Monday 30 June 2014

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x04 (27/6/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Episodes
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
13x01 (12/6/14 edition)

Sunday 29 June 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x22 Charges and Specs [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Celebrity Fifteen to One
1x04 (27/6/2014 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Mad Men
7x05 The Runaways

Films

Modern Times (1936)
[#55 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #6

this week on 100 Films

No brand-new reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, but there were two new to the new blog...


Hard Candy (2005)
The viewer’s never quite sure of any fact about either of the two characters; never quite sure if they’re being genuine or at any moment will undermine their present emotion with the revelation it’s just an act, an attempt to fool the other.
Read more here.


The Invasion (2007)
Much of the dialogue is on the level of bad exposition, but, to rub salt in the wound, it explains things we’ve already been shown. Normally reliable actors turn in flat performances with such an awkward script, which ponderously works its way through a plot that’s far too slow-moving considering how obvious it is.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 28 June 2014

TV

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
2x03 The Public Relations Course

Top Gear
21x05 (2/3/14 edition)

Films

The Conspirator (2010)
[#54 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!
Network's Buster Keaton set (just £7 direct from them), which compliments Masters of Cinema's set nicely. Well, kinda: all 17 of the short films on Network's set are already in MoC's, but in addition to that there's 11 Keaton feature films and a feature-length 1968 documentary about him. Still good value, as far as I'm concerned.

And!
Hulk Vs. on Blu-ray, which while sold as a feature actually contains two shorter films: Hulk vs. Wolverine and Hulk vs. Thor. Thanks to technicalities of running time, however, Hulk vs. Wolverine would count as a short film (running under 40 minutes) while Hulk vs. Thor would count as a feature film (running over 40 minutes), so (naturally) that's how I've listed them.

Number of titles in collection: 1,684 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 483 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,185 [up 7]
Number of films in collection: 1,819 [up 13]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 432 [up 18]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Thursday 26 June 2014

Wednesday 25 June 2014

TV

Episodes
3x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Tuesday 24 June 2014

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x03 (20/6/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x20 Daisy
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Mimic
1x01 Episode 1
1x02 Episode 2
Missed this when it was on originally, but I seemed to remember wanting to give it a go, so when I stumbled across it on on demand I thought I would. It's about someone who does impressions, but instead of doing the usual sketch show they've created a sitcom. It's adequate... which is about the same quality as the impressions, to be honest. (It did get recommissioned... though the "early 2014" broadcast obviously didn't happen.)
[Watch episodes one and two (again) on 4oD.]

Sunday 22 June 2014

this week on 100 Films

Onebrand-new review was published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and it was...


Wallander: The Troubled Man (2013)
Krister Henriksson returns as the Swedish detective for a third and final series of mysteries, starting with this final theatrically-released episode, based on the final Wallander novel. Yes, there is a sense of finality here — albeit one not reached just yet.
Read more here.


Plus, new to the new blog...


The International (2009)
A lot of scenes involve people explaining the plot to each other, or discoursing in clichés about why they’re going to be thrown off the case or justice is an illusion or whatever. In a rare moment of something approaching innovation, we don’t have to suffer a romance between the two leads because she’s happily married, as we’re briefly shown early on. It should be something of a concern when one of a film’s high points is something it doesn’t do.
Read more here.


Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)
The humour is a mixture of schoolboy toilet gags, general silliness/quirkiness, and rock/culture references — undoubtedly, therefore, your mental age will dictate which bits (if any) you laugh at.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Films

Troy (2004)
[#18 in 100 Films in a Year 2008]
[3rd watch]

Not the whole thing, and I didn't mean to watch it! I was flicking to see what was on, thought "that's a slightly odd advert"... and it turned out to be Troy. I remember liking it (see my review of the Director's Cut), but today it struck me as quite poor in almost every regard: the script, the acting, the direction and production values -- more Hallmark mini-series than big-budget all-star blockbuster. Game of Thrones looks more expensive, and that's not just down to 10 years of technical improvements.

Still, I got suckered in, and it does have good stuff -- the battles and fights are really well staged, if nothing else. And I watched it to the end from when I joined (a good 2½-3 hours, with ad breaks), so there's clearly something there.

Collection Count

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

All the neat, fairly-rounded numbers of last week (1680, 1200, 480...) go flying this week -- as they all inevitably do -- with two new Blu-rays.

Number of titles in collection: 1,682 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,200 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 482 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,178 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,807 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 414 [up 4]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 20 June 2014

Thursday 19 June 2014

TV

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled
1x04 Until I'm Married or You're Dead
That was good. Wish I'd watched the rest of the series now.
[Watch it (again) on Dave OD.]

