TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Two
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Screenwriters - The BAFTA and BFI Lecture Series
1x05 Frank Cottrell Boyce
You can watch 10 minutes of 'highlights' of this episode on the BFI's website, or listen to the full audio on BAFTA Guru. The latter also has a complete transcript of the session, which is downloadable as a PDF from here.

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day One
Including The Last Leg with Adam Hills, their light-hearted end-of-the-day round-up, which I thought did a good job of hitting the tone between covering what happened and being amusing. Doesn't appear to have its own section on the C4 site though, or even be on 4oD, so...
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

TV

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 6 (of 7)
Episode 7 (of 7)
Who ever thought Rick Edwards would do an immeasurably better job than Jon Snow?
[Watch episodes six and seven (again) on 4oD.]

London 2012 Paralympics
Opening Ceremony
[Watch coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site and 4oD.]

A Touch of Cloth
1x02 Part 2 (of 2)

TV

Adam Buxton's Bug
1x03 Episode Three
1x04 Episode Four

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 4 (of 7)
Episode 5 (of 7)
[Watch episodes four and five (again) on 4oD.]

The Rob Brydon Show
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Suburgatory
1x06 Charity Case
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

A Touch of Cloth
1x01 Part 1 (of 2)
Bloody funny, I thought. Glad that there's already two more commissioned.
Incidentally, the official site has some worthwhile bits & bobs, including a list of background gags you might've missed.

TV

Doctor Who
33x00a Pond Life Part 1
That was... brief. And quite funny, I suppose. It'll be better on DVD when they (presumably) edit it together into one four-and-a-bit-minutes thing rather than daily 50 second bursts.
[Watch it (again) on the official Doctor Who website.]

Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food
1x02 Feel Good Food
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Meat Loaf: Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
More slightly random music viewing thanks to Sky Arts. They really can be a treasure trove.

Person of Interest
1x02 Ghosts
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

The Falcon in Danger (1943)
[#73 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

Leading ‘Ethical’ TV Show BitTorrent Tracker Shut Down By FACT
by enigmax (from TorrentFreak)

They're referring to UKNova, which was excellent for acquiring smaller UK TV shows that might not be picked up by bigger international torrent sites. They were ethical because anything commercially available was banned -- they'd even stop allowing series halfway through if a DVD/etc release had been announced.
As someone on twitter said, "So the message is: if you try to help the rightsholders, they will burn you anyway. So might as well offer everything." Shooting themselves in the foot & all that.

TV

The Function Room
Pilot Meet the Police
This seemed to gain a lot of praise in certain circles. It was mediocre at best.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 3 (of 7)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Stomp: Live

this week on 100 Films

Last week I posted eight reviews, commenting that I didn't believe there could be more than that this week. Well...

Two new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, including my 600th feature review!

Burke & Hare (2010)

This is a true story
Except for the parts that are not

Read more here.

Unstoppable (2010)

In tribute to the late Tony Scott, perhaps one of my favourite filmmakers, and normally a distinctly underrated one, 100 Films’s 600th feature review is of his final film.

Read it here.

Plus, new to the new blog, my only other Tony Scott review to date...

Deja Vu (2006)

The timey-wimey plot is quite fun, in some ways. Massively over-complicated — no one will blame you for switching off as the “how it’s done” technobabble washes over you; if you just accept this is all possible within the confines of the movie’s universe, there’s enough investigative thrills to sustain proceedings — but, if one does pay attention, a lot of it makes sense. Well, enough sense. It becomes a bit unravelled toward the end.

Read more here.

Also new to the new blog this week were...

Before Sunrise (1995)

Two 20-somethings meet on a train from Budapest to Paris, get off in Vienna and spend the night there until one of them has to fly out in the morning. A simple premise, though you may wonder how it sustains 95 minutes. The answer is, very well.

Read more here.

Before Sunset (2004)

It’s as simple a premise as Sunrise, and in many ways is very similar: it’s essentially two people talking, laughing and philosophising... These are the same people, but they’re older and changed.

Read more here.

Cloak and Dagger (1946)

A World War II espionage thriller about the OSS — spies, basically, and the forerunner to the CIA. Despite all the thrills this should elicit, especially when directed by Fritz Lang, I wasn’t particularly impressed.

Read more here.

