Monday, 20 October 2008

shameless eBay self-promotion: almost the final update, hopefully

I still have several items for sale on eBay, believe it or not. Anything in bold is being bid on, anything crossed out sold since this was posted; everything else also has a Buy It Now option.

The following ends tonight at 11:43pm:

  • Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking

  • Additionally, there are several items I've re-listed, now at a lower price. Fortunately, several have sold already:

  • Casino Royale (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • From Russia With Love (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Live and Let Die (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • You Only Live Twice (Penguin Modern Classics edition)

  • And finally, these two aren't listed yet but will be one day:

  • Doctor Who Empress of the Racnoss action figure
  • Se7en (2-disc Special Edition)

  • And that's all for now!

    Sunday, 19 October 2008

    TV

    Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
    15x07 (17/10/08 edition)

    Ian Fleming: Where Bond Began
    It's his centenary (still) and Quantum of Solace is nearly upon us. Yep, it's time for another Fleming doco! Luckily this is a really good one. Joanna Lumley is a wonderful host, the biographical details more in depth than usual -- they touch on Fleming's private life as well as his espionage antics -- and there's some nice interludes looking at real-life Bond-style gadgets, his style of research, his methods of writing, and so on. If you missed this, catch it on the iPlayer or something -- it's worth it.

    Stephen Fry in America
    Part 2 Deep South
    I find it reassuring how often I share Stephen Fry's views.

    Fiction

    Mock the Week: Scenes We'd Like To See by Ewan Phillips, Dan Patterson, Simon Bullivant, Rob Colley, Dan Gaster, Ged Parsons, Giles Pilbrow, Steve Punt & Colin Swash
    64. DVDs That Wouldn't Sell
    76. Lines You'd Never See in a James Bond Book (Part 1)
    83. Lines You'd Never See in a James Bond Book (Part 2)

    So is this Fiction or Non-Fiction, hm? As it's Scenes We'd Like To See, I'm going with Fiction. Also, look at that list of authors! And none of them panelists from the show itself. Anyway, the last one in Bond (Part 2) (which is also the last line in the entire book) is very amusing. The others were... intermittent.

    Non-Fiction

    Letters Between a Father and a Son (aka Between Father and Son: Family Letters) by V.S. Naipaul, edited by Gillon Aitken
    Parts IX - X [the end]
    Finally! Hurrah!

    Articles

    And the winner is... who? by Lisa Jardine
    (from BBC News Magazine)
    "His name is largely unknown in Britain and the United States, but the recipient of the most feted prize in literature has much he could tell them about their lives today". A very interesting article, primarily the bits that open it about the self-obsessed snobbery ("why don't we win?! I've never heard of him!") of British and American literary snobs.

    Aussie boy breaks into zoo, feeds animals to croc by Kristen Gelineau
    (from Mail.com)
    A horrible story, yet morbidly fascinating. Worst of all, the little shit can't be punished.

    British burglar says 'sorry' with flowers
    (from Mail.com)
    "A repentant robber in England sent his elderly victim a bouquet of flowers to apologize for frightening her... A 91-year-old woman received the flowers and a note after confronting a burglar in her home around 4 a.m. on Oct. 9, police said. The card explained that the burglar thought the property in Halifax, about 200 miles north of London, was empty and apologized for breaking in." What a lovely burglar. It also amuses me that US news describes Halifax as being "200 miles north of London".

    Dork talk (18/10/08) by Stephen Fry
    (from The Guardian)
    Another affinity I feel with Stephen Fry: "I shall also take my iPhone 3G, without which I'm pretty much an empty vessel these days... and my unlocked first generation iPhone... I will also pack one of the new iPod Nanos... As for reading, well, I have a Sony eReader, a Kindle and an Iliad, all dedicated electronic book readers, but the fact is, the iPhone has already proved itself (according to Forbes Magazine) the most popular ebook reader on the market. Nearly half a million people have downloaded the free Stanza application for iPhone (from the iTunes store)... For photography I shall take the Canon 1000D... I shall also pack a Sony Cybershot-W170, a competent all-round compact digital camera... my Nintendo DS Lite, dozens of game cartridges... I shall flip a coin to decide whether to take a MacBook Air, the lightest of the MacBook range, or the Livono ThinkPad X300. Whichever I choose will come preloaded with as many films and TV shows as I can download. Their weightlessness will save me having to lug DVDs about." I don't have so much technology, sadly, but my two desktops, laptop, iPod, iPhone 3G, Nintendo DS, Fuji camera, Sony camcorder, and (newly acquired) S8mm film camcorder all attest to a similar mindset. [I may retrospectively link-up this article later, but the 15+ links needed are too much hassle right now.]

    Jamaica puzzled by theft of beach by Nick Davis
    (from BBC News)
    Best. Headline. Ever. (Today.) Go on, read it.

    Lloyd Webber pens Eurovision song
    (from BBC News)
    Make sure to visit this one for the amusing/amusingly bad advert, in which Lord Lloyd Webber lets you know how much your country needs you. This year, said entry will be chosen with a standard-style TV talent show, presented by the always-excellent Graham Norton. Hurrah! This is somewhat in lieu of another West-End-star-finder shower, although those will be back in 2010...