Films

Sightseers (2012)
[#52 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Wednesday 18 June 2014

TV

Penny Dreadful
1x01 Night Work
With Game of Thrones over for another year, here's what I'm hoping can be televisual methadone: much-anticipated, good-looking series from the creators of Skyfall (writer John Logan, who creates and writes, and director Sam Mendes, who exec produces) set in Victorian England about Dracula and Frankenstein and all that kind of stuff existing together. Interesting first episode, but it's clearly only just getting going, so we'll see. It would help if the direction didn't use some of the same tricks multiple times...

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Monday 16 June 2014

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
6x02 (13/6/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
4x10 The Children [season finale]
And that's it for another year! As usual, some satisfying conclusions (of a sort), while other stuff is left brazenly hanging. It's almost enough to make you want to dive straight into the books... were it not for the fact that at this point they've deviated so much there's no choice but to read the whole darn thing, not just start with Book 4. (I do want to read the books, mind, but no one's getting straight to 'new' stuff if they're only starting now!)

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
1x06 The Psychiatrist

Sunday 15 June 2014

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x19 Vesuvius
OK, I have no idea what the episode titles mean at this point.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

Journey into Fear (1943)
[#51 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part Two: Chapter 1



The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang

Fourth Hugo Best Novelette nominee.

It's another first-person letter "like it's a real historical document... about the future!" one, a style that has increasingly grated with me as my Hugo reading has gone on. Perhaps that means I'm judging this one unfairly, but as it also did the "two apparently unconnected story threads unfolding at the same time... that come together at the end!" thing again; and it had pretty much the same primary SF idea as an episode of Black Mirror, which I felt did it better. Add all that together and I didn't warm to it at all!

Nonetheless, you can read it at the above link.

So that's not a good hit rate for the novelettes, I'm afraid. I'm not even going to bother with the fifth, because I've not heard a single person have anything good to say about it. The Lady Astronaut of Mars is definitely my top pick, and I'll have to debate amongst myself which (if any) I rank below it, and in what order.

this week on 100 Films

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


Elysium (2013)
Elysium is a parable; one related to current hot-button topics (in the US especially) like immigration and access to healthcare for the poor. I’m sure some would therefore characterise it as Left Wing, for good or ill, but I think its underlying message is more fundamental than that: it’s just humanitarian.
Read more here.


Ghost Rider (2007)
The MacGuffin storyline feels ripped from Constantine, but here executed via a screenplay written in Dairylea on a block of Stilton, shot on Camembert film with Cheddar cameras.
Read more here.


Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
it’s a difficult film to digest in one viewing, because there’s so much there... it’s packed with incident, and shaped in a non-traditional narrative structure. A first viewing is an exercise in following what’s going on, what connects to what else, why things are happening in such an order. It fairly begs, “get a handle on it this time, you can analyse it when you watch it again”.
Read more here.


The Punisher (2004)
This is the second of three live-action Punishers, all unconnected. Now the rights are back with Marvel, how long before another reboot?
Read more here.


Additionally, new to the new blog was...


Boogie Nights (1997)
I didn’t fall for it in the same way I did for Magnolia... One I may get a better feel for when I see it again some day.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 14 June 2014

TV

Celebrity Fifteen to One
1x02 (13/6/2014 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
1x05 The Hospital Visit
With Sarah Jane Smith!

Films

Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008)
[#50 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Plus the DVD's special features, which included a short EPK-y "making of", an even shorter overview of teen teams in Marvel comics, and some extended trailers for the Hulk Vs shorts that made them look so good I went and ordered the Blu-ray (a US import only £2 dearer than buying the UK DVD).

Fiction

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Third Hugo Best Novelette nominee. It's a really great story, in an alternate-history SF setting, but about people and characters in that world (which is quickly, effectively sketched) rather than the world itself. It's overall quality is a light year beyond the other two, in my estimation.

You can read it online at the above link.

Collection Count

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

This week, the two '60s Thunderbirds movies on US Blu; two cuts of Oliver Stone's Alexander, one of them superseding The Final Cut; and an upgrade for Atonement.

Also this week, a running time update (hurrah!)

Number of titles in collection: 1,680 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,200 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 480 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 4,176 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,805 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 410 [no change]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
299 days, 10 hours, and 58 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 2 hours, and 41 minutes from last month.)

That'll be over 300 days next month, most likely!

But before that... see you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 13 June 2014

Thursday 12 June 2014

Wednesday 11 June 2014

TV

Goodness Gracious Me
Reunion Special

Have I Got News For You
47x08 (23/5/2014 edition; extended repeat)

Law & Order: UK
8x07 Hard Stop
Well that felt very finale-ish, which considering there's one more episode to come -- and it's now the last-ever -- is kinda odd.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
1x02 George's House

Films

Night of the Big Heat (1967)
[#48 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Tuesday 10 June 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x21 Unsolvable
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
4x09 The Watchers of the Wall
Awesome, in a very literal sense!

