2007 | Week 32

Posted on August 13, 2007 by badblokebob

Another single-week entry! Well now, isn’t my film watching going smashingly.

Some might say I’ve been generous with the five-star ratings of late — four in the last two weeks, compared to a total of six in the 29 weeks before it. Maybe I have. There aren’t any to be seen this week, though that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen any good films. In fact, some only fall slightly short.

Another thing you’ll notice this week are reviews of the original Star Wars trilogy. This is the first time I’ve seen them in a ridiculously long time; certainly more than five years, possibly as many as ten. It’s all part of a little Star Wars weekend I’ve had — watch out for a 100 Films special (yes, I have specials now!) about it in the next few days.

It would be pretty hard to beat the massive eight new films I saw last week… and I haven’t. But five new ones, plus all six Star Wars films (three reviewed here), is far from bad going. And, obviously, adds up to more in total.

I say five news ones — that’s not strictly true. You see, we begin with a slight oddity this week: I actually saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a couple of weeks ago… and then completely forgot to review it! So, technically, it belongs in an earlier entry, with a lower review number… but that’s far too much hassle, so I’ve just put it here instead. I’m sure no one will mind.

#78 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

#79 C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

#80 Pan’s Labyrinth

#81 Stranger Than Fiction

#81a Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (DVD Edition)

#82 Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

#82a Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (DVD Edition)

#82b Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (DVD Edition)

2007 | Week 31

Posted on August 6, 2007 by badblokebob

My quest to see 100 films I’ve never seen by the end of 2007 passes the three-quarters point this week, and we’re not even two-thirds of the way through the year!

This is the first single-week entry since week 14. As well as a concerted effort (such as three films on the Friday), it’s helped by a lessening in the amount of TV I’ve been watching — last entry’s list of 19 on-going programmes has shrunk to 13 by the end of this week. Some might say I watch too much TV…

Nonetheless, I’ve moved from about two films per week average over the last 16 weeks, to a total of eight films this week! Well well well.

As well as a Week Of More it’s a bit of a Week Of Quality. Three of this week’s films are ones I’ve been dying to see for ages, and the rest follow not too far behind (OK, maybe I wouldn’t’ve put the likes of Kinky Boots or Confetti on a list of films I was dying to see, but I did want to). There’s also a fair few awards and nominations, and no small amount of critical acclaim, across them.

One could also argue that it’s a Week Of Variety. To be honest, I suspect there’s always a fair bit of variety in my film choices, but this week it’s especially pronounced — straightforward British comedies stand by low-budget intellectual sci-fi; complex teenage faux-film noir sits next to epic trilogy-starting Russian fantasy/horror; American gangster thriller lies beside classic British romance… And, while most were made in the new millennium, there’s a spread of over 60 years between the oldest and the most recent. All within the space of seven days, too!

Perhaps because of all these reasons I’ve found choosing the final rating for every film here quite tricky; all of them have some malleability, either up or down.

#70 Primer

#71 Kinky Boots

#72 Brick

#73 Night Watch

#74 The Departed

#75 Confetti

#76 Brief Encounter

#77 Educating Rita

2007 | Weeks 29-30

Posted on July 30, 2007 by badblokebob

Another two week stretch on my quest to see 100 new films by the end of the year. I’m just not seeing enough films per week to warrant entries that often, it would seem.

This time round I blame TV — so many new things have started, as well as continuing shows, that I spend most of my time keeping up! During these two weeks I’ve been watching Boomtown, British Film Forever, Cape Wrath, Dexter, Dirt, Dragons’ Den: Where Are They Now?, Eight Out of Ten Cats, Firefly, Heroes, House, Hyperdrive, Jekyll, Mock the Week, Shark, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Time of Your Life, Vanished, The Wire and Would I Lie To You, as well as a variety of one-off things. Quite a bit, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Nonetheless, I’ve managed to get a few things watched (half of them right at the end of the second week!) — and they’ve all turned out to be of good quality too, as you will surely see when you read my reviews…

#66 Mystic River

#67 Right at Your Door

#68 Heat

#69 Mean Creek

2007 | Weeks 27-28

Posted on July 16, 2007 by badblokebob

My quest to see 100 films that I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007 rolls on into its second half. I’ve done really pathetically in the last couple of months — my average number of films per week has dropped from 2.7 for weeks 1 to 18 to just 1.5 for weeks 19 to 26! I ain’t gonna get to the end that way… Actually, I’d hit exactly 100 by the end of the year if I carried on that way. But still, reaching ‘only’ 100 when I was more on track to hit 150 does seem like a slight disappointment.

