Category Archives: year in review

Annual posts looking back at the successes and failures of another year of film watching.

The Climactic Monthly Update for December 2015

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Happy New Year’s Day, dear readers!

The quest for 100 films has little regard for it being the first day of a new year, however — it’s still the start of a new month, which means it’s time to reflect on the last. And as it’s the last month of 2015, to reveal just what my final tally actually was…


#183 Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
#184 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
#185 Terminator Genisys (2015)
#186 A Most Wanted Man (2014)
#187 Tomorrowland: A World Beyond (2015)
#188 Begin Again (2013)
#189 Escape from Tomorrow (2013)
#190 Le Mépris (1963), aka Contempt
#191 Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
#192 About Time (2013)
#193 Happy Feet Two (2011)
#194 Morning Glory (2010)
#195 Dreamgirls (2006)
#196 Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
#197 AfterDeath (2015)
#198 Heaven Can Wait (1943)
#199 Slow West (2015)
#200 Dressed to Kill (1946)


  • #200 is the final Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film. It’s taken me almost eight years to get through that series — longer than they took to make — so it seemed an appropriate choice for such a momentous number.
  • With four WDYMYHS films left, I managed to watch… one. That was Le Mépris. On the one hand, not watching 25% of my list is a bit of a failure. On the other, watching 75% of it means I’ve watched nine films this year that I should’ve seen but hadn’t got round to, and almost certainly wouldn’t’ve got round to without WDYMYHS. So it shall continue next year, though I’ve not decided on the selection process yet.
  • Remember back in my October update, when I mentioned re-watching the Veronica Mars movie to get 2014 finished? Bloody well didn’t bloody happen, did it! I’ll do it in January.
  • Apropos of not very much, the version of Rawhide sung by the elephant seals in Happy Feet 2 is awesome.


The headline news here is, of course, that this year I reached #200.

That’s my highest final tally ever, by 64 films — 47% higher than the next best year! You could add together my two poorest years (2009 and 2012) and you’d still be nine films short of 2015’s solo total. Anyway, more whole-year stats in my next post — for now, let’s just look at December.

This month I watched 18 new films. Most importantly, that exceeds this year’s ten-per-month goal, making 2015 the first time I’ve done it for a whole calendar year. (It’s also the 19th consecutive month.) It’s only the second-highest December ever, just behind 2008’s 19, but it does pass the December average (10.86; now 11.75) and beats December 2014’s total of 15, the 11th month this year to beat its previous equivalent (only November let the side down). In terms of 2015, it beats the monthly average of 16.67, and is actually the third highest month of the year, settling in behind the record-breaking feats of September and October.

I always end these analyses with a look ahead to the rest of the year… which is now over. So what for 2016? Having reached 200 films in a year, will I be seeking to equal it next year? Perhaps even to better it? I can confirm that…

No. No I won’t.

There are so very, very many films that I want to see — and they keep making more of the darn things! So many that even watching 200 new films isn’t enough to make a serious dent in the “to see” list. But there are also TV series I want to watch, books I want to read, audio dramas I want to listen to — not to mention movies I want to re-watch — and the film fixation engendered by a goal as vast as 200 new films in a year is counterproductive to doing anything but watching new films. So of course 100 Films will continue, and maintaining my ten-per-month streak would be nice, but if this time next year I’ve watched 200 new films and not watched many TV series, or read books, or listened to audio dramas, then I won’t be dancing a victory dance. Quite the opposite. Whatever the opposite of “dancing a victory dance” is.

In conclusion, my personal goal for next year is… well, 100 films — that’s why it’s the name of the blog. But I’ll be aiming to maintain my ten-per-month run, making the target 120+ Films in a Year. Plus lots of TV and books and audio drama and films I’ve seen before and special features and goodness knows what else. There still won’t be nearly enough time, anyway.


Thanks to the advent calendar, 44 films were reviewed this month(!) Here’s a full alphabetical account:



The 7th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It’s not been a bad month, but there aren’t a great many stand-out options here. Although I hugely enjoyed the new Star Wars, and some other 2015 blockbusters I caught up on weren’t as bad as expected, the winner is easily best-of-year contender Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It’s not been a bad month, but there are still a few three-star-level contenders here. In the end, I decided to pick the film I felt I was most likely to never bother to watch again, and while there are a few I’m not likely to ever revisit, the least likely was AfterDeath.

Best Use of Time Travel
Was it to visit a wondrous future city of joyous technological advancement? Or to spend more precious time with your dying father? Or to send a cyborg to protect your mother from your robot enemy before your best mate arrives to stop that enemy murdering her before you’re born then trying to disable said robot enemy before it’s ‘born’? Or to get Emilia Clarke naked? How about using it to make Rachel McAdams fall in love with you in About Time. That and the dad thing.

Best Theme Tune
Oh sure, there’s John Williams on Star Wars… but of course there was. And I’ve already said how much I liked Rawhide in Happy Feet 2, but it’s not functioning as theme tune there. So the winner is composer Joe Kraemer finally giving Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme a suitable big-screen rendition not once but twice in Rogue Nation.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
When you think about it, this should come as no surprise. In a month that featured 47 new posts (it sounds a little insane when you put it like that), the most-read is one that was a hive of activity for 25 days: the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015.


…will be 31 days into 2016. Before all that, though, I’ll thoroughly look back and dissect 2015 — the largest year of 100 Films ever!

(Dog-loving regular readers will be pleased to know that (further to September’s update) Millie is still with us, and coping admirably with there already being a new Irish Wolfhound puppy in the family.)

2015 in Review, Part 1

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As a wise man once said,

So this is Christmas
and what have you done?
Another year over,
and a new one just begun.

He may have been wise, but he clearly wasn’t so hot on timekeeping if he thinks the new year begins at Christmas…

Anyway, I’ve been quieter than intended this past week thanks to that unwellness I mentioned rumbling on, turning my efforts to reach #200 this year into a knock-down drag-out battle against both that and the sheer volume of worthwhile TV this year (if you’re one of the apparently-few who missed the Beeb’s classy three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s proto-slasher-movie And Then There Were None, may I recommend you rectify that).

Whether I achieved that double-sized goal or not will be revealed tomorrow in my December summary. As usual, over the next week-ish I’ll follow that up by looking back over the last year in two lengthy, information-and-excitement-filled posts. To start this year-in-review season, though, it’s WordPress’ auto-generated site-statistics-thing:

Here's an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Observations:

  • As well as the 248 new posts it mentions, the blog’s archive was further swelled by 272 reposts from 2007-2011.
  • My “posting patterns” are far, far more consistent than last year. So that’s nice.
  • I’ve noticed other people’s summaries include a bit on how many pictures they’ve uploaded. Mine doesn’t. I’m hard done by, I tell you!

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who’s read and/or commented here in 2015 — a Happy New Year to you all!

2014 In Retrospect

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It was 100 Films’ greatest ever year in terms of sheer size, but it was also one of the highest-scoring too, with the most five-star ratings I’ve ever awarded and the second-highest average score to date. Now it’s time to look back over the list and ask: Which were the cream of the crop? Which were the dregs? And which significant new films did I not even see?

To top it off, you can make your voice heard by voting for your favourites (plural) in this year’s top ten poll. Exciting stuff.

