August 2010

Posted on August 31, 2010 by badblokebob

August. 2010.

Watched films. Some counted.

These are they.

From behind to ahead

No, I’m not talking about anatomy. Look:

At this exact point last year, as we head into the year’s final third (already?! Where’d 2010 go?), I was 22 films behind The Target — i.e. the rate of film-watching that would get me to exactly 100 films by December 31st at a regular, consistent pace.

This year, I’m 23 films ahead.

I’m having a little party. By myself. Nibbles?

But this is no time to be complacent, oh no. There’s still 11 films to go. I may theoretically have time for 34, according to The Target, but who knows what might go wrong? I mean, I started last year three times further ahead than I needed to be and was behind before February.

Enough of that, what of August 2010? Well, to get 23 films ahead, I watched 17 this month (plus one short). That’s the most in a single month this year, just beating May’s 16, but third all-time to December 2008 — when I managed 18 to just scrape 100 that year — and August 2007 — when, somehow, I managed between 25 and 29 films (records for such ancient times are sadly not as thorough).

Hark at me, waffling on about my past times. You’d just like a list of films, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Well here’s one anyway.

#73 Dragonslayer (1981)
#74 Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
#75 Nanny McPhee (2005)
#76 Final Destination 2 (2003)
#77 Total Recall (1990)
#78 Late Spring, aka Banshun (1949)
#79 Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
#80 Ocean’s Eleven (1960)
#81 Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
#82 Bride & Prejudice (2004)
#83 Final Destination 3 (2006)
#84 Matchstick Men (2003)
#85 The Damned United (2009)
#86 Snake Eyes (1998)
#87 Daylight (1996)
#88 Night at the Museum (2006)
#88a The Met Ball (2010)
#89 The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007)

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

The year’s final act begins. Will I even come close to 2007, and reach 100 before the month’s out?

Only time — and probably Twitter — will tell…

Two-thirds done

Posted on September 1, 2008 by badblokebob

With August now behind us, 2008 is two-thirds complete. And so, as I missed halfway, now seems like a moderately appropriate time to reflect on how well my aim of watching 100 new films is going in 2008.

By this point in 2007 I had made it to 98 films, which makes my current tally of 60 look a little lacklustre (reviews for ten of which are still in the works). At least it’s a nice round number. Still, there’s 17 weeks of the year to go — that means I need to average 2.4 films per week, or 10 per month, from here out. Considering my averages to this point are 1.7 and 7.5 respectively, it’s still all to play for.

I would say the summer blockbuster season has given me a hand though: at the end of the year’s first third I’d only made it to 22 films (averages: 1.3 per week, 5.5 per month), but, since Iron Man dragged me to the cinema for the first time in nearly a year, I’ve visited the big screen a total of eight times — not exactly a mind-blowing number, but at 8% of my aim (obviously) it’s not wholly insignificant.

Here’s a few more largely-pointless statistics to round out this post: as well as those eight cinema trips, I’ve seen 39 films on DVD, six via downloads, four on TV, and even one on VHS. There’s also been my first two films on Blu-ray, and one each for the new additions of IMAX and “in-flight”.

I’ve seen five alternate cuts (three of which warranted proper numbering) but just one short. Of all the features I saw, 16 ran over two hours (two made it past the three-hour mark!) and 15 didn’t even make it to 90 minutes! Films are often accused of having spiraling running times these days, but that’s clearly not the case for much of my viewing. I’m reviewing films from across the history of film, of course, but 10 of those 15 were produced in the last decade.

I’ve seen eight feature films that the BBFC awarded a U certificate, 20 that require some PG, 16 that warranted a 12 or 12A, 12 that pushed things to a 15, and just four of those naughty 18s. Two were unrated.

I did a statistics post earlier this year, for 100 days. Back then, I hadn’t seen any films from the ’70s, ’60s, ’50s, or before 1939. While I’ve still not managed anything from the ’70s or before 1939, I have at least seen two from the ’60s and four from the ’50s. As well as that, I’ve watched three films from the ’30s, five each from the ’40s and ’80s, and six from the ’90s. The 2000s still sit proudly atop the pile however, with a grand total of 37.

Three directors have managed to squeeze more than one film into the total so far — namely Kenneth Branagh, Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa, each with two films. (Francis Lawrence and Christopher Nolan don’t really count as they appear twice thanks to alternate versions of the same films.)

Finally, I’ve handed out ratings right across the board. Animated Sherlock Holmes mystery The Baskerville Curse grabbed only my second-ever single-star rating, while seven films merely managed a lowly 2 stars. Ten films are theoretically average with 3, while the majority (30) made it up to 4. A total of 12 films so far this year have touched the giddy heights of 5 stars (not counting The Dark Knight twice). All of this leaves my average score for first-view films at 3.75 — as ever, I’m either largely watching good films or am just fairly generous with my scores.

That’s all for now. Back to actually watching films then… or maybe even getting round to reviewing them…

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

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