Mad Men
7x03 Field Trip

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
1x01 The Job Interview
Thought I'd seen the first few episode of this before, but I don't remember this one in the slightest. We'll see later, then. Anyway, it's still very funny, which isn't always true of old sitcoms, even popular ones, or so I find.

Monday 9 June 2014

TV

Cowboy Bebop
1x12 Jupiter Jazz Part 1
1x13 Jupiter Jazz Part 2
Disadvantage of my accidental gap: I only had a vague recollection of the events these episodes called back to.
Advantage of our modern internet-enabled era: I could just read up on episode five online.

Gavin & Stacey
3x06 Episode 6 [series finale; 2nd watch]

Law & Order: UK
8x06 Bad Romance

Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part One: Chapters 6-7

Yep, decided to continue with this. It's still a mite too obsessed with explanations of arcane future economics, but I'll trust on the concurrent narrative for a little longer.



The Waiting Stars by Aliette de Bodard

Second Hugo-nominated novelette, which won the same award at the Nebulas last month.

Considerably better-written than yesterday's, but I'm not sure how I feel about it in itself. I guessed the 'twist' before the halfway point, though it's not just concerned with pulling the rug from under you -- there's questions of imperialism and colonialism here, with neither 'side' being presented as the villain, instead alluding to both the positives and shortcomings of each.

But, in my opinion, it's not long enough to pull off the emotional punch I think it's (in part) going for -- unless you unreservedly buy into these characters at lightning speed, you need a much longer work to feel for them, and to feel for how the change effects them at the end.

Probably won't get my #1 place on the ballot, then, but it's not bad. It can be read for free at the above link.

Sunday 8 June 2014

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x18 Rally
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Secret of Kells (2009)
[#47 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Fiction

The Exchange Officers by Brad R. Torgersen

Starting reading for the Hugo Best Novelette award -- essentially, a long short story.

Not too impressed by this one. The dialogue is hilariously poor, loaded with clunky exposition, as is some of the prose. Otherwise, it's essentially about a space fight between The Right And Good US Of A, who are unnarmed because they're just in space for nice exploration, and The Evil Chinese, who are kinda armed because they're Evil gorrammit. The other nominees will have to be pretty poor for this to end up highly-ranked on my ballot.

Not available to read for free online, but apparently included in this podcast.



The Ink Readers of Doi Saket by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The last nominee for the Best Short Story award... and my favourite, too. Interestingly, all the nominees are "magical realist"-type stories rather than obvious SF/F, which I wouldn't have expected (especially given the more 'obvious' style of the nominees in other categories).

This one is set in Thailand, apparently by a Dutch writer and then translated into English. Which doesn't really mean anything, it's just unusual.

Read it online for free at the above link.

Comics

The Bunker #3 by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Joe Infurnari

Growing on me.

this week on 100 Films

One brand-new review was published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (2013)
That The Day of the Doctor delivers — and how — is part miracle and part relief, and all joy for the viewer. [And] for the majority it wasn't just a success, it was a triumph. Evidence? The record-breaking global audience; it was the most-watched drama in the UK in 2013; its theatrical release reached #2 at the US box office; it won the audience-voted Radio Times BAFTA for last year's best TV programme; and, last week, a poll of Doctor Who Magazine readers asserted it was better than the 240 other Who TV stories to crown it the greatest ever made.
Read more here.


Also, new to the new blog were...


Atonement (2007)
even more astounding is 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan as Briony, wise beyond her years as the over-imaginative girl who causes so much misery. In many ways she's the lead character, but as she shares the role with two other, older actresses, it's no surprise she's up for Best Supporting Actress... She's certainly one to watch...
Read more here.


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The visuals in general may be Benjamin Button’s strongpoint, holding up a variety of era-evoking colour palettes and other design elements as it passes throughout the 20th Century... For a director who has a reputation in some corners for exhibiting excessive flair with swish shots and effects, Fincher shows steady restraint here — as he did in Zodiac, and Se7en, and all the moments in his other films where it was appropriate.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday 7 June 2014

TV

Celebrity Fifteen to One
1x01 (6/6/2014 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

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

Gavin & Stacey
3x05 Episode 5 [2nd watch]

Have I Got News For You
47x07 (16/5/2014 edition; extended repeat)

Films

The Tournament (2009)
[#46 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part One: Chapters 3-5

Every time this threatened to get interesting, it slipped into a history or economics lesson about this fictional far-future -- ugh. I was on the verge of giving up... then decided to give it to a fifth of the way through, the end of chapter 4, and it suddenly got interesting, with a chapter-ending cliffhanger and everything. By the end of chapter 5, it's almost downright exciting.

Unfortunately, this is where the free extract provided for Hugo voters runs out. Now I'm debating whether to bank on this new-found good-ness continuing and read more, or assume it will fall back on its old ways and give up anyway.



