2007 | Weeks 51-52

Posted on December 31, 2007 by badblokebob

And so here we are: my 23rd entry, the final two weeks of 2007, and the end of my quest! You can look out for summaries of the year to be posted in the next few days, and then it’s thoroughly done.

…for 2007. I’ll be starting afresh for 2008 though, right back down at #1.

After the emptiness of my last entry, I have actually watched some films this time. Three of them, in fact — my final three films of the year! And one short too.

They were…

#127 The Bourne Ultimatum

#127a Telling Lies

#128 While You Were Sleeping

#129 Piglet’s Big Movie

2007’s summary posts will be republished in November.

2007 | Weeks 49-50 (2008 Preview)

Posted on December 17, 2007 by badblokebob

It’s the last month of the year! The winter holidays have started! There’s only a week (and a bit) ’til Christmas! And, after the fourteen-film craziness of the last entry, in the past two weeks I’ve only watched… well, NO films!

Yet there is still an entry. Why? Well, I resolved that, regardless of how many films I watched, I’d post double-week entries for both this one and the next. And I haven’t watched any films, so there’s none here. A silly resolution, obviously. Incidentally, this all means you can expect the final chapter of my 2007 quest to appear on Monday December 31st. How very appropriate.

So instead of film reviews, but in light of the fact I’m posting this anyway, I’ve decided to share with you some of the changes I have planned for 2008. I’m sure there’s nothing mind-blowingly exciting here, but maybe it’ll be of vague interest.

2008 Preview

The most notable change to the blog will be that, instead of large week-spanning multi-film round-ups, I’ll be posting reviews individually. The weekly format is a hold-over from the blog’s deviantART origins and obviously isn’t as blog-like as individual entries will be.

In a similar vein, there’ll be a few more details beyond the current year/director/format selection — for example, the running time, or the BBFC classification (perhaps the MPAA one too). These things are hardly integral to the content, I know, but it might make the whole thing feel a bit more well-informed.

In the unlikely event anyone particularly enjoys my little introductions and updates, something like these will crop up from time to time in a new format — expect ‘editorials’ scattered amongst the film reviews at imprecise intervals.

I had also considered adding in reviews of other things, such as re-watched films and TV shows, in a similar way to the editorials. I decided this would dilute the focus and clutter the blog, however… but be sure to check out my new sister blog, Smaller Screens, which will cover those things with a broadly similar ‘voice’ to this blog.

Finally, I might actually start using keywords. I tried initially for this year, but it seemed a little pointless. I’ll try to keep them general and helpful, rather than bogging them down with one-off things like the film’s title. Information like the director, the genre, the year of production, the format, and so forth, will likely go in the keywords, to create some sort of browsable thingamie on the sidebar.

Maybe one day I’ll go back and mix some of these changes into how the 2007 posts are organised, just to streamline the whole thing. But don’t count on it. [2015 note: Hahaha! Dear God, the number of times I’ve re-posted and re-formatted the 2007 entries now…]

Next Time

It’s the final entry of the year! And then two more… You’ll see.

See you on New Year’s Eve…

2007 | Weeks 46-48

Posted on December 4, 2007 by badblokebob

Welcome to the second most film-packed entry ever! Why has this come to be so?

I’ve had a little bit of a theme season (one might say) these past few weeks, so I’ve been waiting for those films to appear in a single entry; plus there are other films watched in between, making the list even longer.

So, what was the theme? Well, being the dedicated student that I am, I’ve watched all the suggested viewing for a seminar in which my group had to pose the questions. The seminar was on “Urban Rhythms”… but in film-viewing terms that translates to four Scorseses, four Woody Allens, and an anthology featuring shorts by both of them and Francis Ford Coppola (plus a fifth Scorsese that wasn’t on the list but was on TV). Such respectable viewing!

Throw in another four films and this is the most film-packed entry since the seven-week, fifteen-film behemoth that was the first entry! And it makes it to only one film less in under half the time. Well blimey. Best get on with it then…

#113 On the Town

#114 Bringing Out the Dead

#115 Annie Hall

#116 Wild at Heart

#117 New York Stories

#118 Play Time

#119 Manhattan

#120 Hellboy: Director’s Cut

#121 The King of Comedy

#122 Taxi Driver

#123 Goodfellas

#124 Manhattan Murder Mystery

#125 Bullets Over Broadway

#126 Mean Streets

2007 | Weeks 43-45

Posted on November 12, 2007 by badblokebob

It’s goodbye to October and hello to November, as the year moves into its final sixth. It’ll be over before you know it — and with it, my final total of new films this year. How exciting! It may wind up being lower than some of my previous predictions would’ve had it, though, considering the increasing number of weeks I feel the need to cover, and with an increasingly low number of films too…

But anyway, all of that’s a whole seven weeks away yet. For now, let’s stick to this little (literally) lot:

#109a Manhatta

#110 The Crowd

#111 Fantômas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine

#112 The Naked City

2007 | Weeks 41-42

Posted on October 22, 2007 by badblokebob

Ah, University! Work has now fully returned to interrupt all the lazing around and film-viewing I so enjoyed before; of course, studying a film module does mean there’s a guaranteed one or two new films every week, and probably quite unusual ones too. “Hurrah,” cries the statistics! “Ooh,” cries… erm… anyone who likes more unusual choices…

I do feel a tad arty this week, actually. Of the six films listed below, two are French, one German, one Japanese, two are shorts, and five are between 77 and 94 years old. That’s two weeks at the start of a University film module for you!