Mean Creek (2004)

A group of teenagers concoct a plan for revenge on a bully in this drama from first-time writer/director Estes. Whilst the premise might sound straightforward and liable to be morally simplistic, the writing, acting and direction combine to make a film that is complex, tense, tragic and ultimately believable.

Read more here.

Plus Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is on Sky Movies Premiere this week, so I posted my old reviews of the previous three Potters (Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows: Part 1) in one go here.

And also, Sky Arts 1 are showing the Three Colours Trilogy this fortnight, so naturally I moved my old 'reviews' to the new blog. You can see them all together here.

That's 13 total; though last week included six brand new to this week's two. If only I posted that many new reviews regularly, I wouldn't be so far behind.

More (though it tempts fate, it really is hard to imagine there being more) next Sunday.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
11x04 (4/5/12 edition)

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 2 (of 7)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Falcon Strikes Back (1943)
[#72 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Collection Count

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

Despite some expectations, nothing turned up in this week's post. So...

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,160 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 347 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 3,733 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

There will definitely be some changes next week, faithful reader.

TV

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 1 (of 7)
Can't say I think much of Snow as a presenter -- constantly talking over people, cutting them off, not giving them time to answer, racing on to the next thing... It's good not to let a programme be too slow, but this seems over-stuffed considering the speed they kept having to move on.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Pointless
6x42 (10/5/12 edition)

Films

The Falcon's Brother (1942)
[#71 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x04 Invasion of the Secret Santas!
1x06 Enter the Outsiders!
I sort of have and sort of haven't caught up with Channel 5's airings now -- they've also had six episodes, but skipped the Christmas one (understandably). So... I mean, it doesn't matter, does it.

The Newsroom
1x05 Amen

Yes, Prime Minister
2x04 A Conflict of Interest

Films

The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
[#70 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Discovering Hergé
Documentary about the creator of Tintin, Georges Remi, aka Hergé, with specific focus on, well, Tintin.
It's a good informative piece, for my money. One review said it skirted round the controversies of his life, but to me it seemed those were the focus. It doesn't dwell on any one because it's 45 minutes and has more years than that to get through, but it seemed to me to skip past the Tintin books with less controversial content and focus on those that have provoked some debate. Which as it was about Herge and not Tintin seemed fair enough to me.

The Great British Bake Off
3x02 Bread
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Vexed
2x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Gates
1x02 Episode 2

Horrible Histories
4x11 Episode 11

Person of Interest
1x01 Pilot
So good it prompted US network CBS to move perenially-popular CSI out of its time slot for the first time in a decade, Person of Interest is a crime series with a difference: they're trying to prevent crimes, not solve them. It's always tough to judge a show from its pilot -- this could become just case-of-the-week filler, with the danger of becoming po-faced about it; but there's enough promise to keep going. And considering the people behind Lost are involved, there's a remarkable lack of hints at A Big Story. Not even a season arc, never mind a take-over-the-whole-show one. Maybe that's all to come.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

A Date with the Falcon (1942)
[#69 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

Top 10 jokes of the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe
(from The British Comedy Guide)
Oh, very good.

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x03 Evil Under the Sea!
1x05 Day of the Dark Knight!
I don't know what Aquaman was like in the comics before, but his New 52 incarnation is certainly nothing like this! If you've seen Thor, essentially it's Thor and Loki. I didn't even know Aquaman had a brother.
And in the next episode, Green Lantern proves to be even more annoying than in his film, and Green Arrow isn't that likeable either. There's a lesson here...
(For some reason my download has episode five as episode four and episode four as episode five. Dunno why. Either way, next one's Christmas themed.)

Suburgatory
1x05 Halloween
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Gay Falcon (1941)
[#68 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]
RKO's Saint-esque Falcon series begins here.

Articles

Hollywood director Tony Scott jumps to death from bridge
(from BBC News)

I've long admired Tony Scott's films, thinking he's been a bit overshadowed by the critical and awards success furnished on his older brother. The outpouring of praise across twitter, etc, today has shown that I wasn't alone in this belief. Sadly, I think he may be one of those people who's more appreciated after he's gone.

TV

Pointless
6x41 (9/5/12 edition)

Films

The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)
[#67 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

The final film in RKO's eight-movie Saint series. My reviews of the first six can be found here, here and here.

this week on 100 Films

Six (yes, six) brand new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week! They were...

