TV

A Mark Heap double bill...

Friday Night Dinner
2x06 The Mouse [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Spy
2x05 Codename: Family Bonds

Comics

Bleeding Cool Magazine #0

With Bleeding Cool Magazine #1 due any week now (it was originally slated for October), I've finally got round to reading June's #0 preview issue. It's exactly what you'd expect in many ways -- gossipy, irreverent, but informative. Even more if the latter than the website, really, because it's had a bit more time and effort poured in than the primarily news-driven site.


Sword of Sorcery #0
featuring Amethyst by Christy Marx & Aaron Lopresti
and Beowulf by Tony Bedard & Jesus Saiz

DC's new fantasy comic is, for want of a less demeaning adjective, a bit girly. Back-up strip Beowulf, a sci-fi/fantasy retelling of the classic poem, shows more promise.


Talon #0 by James Tynion IV & Guillem March

Spinning out of the recent Batman epic, The Court of Owls, this launch issue is all setup. Tynion IV has cut his teeth writing the back-up strips on several Bat titles, and with Scott Snyder helping out by co-plotting there's sure to be promise here.

Articles

The Colourisation Debate - Not All Black and White
by Julian Upton (from MovieMail)

Some time ago I had to sit through a lecture by an ‘expert’ on colour cinema, who began by showing a YouTube clip of the colourised version of It’s a Wonderful Life. “What’s that?” he asked. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” we said. “No,” he said in his best Jeremy Clarkson voice, “it’s an abomination.”

He then showed a YouTube clip of the black-and-white It’s a Wonderful Life — a clip that was horizontally stretched, pixelated and whose sound and image was all but destroyed by the low-quality upload — and proceeded to talk about that as if it wasn’t an abomination.

Such a true example. The rest of the piece is very good too.

this week on 100 Films

No new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week! But Bill Cunningham New York is on Sky Arts 1 tonight, so my review of that will go live later today at this location.

Still, new to the new blog there was...


High Plains Drifter (1973)

Clint rides into town, has a beer and a bottle of whiskey, kills three men for no good reason and rapes the only woman in sight. It’s a fine introduction to our ‘hero’. But instead of setting the sheriff on him, the townsfolk bend over backwards to help him (more or less). Why? Are they as uncaring as he? Or do they need something from this capable man?

Read more here.


More next Sunday.