We begin with the two oldest of all those, both made 94 years ago. That’s no guarantee of anything, mind… well, except no spoken dialogue.

#105 Fantômas: Juve Versus Fantômas

#106 Traffic in Souls

#107 Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion

#108 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

#108a À propos de Nice

#108b Skyscraper Symphony

#109 The Paleface

2007 | Weeks 37-40

Posted on October 8, 2007 by badblokebob

This entry we move right from the start of September on into October — under three months of the year left!

As I mentioned last time, my eight-day trip to New York has brought about the first multi-week entry in almost two months; couple that with moving in to a new place and all the associated sorting, plus having almost two weeks’ worth of TV to catch up on (and that taking up most of my viewing time), plus starting my final year at University, and this is a four-weeker. Actually, it’s pretty much a one-weekender — I didn’t watch a new film until Thursday 4th.

And so, following that ‘accidental’ almost-four-week break, I’m finally getting on with moving past the aim of 100 and into the grounds of “let’s see how far I can get”. This entry I make it to… well, read on and see for yourself.

It’s an all-action extravaganza this entry, with no less than four films with a distinctly violent centre. But don’t think it’s all the same, oh no no — between them they cover several continents, even more countries, and spread out from the ancient past to the distant (or, at least, alternate) future, via the present day of course. There are spears, swords, guns and fists causing pain left, right and centre… and a few more unusual objects too. If you thought “action movie” meant endless bullets and slow motion… well, it does tend to involve at least one of those… but still, have a look and see that there is room for some variety.

We begin with what will likely be the first in an on/off series I like to call “Films From This Year That I Missed At The Cinema And Am Finally Seeing When They Hit DVD”… though this one’s technically from 2006. But it didn’t arrive over here until March 2007, so, y’know, it still counts.

#101 300

#102 Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

#103 Transporter 2

#104 Miracles

2007 | Week 36

Posted on September 9, 2007 by badblokebob

While I’ve managed to keep things to single-week entries for a fair while now, I suspect it’ll be back to double-weekers for at least next week. I’m off to New York for eight days, y’see (also explaining why this entry is ever so slightly earlier than usual), and my film watching is likely to be minimal. Though there’s a cinema right near the apartment, so you never know. Maybe I’ll finally see The Bourne Ultimatum…

This week is an unusually short one. Normally I’d just carry it over into the next entry, but one very important thing stops me…

I’ve reached 100!

Hurrah! And, as predicted, I’m there well before the end of the year! In fact, there’s only just shy of a third of it left, meaning that my average viewing has me hitting 145 by year’s end. Quite a bit more than 100, clearly. Of course, the spacious summer weeks are now giving way to term time work, so quite how well that whole average thing will work out is another matter entirely.

But, for now — 100! Whoo! And I specially picked a pretty momentous film to view in celebration of the achievement. In film terms, you’d struggle to find any more significant than… well, read on, and you’ll see…

#99 Starter for Ten

#100 Citizen Kane

2007 | Week 35

Posted on September 4, 2007 by badblokebob

As you may remember from last week, this is technically Week 34 Days 5-7 and Week 35; and I bet no one would’ve remembered if I hadn’t said. For a 10-day week I haven’t watched a great deal of films, though (as explained last week) there have been reasons. Nonetheless, the four I have watched leave me only two short of the long awaited number 100!

But that’s for next week. So, here are those four films, each from a different decade, across almost 60 years no less.

#95 Before Sunrise

#96 Before Sunset

#97 A Study in Scarlet

#98 Great Expectations

2007 | Week 34

Posted on August 23, 2007 by badblokebob

This was going to be the first double-week entry in a fair while, the main reason being that I’m going away for the best part of a week very shortly, probably without internet to post an entry. But then I watched a fair few films at the start of this week and decided to just do an earlier entry instead! So this may be called Week 34, but it’s actually Week 34 Days 1-4, and the next entry will just silently include Week 34 Days 5-7 (if I even watch anything then). I’m sure no one will mind but me.

If I do get the net working during my away-time, you may be lucky enough to see the first stand-alone editorial here. I’ve been musing on the IMDb Top 250 and may put some of those thoughts down. [2015 edit: I don’t think I ever did.]

Anyway, several over-long reviews this week — I appear to be losing my self control on that front. They’ll have multiple paragraphs before long, you mark my words!

Something I’ve also just noticed is that across five reviews I’ve used four different scores. Considering I’ve so far this year only seen one film deserving of the lowest score, that’s quite a spread. Just a shame the scores nicely rise only to fall right back at the end…

#91 Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth

#92 The Cat’s Meow

#93 Letters from Iwo Jima

#93a Gone with the Wind

#94 The Black Dahlia

2007 | Week 33

Posted on August 20, 2007 by badblokebob

The biggest news this week: I’ve passed 90. 90! Only ten films to go ’til I hit the final aim — I think I can manage that in 19 weeks, to be honest. Anything after that… it’s all a bonus, and something to aim to beat next year.

Anyway, on to the business of the films themselves. The first one up this week is an odd’un, but I’ve gone ahead and justified that in the review itself. Elsewhere it’s the usual mixed bag of filmic delight and despair. How I’ve fit it in whilst also watching nearly all of Neon Genesis Evangelion I do not know.

#83 The Sign of Four

#84 Alfie

#85 Thunderbirds

#86 An Inconvenient Truth

#87 Point Break

#88 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

#89 Mrs Brown

#90 Wilde