102 Dalmatians (2000)

It’s at its best early on, with Cruella de Vil turned nice. It’s different and allows more room to be original and funny. Director Kevin Lima imbues it with a kind of craziness that transcends being a Silly Children’s Film and borders on silliness-as-art. A moment where London is completely dalmatian-coloured is particularly good

Read more here.

The Saint Strikes Back (1939)

Sanders’ portrayal of Templar is witty and enjoyably knowing, even more so than Louis Hayward in the previous film. He’s at once more laid-back and less self-certain; by which I mean you can sometimes see him working out his devilishly clever plans as he goes along, rather than floating through with invulnerability... Though I’ve never seen the ’60s TV series, here I can see clearly how Roger Moore was suited to the role.

Read more here.

The Saint in London (1939)

Best of all is Sally Gray as Penny Parker, a charming girl Templar bumps into — as he’s wont to do — who forcibly strings along for the ride. Every film in the series contains a pretty young thing who falls for the Saint, and who he seems to fall for back before casually disregarding at the end. Of all the girls the series offers, though, plucky Penny is the one you’d wish had stuck around.

Read more here.

The Saint's Double Trouble (1940)

the way events unfold feels like no one paid a huge amount of attention to the plot. It all just about makes sense, if you care to think about it, and some of it is deliberately confusing... But I don’t think that excuses everything; instead, I believe it’s structured to sweep you along from one bit of derring do to the next.

Read more here.

The Saint Takes Over (1940)

Fernack has been suspended from the force. Naturally his BFF Simon Templar swings by to help. What ensues is a 180 from the usual formula: rather than Fernack constantly suspecting the Saint of being the actual perpetrator of the crimes he claims to be solving, here every murder occurs while the Saint is out of the room, but while Fernack has plenty of opportunity to commit it. Much fun ensues as Templar teases his chum.

Read more here.

The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)

Wendy Barrie is, for once, simply the ingénue and not some form of criminal mastermind. Don’t worry, there’s another girl for that: Linda Hayes, who seems a promising match for the Saint but, though prominent early on, is ultimately disregarded. The highlight for both women comes when they get invited along for a horse ride with the Saint and have a good bitch at each other. It’s a pickle quite unlike the ones Templar usually finds himself in!

Read more here.

And as if that weren't enough, I added a couple more animation reviews too...

Presto (2008)

Completely dialogue free, it quickly becomes a breakneck feast of visual, mostly slapstick, humour. It may be violent, but it’s also highly witty, marvelously inventive, and wholly entertaining… even if the hero is morally dubious. But then, Roadrunner was a total wanker and he always won.

Read more here.

Ratatouille (2007)

it is a good film, but it is also a flawed one. It’s not nearly funny enough for a kid’s movie — laughs are almost non-existent in the first half and hard to come by in the second — and it’s too long, needing a good chunk taken out of that duller first half. It’s a bit confused as to who the villain is, meaning there’s a lack of real menace from either of the candidates. Despite a professed aim to make rats lovable, they’re not really.

Read more here.

More (though I seriously doubt more) next Sunday.

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x01 The Rise of the Blue Beetle!
1x02 Terror on Dinosaur Island!

This most recent of the many Batman animated series recently came to an end (well, nine months ago), but it's just begun being shown on Channel 5 over here. It started during the Olympics, so I'm playing catch-up now (they're up to episode five, so not much catch-up).

I believe it was consciously designed to be a lighter, brighter, more kid-centric Bat-cartoon, after decades of darkness across the likes of Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond. It means it's a crazy kind of colourful fun that you don't find anywhere else in the Bat-verse right now (and soon won't find any longer, as the new animated series replacing it -- Beware the Batman -- very much swings back towards the dark). Far from the gritty real-world / quasi-real-world of current Batman films and comics, these two episodes feature space travel through a wormhole to save an amoebic alien race on the other side of the galaxy and a battle against a race of gorilla-men on a dinosaur-populated island. You don't get much less "gritty" or "real" than that.

Each episode, Batman teams up with a different DC hero. That part doesn't work so well in these two episodes. I mean, they're not bad, but both feature a lesser-known member of DC's cast, and both have essentially the same character arc (prove they're worthy to be a hero, saving Batman in the process; while he also does some saving-y stuff so as to not appear useless). Hopefully there's more variety to come.


Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food
1x01 Easy Entertaining
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Once Upon a Time
1x15 Red Handed
That was, by OUaT's standards, exceptional. By anyone else's it was "quite good", but, y'know, every little helps.

