Wednesday 11 February 2009

TV

Mad Men
1x01 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes [2nd watch]
With the second season just commencing over here, it's time to catch a friend up on the first first... hopefully before a repeat of 2x01...

Not Going Out
3x02 Winner
Utterly ludicrous, but hilariously funny and immaculately constructed. One of the best, cleverest half hours I've seen in a long while.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Birds (1963)
[2nd watch; #6a in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
The last time I saw The Birds was at least a decade ago. It's earning a place on 100 Films because I intend, over time, to build up a collection of reviews of Hitchcock's entire output.

DVD Extras

Watchmen Video Journals
#1: Sets & Sensibility
#2: Dressed for Success
#3: Burn Baby Burn
#4: Dave Gibbons
#5: The Ship Has Eyes
#6: Shoot to Thrill
#7: Blue Monday [2nd watch]
#8: Girls Kick Ass
#9: Attention to Detail
#10: Minutemen

These aren't technically DVD extras (at least, not yet), but rather ten Internet featurettes that show the making of the forthcoming Watchmen movie. They're all very teasing and interesting, though my favourite is probably #5 for showing off the coolness of the Owl Ship.

If reports are to be believed, there should be two more (a February one and a March one) before the film's release. They've been oddly released scattered around the web, so perhaps the easiest way to find them is a pair of podcasts: this one designed for iPods and this one in higher res.

Articles

Doctor Who wants to be a millionaire by Colin Robertson (from The Sun)
and
Dr Who wants to be a millionaire: Matt Smith signs five-year deal to play Time Lord by Paul Revoir (from Mail Online)
and
Doctor Who will be a millionaire in five year BBC pay deal by Alastair Jamieson (from Telegraph.co.uk)
My God, look at all the sloppy journalism on display here! The latter two have just copied The Sun, and in the process inherited a mass of factual inaccuracies and hearsay -- things that were once reported as 'fact' and have since been disproved by cast & crew in interviews or books. Plus some truly glaring errors (12 million regular viewers?!), and not mentioning the fact that he won't be a millionaire unless he did do the full five years (presuming this story is even true), saved all his wages and somehow lived off something else! It's appallingly shoddy, it really is.

And on a similar topic...

Casting Matt Smith shows that Doctor Who is a savvy multi-million pound brand by Andrew Pettie
(from Telegraph.co.uk)
An article from a bit over a month ago, when Matt Smith was announced; but it still makes for an interesting read.