The plan is working! My mission to review more films than I watch has so far been a success, in that this week I watched one required-reviewing film, but reviewed two, including the one I watched! Yeah, small steps, but steps in the right direction nonetheless. Not much else to report – the wedding planning continues – so let’s get into what I watched this week:

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

This month’s blind spot. These aren’t normally due until the end of the month, so I’m super ahead of schedule here, and it feels great.
Lists: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Empire’s 5-Star 500, Empire Top 500, Empire Top 301, Total Film Top 100, Stanley Kubrick Movies, Blind Spot Movies
Full review here.

The Nice Guys (2016)

Ryan Gosling plays Holland March, a private detective tasked with tracking down a porn star recently found dead, whilst Russell Crowe is tough guy Jackson Healy, looking for his missing friend who March thinks might be connected to the porn star. That’s where the story starts, after Healy breaks March’s arm, and it follows these two mis-matched guys completing their cases in 1977 Los Angeles. I’m a big fan of Shane Black’s first two movies, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, so this was my most anticipated movie of 2016, and it didn’t disappoint too much. There’s a pretty heavy KKBB feel to it, as though it’s following the same plot structure, replacing the romantic subplot of Michelle Monaghan with March’s father/daughter relationship with Angourie Rice, but it didn’t quite have that film’s spark. Crowe and Gosling are both good, and are both as funny as I thought they would be, but after having watched all the Lethal Weapon films recently I’d like Black to try stepping away from the buddy movie niche if he can. Just because it didn’t live up to the near-perfect heights of KKBB doesn’t mean this wasn’t a huge amount of fun, because I was thoroughly entertained throughout and am looking forward to re-watching once it hits DVD. Oh, and my newest character-actor-I’ll-be-keeping-an-eye-on is Beau Knapp, who plays a henchman here and was pretty great. Not Keith David great, who by the way does not get nearly enough to do in this film, but still someone I’ll be taking an interest in for the future.
Lists: 2016 Movies
Choose Film 8/10

Posts you may have missed:
Lambcast #324: Roll Your Own Top 5 I was joined by Nick Rehak, Brendan Cassidy, Richard Kirkham and Carly Booth to each create a movie-related top 5 list of our own. Between us we discussed music videos based on movies, modern westerns, films others love that we don’t, non-humanoid robots and, of course, films that should be re-cast with Muppets.
TV Good Sleep Bad: Dark Season & Sapphire and Steel
Favourite Scene Friday: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn
The Dressmaker
Blind Spot: A Clockwork Orange

Goals Update
Aim: Review 8 or 9 1001 List movies each month
Reviewed: 27
Should be on: 44
On Track: No!

Aim: Review 1 “Bad” movie each month
Reviewed: 5
Should be on: 5
On Track: Yes!

Aim: Review 1 “Blind Spot” movie each month
Reviewed: 6
Should be on: 6
On Track: Yes!

Aim: Review 2 “Film-Makers” movies each month
Reviewed: 7
Should be on: 11
On Track: No!