Sunday 2 September 2012

TV

Doctor Who
33x00f Asylum of the Daleks Prequel
Turns out today that Americans who subscribed to Who through iTunes or Amazon have been treated to an exclusive 2½-minute prologue to last night's new ep. So that's nice for them. British show and all that, eh. Anyway, it's typically unessential -- if it were essential it'd be in the episode, wouldn't it -- but, as these prequels go, it's quite good. You can watch it here or embedded below.



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

Films

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
[#74 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

this week on 100 Films

Four brand new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week.

But before that, we're now in September, so there's also my round-up of August. Not a bad haul this month.

Now, those new reviews...

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
but I can't say a naval inaction film with Russell Crowe held massive appeal. Turns out I was completely wrong. For starters, it's definitely not an "inaction" movie. It's not an action movie in the regularly understood sense of non-stop fights on varying scales, but there are a few stunningly realised naval battles
Read more here.

The Saint's Vacation (1941)
The Saint’s gone on vacation indeed — with the saintly George Sanders nabbed for RKO’s rip-off Falcon series, here we’re treated to fellow Brit Hugh Sinclair’s take on Leslie Charteris’ hero. For “treated” read “subjected”. I’ll come back to him, because sadly he’s not the only thing that makes this the worst film in the entire series.
Read more here.

The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)
the series’ final film. Fortunately, it’s quite a good one. Whether it be by conscious effort or serendipity, several of the problems suffered by The Saint’s Vacation are rectified here. Consensus seems to hold this is even worse than Hugh Sinclair’s first Saint film, but I definitely preferred it.
Read more here.

The Spiral Staircase (2000)
it feels like an adaptation of one of those doorstop-sized airport romance paperbacks... Despite the implications of an “X months ago” prologue in which someone is followed by a spooky pair of eyes, the first half is more cheap, tacky, romance-of-the-week TV movie than serial killer thriller.
Read more here.

Plus, because of the above, I did a new Make/Remake piece on The Spiral Staircases, including my 2010 review of the 1945 version.

Finally, I added an editorial from a year ago to the new blog, 25 Films I Own That I Really Should Have Seen, complete with a one-year-on update. It's not very impressive.

More next Sunday.