Anyway, things do continue, and I think I’ve seen a pretty respectable number of films for these two weeks. Will the giddy heights of six films each in weeks 8, 12, 13 and 14 ever be reproduced? (And, by-the-by, that’s six films on average across 12 and 13 — the exact number from 13 was higher, but I can’t remember what it was. Though I’m sure no one else cares for such boring information…)

So, that said:

A couple of Oscar-winners crop up this time round, as we move through the first few weeks of July (the 2nd to the 15th, to be precise).

#61 Capote

#62 Ocean’s Twelve

#63 Monster

#64 Ringers: Lord of the Fans

#65 The Woodsman

2007 | Weeks 24-26

Posted on July 4, 2007 by badblokebob

In case you’ve forgotten, and can’t work it out from the title, I’m trying to see at least 100 films that I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007. That’s an average of eight per month, donchaknow; or two per week. I’m well on target.

And, I’m halfway through! For anyone who can’t remember how many weeks there are in a year… well, there’s 52; and half of 52 is 26; and the week of June 25th is week 26 of 2007, meaning that July 1st is just about halfway through the year (though, to be precise, there’s actually 52 weeks and one day in a year… well, actually, 52 weeks, one day and a quarter day… anyway…)

I passed the numerical halfway point (i.e. 50 films) way back in week 19 — clearly I’ve not been doing as well in the past 7 weeks! At all. Oh dear oh dear…

Exams may be long over and holidays may be on, but combine the odd bits of good TV filling days and evenings with a commitment to completing Script Frenzy, and you wind up seeing less films than you might expect. A lot less, as it turns out — just three in three whole weeks. Still, I’m currently well on track to pass 100 by the end of the year anyway. Shiny.

And as has become standard practice, I’ll handily remind you that this entry is covering films seen between 11th June and 1st July.

#58 Sense and Sensibility

#59 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

#60 Kramer vs. Kramer

2007 | Weeks 21-23

Posted on June 11, 2007 by badblokebob

This time I do see Spider-Man 3! But not Zodiac, mainly because I can’t be bothered and I’m quite happy to catch it on DVD. Plus, Pirates 3 is long out now, and if you think I’m going to be foolish enough to brave the cinema to see a film of that popularity in its opening week when that week is also half term then you’ve got another thing coming! This period is also affected by exams and the beginning of Script Frenzy.

Talking of exams, I had my film exam on May 30th, which should in theory have meant a glut of films from the course or related to the course just before that. Well, there’s Chinatown… and there would’ve been Only You but the sound wouldn’t play… on my Mac anyway… and how about Die Hard and Once Upon a Time in the West (seen them before)… or connected films such as The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, Easy Rider, The French Connection, The Godfather, Jurassic Park, Predator, Dirty Dancing, The Fifth Element, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Star Wars or Once Upon a Time in America? Well, I can tell you for nothing that I’ve seen some of them before. As for the others… you’ll just have to see… or not…

Actually, this entry has wound up covering a longer period than I initially thought (though not as long as it nearly did). Mainly cos it turned out I didn’t (and haven’t) watched many films since those pesky exams finished. I’m not sure why, to be honest.

I’m slowly making my way past the halfway mark in numbers, and slowly heading towards it in time. This period covers the three weeks from May 21st to June 10th.

#53 West Side Story

#54 Spider-Man 3

#55 Chinatown

#56 Road to Morocco

#57 It’s All Gone Pete Tong

2007 | Weeks 19-20

Posted on May 21, 2007 by badblokebob

In which I don’t see Spider-Man 3, because I don’t care enough to brave the huge opening weekend crowds (and it’s not meant to be very good anyway). Just one in a list of films I’ve missed at the cinema this year anyway (300, Sunshine, The Fountain, The Illusionist, Ghost Rider, Shooter, TMNT…), though I do intend to see it there soon. And Zodiac‘s out now too! And Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is surprisingly close! And…

Oh, summer. How you sequelise us. Now there’s a new word for you.

Also this month, I watch some stuff via free downloads — legal ones too! Check out LOVEFiLM for those, including proper features such as Super Size Me and The Cooler (as well as many more… if you pay). [2015 edit: LOVEFiLM streaming is, of course, now Amazon Instant Video.]

This time, I also came up with a way of listing Extended-Cuts-That-Aren’t-Much-Different without adversely affecting my numbering system. I’ll also use the same system to list short films that I watch.

As usual, before we embark on the reviews, I shall inform you that this period covers the middle of May, from the 7th to the 20th.