So without further ado:



The Five Worst Films I Saw For the First Time in 2014

In alphabetical order…

Chicken Little
Disney are back at the height of their powers of late, at least as far as the box office is concerned, with the phenomenon that is Frozen. Things weren’t so rosy in the early ’00s, though, leading them to abandon traditional 2D animation for the burgeoning world of 3D CGI. Their first effort was this dross, instantly proving it wasn’t the style of animation that was the problem.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation
I only gave this two stars (as opposed to one) for two reasons: 1) the rather cool cliff-swinging fight sequence, which deserves to be in a better movie, and 2) because for some unknown reason I’d given the Team America-esque first one two stars, and this is marginally better. Really, though, it’s awful: messily told, tonally uneven, ridiculous in any number of ways. Even as a daft actioner, it’s no fun.

Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider’s maligned sequel, Spirit of Vengeance, wasn’t particularly good, but at least it embraced the trashier, grimier aspects of the character (even if it was only in a PG-13 way). This first attempt to bring the Marvel anti-hero to the big screen tried to force the concept into the shape of a trad blockbuster, ending up with a Constantine rip-off. As hardly anyone liked Constantine, that wasn’t a very good idea.

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger!
I liked the first Nativity — it’s not high art, but it’s a perfectly lovely Christmas movie. This follow-up has to switch out Martin Freeman for David Tennant, which isn’t a problem, but the new story is. Not that it’s much of a story, more a series of loosely-connected misadventures. Throw in a climactic concert made up of truly dreadful new songs and you have a disappointingly charmless sequel.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Michael Bay can make good movies, but he seems to have forgotten how. There are many things wrong with this third Transformers flick, but what’s most shocking is how ineptly it’s put together. For experienced filmmakers, there’s no excuse. Apparently this year’s fourth instalment is even worse, but it’s tough to imagine how. To quote a character in the movie: “does it suck or what? I mean it’s like a bad sci-fi film.”

Dishonourable Mention
Sin City: Recut & Extended
Not bad enough to actually make the bottom five, this recut took a film I remembered loving and messed about with it so much it made me doubt if I’d ever liked it in the first place. It could be my tastes have changed in the intervening nine years, but I suspect it’s at least as much due to the frustrating and near-pointless rearrangement of the running order. I recommend you stick to the theatrical cut.



The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2014

The fascinating story of the outrage provoked in Britain by gory horror movies in the early days of VHS. Excellently constructed from talking-head interviews and archive clips, it not only tells the tale clearly but also presents spot-on juxtapositions. Informative both for those who lived through it and those for who it’s now part of history, the important message is how easily such censorship was allowed — even encouraged — and that we must be on the look out for it again. Unfortunately it is happening again, to the internet this time, and once again is being championed via misinformation from those with a vested interest. I guess more people need to see this film…

The gang’s all here for an all-eras X-Men team-up, the original cast teaming up with the First Class lot, and led by original franchise director Bryan Singer, for a time-travelling adventure inspired by the classic comic book storyline. Some surprisingly deep characterisation, buoyed by strong performances from a first-rate cast (how many of them are Oscar nominees/winners?), rubs shoulders comfortably with witty and inventive action sequences. The series that kicked off the current Hollywood superhero obsession proves it can still hold its own among the big boys that have come since.

Darren Aronofsky’s multi-pronged narrative about the evils of addiction is sometimes cited as one of the bleakest films ever made. Even if you’re prepared for that, the verve of the filmmaking transcends expectations. Finely-tuned editing and attentive sound design gradually position the viewer for the climax, a fast-cut perfectly-scored assault on the senses that almost batters you into submission. It may ultimately be grim and without hope, but it’s so amazingly crafted that you’re left longing to experience it again regardless.

Snatched off the street, locked in a bedsit for 15 years, then inexplicably released and given just days to figure out why it happened — that’s the concept behind this dark South Korean thriller (remade in America to no fanfare and even less acclaim in 2013). Oldboy mixes what could almost be a straightforward revenge thriller with weird, almost surrealistic touches, for a whole that is ready-made to be cultish without the self-conscious Cult-ish-ness that such things are normally saddled with. It ends with twists and revelations so hard-hitting they equal even the famous single-take hammer-featuring corridor scene.

Found-footage and superheroes — two current cinematic obsessions, reviled by some and beloved by others. They had to come together eventually. Director Josh Trank keeps a handle on affairs, so that the film always sticks to concept without becoming samey, while screenwriter Max Landis reveals the true nature of his characters as he leads them from low-key beginnings to a barnstorming citywide climax that’s a bit like the ending of Man of Steel, only really good.

Why aren’t there many thrillers set inside the jury room? I’d wager because 12 Angry Men got there a long time ago and nailed it. A man is on trial for murder; we join the case as the twelve-man jury enter their deliberation room. Eleven of them are absolutely certain; one thinks they ought to discuss it. For the next 90 minutes, twelve men sit in one room and talk to each other… and it’s absolutely gripping, tense and thrilling, with moments that make you virtually punch the air with excitement. It’s a masterclass in constrained filmmaking, from director Sidney Lumet, and acting, from a cast of twelve peerless performers.

The sequel to the prequel of the Planet of the Apes takes the fad for all-CGI characters and brings it to maturity with a fully-realised ape society, played by mo-capped actors led by Andy Serkis, that is far more interesting than the human portion of the story. This is a story of interspecies relations where everything could be fine if it weren’t for past distrust and people constantly bringing guns along — like the best sci-fi, it reflects our world back at us. They claimed Avatar proved motion-captured performances should be considered alongside ‘the real thing’. Rubbish. Dawn, however, makes that case completely.

Hated by Stephen King, author of the original novel, and his most die-hard fans, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation sees Jack Nicholson and family as the caretakers and sole residents of a remote hotel over a snowbound winter, when very creepy things begin to happen… Goodness knows what any of it ultimately means (I know there are plenty of wild theories — I’ve got Room 237 recorded to catch at some point), but as an exercise in eliciting emotions of dread and almost-primal fear, it’s second to none.

The sixth feature film to star Hergé’s boy reporter (yes, really) sees the master of action-adventure cinema, Steven Spielberg, bring us the best Indiana Jones movie in over 20 years — only it’s computer animated and stars a blonde Belgian chap with a posh British accent. Rendered with incredible realism by Weta, with a screenplay that perfectly balances investigation, action and humour, and direction that knows when to maintain verisimilitude and when to cut loose with all the freedom CGI can offer, Tintin is a quality entertainment. Very nearly my film of the year, but for…

Regular readers will know I love a single-location thriller, and this is one — it just happens that the single-location in question is the entire orbit of planet Earth. There may not be much of a plot (“woman gets stranded in space; tries to get to safety”), but it doesn’t matter: director Alfonso Cuarón reminds us of his mastery of the single-take, using it to better connect us to the characters’ experiences. I’m sure people were right that it’s best in 3D on a huge screen, but even in 2D on a telly it’s spectacular. It’s also the third film in my top five that’s only been made possible thanks to advances in computer graphics — that surely says something about how an intelligent use of CGI still allows filmmakers to innovate.



Top 10 Poll

As ever, I welcome your opinion on my top ten — not just in the comments section, but also in the form of a lovely poll. This year you can pick multiple options, so feel free to vote for all your favourites.

And if you feel I’ve made an unforgivable omission, do feel free to berate me below.