Films

The Saint's Vacation (1941)
[#66 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Collection Count

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

Just another DVD-to-BD upgrade this week, this time of the TV series Rome -- so one less disc, and a whole lot of shelf space saved!

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,160 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 347 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,733 [down 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Outnumbered
2x01 Episode 1 [2nd watch]
2x02 Episode 2 [3rd watch]
Stumbled across these on one of the endless repeats channels. Remembered them so clearly, I was surprised to discover that a) they were only series two (thought it had been running a while by this point, for some reason), and b) I supposedly haven't watched them since at least 2009. Probably seen bits here and there. If by some weird fluke you still haven't seen Outnumbered, you really really should.

Playhouse Presents
1x05 City Hall

Wilfred
2x01 Progress
You may happen to recall that I abandoned the first series of Wilfred nine months ago, but a good review in the Radio Times -- including mention of a guest appearance by Robin Williams -- led me to give it another shot as season two began. It was always fine, this is no different; don't imagine I'll bother continuing.

Films

The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)
[#65 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Behind the Magic

Last June, with Deathly Hallows Part 2's cinema release imminent, I finally watched the TV making-of about Part 1. Now, another year on, I've finally cleared Part 2's equivalent off my V+ box. Funny how these things work out. (It's also provoked by the fact that Part 2 is coming to Sky Movies soon, so I ought to get my bloody review up -- I only watched it at the start of January!)

Despite being on ITV and presented by Ben Shephard, these do a surprisingly good job of going behind-the-scenes. It's not a thorough, detailed exploration of how the film is made, of course, but in sharing a few interesting facts and figures and capturing the opinions of cast and crew -- particularly valuable (in a "for fans" way, obviously) as the series comes to a close after a decade -- it's nice.


Once Upon a Time
1x14 Dreamy
Ugh.


The Rob Brydon Show
3x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Saint Takes Over (1940)
[#64 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

The Newsroom
1x04 I'll Try to Fix You

Vexed
2x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Dirty Laundry (2012)
[#62a in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

A ten-minute Punisher fan film, premiered a couple of months ago at ComicCon, from the production company of & starring the star of the 2004 version of The Punisher, Thomas Jane. It's kind of a pitch for how the franchise should be brought to the big screen, and it's rather good. You can watch it here.


The Saint's Double Trouble (1940)
[#63 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Comics

Idolized #0 & #1 by David Schwartz & Micah Gunnell

Zero issues are a funny business. When they're released mid-run (as DC are doing next month with all their titles), they make sense as prequels. But before the series itself starts? Why isn't it just issue #1?

Here, the first superhero comic from Aspen (as they proudly proclaim in various places) offers a bit of setup... as well as revealing what look like future events in the comic. Now, maybe this isn't a problem, but it sure looks like they're spoilering their own series to me.

The other thing that interests me is that this doesn't seem to be promoted as a miniseries, but surely it's got a finite life? Once Superhero Idol is over, surely you can only go so far before it begins to move far from its original concept? Surely this is why the very-similarly-themed America's Got Powers is only six issues? There are options, of course -- you continue with the characters regardless of how it began; you reset with each new season of the TV show; etc -- and it might be interesting to see where they choose to go with it.

The actual first issue is more setup, really. If #0 establishes the premise, #1 establishes the lead character. Unfortunately it does this through an awful lot of telling and not showing -- it's her audition, at which she stands around and talks us through her life. Comics allow us to see snatches of this as she talks about it, but still, it's being narrated, not really shown. But it's an interesting one, actually, and the concept and balls Schwartz has set into play are interesting. Plus Gunnell's art is nicely cartoony, yet still expressive and exciting when needed.

I made sure to read this quickly (over all of the other comics I have stacked up) because despite ordering it ages ago Forbidden Planet seem to have failed to send me a copy, so I thought I better read it (coughonewayoranothercough) before it was impossible to get anywhere else. On the quality of these first two, I think I'll keep going.


Revival #1 by Tim Seeley & Mike Norton

Described as "A Rural Noir", Revival looks set to be The Next Big Thing from Image, publishers of The Walking Dead -- and look how that turned out. Copies of The Walking Dead #1 now change hands for prices in excess of $1,000 (according to Bleeding Cool Magazine), so this isn't just a good read but also potentially an investment. If I could sell this in however-many-years for half the cost of The Walking Dead #1 after the-same-number-of-years, I'd be a happy bunny (and it'd be a pretty stunning return on investment).