If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky

Selkie Stories Are for Losers by Sofia Samatar

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu

Three of the four Hugo nominees for Best Short Story. All are about real-world things with an SF/F twist. If You Were a Dinosaur is clearly the best, The Water That Falls is good but perhaps ends before the end (though perhaps not), and I have no idea what Selkie Stories Are for Losers is really meant to be about.

You can read them all online for free at the links above.

Collection Count

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

This week, a Blu-ray upgrade for V for Vendetta, thanks to the hard-to-come-by Zavvi-exclusive Steelbook. Even though my DVD is a fairly nice limited edition too, there's no point hanging on to it, which is why some numbers go down.

Number of titles in collection: 1,678 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,201 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 477 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,173 [down 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,801 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,147 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 410 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday 6 June 2014

TV

Cowboy Bebop
1x11 Toys in the Attic

Gavin & Stacey
3x04 Episode 4 [2nd watch]

Wallander [Swedish]
3x02 Försvunnen (aka Missing)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Thursday 5 June 2014

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x20 Fancy Brugdom
The internet can't agree if it's "Brudgom" or "Brugdom" -- but then, neither can the show itself.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Gavin & Stacey
3x03 Episode 3 [2nd watch]

Person of Interest
2x22 God Mode [season finale]
Well that was inconclusive...

Films

Ghost Rider (2007)
[#45 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Wednesday 4 June 2014

TV

Cowboy Bebop
1x09 Jamming with Edward
1x10 Ganymede Elegy
Crikey, has it really been 7½ months since I last watched Cowboy Bebop?! (Yes.) Oops. Anyway, let's try to make this a more regular thing, eh?

Gavin & Stacey
3x02 Episode 2 [2nd watch]

The Guess List
1x05 Episode 5

Person of Interest
2x21 Zero Day
So, I've been wrapping up all my already-on-going series from the TV season just passed (UK time, anyway -- the past TV season in the US had PoI season three). Which means soon I shall dig into a bunch of stuff I have saved up from earlier this year: The Americans season two, Ripper Street season two, The Musketeers season one, Peaky Blinders season one... and probably more, too. Exciting.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part One: Chapter 2

Improving, a little. We'll see.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

TV

Game of Thrones
4x08 The Mountain and the Viper
Well, someone did say there'd be several more significant deaths before the season was out. I believe next week is a Blackwater-style single-location battle-focused episode, so I guess this one serves as the penultimate part for every other storyline -- and it felt like it!

Gavin & Stacey
3x01 Episode 1 [2nd watch]

Mad Men
7x02 A Day's Work
The fact the "previously on" mostly recapped last season is rather damning about how little happened in episode one! Things are very much underway now, though. Good good.

Monday 2 June 2014

TV

Gavin & Stacey
3x00 Christmas Special [3rd watch]
It's nearly six years since this first aired. Six years! Where does time go...

Person of Interest
2x20 In Extremis
Featuring a major guest character with my name! Weeeeiiiird.

Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part One: Chapter 1

I know I seem to have a predilection for giving up on books by accident, but I haven't abandoned Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (even though it's been a while). So why start this? Well, I'll be voting for the 2014 Hugo Awards, and this is one of the nominees, which I feel I should at least make some effort to read.

So far, it's not really my cup of tea. I confess I didn't even read all of this review, but the first four or so paragraphs give a good enough idea -- both of the novel, and why I'm not keen: "the real business of the novel [is] interstellar economics." Wow! Couple that with its dense hard-science-fiction style and it's all a bit much.

Not sure how long I'll stick with it, then. The advice someone offered -- that you should read all the nominated works, but only until you've had enough of each (which therefore shows you can't think that much of one if you don't want to finish it) -- seems good to me! And also practical, when there's so much to read.

Sunday 1 June 2014

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x17 Sunrise
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Vera
4x03 The Deer Hunters
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

12 Angry Men (1957)
[#44 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #5

this week on 100 Films

It's June today (right now!), which means it's time to look back at how 100 Films in a Year fared in May 2014. Not too shabbily, as it turns out, though it was far from exceptional.

This month, there's also a look at the five men who've played Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. Yep, five.


Elsewhere, just one new review was published this week...


Mad Max (1979)
A pursuit opens the film in style. It's a surprisingly-lengthy white-knuckle sequence that introduces us not only to Max, but to what director George Miller is capable of. Even 35 years on it remains a mightily effective set piece, with more punch than the average over-choreographed CGI-addled chases of the last decade-and-a-half of moviemaking.
Read more here.


...but there was also one new to the new blog:


Beowulf: Director's Cut (2007)
I like animated films; I have absolutely no problem with animated films for adults; but the issue here is that most of the characters (especially the 'extras') seem of about the same quality as humans in Shrek. So while the battle scenes are often very violent, it becomes hard to take them seriously because it's all too cartoony.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.