Honourable Mentions

Yet another record: for the first time ever, all of my top ten films are ones I awarded a full five stars to. That’s once again testament to the quality of this year’s viewing, because I felt sure at least one four-stars-er would make the list. To be precise, that was The Green Hornet, which I know isn’t widely liked but I rather loved — I called it “one of the best superhero movies of the current generation”, in fact. On the day, though, I couldn’t in good conscience say it was better than any of the films I have included. I guess that confers 11th place on it.

In total, 27 main-list films earned themselves a five-star ratings this year. As well as those in the top ten (for which, see above, obv.), the others were After the Thin Man, All is Lost, La Belle et la Bete, Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, In Your Eyes, The Kings of Summer, Rear Window, Saving Mr. Banks, The Searchers, The Secret of Kells, Sightseers, The Thin Man, The World’s End, and Zero Dark Thirty. Additionally, both of the ‘other’ titles I watched and reviewed — The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) and miniseries The 10th Kingdom — also scored full marks.

There are any number of other films I could highlight here — my long-list for the top ten had over 50 movies on it, and at least 25 of those were genuine contenders — but two categories stand out. Firstly, after finishing the Falcon series earlier in the year, towards the end I made a start on The Thin Man, watching the first three out of six films. They’re excellent fun, the tonal inspiration for the likes of the Saint and the Falcon (which I’ve previously covered in full), but on the whole even better. Expect reviews before too long.

Finally, we all know superhero and comic book movies are everywhere right now, and will continue to be so if the announced plans of Marvel Studios, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony, and the rest, come to fruition. It’s felt particularly true for me this year, with not only a few well-received recent releases (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: Days of Future Past), but also getting caught up on an array of recent entries (all but two were from the past decade, and one of those is only 11 years old). All told, there were 22 superhero, comic book, or related movies on this year’s list — that’s 16%. For a single subgenre — and not one where I’ve (say) dedicated myself to watching the entirety of one series — that does seem rather a lot…



The Films I Didn’t See

As is my tradition, here’s an alphabetical list of 50 films that were released in 2014 but I’ve not yet seen. They’ve been chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety. It’s biased slightly towards ones I might actually see at some point, though there were a couple of highly-successful or much-discussed ones I felt couldn’t/shouldn’t be left out. Feel free to assume which ones those are.

22 Jump Street
300: Rise of an Empire
’71
American Sniper
Big Eyes
Big Hero 6
Birdman
Boyhood
Calvary
Divergent
The Equalizer
Exodus: Gods and Kings
The Expendables 3
Godzilla
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Fault in Our Stars
Foxcatcher
Fury
Hercules
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
The Imitation Game
The Inbetweeners 2
Inherent Vice
Interstellar
The Interview
Into the Woods
Locke
Lucy
Maleficent
The Maze Runner
A Million Ways to Die in the West
The Monuments Men
Mr. Turner
Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie
Muppets Most Wanted
Nightcrawler
Noah
Paddington
Pride
The Raid 2
RoboCop
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Theory of Everything
Transcendence
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Unbroken
Under the Skin



Party like it’s Nineteen Ninety Nine…

It’s 100 Films’ ninth year — crikey, when’d that happen?

Expect more archive reposts (can I finish them before my 10th anniversary?), a third round of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen” (it’s got a killer new acronym…), and — fingers crossed — both my 1,000th review and the official 100 Films’ #1000!

All that and hoverboards. We were promised hoverboards.

2014: The Full List

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So here we are: as revealed in the December update, 2014 has proven to be the biggest year of 100 Films ever! Now it’s time to look back at the whole shebang and analyse and rank it.

Today’s post is The Big One… until I call the next one The Big One. But really, today’s is a long’un, full of information and fun. Yes, fun: good golly gosh, it’s statistics time! Best bit of the year, right there.

In case you’re not interested in reading it all, or in breaking your scroll wheel as you have to whizz past seemingly never-ending lists, here’s a handy clickable contents:

Without further ado:


As It Happened

One of my favourite things since I moved to WordPress is this incidental pleasure: a month-by-month visual representation of my viewing, derived from the header images on my monthly updates. More usefully, each of the twelve images below links to the relevant monthly update, where you’ll find the numbered list of everything I watched this year, and other fun stuff too.













Now, the main event — the full alphabetical list of my 2014 viewing (with links to reviews, where available):

The List

Alternate Cuts
Other Reviews
Shorts

The Statistics

All told, I watched a record-smashing 136 new feature films in 2014. (All are included in the following stats, even if there’s no review yet.) The previous best was my very first year, 2007, with 129. It feels pretty good to finally best that — as five of the intervening six years have finished with 110 or fewer, it’s often felt insurmountable.

I also watched one feature I’d seen before that was extended or altered in some way (well, I watched two, but the other counted on the main list). I also chose to review one other for the fun of it. (All 138 films are included in the statistics that follow, unless otherwise indicated.) It’s worth noting that this tally bests 2007 too, which stood at 135 all-in.

I also watched two shorts… depending on how you count it, because one of those was made up of four shorter-shorts. Either way, none of them shall be counted in any statistics (apart from the one that says it counts them).

The total running time of new features in 2014 was a stonking 237 hours and 15 minutes. For perspective, last year’s total running time was the highest ever, beating the previous best by 58 minutes. This year now exceeds even that by just over 28 hours.

The total running time of all films (including shorts) was 247 hours and 43 minutes. That’s less of an increase on last year (8 hours and 14 minutes, to be precise), but it still leaves 2014 as the longest year ever. No surprise, really.

2014’s most prolific format was Blu-ray for the second year in a row, though at 49 films its total is lower than last year. That’s not the first time it’s dropped, but the only other was tiny (from 42 in 2011 to 41 in 2012), so it’s the first significant one. To be honest, that has nothing to say about the state of Blu-ray — I’m still merrily buying lots of them — and more about the fact I cancelled my LOVEFiLM subscription, so there were fewer Blu-ray rentals. That number has been absorbed elsewhere, as we shall see shortly…

Television came second again, though continued to slide in importance with just 36 watched, none of them in HD. I think I mentioned at the time that my V+ box crashed and had to be reset, creating a shedload of space on its hard drive… which I promptly filled with new, more watchable films (and not in HD, to maximise space). To be frank, were it not for those recordings TV would have disappeared even further — I don’t think I watched a single thing ‘live’ this year.

Arguably the biggest news is third place, however. The past two years have seen me increase my use of streaming, with four films in 2012 and six in 2013. This year, it came to 23. A big increase but, mulling on it, still not particularly good value for money: I currently have Now TV, aka Sky Movies, whose service is based around having lots of major recent movies about six months after their DVD release. Dividing the subscription price between what I actually watched works out around the same as it would cost to rent a film in HD from Sky/Virgin/Apple/etc on its DVD/BD release date. That’d be the same spend, same number of films, but they’d be newer. I may need to reconsider my options here…

In fourth place was DVD, which reached double figures for the first time since 2010… and then went a bit further, eventually hitting the giddy heights of 18. I still have hundreds of the things unwatched, though.

Finally, downloads accounted for 14 films — another highest-ever total. Not sure why, to be honest. It’s a mix of 99p rentals from iTunes, having to finish films where the LOVEFiLM disc went screwy halfway through (because of that, you’ll find the formats total 140 rather than 138), and just… other stuff, I guess. Hm.

(You may also note that means no films seen at the cinema, for the second year in a row.)