But that's not my main aim, because I'm not One Of Those People. My main aim is to enjoy it as a read, and it is a damn fine read. It feels exactly like a TV pilot, actually, as it establishes multiple major characters and plot threads. One great thing about it is it dives into the middle of the story: in one small area of Wisconsin death has stopped, but so-called Revival Day was sometime weeks or months ago (it's not specified, but it's clearly A While whilst still being Quite Recently) -- the world knows what happened, but not why or how, while debates still rage about how to deal with it going forward.

The other extraordinary thing it does is, in 25 pages, feel like an entire pilot episode. If you watched this on TV, with this much incident, I imagine you'd feel satiated. It's not action-packed, but with an HBO-y Mad Men-y pace -- entirely befitting the kind of genre-but-intelligent stable it's going for -- it'd slot right in. And there's plenty of threads and mysteries set in motion to keep it going, too. Definitely one to stick with.

Articles

Movie Cities' Olympic Promo Posters
(from Empire)

What if the 2020 Olympics weren't taking place in a real city, but One From The Movies? In this fun piece, Empire imagines how the promo posters for 13 such cities might look.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
3x01 Cakes
Hurrah for the Bake Off! From the off this series seems to be tougher on it's gaggle of amateur bakers, so goodness knows what they've got planned for the weeks to come.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Gates
1x01 Episode 1
New sitcom with a large cast, five credited writers, five creators (not all the same), and on Sky Living. With that setup you might expect it to be dreadful, but it's actually pretty good. Certainly superior to Parents, and that got to be on Sky1.

Articles

Bond Reclassified – 50th Anniversary Blu Ray Update.
by Matthew Harkin (from CommanderBond.net)

As part of the big 50th anniversary box set coming soon, some more Bond films have been reclassified (GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies were included uncut as 15s last time they did a big re-issue on DVD). This time out, Diamonds Are Forever has been re-rated as a 12 (stuff that was once deemed suitable at PG no longer is), while Casino Royale will be uncut for the first time in the UK, earning a 12.

Fantastic news. If I wasn't sold on this set already (and, to be honest, I was borderline, as they haven't included all the extras for Casino Royale or any of the made-but-unreleased special features for Quantum of Solace), I pretty much am now.


Date for the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who
by Amy Jones (from The Digital Fix)

Also coming out of tonight's screening of Asylum of the Daleks: the episode titles for the first half of the series (the five episodes that will air before this year's Christmas special), and the news that every episode will feature it's own unique title sequence -- if they do that properly, it could be brilliant.

TV

Pointless
6x40 (8/5/12 edition)

Starlings
1x04 Episode Four

Suburgatory
1x04 Don't Call Me Shirley
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Vexed
2x01 Episode 1
It's two years since the first series of Vexed, and it didn't seem to go down very well so I didn't expect to see it back. But I quite liked it -- it's not high art, but it is quite funny; so I'm very happy -- if also very surprised -- to see its return.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Saint in London (1939)
[#62 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

Cover art revealed for Sherlock: The Casebook
(from Sherlockology)

Sounds good.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Sixteen
Closing Ceremony Countdown
Closing Ceremony

The last day! A bit of volleyball, a bit of gymnastics, the end of the modern pentathlon... and, of course, the closing ceremony, which I thought was pretty good overall.

No Olympics Tonight tonight though, sadly, which means no round-up of the final sports... at a sporting event. Dropped the ball a bit there, BBC.

[Watch the countdown and closing ceremony (again), as well as loads of archived coverage from the BBC.]

this week on 100 Films

Half by accident, it's been a kind of 'animation week' at 100 Films in a Year, with a mix of old and new reviews. It started with Cars and Cars 2 last week, and continues with two new reviews...

Rango: Extended Cut (2011)

perhaps the most striking thing about Rango is ILM’s hallmark, the extraordinary realism. Though some of the characters are rendered cartoonishly (just look at Rango’s face) and all are of course anthropomorphised, the textures and lighting are as true-to-life as any of their work in live-action movies. They consciously went for a photographic look, as if it had been shot with real cameras, and it paid off because the whole thing looks incredible.

Read more here.

Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation (2011)

Toy Story is in many ways Pixar’s flagship franchise, and after the Huge Event that was Toy Story 3, was it really wise to dilute the experience with a series of mini-adventures? Was it not better to leave it as a series of three big movies, each one a grand and special event? After all, the more you do something, the less special it becomes.

Read more here.

And new to the new blog this week...

Toy Story 3 (2010)

it’s hilarious, emotional, exciting, scary; a great comedy, a great action/adventure... It’s kid-friendly, of course, but it’s not just for kids — it’s for young adults, who’ve grown up with these films and these characters and, in a way, are letting them go along with Andy; and for adults, who may have left childish things behind but can hopefully still appreciate the thematic sentiment.

Read more here.

WALL-E (2008)

a film of two halves. They’re not exactly poorly linked, as elements from each feed into the other, but they are notably different... If I were to broadly characterise the two halves, I’d say the first is everything you’d hoped for after the advance hype, while the second is something you could have feared.

Read more here.

More next Sunday.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Fifteen

It's the penultimate day of the Olympics (don't worry, there's the Paralympics later this month), which today saw me watch diving twice (this morning's semis and the evening's final), a bit of mountain biking, a bit of gymnastics, and finally the usually evening routine of athletics.

And to round it off, the final edition (boo!) of Olympics Tonight. Where will I get my summary of the final day?! I know it's the closing ceremony, but surely they could follow it with a sports-related round-up.

[Watch Saturday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Another Twittter Storm: BMW
by PME200 (from The Blog That Peter Wrote)

When twitter found out BMW were giving free cars to Team GB's male medal winners, but not to the female ones, everyone naturally got Very Upset And Angry. But they should've bothered to check their facts first...


BBC Books: The Exodus Code
by Chuck Foster (from Doctor Who News)

BBC Books have released details on the next book in their hardback range of novels, the first to feature spin-off series Torchwood; The Exodus Code is written by "Captain Jack" himself John Barrowman with his sister Carole

More at the link.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week. Which I've decided to move to Saturday 'officially', because I doubt anyone will notice and if they do I doubt they care. And also Saturday is the last post day, so it makes sense as I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD or BD anywhere but online.

This week, one DVD-to-BD upgrade. Other than that, the monthly running time update is the other side of the regular stats.

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,161 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 346 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,734 [down 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

As promised, the running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
268 days, 8 hours, and 50 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 2 hours, and 37 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Fourteen

Mainly an evening of athletics, where several British hopes were dashed, and diving, where Tom Daley just scraped through to tomorrow's semi-final (final also tomorrow).

Before that, scraps of synchronised swimming, gymnastics, and BMX.

Finally, the return of Ian Thorpe (hurrah!) on Olympics Tonight, with a look at why Australia have done relatively poorly these Games.

[Watch Friday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

5 Ways You Don't Realize Movies Are Controlling Your Brain
by David Wong (from Cracked.com)

Although structured to fit into Cracked's usual "X Things..." format, this is actually an interesting article on the way stories have been designed and evolved to influence the way we think and perceive the world. Naturally it still has Cracked's regular humorous bent, but (like quite a few of their articles, actually) it's also genuinely informative and interesting.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Thirteen

After yesterday's lull, definitive diversity today: a bit of swimming (another medal miss), a bit of synchronised swimming, a bit of dressage (two medals!), a bit of gymnastics, and a bit of athletics; all wrapped up with a bit of Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Thursday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]


Parents
1x06 Episode Six [season finale]
Well... that's that over.

Articles

London 2012: 20 lesser-spotted things of the Olympics so far
(from BBC News Magazine)
Meant to mention this a few days ago; forgot (obviously). It's a fun/interesting list of "some of the less asked questions and lesser-spotted oddities of the Games so far."

Doctor Who drama to mark show's 50th birthday
(from BBC News)
A lot of people predicted they'd do something like this; then genuine rumours began to emerge; and no it's been confirmed: Mark Gatiss is writing a 90-minute drama about the creation of Doctor Who, provisionally titled An Adventure in Time and Space. Exciting times.

Superheroes and the law: How would Batman or Captain America fare in court?
by Matthew Huisman (from Law.com)

A new book asks the questions most comic fans haven't — how would superheroes, and villains, manage if they had to legally answer for their actions? This slideshow provides some educated guesses.

