Saturday 22 October 2011

TV

Derren Brown: The Experiments
1x01 The Assassin
Brilliant (as ever from Derren), with some perhaps unexpected conclusions. Watching some of the extra video interviews online, it seems even the experts were surprised how things went.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Jonathan Ross Show
1x07 (15/10/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

The Jury
Part 4 (of 6)

Merlin
4x04 Aithusa
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
25x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Perfect Couples
1x06 Perfect Crime
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Pointless
3x20 (28/9/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Magazines

New Empress Magazine #3

The latest issue of the quarterly small press film magazine feels practically tailor-made to my interests, with almost every article piquing my curiosity.

After the reviews (of which over half interest me before even reading), there's an interview with the director of the BBFC; an entry in their 'why I hate film' series about the brilliance of TV; pieces on Westerns, going to the cinema by yourself, and the noir cityscape of Blade Runner; retrospectives on Jurassic Park, Casablanca, Bhaji on the Beach, and why Bring It On is actually good; plus a look back at much-underrated miniseries The 10th Kingdom.

There's also an article entitled "How Blu-ray killed the classics", which is interesting even if I disagree with it almost entirely.

(There's other good stuff too, but those were the ones that particularly appealed to me.)

This issue can be ordered online here if you're in the UK. Back issues, subscriptions and internationally-shipping copies are also available from their store.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

This post represents the second anniversary of my collection counting. Hurrah!

Interestingly, this time last year I was switching my Back to the Future DVDs for the shiny new Blu-ray set; this year, I've done the same for Jurassic Park. I imagine it'll be Indiana Jones this time next year then, eh.

First up in my round-up is, as ever, the totals as they currently stand, with how they've changed since last week. A couple of DVD-to-BD upgrades leave this lot largely stable.

Number of titles in collection: 1,392 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,139 [down 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 253 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 3,447 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,473 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,194 [up 26]

Secondly, how have they changed in a year? Well, unsurprisingly, all numbers have gone up -- indeed, the increases for many are even bigger this year than they were last. In a recession? Oops. Here's how they've increased over the last 12 months:

Number of titles in collection: up 166 (13.5%)
Of which DVDs: up 36 (3.3%)
Of which Blu-rays: up 130 (105.7%)

Number of discs in collection: up 440 (14.6%)
Number of films in collection: up 179 (13.8%)
Number of TV episodes in collection: up 914 (21.4%)

The overall increase is only slightly down (three titles fewer), but the increase in DVDs is under half what it was last year. That means Blu-rays make up the difference, the increase there being some 50 titles bigger than last year's. The increase in discs is also around 50 higher than it was last year; there are about 20 fewer new films, but nearly 300 more TV episodes added. Crikey.

Most of the percentage increases are lower than last year, because obviously they were all starting from a higher total. The one exception is TV episodes, thanks to an increase almost 50% bigger than last year's. Crikey.

Finally, and often most spectacularly, the running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
248 days, 22 hours, and 31 minutes

That's up 1 day, 2 hours, and 2 minutes from last month... but what you really want to know is how much it's changed in a whole year, eh?

Well... it's increased 36 days, 15 hours and 33 minutes from last year. That's just over five solid weeks of viewing.

To put it another way, it's grown my collection's running time by 17.3%. And that rise is 12.5% bigger than last year's increase. That'd be all those TV episodes, I guess.

Anyway, that's all. Regular service resumes next week. See you then, faithful reader.