TV

Argumental
4x04 Episode 4

Frozen Planet
Part 5 Winter
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

House
8x07 Dead & Buried
I presume that thing with Chase being on TV is going somewhere in future episodes. It better be anyway, otherwise what a half-arsed aside.

Pointless
3x48 (18/11/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Drool: Here’s The Blu-ray Set For Game of Thrones Season 1 by Devin Faraci
(from Badass Digest)
This looks rather pretty. Hope we get the same treatment in the UK, whenever the set is ultimately released.
And it reminds me that I really need to get on with watching it! It was on back in April and I only watched the first two episodes. Might need to re-watch those at this point, I think. (And finding those links reminds me I'm still only halfway through The Crimson Petal and the White. Dammit!)

Fox confirms sequels for X-Men: First Class and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes by George Wales
(from Total Film)
I really loved First Class (when I get round to writing it, it'll be a five-star review at 100 Films), so I'm very excited by this news. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was also meant to be good, so I'm sure The Sequel to the Rise of the Planet of the Apes will be one to look forward to too.

A daily dose of sci-fi - Day 17

Best use of special effects on the big screen

This is a very, very tricky one. While you might argue old special effects were Not So Good, I think you can go at least as far back as the groundbreaking effects work of Star Wars before you reach that time. So that's 35 years of movies to consider -- crikey.

And, actually, there's a definite charm and lingering impressiveness to, say, the stop-motion work in King Kong or the integration of matte paintings in Forbidden Planet. So that makes the list even broader. Oh dear.

But I think I have a good one...

Lightsabers

The best special effects are iconic, and there are few more iconic than the lightsaber. Sure, they're not always the best realised special effect -- even on the new Blu-ray editions the colour and thickness of the beams can be variable -- but that doesn't matter when they're so damn cool and instantly recognisable.

And there's the sound too. Visuals may be the main calling card of this category, but in film the visuals are in part sold by the sound, and everyone knows how a lightsaber goes.


Read about a daily dose of sci-fi, with links to the rest of the series, here.