by the way…

Before I get on to today’s inaugural list, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to ‘officially’ announce this shiny new ‘simul-blog’. Y’see, I say new — I’ve been updating it with new posts for most of the year (it’s currently got everything going back to January 2012), and if you’d known to look (or happened to see me mention it on twitter) it’s been publicly available too.

As FilmJournal sadly seems to be slowly slipping away, I thought it time to start something new. I’ve no intention to stop posting there — hence “simul-blog” not “new blog” — but, yeah, this new one’s here now. It’s got some advantages, like a pretty front page and cool big banner pictures at the top of every page, which I’ve taken the opportunity to customise for every single review (goodness knows how quickly that’ll eat through my WordPress storage allowance, but it doesn’t half look good), and some disadvantages, like my lack of familiarity (and the fact I’m still formatting the posts for FilmJournal first) meaning the pictures sometimes look a bit awkward. But that’ll surely get ironed out in time.

I’ve not been able to export my blog in a way the new one will accept, for some reason, so transferring will have to be done manually. Which has its advantages — I can re-do all links and re-format pictures as I go — but also its disadvantages — over 600 posts! (Golly!)

Another advantage is that you can easily subscribe to get an email every time I post something new: there’s a little box to the left on the front page, just pop your address in there. That goes some way to getting over the lack of FilmJournal front page (I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s always been my main way of keeping up with other FJ blogs). Emails aren’t perfect right now — I’ve always uploaded pictures at a bigger size then used HTML to make them fit the page nicely, but the emails seem to ignore that and just bung them in full size — something I need to see to going forward. And when I begin back-posting it’s going to flood people with 600+ emails unless I find a way to stop it. Oh dear.

Anyway, please check it out — the URL, in case you somehow missed the link above, is 100filmsinayear.wordpress.com. Any thoughts welcome. (First one: I’m intending to change that big ol’ logo to a banner of thumbnails, a bit like the one on the old blog.)

And with that said and done…

The 5 Worst Films

Alone in the Dark
The first Uwe Boll film I saw, and quite possibly the last. It’s not just bad, it’s impressively bad — how do you make a film this shoddy? Of course there always has and always will be bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, but how do you create something with so little awareness of how to tell a story? It baffles me.

AVPR – Aliens vs Predator: Requiem
If you saw Alien vs. Predator when you were about 14 then you might love it. More or less everyone else hated it. That is, until you see this. It’s dull, it’s poorly constructed, it’s so dark you can’t even tell what’s going on… What a waste of the franchises. Bonus disgust for dragging the once-great Alien series so low.

Cube²: Hypercube
I love Cube; it might be one of my most favourite films. It doesn’t need a sequel, but if it was going to have one it really shouldn’t have been this. The original was great because of its simplicity and ambiguity; this ditches both, being over-complicated and with a woeful explanation ending. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

Flight 93
I despise this film. I think it’s disrespectfully bad. Maybe its poorness has been hyped up in my memory, I don’t know. Thankfully we also have the exceptional United 93, which is an absolute must-see to my mind. Funny that a single true story has inspired both one of my most reviled and one of my most esteemed films.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Comedy should be funny, but not everyone agrees what’s funny — that’s why some love Frankie Boyle and some wish he would die (insert the name of any comedian/’comedian’ you like there). I quite like Silverman, which is why I was disappointed by this. I don’t think I even laughed once. Maybe out of desperation.

To be continued…

Tomorrow I’ll list the five films from my last five years of viewing that I consider to be the most overrated.

January 2012

Posted on January 31, 2012 by badblokebob

Hold on, it’s February? When did that happen?!

Joking aside…

Ah, January — the start of a fresh new year to fill with 100 new films. And I’m off to a solid start with 10 titles. Fewer than either of the previous two years, true, but as the January target is eight I shan’t complain.

What I do have is a standard array of Films From Last Year being caught up on — skipping most stuff at the cinema, and with family who predominantly pick the Brand New Films They’ve Heard Of from my Christmas suggestions, means January is a strong time for catching up on what I’ve just missed. Or scratching the surface of it anyway: four films from the 50 I listed last month are here, which is about 8%. But then I’m not sure all of those have even made it to cinemas still, so…

Oh, and this was the first year I watched a film on New Year’s Day since 2009, something I’d previously achieved every year. So that was nice.

January’s films were…

#1 Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
#2 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
#3 Outland (1981)
#4 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
#5 Tombstone (1993)
#6 Rush Hour 3 (2007)
#7 With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story (2010)
#8 Ironclad (2011)
#9 2000 AD, aka Gong yuan 2000 AD (2000)
#10 Rango: Extended Cut (2011)

More failures

I was actually going to do a Sergio Leone week this month too, which was proposed a while back, in some post’s comment section either here or on Ghost of 82, but when I plan a week I plan a week and life has unfortunately got in the way of the potential for such things that recently.

It’s a workable way of getting me to watch specific films, actually — witness the success of silent Lubitsch week (over a year ago! so much for Silent Week as a theme), David Fincher week, that Quantum of Solace thing I did, and so on; and recently I watched the three Underworld films on consecutive nights (see review above, if you missed it/care) — so I should put more effort into doing more of them really. I know where to start.

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

If anyone’s watching, please know the target for February is 16 films (not much of a surprise if you think about it), so we’ll see how I get on. I predict more 2011 films, more things LOVEFiLM throw my way (both Ironclad and Rango were courtesy their decisions from my massive rental list), and whatever happens to be on TV. Which at the moment seems to be mostly premieres of things I’ve owned on DVD/BD for years and not got round to yet.

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Category Archives: Editorials

April 2012

March 2012

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 6

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 5

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 4

February 2012

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 3

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 2

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 1

January 2012