TV

Moving Wallpaper
2x02 Episode 2
Not the best episode, which does raise the question: with show-within-show Renaissance already shooting, what are the behind-the-scenes team going to do for most of the series? It's still funny, though only sporadically. I hope it gets another recommission, but Must Try Harder if it's going to.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Not Going Out
3x06 Speech
Simple pleasures.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Orangutan Diary
2x01 Episode 1
Since the advent of iPlayer, the BBC's website has really gone downhill -- series that previously had dedicated sites now just have pages with iPlayer-esque links, like this one for Orangutan Diary. Series 1 had a proper site! (Archive here.)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Watchmen (2009)
[#9 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]

Watchmen is turning out to be a real "love it or hate it" film, with both critics and audiences. Depending on what day you're looking on and what site you're looking at, you're likely to be left thinking it's either utterly brilliant or utterly dreadful. Incidentally, this isn't a "fans love it / non-fans hate it" split either -- it seems to afflict both sides equally. So the truth, as I say, is that it more or less divides people.

Personally, I found a few flaws with it; but, as Danny Boyle recently said (about a different film), "it's imperfect; which every film should be". Yep, I'm firmly in the "loved it" camp.

Watchmen in Top 250

No surprises here: on its day of release, Watchmen has entered the IMDb Top 250.

It's only at 216th right now -- will it rise or fall? In the long term, the latter, I expect; but this weekend? We'll have to see.

Follow it here.

Poem of the Week: Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

You know, I've had this poem lined up since November -- that's almost four months ago. Why so long? Well, that's when I found it, and realised it would be a good enough choice for today -- Watchmen Day. It's not necessarily got a great deal to do with said comic adaptation, but that does have a major character called Ozymandias, and some of the poem's imagery is appropriate...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:-- "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

It was written in December 1817 (published January 1818) as part of a writing competition with Shelley's friend, Horace Smith. So guess what I'll be publishing on Monday...

Twitter & feed

Two new ways for you to follow My Cultural Experience, as well as the good ol' fashioned way (i.e. through the site).

Twitter, the increasingly popular social networking (of sorts) site.

a FeedBurner feed, which I believe is something to do with RSS feeds, but I've never understood those...

I also intend to set it up so that 100 Films is fed to @MyCulturalExp -- that's my next task, in fact.

And that's it, dear readers. I hope these new sources are of use to someone...