TV

Episodes
1x02 Episode Two
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

James May's Toy Stories
1x02 Plasticine

Films

Aladdin (1992)
[3rd or so watch]
I haven't seen Aladdin in an awfully long time, and with the film oddly absent from Disney's Blu-ray slate, Five airing it (and in HD too) was an apparently-rare chance to catch it.

The Big Heat (1953)
[#8 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]

this week on 100 Films

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

A Good Woman (2004)

Most reviews, which are largely negative, focus on it being a poor conversion of the play [Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan]. I’ve never seen nor read the original and thought it slotted seamlessly into its new ’30s setting... It remains a very funny piece

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

It’s wrong to post a review of such a Christmassy film in the middle of January — though not as wrong as the original release date which, at the insistence of Fox’s head Darryl F. Zanuck, was in May (May!) with promotion that played down the Christmas setting. Which, considering the whole story is about a man who thinks he’s Santa Claus, and whether or not he really is, is an impressively underhand piece of marketing.

Surrogates (2009)

Surrogates exerts too much effort establishing its world. The opening montage covers 14 years of future history to take us from the world we know to the world of the story, but in the process is so crammed with improbabilities I wouldn't know where to begin listing them. The premise is dreadfully implausible; this just serves to highlight it.

Finally this week, a review of the 60-second short film How Long is a Minute?.

Additionally, it's worth noting that this marks the end of reviews from 2010. Much quicker than last year! So from next Sunday, it's all 2011...