Monday 31 March 2014

TV

Friends
9x03 The One with the Pediatrician [5th or so watch]

Silk
3x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Legends of the Knight (2013)
[#23 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Sunday 30 March 2014

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x07 Episode 7

Films

Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
[#21 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Veronica Mars (2014)
[#22 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]
Loved it.

this week on 100 Films

Just one new review on 100 Films in a Year this week...


Fast Five (2011)
the fourth film tried to move F&F on a bit — but failed, thanks to being distinctly crap. Five is what that film wanted to be. It’s still not clever, but it is big — a big, somewhat daft, perhaps too long in the middle, but ultimately fun, Action Movie. It contains as much fisticuffs, shoot-outs and foot chasing as it does bits with cars
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 29 March 2014

TV

Friends
9x02 The One Where Emma Cries [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x14 The Semi-Finals
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Mad Max (1979)
[#20 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

This week, two bargain-priced Doctor Who DVDs (one new, one an upgrade) bring my Who collection to the brink of completion! I now have every story they've deigned to release on DVD, with the exception of the last two Matt Smith episodes (there's a box set of those due at some point that I'm waiting for); plus I'm shy a classic Who re-release or two. Other than that, it's just a case of when they get round to releasing The Underwater Menace episode they found a couple of years ago. Hurrah!

Number of titles in collection: 1,663 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,199 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 464 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,155 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,787 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,126 [up 8]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 28 March 2014

TV

Friends
9x01 The One Where No One Proposes [5th or so watch]

How I Met Your Mother
9x08 The Lighthouse
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Last Leg
4x08 (21/3/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Mentalist
6x13 Black Helicopters
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

Union Station (1950)
[#19 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Thursday 27 March 2014

TV

Arrow
2x13 Heir to the Demon

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x10 Thanksgiving
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
8x23 The One Where Rachel Has a Baby Part 1 [5th or so watch]
8x24 The One Where Rachel Has a Baby Part 2 [season finale; 5th or so watch]

Films

Space Battleship Yamato (2010)
[#18 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
19x01 Minuet in Hell Part One

The fourth (and final) story in Big Finish's first 'season' of 8th Doctor adventures.

When BF started their Doctor Who stories, their stated aim was to re-create the style of classic Doctor Who in audio drama form, right down to the 25-minute episodes. Perfect for double CD, in many respects -- two episodes per disc making a standard-length Who story, hooray. Such constrictions went out the window right from the first release, of course: if you've got space on the CD for episodes up to around 40 minutes each, why force it down to 25? But by this release (which, as you can see, was only the 19th) it had gone so far out the window that Part One lasts just shy of 45 minutes -- a distinctly nuWho length (though the aforementioned revival was years away at this point).

Not a distinctly nuWho story, though. The deliberately oblique plot plods along, mired in implausible American accents and caricatures, before finally revealing itself to be somehow about a machine that can reprogram the human brain -- a bit of an unfortunate coincidence with which play I just listened to, that.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x22 The One Where Rachel is Late [5th or so watch]

Law & Order: UK
8x01 Flaw
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x04 Spare Parts Part Four

Cracking. They should've just done a straight adaptation of this on telly, to be frank.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x21 The One with the Cooking Class [5th or so watch]

Silk
3x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Sunday 23 March 2014

TV

Elementary
2x17 Ears to You

Films

Chicken Little (2005)
[#16 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) (2012/2013)
[#16a in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

I watched and reviewed the theatrical version of the first instalment of The Hobbit trilogy around this time last year. Now, with Part 2 about to debut on DVD/Blu-ray (and especially as I already have my copy), I thought I'd finally get round to this extended version before seeing what happens next. And I'll be reviewing it too, of course.

this week on 100 Films

In an improvement on the last few weeks, one new review was published to 100 Films in a Year...


World War Z: Extended Action Cut (2013)
things turn from claustrophobic to post-apocalyptic. The storyline feels moderately fresh, showing us the global scope of such an outbreak, rather than how a global event impacts a small group of people... However, what’s new to the zombie genre isn’t necessarily new in any other respect, and by the time we get to Jerusalem and the characters are again being chased through crowded streets, it begins to feel a tad repetitive.
Read more here.


Hopefully, more next Sunday.

Saturday 22 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x20 The One with the Baby Shower [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x12 The Quarter-Finals
3x13 The Quarter-Finals Results
[Watch the Quarter-Finals and the Results (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
[#15 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

The second Hobbit film, The Desolation of Smaug, is out on DVD & Blu-ray on 7th April in the UK and 9th April in the US... but my copy turned up earlier this week (hehehe).