The most-represented decade this year was the 2010s. Only five years old, but it totalled 70 films, or a whopping 50.7%. That’s the first time a single decade has accounted for over half my viewing since 2009 — which makes sense when you think about it. The ’00s are a distant second on 29, which at 18.8% is a slight rise on last year. In third place, there’s a bit of a resurgence for the ’90s. Only 13 films (9.4%), but that’s enough to put it ahead of the pack, whereas last year it was down amongst them.

In fourth place we have the ’80s, with a semi-appropriate eight (5.8%), before the rest descend in size quite neatly: the ’50s are on six (4.3%), the ’40s just behind with five (3.6%), then the ’30s manage four (2.9%), the ’70s clock three (2.2%), the ’60s have two (1.4%), and the 1910s finish us off with one (0.7%). That really just leaves the ’20s, with zero (0.0%).

Moving on from time to space — where were the films I watched in 2014 from? Let’s start with language: as usual, English dominates, with 126 of the 138 films being wholly or significantly in our greatest export. That comes to 91.3% — a continued decrease from last year’s 93.5% and 2012’s 98%. I’m getting gradually Cultured, innit. While no single other language comes close to that (French and Mandarin share second place with three (2.2%) each), the total number of languages heard also continues in the right direction: from four in 2012, to 11 in 2013, to 15 in 2014 (plus one for “silent”). More uncommon ones include Persian (from This is Not a Film) and American Sign Language (from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes).

Similar to the English language’s dominance, the USA has a near-stranglehold on my viewing: 111 films were either produced or co-produced in/by the US. Defining a film’s country of origin is always tricky (see: the controversy around Gravity’s Best British Film BAFTA), and in this day and age an awful lot are co-productions anyway — several films you’d define as culturally somewhere-else (e.g. No) contributed to the US’s count; equally, some ‘Hollywood’ blockbusters also give credit to foreign shores (including such uncommon examples as Cyprus and Malta).

Behind the US comes the UK, with 25, which at 18.1% is significantly down on last year’s 29.3%. No idea why. France once again have eight, Australia are a ‘new entry’ with six, right behind them are Germany with five, then on three it’s both New Zealand (all thanks to Peter Jackson) and Japan. A further 20 countries had a hand in one or two films each, with those holding a genuine claim to “country of origin” including (but not necessarily limited to) Chile, Ireland, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

For the second year, I totalled up the BBFC and MPAA certificates of my viewing. Things skew ‘mature’ this year: in 2013, the BBFC’s PG, 12 and 15 certificates were more or less equal, while the MPAA’s meaningless Unrated (not just signifying “too extreme to be classified!” but also “so old it doesn’t need to be reclassified”) came top, closely followed by PG-13. In 2014, however, the 15 certificate (41, 29.7%) edged out the 12 (37, 26.8%), with 18 in third place (21, 15.2%) and PG just behind (18, 13.0%). Technical last place goes to U (15, 10.9%), although six films weren’t BBFC certified at all. “But that’s illegal!” Well, not for internet-distributed films that weren’t specifically released over here.

On the other side of the pond, this year it was R that claimed the top spot (43, 31.2%), pushing Unrated into second place (39, 28.3%) and PG-13 down to third (38, 27.5%). The MPAA’s distaste for lower ratings continued with 14 PGs (10.1%) and just three Gs (2.2%). If you’ve spotted that those add up to 99.3% then… why are you checking my percentages? Don’t you trust me? But also, the 0.7% goes to a sole NC-17 film. As I’ve not posted a review yet, I’ll tell you that’s Requiem for a Dream.

In a stat that’s improved for the second year in a row, 15 of my main list films appear on the IMDb Top 250 at the start of January 2015. Their positions ranges from 7th (12 Angry Men) to 203rd (X-Men: Days of Future Past), and 10 of those 15 are thanks to What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen (the two not present are The Searchers (yes, really) and Blue Velvet). Ticking off 12 Angry Men also means I’ve finally seen all of the Top 250’s top ten. However, I still have 102 of the Top 250 to see — a lot, but also a nice little improvement from last year’s 114.

At the end of every previous year-end summary I’ve included a list of 50 notable films I’d missed from that year’s releases, and have since tracked my progress at watching those ‘misses’. In 2014, I’ve seen more movies from every year’s list (worth mentioning because I didn’t last year). Noteworthy points include that, after six years, I’ve still only seen 15 films (30%) from 2008’s list; and although I only watched one apiece from 2007’s, 2008’s, and 2010’s lists, I watched an anomalous five from 2009’s. As with so many things, I’m not sure why that should have happened. Rounding things out, I watched four from 2011’s list and eight from 2012’s. The newcomer is (of course) 2013, and I got off to strong start by catching up on 16 of those 50 — more in one year than I’ve managed in six from 2008. Don’t know what’s wrong with that list (and you can’t find out either, what with FilmJournal being down again. I’ll repost it all someday…)

That graph shows my progress year-by-year, but in total I’ve seen 153 out of 350 ‘missed’ movies, or 43.7%. Of the remaining 197, I own or currently have ready access to around 106. Which is ridiculous. I shall chastise myself.

The count of directors on the list this year is complicated by some mix-and-match directing partnerships. So for starters, there are 112 solo directors… but one of those, Frank Miller, also directed a film with Robert Rodriguez, and another with Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino; and Rodriguez directed another again, with Ethan Maniquis. Counting all the different combinations as unique, there are 129 directing credits this year… although that doesn’t include the one film that didn’t even have a credited director! I despair. Whichever way you cut it up, it comes out as the most directors ever. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but there it is.

Aside from Miller and Rodriguez, those with multiple films are headlined by David O. Russell and W.S. Van Dyke with three each. There’s two apiece from Tim Burton, Justin Lin, Roy William Neill, Phillip Noyce, and Steven Spielberg, while Peter Jackson has one main list film (The Hobbit 2) and one extra film (The Hobbit 1 Extended).

Finally, as always, we come to the scores:

First up, there were a record-high number of five-star films this year: 29. Of course that’s partly due to the sheer volume of films, but at 21.0% of my viewing it’s only just behind 2009’s 21.2% in terms of highest percentages. That makes five-stars the second most-awarded score this year, which has only happened once before (also in 2009), and even then it was tied for second (with three-stars). Have I become more lenient, or have I been watching a higher standard of films this year? Not sure, to be honest — there may have been a couple of occasions when generosity got the better of me; equally, there were a couple where I’d initially thought of giving full marks but pulled back in the end, so I guess it averages out.

The most populous score is, as usual, four-stars, with 68 films. That’s not the highest total ever (that goes to 2007’s 72), nor the highest percentage (several years best it), but it still comes out at 49.3%, which is pretty good going. See above for my thoughts on leniency vs. quality.

There were 27 three-star films, which works out at 19.6%. That’s the lowest percentage ever for this rating. It comes after the two most three-stars-y years ever (38% in 2012 and 35.8% in 2013) — the more of these stats I trot out, the more you can see why I’ve been wondering if I’m going soft.

