TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
1x06 Litmus
1x07 Six Degrees of Separation
A pair of similarly-themed but notably different episodes that are the first concrete examples of the series tackling themes that have earnt it such plaudits; namely, notions of justice, particularly in wartime, and religion. Importantly, there are few easy answers, and, I expect, further ramifications to come.

Damages
3x04 Don't Throw That at the Chicken
Much like Dexter a week (and a bit) ago, other series coming to an end means I can restart Damages, almost three months after I last watched it. Thank goodness for "previously on"s.

Dexter
3x06 Sí Se Puede
It feels considerably more than 10 days since I restarted Dexter. Too used to marathoning through it, I suppose, especially when I've got through nine BSGs in five days.

Articles

Scribes thrive on serial series by Robert Koehler
(from Variety)
Interesting (if brief) article on how US TV has, in the past decade or so, definitively moved away from the syndication-friendly format (i.e. standalone episodes suitable to be seen at random in any order) to the DVD-friendly serial format (i.e. long story arcs running the course of a whole (if not several) seasons).
(Variety limits the number of articles you can read without registering, and then limits further without paying. On Safari (and I presume other browsers, but I don't know), however, if you stop the page loading once the text has appeared, you can usually catch it before the password barrier pops up. Nifty.)

this week on 100 Films

4 new reviews were posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

Burn After Reading (2008)

as two minor characters observe at the end, we’ve learnt nothing. There’s been a sporadically complex set of coincidences and accidents, some good laughs and some surprises too, but the end result is… what? But maybe that’s the point.

Ghost Town (2008)

The high-concept at the film’s centre — that Ricky Gervais sees dead people and doesn’t want to — is neat enough. It largely sticks to its rules, it manages a few moments of humour, it doesn’t get too repetitive, it often plays the most obvious card

Ivanhoe (1952)

Most notable is an excellent siege sequence, a moderately epic extended battle that is certainly the film’s high point. The randomly hurled arrows and choreography-free sword fights may look a tad amateurish almost sixty years on, when we’re used to slickly staged and edited combat sequences, but the scale and rough excitement of the battle easily makes up for it.

Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)

The cast are adequate, even if Richard Greene’s no Errol Flynn and Peter Cushing’s no Alan Rickman (here at least). Terence Fisher’s direction is rather flat a lot of the time, though a few scenery shots, riding sequences and fights bring out a bit more dynamism.

More next Sunday.