And that's it for additions this time... although there is the monthly running time update to keep things lively.

Number of titles in collection: 1,662 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 464 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,152 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,787 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

Last but not least...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
297 days, 10 hours, and 3 minutes.
(Up 11 hours and 36 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 21 March 2014

TV

Castle
3x13 Knockdown
Light fun Castle is back with... kind of a grim episode. Surely it would've been better to make this the last one before a break rather than the first one back, C5?
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Friends
8x18 The One in Massapequa [5th or so watch]
8x19 The One with Joey's Interview [5th or so watch]

How I Met Your Mother
9x07 No Questions Asked
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Last Leg
4x07 (14/3/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Thursday 20 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x17 The One with the Tea Leaves [5th or so watch]

The Mentalist
6x12 The Golden Hammer
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Only Connect
Sport Relief: Scribblers v Terriers
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

X-Men
1x11 Days of Future Past Part 1 [2nd watch]
1x12 Days of Future Past Part 2 [2nd watch]
See today's Comics.

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x03 Spare Parts Part Three

Ooh, it gets good here -- finally really seeing what everyone's on about. And so much better than the TV version.

Comics

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont & John Byrne

The seminal two-part X-Men tale, just released in a lovely hardback edition with all of its sequels. It's the inspiration for the new film coming this summer, of course, so I thought I might do some kind of retrospective on 100 Films looking back at previous versions.

Wednesday 19 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x16 The One Where Joey Tells Rachel [5th or so watch]

Room 101
14x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Shetland
2x02 Raven Black Part 2
Well, I thought that was really good. Weird lack of trailer for the next story, though -- why put one after a cliffhanger but not after something that looks like it could be the end of the series if you didn't know better?!
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

World War Z (2013)
[#14 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

DVD Extras

Zombie Town Hall: Knights of the Living Dead
A special feature on the Sainsbury's-exclusive version of World War Z, in which filmmaker George A. Romero, WWZ author Max Brooks, and some other chap who has apparently also written some zombie stuff, chat entertainingly about the genre and their place in it for an hour in front of a film-festival audience in Denver.

Tuesday 18 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x15 The One with the Birthing Video [5th or so watch]

Shetland
2x01 Raven Black Part 1
Enjoyed the first series/pilot last year, so glad to see it back with adaptations of three more novels. Some have said it's just a standard murder mystery tarted up with some semi-Scandi scenery, but even if that's all it is, it's still effective.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Monday 17 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x14 The One with the Secret Closet [5th or so watch]

The Michael McIntyre Chat Show
1x01 (10/3/14 edition)
Not a bad start. Feels a bit... untopical. Hard feeling to pin down. Maybe it's the lack of a news-riffing opening monologue, like Graham and Jonathan have. Not necessarily a problem, but it means it feels less like a chat show and more like a comedian's recorded-well-in-advance TV show, such as Sarah Millican's programme.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

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

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapter 26

Sunday 16 March 2014

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x06 Knight Vision
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Person of Interest
2x13 Dead Reckoning

The Voice UK
3x11 The Knockouts 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Saturday 15 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x13 The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x10 The Knockouts 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

An early appearance on my doormat by The Hunger Games 2 (out Monday) brings this week's smidgen of additions. Still, the forecast for next week is nothing.

Number of titles in collection: 1,661 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 463 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,149 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,786 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 14 March 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x09 Sal's Pizza
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
8x12 The One Where Joey Dates Rachel [5th or so watch]

The Last Leg
4x06 (7/3/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Thursday 13 March 2014

TV

Coronation Street: A Moving Story
Not as much about the technicalities of the move and the new set as I'd've liked (s'why I watched), but hey-ho, should've gussed it'd be 'soapier'.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Elementary
2x16 The One Percent Solution

Friends
8x11 The One with Ross's Step Forward [5th or so watch]
The Blu-ray menus call this The One With Ross's Step Forward; TV.com call it The One with the Creepy Holiday Card. Who to believe?!

Yonderland
1x08 Dirty Ernie [season finale]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x02 Spare Parts Part Two

Wednesday 12 March 2014

TV

Arrow
2x12 Tremors

The Mentalist
6x11 White Lines
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Room 101
14x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Tuesday 11 March 2014

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x05 Episode 5

Game of Thrones
3x10 Mhysa [season finale]
Tad underwhelming after the last episode, but by no means bad.