The lowest two rankings remain within their usual parameters, however. There were 13 two-star films, which is darn close to the 2007-2013 average of 12. Finally, there was just one one-star films, which is the same as four of the previous seven years. I’ve always been toughest when it comes to rating films just a single star — something has to be pretty irredeemable to get to that point, as proven by the fact that neither G.I. Joe: Retaliation nor Transformers: Dark of the Moon sunk so low. Maybe I am getting lenient…

Last of all, the average score. As you’d expect from those numbers, it’s a high one: 3.8. To be precise, it’s 3.804, just behind 2011’s 3.829 but (in percentage terms) notably above third-place 2009’s 3.657. (If I scored in percentages, that would make this year’s average 76.1%, with 2011’s high as 76.6% and 2009’s third as 73.1%; 2012’s lowest-ever of 3.352 would be 67.0%.)

And that’s your lot!


Coming soon…

(“Soon” as in “soon as I can decide what they are and write up 15 mini-blurbs”, that is.)

My Top 10! And all the other bits that always come in that post!

And then we can finally move on to 2015, I promise.

December 2014

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Friends, Romans, coun— Actually, I don’t think I get many visits from Italy, so…

Friends, readers, countrymen, lend m— Actually, apparently I get more hits from the US than the UK, so…

Friends, readers, people of the world, lend me your ears— Well, I’m not reading it to you, so…

Lend me your eyes— But not literally, that would be freaky…

Oh, let’s just get on with it:


What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

Heading in to the final month of 2014, I had two of my “one per month” films left. Well, that’s better than last year.

What’s also better than last year is how many I watched: both of them! I know it shouldn’t be an achievement to say “I watched two specific films in a month”, but, y’know.

What were they? Both acclaimed somewhat-cult-ish modern classics from the noughties: Korean vengeance thriller Oldboy, and The Bleakest Movie Ever Made™, Requiem for a Dream. Both are dark, troubling, and absolutely excellent.


December’s films in full

TintinAs well as those two, the final list for the year includes…

#122 Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
#123 Oldboy (2003), aka Oldeuboi
#124 After the Thin Man (1936)
#125 Good Will Hunting (1997)
#126 Sin City: Recut & Extended (2005)
#127 Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
#128 Bill the Galactic Hero (2014)
Requiem for a Dream#129 Another Thin Man (1939)
#130 All is Lost (2013)
#131 John Carter (2012)
#132 The Lego Movie (2014)
#133 Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger! (2012)
#134 The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)
#135 Knights of Badassdom (2013)
#136 Requiem for a Dream (2000)

(The Adventures of Tintin link will be live later this morning.)


Analysis

Reaching #136 makes 2014 the biggest year ever, finally besting 2007’s total of 129. Indeed, combining the main list with unnumbered feature reviews, 2014 also beats 2007’s total-total — making this the biggest year in pretty much every respect. Did it fare similarly well in star ratings, etc? We’ll have to wait for my full statistics post to find out. (I mean “we” literally — I have no idea yet.)

For now, let’s put December 2014 in context. With a total of 15 films, it beats every stat going: the December average (previously 10.2), the 2014 average (previously 11), and the average for my particularly-good last six months (previously 12.8). It’s also the joint-second-highest month of the year, tied with August (both sitting a little behind September‘s 17).

Further, it makes seven months in a row that I’ve watched over 10 films per month — that’s the joint-longest run of double-figure months. The previous time was from September 2009 to March 2010. It’s worthy of note because the longest such run in the four-year interim was just three months. A bit of dedication in January should see another record set, then.

Finally, to briefly look forward to next year: back in October I mentioned the potential for 100 Films 2015 to reach #1000 — for all time, that is, not 1,000 Films in a Year. With this year’s final total decided, I now know that the 1,000th film will be 2015’s #112 — if I get there, of course. The average final tally for the eight years to date is 111, so it’s certainly on the cards.


This month’s archive reviews

The 25 reviews of my now-traditional Advent Calendar took up most of my posting efforts this month, but in and around that there was still time for four archive reposts:


Next time on 100 Films in a Year…

In the next few days, my review of the past year continues. First: the alphabetical full list of my viewing, along with the absolute highlight of the year (for me) — the statistics. With graphs!

2014 in Review, Part 1

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It’s that time of year again, dear readers, when we look back at all that has occurred over the past 12 months.

Coming soon: my final monthly summary of 2014, about December (obv.); the full list of my 2014 viewing, with all the exciting statistics; and my summary of the highs (top ten!), lows (bottom five!) and in betweens (50 films I missed!)

But first, the now-traditional WordPress-provided summary of how many people bothered to visit my blog and which pages they bothered to visit:

Here's an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Notes:

  • It wasn’t just new posts that grew the archive of the blog: 145 reposts from 2007-2011 helped increase the tally from last year’s 552.
  • My Harry Potter 1&2 reviews remain dominant, and I think will for all time.
  • I like that new “posting patterns” bit, even if it does show up how rarely I posted reviews for a good chunk of the year.

Tomorrow: my December summary.

2013 In Retrospect

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With 2013 completed, listed, and analysed, all that remains is a final bit of reflection: of the 110 films I watched, which were the best? Which were the worst? And what new releases did I miss?

Plus, this year you can vote for your favourite of my top ten.

Before we begin, one last thing to mull: in just the last few days it’s come to my attention that every previous 100 Films year-end #1 has been a film either released that year, or from the previous year that had only just come to DVD/Blu-ray. For all the classics I’ve watched down the years, not one has ever managed to best a new release in my annual affections. That certainly wasn’t deliberate — as I said, I’ve literally just noticed the pattern this week. But with the introduction of What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?, and a summer cinema season that seems to have had a largely mediocre reception, will 2013 be the year to break the mould? Read on…



The Five Worst Films I Saw For the First Time in 2013

In alphabetical order…

Anonymous
The theory that Shakespeare didn’t write the works of Shakespeare is largely nonsense, but good films have been made of worse. So a period drama — perhaps, at a stretch, some kind of thriller — based around that isn’t doomed… except Anonymous has the misfortune to be helmed by blockbuster maestro Roland Emmerich. The result is a scrappy mess which primarily leaves you irritated that someone might consider it to be historically accurate.

Battleship
Who’d’ve thunk a movie based on a board game would be a poor idea, eh? I think the success of Pirates of the Caribbean has led certain elements in Hollywood to think you can make a film out of almost any recognisable property, ignoring the fact that there were multiple other attempts by Disney to turn theme park attractions into film franchises that flopped. Battleship begins — and, hopefully, ends — a similar list for board games.

The Bourne Legacy
How the mighty have fallen. It might not seem like the Bourne franchise was dependent on its star (nothing against Matt Damon, but he didn’t ‘make’ the films in the way Depp does Pirates or Downey Jr does Iron Man, for example), but without him it flounders. It’s not Jeremy Renner’s fault — he’s lumbered with a weak continuation/reboot that’s frustratingly naval-gazing when it comes to continuity and lacking in the series’ trademark thrills.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Some people love The Rise of Cobra. This baffles me. I don’t mind a dumbed-down spectacle-focused action/adventure movie, but there are ways in which those can exemplify quality, and G.I. Joe has none. Overcooked action scenes offer no respite from first-draft dialogue, cut-and-paste backstory, and poorer acting than you’d get from a 2×4. I enjoyed The Mummy when I was younger, but Sommers’ post-millennial work makes me fear my memory has deceived.

Sharknado
“So bad it’s good” by numbers — which is not how that rarified experience should work: you don’t create “so bad it’s good”, you happen to be it. From the title down this is a cynical exercise in geekdom-baiting, and sadly it seems to have worked. It’s Snakes on a Plane all over again — the final product doesn’t matter, it’s the concept of it that gets a certain kind of person salivating. It doesn’t deserve such success, because Sharknado is uninspired and unfun.



