Sunday 12 December 2010

TV

Band of Brothers
Part Eight The Last Patrol [2nd watch]
The roster of quite-recognisable young British actors in this seems never-ending. This episode, Primeval's Andrew Lee Potts joins the list.

Coronation Street
7/12/10 edition
8/12/10 edition
Whatever I think of soaps normally, there's no denying that this Big Dramatic Tram Crash Week has been incredibly well staged.
[Watch both episodes (again) at the above links.]

Doctors
12x160 The Living Gaylights
Doctors goes Bond-spoof-tastic. Not to everyone's taste, I imagine. You have to wonder what regular Doctors viewers thought if they tuned in without having seen any reviews...
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Due South
2x01 North [2nd watch]

Have I Got News For You
40x09 (9/12/10 edition; extended repeat)
I think this may be the last of the series (with next week's being a compilation). Boo.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

House
7x08 Small Sacrifices
That's it for House until the middle of January. Funny US scheduling antics...

Films

Verity (2010)
[#118a in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Short student-made biopic about Doctor Who's first producer, Verity Lambert, covering her early days on the series. You can watch it for free in various qualities (though don't bother with 1080p, it isn't) on YouTube, and read my review here.

Fiction

Star Trek: Countdown by Mike Johnson, Tim Jones & David Messina
Number Three (of Four)
How many Next Generation characters can they squeeze into this thing?! They should've tried to get all this into the film -- it probably would've flopped marvellously.

this week on 100 Films

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

The Good German (2006)
is this a case of style over substance? Some critics accuse it of just that, saying it concentrates more on the look & feel than the characters. They do have a point, but the style is, if not incidental, then still not the sole purpose. The tale is more about the mystery — indeed, mysteries — than the characters.

The Night Listener (2006)
this is a case of Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction because, though fictionalised, that sequence of events is entirely based on stuff that really happened to author and co-screenwriter Armistead Maupin. The downside is, this “but it happened!” logic seems to allow the filmmakers to get away with not offering adequate explanation.

Solaris (1972)
parts are like an endurance test — Berton’s seemingly endless drive through a future cityscape (actually just ’70s Tokyo), for instance — but, though still glacially paced, most of the film has some discernibly relevant content. Provided you’re not expecting Star Wars, that is, but who in their right mind would be?

The Special Edition of Beauty and the Beast (1991/2002)
Do you need me to tell you how great Beauty and the Beast is? I imagine not. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know. If you haven’t, you really should, and then you’ll know.

Verity (2010)
This nine-minute effort from student screenwriters Thomas Cowell and Joey Guy... focuses on the start of Verity Lambert’s producing career, dramatising the events around her being chosen by Sydney Newman (then the BBC’s Head of Drama) to shepherd his idea for an educational science-fiction children’s drama, Doctor Who.

The Wolfman: Unrated Version (2010)
Despite the “unrated” branding implying “more gore” as per usual, there’s hardly any of that added. Instead it’s mainly character moments of varying degrees of relevance, plus an array of inconsequential tweaks. I appreciate the attempt to bring a slower, creepier style back to modern horror films, but Johnston over-eggs it

More next Sunday.