Both interesting and fun it is too.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Twelve

It felt like there wasn't a great deal going on today, like things were winding down. That's presumably just some kind of fluke, because there were still 16 golds awarded... just no medals for Team GB. But we're still positioned for some later in the Games, both as favourites and as 'guaranteed at least silver's, so it's not over yet.

Nonetheless, watched a bit of BMX, a bit of athletics, and of course found out what had been going on thanks to Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Wednesday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Luther creator eyes Alice spinoff
by Jon Weisman (from The Vote at Variety)

Didn't really expect that, though it was nice to know why Alice disappeared in the last series. Sounds like Luther has a very intriguing future: third (and final) series, an almost-definite film version, and now a spin-off. Crazy.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Eleven

A less varied day today -- just cycling and athletics -- though with glimpses and smidgens of gymnastics and triathlon; and all wrapped up and summarised, of course, by Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Tuesday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Joe Carnahan Close to Daredevil, Fantastic Four Characters Could Go Back to Marvel
by Silas Lesnick (from SuperHeroHype)

Well now here's a twist! Everyone was assuming Fox would have to either rush a new Daredevil film into production or let the rights slip back to Marvel, something they clearly don't want -- he's a popular character and we're still in an age of incredibly successful superhero movies. But instead it looks like they're offering Marvel selected characters from the Fantastic Four licence (which they also want to hang onto) in return for longer to make Daredevil.

But other reports say it may be something completely different, and much more normal, that they're considering: co-funding. Blah. Be interesting to see how this plays out.


Joss Whedon Signed for The Avengers 2 and Marvel Live-Action TV Series
by Peter Sciretta (from /Film)

Hurrah! And for a clarifying Disney statement too, see here.

Now just gotta see the first one...

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Ten

An increasingly eclectic selection of viewing, it feels like: starting with Beth Tweddle's bronze (hurrah for her!) in the gymnastics and continuing with synchronised swimming (weird); then there was Jason Kenny's gold in cycling, and finally a largely disappointing evening of athletics.

Today also saw Team GB take a team gold on the horsies. Didn't see that live, but such things are what Olympics Tonight is for.

[Watch Monday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Websites

Medals Per Capita

Subtitles Olympic Glory in Proportion, this site includes all sorts of ways of looking at one piece of data: the amount of Olympic medals won by each country. There are all sorts of ways to cut it up, and you can do it by every individual Olympics or an All Time list.

Current favourite has to be London 2012 Weighted Medals per Capita, which shows how well every nation is doing in the current games relative to the size of their population. Britain places 8th; the next nearest country with a population comparable to ours is France, in 22nd; the next nearest nation with a similarly high weight score is the USA, in 30th (I say "similarly" -- it's still much higher).

Basically, it proves how bloody amazingly we're doing.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Nine

Big day for those of us focused on the tennis as it came to an end with three finals (and their respective bronze medal play-offs). So gutted for Federer that he was denied a career Golden Slam, but Murray did play exceptionally well. Thank goodness he's not had real success until after becoming a Nicer Person and Better Sportsman with Ivan Lendl's training -- his previous stroppy attitude has not been vindicated. A shame that Murray and Laura Robson didn't quite manage victory in the mixed doubles, too. My tennis supporting day didn't go so well.

Also today was gymnastics, where two of our guys did extraordinarily and still didn't quite get gold. I don't think it's possible to miss out by any smaller margin, poor guy.

Finally, athletics, Usain Bolt, blah blah blah; and, of course, Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Sunday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]


Twenty Twelve
2x07 Loose Ends [series finale]

Generally very good last ever (presumably) episode. The bell-ringing thing seemed unnecessary, but I suppose they needed something for Siobhan to do. And the cheek of that ending...!

this week on 100 Films

Just one brand-new review was posted to 100 Films in a Year this week...

Cars 2 (2011)

why is the police car wearing a giant hat?!

Read more here.

But there were also a few archive reviews, including...

Cars (2006)

I’ve often heard people criticise the world of the movie for not making sense... it does play on your mind while watching, and because it shouldn’t matter I think it’s indicative of faults elsewhere: if the characters and story were keeping your attention, if the film was consistently funny or exciting or engrossing, you wouldn’t be wondering who built these cars, or where their builders went, or how they reproduce… It’s like a child’s game writ into film

Read more here.

Citizen Kane (1941)

As of 1st August 2012, Citizen Kane is no longer the greatest film of all time. Here’s some brief, aimless thoughts I had about it when I saw it for the first time, almost exactly five years ago…

Read more here.