The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2013

A quirky French take on the period adventure movie, this is like Indiana Jones crossed with a children’s farce. The resultant mix is not going to be for everybody — the po-faced certainly need not apply — but as a daft runaround, as much concerned with having copious amounts of fun as providing adventuresome antics, it’s all-out entertainment.

For me, this is the watermark that Zack Snyder’s Batman vs Superman will have to live up to. Good luck, mate. Picking up threads from Part I, Batman must engage in an all-or-nothing battle with a revived Joker, before the American government send the Man of Steel himself after the Caped Crusader. Cue the superhero smackdown to end ’em all. This faces stiff competition to be counted among the best Batman films but, much like Bats vs Supes, its viscerally exciting fight sequences and underlying intelligence (inherited from the original graphic novel) mean it’s up to the challenge.

A low-budget ’60s shocker sounds like exactly the kind of thing that should have faded with time — but quality endures, and George A. Romero’s sub-genre-creating film has that in spades. While some sequences are indeed out-and-out horror, in many respects it’s the strongly-drawn characters who make the film so compelling. The scale of its influence is hard to fathom, both in creating our modern concept of zombies and its demonstrably-replicable claustrophobic stylings; but more than that, it remains remarkably watchable in itself.

Darker than a long night of the soul, Charles Laughton’s sole directorial effort nonetheless appears on lists of films children should definitely see. That’s because this is a Depression-era fairy tale, with all the scariness and cruelty that is inherent to true examples of the form. The story of a ‘preacher’ who duplicitously stalks a dead man’s wife and children in search of hidden wealth, it comes with captivating performances and grim imagery that sears itself into your mind, this is a classic for all ages.

After the Sly Stallone vehicle bungled it back in the ’90s, I doubt anyone thought we’d see a decent screen iteration of 2000 AD’s long-running lawman, Judge Dredd. But here it is. While it may lack the visual faithfulness that the Stallone film actually got right, it more than makes up for it by nailing the tone. This is a sharp, efficient sci-fi action movie, laying the groundwork for a world begging to be explored in sequels, but also an entertaining burst of adrenaline in its own right.

Inviting comparisons with Luc Besson’s classic Leon, the titular Hanna is a teenage girl trained by her father to be a Bourne-level assassin, who he then pits against his former employers. Although the setup may suggest mainstream spy thrills, director Joe Wright instead delivers a left-field coming-of-age movie… just one with hard-hitting action sequences, surreal imagery, long single takes, beautiful cinematography, and a pulsating Chemical Brothers soundtrack. Considered as a thriller it’s relentlessly idiosyncratic, but that’s what makes it so refreshing and wonderful.

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most acclaimed films, featuring arguably the most iconic image from his oeuvre that doesn’t involve a shower, North by Northwest is 136 minutes packed full of almost everything you could want from a movie. A story of mistaken identity, murder and spying, it contains sequences of pure tension, of action, of humour; it’s a mystery, a thriller; there’s a dash of romance, even. The whole is unadulterated entertainment. If you wanted one film to demonstrate almost the entire gamut of Hitch’s considerable genius, this is it.

It’s not just one of the most striking and memorable titles of recent years (perhaps of all time) — Andrew Dominik’s Western is striking and memorable in just about every regard. Greatest of all is Roger Deakins’ cinematography, some of the best work from a master of his field; but there’s also the considered and immersive pace, the enthralling and complex performances, and a narrative that’s not only historically accurate but also epic and intimate. Completely overshadowed by There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men back in 2007, I judge it to be easily superior to either. An under-recognised masterpiece.

It’s almost a second-place tie between two Westerns this year, with Quentin Tarantino’s “Southern” taking this spot by a nose because of pure entertainment value. This is a film where a not-inconsiderable running time flies by thanks to a wealth of sharp dialogue, emotionally satisfying violence, hilarious asides, and the skill of a filmmaker who by rights should be getting stale and predictable but somehow remains refreshed and invigorated. Jesse James is a sophisticated and classy Western; Django Unchained is its intelligently impudent counterpoint.

Three-and-a-half-hour black-and-white Japanese movies are not the kind of thing the unpretentious are meant to fall for, and yet Seven Samurai has a fanbase beyond the art house crowd. A case in point for not judging a book by its cover, then, because Kurosawa’s much-imitated classic (everything from individual shots to the entire story has been recycled by others) is an enthralling, gorgeous, vital movie. It takes its time (the feature-length first half is spent merely assembling the titular team), but amply rewards the investment — the final battles are extraordinary examples of old-fashioned action filmmaking.



Poll

This year, I invite your opinion on my top ten — well, I always invite your opinion on my top ten (that’s what the comments section is for) — but this year, I invite your opinion through the simple voting mechanism of a poll. I think how that works is pretty self-explanatory…

If you feel I’ve made an unforgivable oversight, feel free to berate me in the comments below.



Honourable Mentions

Thanks to specifically watching 11 highly-acclaimed classics this year, films that might otherwise have made the top ten found themselves squeezed out. So spare a thought for Iron Man 3, easily the best film I’ve yet seen from Summer 2013; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, a surprisingly entertaining bit of nonsense; and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which isn’t quite The Lord of the Rings but is the next best thing. Plus, from said 11 classics, Lawrence of Arabia and Touch of Evil were both films I admired but wasn’t sure how much I loved, and so found themselves slipping out of consideration.

Honourable mentions too for Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece, whose cult-favourite-ish charms almost saw it become the first three-star film in one of my top tens; and Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, which I’ve counted as a film but is a TV programme really (shh, don’t tell anyone!) Part of me wanted to stick to my convictions (the ones that got it listed in the first place) and include it, but when I had 16 films to fit into 10 spaces, it was easier to just let it go.

Finally, I must mention the films that earned themselves full marks, especially this year: with a record high of 23 five-star films across all lists, it was literally impossible for every one to make the top ten (even before my predilection for including four-star films). However, an almost-unbeatable nine did make it in — normally I list them again here, but to put it bluntly: everything except Adèle Blanc-Sec. There were, however, another 11 five-star films on the main list, those being The Artist, Dawn of the Dead, Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, It Happened One Night, Lawrence of Arabia, My Week with Marilyn, On the Waterfront, Side by Side, Touch of Evil, and Waking Sleeping Beauty. Finally, there was one five-star film apiece for each of my other ‘categories’: from the shorts, A Trip to the Moon; from the alternate cuts, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition); and from repeat viewing, You Only Live Twice.



The Films I Didn’t See

As is inevitably the case, there were a large number of noteworthy releases this year that I didn’t get to see. So as is my tradition, here’s an alphabetical list of 50 films I missed in 2013. They’re selected for a variety of reasons, be that box office success, critical acclaim, or simple notoriety — though I do err more towards ones I might actually see at some point rather than, say, the 10th highest-grossing film of the year.

