Monday 5 November 2012

TV

Derren Brown: Apocalypse
Part Two (of 2)
That... was kind of lacklustre. Best bit was the "28 Days Later" 'gag' when he went to meet him a month later.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Men Who Made the Movies: Alfred Hitchcock
1973 documentary about the Master of Suspense, mixing interview snippets with analysed film clips. Quite good; very spoilersome for a variety of his movies.

Monroe
2x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Top Gear
Fifty Years of Bond Cars
Aside from passing references to James May, the Stig and Top Gear's poor track record at building things that work, this could just be a solid Richard Hammond-fronted guide to the notable cars featured in Bond films down the years. So that's good then, because it's pretty much the right tone and content for part of the series' 50th anniversary celebrations.

Films

Tiny Furniture (2010)
[#88 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Comics

Legends of the Dark Knight #1

Batman-starring anthology comic collecting the digital-first series in print. Three stories in this first issue, headlined by The Butler Did It, written by Damon Lindelof and drawn by Jeff Lemire. It's a very effective little tale, actually, a perfect example of the short comic story form. If only most modern writers could show such economy! This achieves so much in just 10 pages, whereas your typical comic arc ekes proceedings out for six issues or more.

The remaining two stories aren't quite as iconic, but fun and concise stories nonetheless. All of the Above, by Jonathan Larsen and JG Jones, manages an amusing use for the oft-referenced Bat-Shark Repellant from the 1966 movie. Finally, The Crime Never Committed by Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott doesn't come with a "Batman learns something" twist likes the other, which is probably to its benefit.

The variety of type of story this format allows, plus the chance to get a self-contained tale, certainly marks it out from the vast majority of essentially-samey multi-issue arcs most comics trade in. Appreciated.



Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation² #3 by Scott & David Tipton (with Tony Lee), J.K. Woodward & the Sharp Brothers

This is the last issue of this I've bought, partly because it's been so dreadful and partly because it looked like the collected edition was going to be a helluva lot cheaper than continuing to collect individual issues. But then it turned out they were intending to publish this dreck across two volumes, at least doubling the price! So at the minute I have no further parts on order, because it was barely worth what they were asking for just half of it. So why am I reading this? Well, I did buy it, so I thought I should still read it. And I can always acquire the remaining five issues (five more?! God!) by... other means...

Anyway, there's actually a slight improvement in quality here: an extended flashback to an adventure featuring the Fourth Doctor and the crew of the original USS Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, that lot) is rendered in a crisp, clear, '60s-cartoon-esque style by the Sharp Brothers, and it looks glorious. The Tiptons' dialogue is still appalling, but by telling a self-contained tale in about ten pages the story finally moves at a decent rate. Bookending this are more scenes on the TNG ship, featuring Woodward's sloppy, indistinct, drab art and a snail's crawl of plot to match the clanging dialogue. Even the speech bubbles are badly placed (also a problem in the flashback bit.)

How this is still selling, God only knows...

Articles

Cool Stuff: Here’s What A Star Wars Theme Park Might Look Like
by Germain Lussier (from /Film)

Title pretty much has it covered.