The Hitchcock 4
The new Greatest Film Of All Time is a Hitchcock, so here I bring the four Hitch films I've reviewed over to the new blog. Those being Rebecca, Notorious, Marnie and The Birds. Really need to watch some more Hitchcock...

And finally, now that we're in August, there was also my round-up of July, including some extra stuff on something the BFI tweeted recently.

More next Sunday.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Eight

Super Saturday! Rowing in the morning; tennis and cycling in the afternoon; swimming and athletics in the evening; Olympics Tonight to round it all off -- and medals throughout! A great day for British sport, that's for sure.

[Watch Saturday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Seven
Tennis as ever, particularly the nail-biting record-length match between Federer and Del Potro. Tough for the latter to lose it, but so happy the former one -- guaranteed medal, and hopefully it'll be gold... although the home crowd will be against him. Hey-ho.
Also, various successes (and disappointments) in rowing, cycling and swimming. Plus some rapid-fire pistol shooting, which turned out to be surprisingly boring so I stopped.
Finally, I've taken to half-watching the Gabby Logan-hosted (never mind) post-news round-up programme, Olympics Tonight, which is handy for an overview (today, for instance, saw things kicking off for athletics in the main stadium -- a major thing I pretty much skipped live). So that's... way more than I was ever expecting.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Parents
1x05 Episode Five

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,162 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 345 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,735 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

How I Met Your Mother
7x24 The Magician's Code Part 2 [season finale]
Well, that was intriguing. Barney's bride was no surprise at all, but didn't really expect Ted's ending. How many seasons has these got left now, though? Getting time for an ending...
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

London 2012 Olympics
Day Six
Tennis. Swimming. Cycling. Even a little bit of judo.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Suburgatory
1x03 The Chatterer
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

The First Class Sequel is Officially X-Men: Days of Future Past
by Silas Lesnick (from SuperHeroHype)

I loved First Class. I used to love the X-Men animated series (I probably still would, but I've not seen it for nearly 20 years -- can still hum the theme tune though), and the Days of Future Past adaptation is one of the storylines that really stuck in my head. Ought to get round to reading the original comics.

Anyway, what this combination of factors means is -- I'm incredibly excited for this sequel. Be interesting to see how faithful it is though, and if they bring in characters/actors from the first three X-Men movies, and if they do how big a part they play.

Ooh, it's exciting!

TV

Adam Buxton's Bug
1x01 Episode One
1x02 Episode Two
Wasn't sure what I'd make of this -- Buxton can be very funny, but sometimes it just doesn't work for me -- but it's actually consistently brilliant. Shame it's buried away on Sky Atlantic.

London 2012 Olympics
Day Five
And there we go -- golds in rowing and cycling. Hurrah! Also in today's viewing: gymnastics and, as per usual, tennis and swimming -- where we got a silver too. Helps take us from 21st on the medal table last night to 11th tonight. Lovely.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Lots to report today, so...


12 Gotham Newspaper Headlines During The Dark Knight Rises by Dan Hopper (from Jest)
and
New Alternate TDKR Poster by thefirerisesnolan (from Reddit)

Both of these are absolutely stuffed with spoilers, but if you've seen the film the newspaper headlines are funny and the poster is awesome. I'd include it below but, like I said, spoilersome. (In case you can't find it on that page (took me a bit), here's a direct link.)


BBC Two orders another series of Rev
and
Room 101 recommissioned for 13th series
(from The British Comedy Guide)

Fantastic news and pretty good news respectively, as far as I'm concerned. Just a shame Rev. won't be back until 2014 -- that's at least 18 months from now, and two-years-plus since it was last on! Madness.


The Doctor Daleks Danger!
(from Doctor Who official site)
A big new pic from the next series of Who, before a new trailer hits at 6am (8pm on the telly).



The Greatest Films of All Time 2012 by Nick James (from Sight & Sound)
and
Vertigo is named 'greatest film of all time' (from BBC News)
and
The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time (from BFI)
and
On Writing My Top Ten For ‘Sight & Sound’ by Edgar Wright (from edgar wright here)

It's the film poll, and it only happens once a decade, and here's the new top 10 -- including a new #1! I won't go into all the details, but the various links above will. Worth noting, however, that the most recent film on the list is 44 years old. Should the debate be, is this poll still relevant when it only selects such old films?