12 Years a Slave
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
American Hustle
Before Midnight
Behind the Candelabra
Blackfish
Blue Is the Warmest Colour
Blue Jasmine
The Butler
Captain Phillips
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
Despicable Me 2
Elysium
Ender’s Game
Fast & Furious 6
The Fifth Estate
Frozen
Fruitvale Station
A Good Day to Die Hard
Gravity
The Great Gatsby
Her
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Jack the Giant Slayer
The Lone Ranger
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Monsters University
Much Ado About Nothing
Now You See Me
Oblivion
Oldboy
Olympus Has Fallen
Only God Forgives
Oz the Great and Powerful
Pacific Rim
Pain and Gain
Philomena
Prisoners
RED 2
Riddick
Rush
Saving Mr. Banks
Thor: The Dark World
Trance
Upstream Color
White House Down
The Wolf of Wall Street
World War Z
The World’s End



A Final Thought

And so another year is over (except for the twenty reviews I still have to post, that is). It’s always sad to say goodbye, but 2013 has been a strong year for 100 Films and, quite frankly, that makes me happy.

Fingers crossed for another good one in 2014 — and for all of your film viewing endeavours too, dear reader.

2013: The Full List

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Here we are for the seventh time, dear readers: a new year begun, meaning it’s time to look at the one just passed.

2013 was an above-average year for 100 Films in purely numerical terms: I watched 110 films that were new to me, a number higher than I managed in four of the blog’s six previous years. There are a whole host of ways I’ll be (over-)analysing that viewing, both throughout this post and another in a few days’ time — perversely, this is one of my favourite bits of the year.

Anyway, because there’s a lot of long lists stretching out this post, let’s begin with a list of handy links, enabling you to jump down to whichever bit interests you:

So without further ado:


2013 As It Happened

Below is a graphical representation of my viewing, month by month. More importantly, each of the twelve images links to their relevant monthly update, meaning this is where you can find a numbered list of every qualifying film I watched in 2013.













The List

Alternate Cuts
Other Reviews
Shorts

The Statistics

As I expect you know by this point, I watched 110 new (to me) feature films in 2013. (All are included in the stats that follow, even if I’ve not posted a review yet.) This makes 2013 my third best year ever, behind 2007’s 129 and 2010’s 122.

I also watched three features I’d seen before but were now extended or altered in some way. I also chose to review ten others for the fun of it. Between those two groups there’s all eight Harry Potters, watched and reviews as part of my thorough retrospective. All 123 films are included in the statistics that follow (except where indicated).

I also watched four shorts this year (which shan’t be counted in any statistics… except for the one that says they are). That’s one fewer than last year and one more than the year before, but as I own literally hundreds on DVD, I really should be doing a lot better.

The total running time of new features this year was 209 hours and 10 minutes, a huge increase on last year; indeed, it’s the highest ever (by 58 minutes), over a year that had about a dozen more films. Lots of long ‘uns this year. The total running time of all films (and this is the one that does include shorts) was 239 hours and 29 minutes — which, as you can see in the graph below, makes this year the longest by some way; in fact, new features alone definitively tops the entirety of viewing from all but one previous year!

This year’s most prolific viewing format was, for the first time, Blu-ray. HD discs accounted for 59 of films watched, which is also the format’s highest tally to date. Second was television, bumped off the top spot for the first time since 2008 (when it finished fourth). I watched 42 films on the gogglebox (just four of them in HD), which is also its lowest total since 2008 (when it accounted for just 10!) Also-rans include DVD with eight (considering my vast collection, I ought to invest a bit more time in them) and downloads, also with eight (mostly Falcon films nabbed from iPlayer, but also two others in HD).

Finally, after ‘storming’ from nowhere to a massive four films last year, streaming continued its (minor) resurgence with six. Last year it was thanks to Netflix and LOVEFiLM, this year it’s Now TV (which also means they were all in HD, something the other two services didn’t offer through my Wii). To be honest, I’m surprised that number’s so low — I really ought to have made better use of the service. Maybe in the early months of 2014.

For the first time since this blog began — indeed, for perhaps the first time in almost 20 years — I didn’t make a single trip to the cinema this year. Put that down to personal laziness as much as apathy with the current state of the cinematic experience. Sad in a way, but so often I find it such a palaver, and an expensive one at that: when you can get a new release Blu-ray for little more than the total cost of a solo cinema trip (and these days, if I cared enough to go to the cinema for it, I’m almost certain to want the Blu-ray too), it makes financial sense.

This year’s closest temptations were The Wolverine (now the first X-Men film I’ve skipped theatrically), Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special (I was going to catch an encore but, of all things, a broken boiler got in the way), and Gravity (“see it in 3D on the biggest screen you can find,” they wailed. I forgot.) Maybe next year I’ll be tempted to make the arduous shift from my sofa to a cinema seat by the likes of X-Men: Days of Future Past and… um… well, I’m sure there’s something else to look forward to…

The most popular decade in 2013 was the 2010s, with 54 films. Unsurprisingly, 2013 itself accounted for a goodly chunk of that. At 43.9% of my total, the ’10s are also up a fraction on last year. Continuing that pattern, the ’00s finish second again, with 22 films (17.9%) — numbers close to 2012’s.

In all, my viewing spanned eight decades — as with last year, every decade since the 1930s is covered (I really must make an effort with my silent film DVD/BD collection). With post-millennial years taking the top two places, it falls to the last millennium to round out the list: the ’40s and ’50s come joint third with 10 (8.1%) apiece, while the ’60s are just behind on nine (7.3%). In descending order, the ’80s claim seven (5.7%), the ’90s account for five (4.1%), the ’70s manage three (2.4%), and the ’30s have just two (1.6%). Finally, if I included shorts in these things the 1900s would also feature, thanks to 1902’s A Trip to the Moon.

Last year, 106 of the 108 films I watched were wholly or significantly in English. Poor. This year, it was 115 out of 123 — still not great if you’re looking to take in the vastness of world cinema, but 93.5% vs. last year’s 98% is clearly an improvement. A distant second was Japanese with four (3.3%), and there were two apiece containing significant amounts (or being wholly in) French, Italian and Mandarin. Still, as last year’s complete list of languages was “English, German, Cantonese and Mandarin”, the total of 11 this year (plus “silent”, if you count that) is a step in the right direction. Others of note include Sioux (thanks to Shanghai Knights) and Klingon (guess). OK, maybe I shouldn’t count the last one. Call it 10 languages, then.

Moving on to countries of production, the USA is similarly dominant, producing or co-producing 102 films. At 82.9% of my viewing, that’s actually marginally up on last year. Second place again belongs to Britain with 36 films (29.3%), also upping its share from 2012. A mixture of co-productions obscure the true numbers for country-of-origin, but other numerical highlights include France (8), Germany (6, all co-productions if I remember rightly), Canada (5), Italy (4), Japan (3, none of them co-prods), and South Africa (3, an increasingly popular co-production destination I believe). A further 12 countries have one or two productions to their name, although I think only Sweden’s sole entry was entirely their ‘own work’.

This year I also totted up the BBFC and MPAA certificates of films I watched. From the BBFC, the PG, 12 and 15 certificates were all pretty well balanced, with 31, 34 and 33 films respectively. Of the outliers, 12 were rated U and nine were 18s, leaving four that somehow weren’t BBFC certified at all.

The MPAA are a funnier lot: the top certificate from them is “Not Rated”, with a total of 39. That’s because they don’t insist on reclassifying old titles, plus a few “unrated cut”s. The highest genuine rating was just behind: the ubiquitous PG-13, with 37. Elsewhere, R-rated films totalled 27, there were 18 at PG (compare to the BBFC’s 31), the surprisingly-rare G put in one appearance, and there was even an NC-17! Feel free to go hunt that one out.

