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.