#49 March of the Penguins

#49a Spider-Man 2.1

#50 Ray

#51 Over the Hedge

#52 Hello, Dolly!

#52a-d Four short films

2007 | Weeks 15-18

Posted on May 8, 2007 by badblokebob

After a glut of movies during the middle of the holiday things have slowed down a tad again. I say “a tad” — you can see how much by the sheer volume of weeks included in this entry and the relatively sparse number of films! (To be technical, the average-films-per-week in this entry is 1.75, compared to 2.72 overall and 6 (yes, 6!) last time.)

Nonetheless, things are progressing, and overall I’m still on track to make it well past the 100 mark. That’s from the overall average mind, not from the one for this period. From that I’ll make it to about 90. Maybe I should worry… except that summer movie season is on the way! Plenty of new films there. Plus all the ones I’ve recently missed out on DVD.

Well, that sure is shiny.

This time, I break my self-imposed rule about the length of reviews to witter on about Hidden for double the time. I also didn’t watch a single new film in week sixteen (Three Colours Red fell right at the end of week fifteen, Hidden a little way into week seventeen). And I’ve nearly hit the halfway point, a third of the way through the year. Oh my!

For anyone who may be trying to keep track, this period covers nearly all of April — from the 9th to the 30th, in fact — plus pretty much the first week of May (up to the 6th). That’s basically a month. Well well well…

#42 Three Colours: Red

#43 Hidden (Caché)

#44 Casanova

#45 Garden State

#46 Breathless

#47 Bonnie and Clyde

#48 Stormbreaker

2007 | Week 14

Posted on April 9, 2007 by badblokebob

My quest to watch 100 films I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007 continues toward the halfway point. However, this week I’ve hit an exact average of three films per week — if that were to continue I’d easily pass 150 films by the end of the year! It’s really beginning to seem that 100 is a rather easy mark to cross, while 150 would be more realistic… though only if I kept this rate up, and if I slipped I would fail. That’s never fun.

So, my indecisiveness shall continue. Probably until I actually reach 100 and decide if there’s enough time to see another 50 films. Oh well, they say gambling’s bad anyway.

As noted last week (and above), week fourteen means we’re now over a quarter of the way through the year, and so on the path to the halfway point (which, by-the-way, would be about July 1st, which is the Sunday at the end of week twenty-six). I’m also still on holiday, so once again I’ve seen a fair few films this week, and six of them new to me. Here they are:

#36 Ladies in Lavender

#37 The New World

#38 The Devil Wears Prada

#39 Three Colours: Blue

#40 Happy Feet

#41 Three Colours: White

2007 | Weeks 12-13 (Statistics)

Posted on April 2, 2007 by badblokebob

I knew I should have posted the not-too-short-really week twelve by itself, as week thirteen has seen a veritable mass of films viewed toward the end. But it’s done now, so on with the show!

The end of the second week here marks the exact quarter-way point of my filmic quest (in time terms anyway) and so it seems an appropriate point to reflect a little on my quest so far. So here are some numbers, all totalled up to the end of week thirteen:

Statistics

I have seen a total of 36 films.

Of those, 1 was released in the 1910s, 2 in the 1920s, 1 in the 1940s, 2 in the 1950s, 4 in the 1980s, 3 in the 1990s, and 23 in the 2000s. That means there’s nothing from the 1930s, 1960s or 1970s.

I have seen 27 on DVD, 6 at the cinema, 2 on VHS, and just 1 on TV.

The only directors to turn up multiple times are John Glen (twice) and F.W. Murnau (twice). As it turns out, a fair few actors turn up at least twice, mainly thanks to films like Hot Fuzz, Boogie Nights and Crash. It was only Roger Moore who managed several appearances when I first started putting these stats together!

I have awarded 4 films 5/5, 17 films 4/5, 10 films 3/5, 4 films 2/5, and 1 film 1/5. This makes the average score 3.5/5. Either I see lots of pretty good films or I need to adjust my scoring downward slightly. For anyone interested, the five-star films were Hot Fuzz, United 93, Crash and Trainspotting, whilst the one-star was Flight 93.

My weekly average is now 2.8 per week, which means I’m on course to see about 145 films this year. Maybe I should adjust that aim…

Weeks Twelve and Thirteen

Anyway, it’s time to get on. Here are the films I watched between March 19th and April 1st…

#25 Doom

#26 Flight 93

#27 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

#27a Crash: Director’s Cut

#28 The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

#29 Trainspotting

#30 Little Miss Sunshine

#31 Mrs Henderson Presents

#32 Chocolat

#33 American Dreamz

#34 Secretary

#35 The King and I