(I was going to include a graph here, but it didn’t really show anything the numbers don’t. That is to say, the BBFC are more reasonable.)

After just three of 2012’s films appeared on the IMDb Top 250 — the lowest number ever — this year has seen a resurgence. As of New Year’s Day 2014, 13 films from 2013’s main list appear upon that hallowed chart; one of my higher totals, though not a patch on 2007’s 21. This year’s lot is made up of the 11 I saw from What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? (which had to be on the IMDb Top 250 to qualify), plus Django Unchained (53rd) and It Happened One Night (135th). The positions range from 18th (Seven Samurai) to 197th (The Night of the Hunter). For all that, I still have some 114 Top 250 films to see.

At the end of all six previous years’ final summaries, I’ve included a list of 50 notable films I’d missed from that year’s releases. Taking into account 2013’s viewing, I’ve managed to see (deep breath) two more from 2007’s list (bringing the total for that 50 to 29), no more from 2008’s (leaving it at 14), two more from 2009’s (bringing it to 17), one more from 2010’s (bringing it to 23), and four more from 2011’s (bringing it to 20). It’s now a year since I published 2012’s 50 (obviously), and in that time I’ve managed to see 14 of them. A solid start, but as I own or have access to over 20 more, I could do a lot better.

A total of 96 solo directors and three directing partnerships appear on the main list this year. Foremost among these numerically is George A. Romero with six films, while there are two each for William Clemens, Justin Lin, John Madden, Orson Welles and David Zucker. Elsewhere, Jay Oliva appears once on the main list and once in the additional films. The latter also gives us four films for David Yates, two each for Chris Columbus and Gordon Flemyng, and two shorts for Louis D’Esposito. Most of those multiples are thanks to franchises: “the Dead” (Romero), the Falcon (Clemens), Fast & Furious (Lin), Naked Gun (Zucker), Batman (Oliva), Harry Potter (Yates, Columbus), Doctor Who (Flemyng), and Marvel (D’Esposito).

I noted previously that there seemed to be an uncommonly high number of noteworthy directors who I was encountering for the first time this year. They include Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal), Frank Capra (It Happened One Night), John Cassavetes (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie), Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves), Georges Méliès (A Trip to the Moon), Nicholas Ray (On Dangerous Ground), and George A. Romero (Dawn of the Dead, and the rest). There could be said to be more (Andrew Dominik, Richard Fleischer, Charles Laughton, Ben Wheatley…), but your mileage may vary.

Lastly, the scores. 2013 ushered in 22 five-star films (the most ever!) and just one one-star film. 2012 saw three-star films top the tally for the first time; 2013 saw the highest number of three-star films ever, at 44… but they were nonetheless bested (just), by the 46 four-star films. Hurrah for quality! Last but not least (literally), there were 10 two-star films.

To be frank, I expected the number of films I awarded three stars to have again exceeded the number given four. Last year I wondered if I was being harsher or just watching poorer films; this year, I’d felt certain I was doing the former, with multiple movies that would previously have benefitted from my benevolence being cruelly stripped back to that middle rank. And I only felt a little bit bad about it. In fact, the only thing that ever gives me pause is that there are archive four-star reviews which, for parity’s sake, ought now to be three-stars. I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

Finally, then: after last year’s record-low average score, this year saw it rise back into regular territory, finishing up at 3.6. Hurrah again!


Coming next…

It’s time to definitively wave goodbye to 2013 with my final summary post. My bottom five are already chosen, my top ten currently has fifteen entries, and the long list for my “50 unseen from 2013” stands at 113… but fear not, dear reader: choices will be made, and all will be revealed this weekend.

December 2013

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Merry New Year to you, dearest reader. Before I get really stuck in to reviewing the year as a whole, there’s one final month to look at individually.

That said, we begin proceedings with how things went for my new-this-year challenge-within-a-challenge…


WDYMYHS 2013What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

Having set out with the goal of watching one super-acclaimed film per month, I somehow ended up with three to get through come December. That didn’t quite go to plan then. Undeterred, I shall be attempting this again in 2014… even though I wound up only seeing 11 of the 12 films I was supposed to.

So what were the final two? Well, both were from the 1950s — somewhat unsurprisingly, considering that decade made up half the starting list. More precisely, they were Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, and a film I’ve been meaning to see for so long I can’t even remember how long that is — and, indeed, one that inspired this very project — Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

What got missed? Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Hey, I don’t like boxing movies. It won’t roll on to 2014’s WDYMYHS (unless it qualifies again under whatever new rules I cook up — yes, there will be a modified selection process), but I still intend to try to squeeze it in during January.


Seven SamuraiDecember’s films in full

#104 On the Waterfront (1954)
#105 Arthur Christmas (2011)
#106 Hanna (2011)
#107 Kick-Ass 2 (2013)
#108 Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)
#109 Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
#110 Seven Samurai, aka Shichinin no samurai (1954)


Analysis

110! A nice strong number, I’d say. Also, the first time I’ve ever finished in the 110s (after two 90s, two 100s, and two 120s).

The total for December 2013 (seven films) is pretty much in line with the same month from the last few years: in 2012 it was six, in 2011 it was eight, and in 2010 it was seven. Quite a different tale to the early years: it was double that in 2009 at 14, and 2008 was the infamous “race to the finish” year that saw me churn through 19 films (still the highest ever single month in the blog’s history).

I won’t share too much more analysis on how December fits into the year as a whole, because that’s what the big stats thing in the next year-end summary is for. If I were to rank the months of 2013, though, it would come 8th, which is the lower end of the middle.


The Advent Calendar

Last year’s inaugural 100 Films Advent Calendar wound up only managing 23 of the intended 25 reviews… though it was still a great success, both in reducing my backlog and producing views: December 2012’s hits were up 41% on November 2012’s.

This year, it’s a similar story: I managed to get in all 25 reviews, reducing the backlog once again, and the views for December 2013 were up 18% from November 2013 — and up 74% from December 2012! Rest assured, unless I manage the unlikely feat of keeping on top of my reviews, it’ll be back in 2014.


Next on 100 Films in a Year…

No “list of five” this month because, quite frankly, I’ll be chucking enough other lists your way soon enough: there’s the full list of 2013 viewing, my bottom five, my top ten, and the 50 I missed, not to mention all the lovely stats.

And then it all begins again, for the eighth year. Octastic!

2013 in Review, Part 1

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It’s the end, dear readers, but the moment has been prepared for…

…by WordPress, that is, who have produced my annual report. It’s just the beginning of my regular array of posts that look back at the year just passed, so keep your eyes peeled (also, open) for three further review-of-the-year posts in the next few days. Those ones I actually wrote myself!

Here’s an excerpt from WordPress’ report:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Once you’ve read that, the following will make sense:

  • It wasn’t just new posts that grew the archive of the blog: 141 reposts from 2007-2011 helped increase the tally from last year’s 249.
  • Those Harry Potter reviews…! They remain my most-viewed posts most days.
  • The Batman one got a lot of visits from people wanting to know when it was out in the UK; I pushed Adèle Blanc-Sec like mad on Twitter when it premiered on Film4, so that paid off; the last one I can’t really explain.
  • Particular thanks to ghostof82, filmhipster, Colin and Mike.

Next up in my review of the year: a look back at December 2013.