Person of Interest
2x12 Prisoner's Dilemma

Top Gear
21x04 (23/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Monday 10 March 2014

TV

Game of Thrones
3x09 The Rains of Castamere

Crikey.

To be perfectly honest, I guessed something like that would happen -- fans and creators have been talking about the Red Wedding since before season one began, mentioning it would be the climax to season three; and then there was the massive reaction online after it was broadcast (even without reading people's thoughts, the sheer volume of articles indicated how significant it was; I've had half a dozen saved since then to read once I got past this episode); and considering the characters involved, and their potential for deception (in particular Walder Frey), I had my suspicions that all would not end well.

But it was still shockingly, strikingly done, and the writers and makers did an excellent job of misdirecting the viewer. Indeed, it's so effective that even if you knew exactly what would occur (which even book-readers didn't, thanks to some modifications), it's still disturbingly executed.

Most fascinating, perhaps, is what it means for the series as a whole. One of the main driving plots for the entire thing seems to have just been cut off. Where does it go from here? Especially considering we're not even halfway through. Hopefully episode 10 provides some answers, and an indication of the course forward.


Outnumbered
5x06 The Musical [series finale]
A funny, moving, fitting finale. I know they've said they might come back for specials, but you kind of feel like they perhaps shouldn't -- how could they end it better? And would coming back for a random, disconnected, one-more-time be right?
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Silk
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

DVD Extras

"The Rains of Castamere" Unveiled on Game of Thrones Season 3

A Maximum Movie Mode-style feature looking at the creation of one of the season's (indeed, the entire series') most pivotal episodes. Packed with interesting detail, but executed in an incredible viewer-unfriendly fashion, sadly.

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapters 23-25

Sunday 9 March 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x08 Old School
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
3x07 The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3x08 Second Sons
So much for all that stuff about double bills yesterday, eh? But I'm so close now to episode 9, one of the most talked-about episodes of TV last year. (You might argue it was the most talked about, but 2013 was also the year of things like Doctor Who's 50th and Breaking Bad's finale, so there's stiff competition.)

How I Met Your Mother
9x05 The Poker Game
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Veronica Mars review: A dark thriller with a marshmallow centre by Emma Dibdin (from Digital Spy)
and
The Veronica Mars movie is "worth the wait" - review round-up by Susanna Lazarus (from Radio Times)

A full review of the movie from DS, while RT rounds up the opinions of The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Hitfix and Indiewire -- and it all sounds great.

this week on 100 Films

Two new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


North by Northwest (1959)
Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.
Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.
Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Fountain (2006)
it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great.
Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Movies have taught us many things, and here’s another: don’t take the train from Pelham Bay Park at 1:23. In the past thirty-five years said train has been taken hostage three times, and while once every 11⅔ years may not sound a particularly high average, I’d wager it’s higher than for most trains.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 8 March 2014

TV

Game of Thrones
3x06 The Climb
I'd say I normally double-bill Game of Thrones -- to be statistical about it, across the first two seasons I watched 60% of episodes as part of a pair. Not so this season, though. Not sure why. I mean, I know why -- because it's so good it feels wrong to be watching multiple episodes instead of savouring as individual instalments -- but previous seasons had that same quality too. Maybe they're now more satisfying as standalone episodes than they were before? Maybe it's just me? Probably that one.

The Voice UK
3x09 Battle Rounds 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x01 Spare Parts Part One

I've still got one story left in Big Finish's first 'season' of 8th Doctor adventures, but (for various reasons) instead of going straight on to that I've opted for this: Marc Platt (the writer of Ghost Light) 's acclaimed "origin of the Cybermen" tale, which as famously adapted into the TV story Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Based on this first instalment, however, it bears very little resemblance to what we got on TV. Maybe that comes later; maybe it was purely the "birth of the Cybermen" thing they took. This is much more traditional Who -- even with the potentially limitless budget of audio, it feels as if it could have been produced as a real-life Davison serial.

Collection Count

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

With several things I was expecting to be part of this update turning up just in time for the last one, there's absolutely nothing to report this week. Might be the same next time, too.

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 7 March 2014

TV

Game of Thrones
3x05 Kissed by Fire
Wow. After a bit of a slow start, over the past two or three episodes this season has really kicked off -- and how. I was going to double-bill this with the next one, but (as I discussed at one point last season) when it's this good it seems foolhardy to race through it too fast.

The Last Leg
4x05 (28/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Thursday 6 March 2014

TV

Death in Paradise
3x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Game of Thrones
3x03 Walk of Punishment
3x04 And Now His Watch is Ended
Every time you might think, "they're brilliant, they're my favourite character", someone else comes along and does something else awesome.
At the minute, though, I'm most consistently intrigued by Margaery Tyrell. Is she really all sweetness and light, or is there some more devious twist to be revealed? And if she is the former, what inevitable crushing blow will befall her?

Person of Interest
2x11 2-Pi-R

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
18x04 The Stones of Venice Part Four

Hooray for obvious-from-the-start 'twists'! And I think the actress who plays Miss Lavish, Elaine Ives-Cameron, gives the fruitiest performance known to man.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

TV

Friends
8x10 The One with Monica's Boots [5th or so watch]
aka The One Where Ross Can.

Game of Thrones
3x02 Dark Wings, Dark Words

The Mentalist
6x10 Green Thumb
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Tuesday 4 March 2014

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
5x06 (28/2/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


Arrow
2x11 Blind Spot


Friends
8x09 The One with the Rumor [5th or so watch]
aka The One with Brad Pitt.


Game of Thrones
3x01 Valar Dohaeris

A slightly earlier Blu-ray release than before means it's only 11 months (as opposed to a full year) since the last season of Game of Thrones for me. OK, this also means I'm watching it almost a year after "everyone" else — but I've remained largely unspoiled, and I get to watch it all in about a week (or even less) rather than having to wait over two months as it gradually unfurls. I've criticised Netflix for premiering their original series in "box set"-esque chunks (it hampers episode-by-episode audience discussion and therefore the creation of a community/fanbase), but golly if it isn't a better way to watch.

11 months is still an awfully long time to remember all of this show's complex on-going plots though, so thank goodness for the Blu-ray: there's both a 10-minute "previously on" covering both seasons one & two, and a 14-minute featurette recapping last season in a little more detail. And I thought Dexter's routine five-minute recap at the start of each season was crazily long! But, for a show that relies so heavily on its on-going storylines, it's very handy to so thoroughly refresh the memory.

That said, a lot of this premiere is about reestablishing characters and setting up where things will be heading this season. And there are so many characters and threads that it doesn't even touch base with everyone! Not necessarily a great episode in itself, then, but with some good scenes and interesting balls set in motion, it has places to go...


Room 101: Extra Storage
14x06 Episode 6
First edition this series that's had an extended repeat.
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume I: Mr Norrell, Chapters 20-22

Monday 3 March 2014

TV

The 86th Annual Academy Awards
aka the Oscars, obviously. Despite all the (justified) talk about how this was the closest and most unpredictable awards for years, pretty much everything went where it was expected to go. Which is what happens when you have an entire industry built up around predicting the results, plus half a dozen other awards ceremonies with many of the same voters.

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x04 Episode 4

Outnumbered
5x05 The Chinese Horde
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Sunday 2 March 2014

TV

The Culture Show
Forget the Oscars, Here Are the Kermodes [2014]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Oscar 2014 Nominations Special

Oscar 2014: Red Carpet Live
As last year was Sky's ninth with the Oscars, that must make this year the tenth. Nice round number, back to terrestrial next year, yeah?

Silk
3x01 Episode 1
Has it really been over 18 months since the last series?! No wonder I struggled to remember the on-going plot threads.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Top Gear
21x03 (16/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Gravity (2013)
[#13 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Loved it. Will definitely be backing it at the Oscars tonight.

this week on 100 Films

Three things to report from 100 Films in a Year this week...


Firstly, it's now March, so there's the February update. It wasn't a great month, but that doesn't mean there isn't something to read about.


Secondly, one shiny new review:

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
The goal is clearly to present an objective, fact-driven account of how the CIA eventually found their most-wanted target, but how successfully it does that has been called in to question multiple times: there were those who felt it justified the use of torture, and those who claimed its facts were all wrong. On both these facts, any one viewer’s mileage might vary.
Read more here.


And finally, one re-posted archive review:

Throne of Blood (1957)
Kurosawa moves Macbeth from Scotland to 16th Century Japan in this retelling of Shakespeare’s infamous Scottish Play... It works well in the new setting, with some of the themes — honour, respect, betrayal — perhaps becoming more understandable when placed in samurai culture.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 1 March 2014

TV

The Voice UK
3x08 Battle Rounds 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

A couple of new releases (one out last Monday, one out next) and a couple of long-awaited US imports (oh, transatlantic post can be slow!) make for... well, the following.

(Note, in particular, that three of the releases contain a short film. Highly unusual, that.)

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [up 5]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [up 3]

See you next week, faithful reader.