    Webber rules out 2009 talent show
    (from BBC News)
    He's too busy doing Phantom of the Opera 2, you see. Though don't be too disheartened, faithful viewer, as we can look forward to a Wizard of Oz-themed show in 2010. Title betting starts now! We're Off to See the Wizard? Over the Rainbow? Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?

    shameless eBay self-promotion: items end soon!

    I still have several items for sale on eBay that end tonight. Anything in bold is being bid on, anything crossed out sold since this was posted; everything else also has a Buy It Now option.

    The following items end somewhere between 10:41 and 11:17pm tonight:

  • Doctor Who Complete Davros Collection box set (new)
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 1
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 2

  • And ending tomorrow at 11:43pm:

  • Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking

  • Additionally, there are several items I've had to re-list, now at a lower price:

  • Casino Royale (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • From Russia With Love (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Live and Let Die (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • You Only Live Twice (Penguin Modern Classics edition)

  • And finally, these two aren't listed yet but will be one day:

  • Doctor Who Empress of the Racnoss action figure
  • Se7en (2-disc Special Edition)

  • And that's all for now!

    Saturday, 18 October 2008

    TV

    Have I Got News For You
    36x01 (17/10/08 edition; extended repeat) [2nd watch]

    The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
    2x06 (18/10/08 edition)

    Articles

    Bourne 4 Gets Writer by Emily Phillips
    (from Empire Online)
    But will it be called The Bourne Legacy?

    First Look At Inglourious Brad Pitt by Dan Goodswen
    (from Empire Online)
    More interesting than the photo, in my opinion, is the (brief) article itself: "Quentin Tarantino has painted his WWII epic Inglourious Basterds [sic] as his take on a spaghetti western, even joking that he might title the film Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France. [It's about] a group of Jewish-American soldiers, known as 'The Basterds' who are chosen specifically to spread fear among the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis." Cool.

    Movie Reviews: Max Payne
    (from Studio Briefing)
    "About the only thing it has going for it is the stylized production design and a few cool special effects, but the story couldn't be more inane nor the characters less credible." Oh dear. But no surprise, really.

    Movie Reviews: W.
    (from Studio Briefing)
    "Somewhat surprisingly W. has turned out to be director Oliver Stone's best-reviewed film in ages... Josh Brolin's portrayal of the president receives nearly universal praise [but] 'making a Bush movie that doesn't dramatize 9/11 nor mention the historic 2000 election controversy is negligent at best' [and] 'Why, when Americans and citizens around the globe are still coming to terms with the implications of so many Bush policies, would they want to pay money at the box office to see what amounts to an extended Saturday Night Live skit?'" Too soon? I think so.

    Click to enlarge

    Review of Quantum of Solace by Kim Newman
    (from Empire Online)
    "A pacy, visually imaginative follow-up. If it doesn’t even try to be bigger than Casino Royale, that’s perhaps a smart move in that there’s still a sense at the end that Bond’s mission has barely begun and he’ll need a few more movies to work his way up to destroying the apparently undefeatable Quantum organisation. The only real caveat is that while it’s exciting, it’s not exactly anyone’s idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more." It's sounding good to me! Still undecided on that poster though. I don't hate it, but it's not half as good as CR's.

    As they did earlier this summer with The Dark Knight and... oh, some other blockbuster, I forget which... Empire are having a Bond Fortnight in the run up to the release of Quantum of Solace. It began yesterday with 30 Second Guides to Every Bond Movie, and continued today with their review of QoS (see above). There's 12 more features to come over the next two weeks.

    Magazines

    Doctor Who Magazine #401
    Including the title of the next Christmas special (already widely reported), the director of the first 2009 special, and a huge ovation for Bernard Cribbins. Quite right too. And the You Are Not Alone column is about Terry Nation, rather than some sad "woe is me" fandom-related bollocks. Appropriately, it's a lot better than usual, though is still almost killed by the column's usual pathetic final 'funny' paragraph.

    shameless eBay self-promotion: items end tonight!

    I wasn't going to bother with an eBay update today, as very little's changed... but then I realised that most things end tonight, so thought I'd point that out. Anything in bold is being bid on, anything crossed out sold since this was posted; everything else also has a Buy It Now option.

    The following items end somewhere between 11:42pm and 1:22am tonight:

    DVDs
  • Casino Royale 2-disc Collector's Edition
  • Ghost in the Shell
  • L.A. Confidential

  • Books
  • Casino Royale (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Dr No (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • From Russia With Love (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Goldfinger (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Live and Let Die (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Moonraker (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Thunderball (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • You Only Live Twice (Penguin Modern Classics edition)

  • And these final four DVDs end on either Sunday or Monday:

  • Doctor Who Complete Davros Collection box set (new)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 1
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 2

  • And these two aren't listed yet, but will be one day:

  • Doctor Who Empress of the Racnoss action figure
  • Se7en (2-disc Special Edition)

  • S'all for now.

    Friday, 17 October 2008

    TV

    Big Cat Week
    2x03 (5/1/05 edition)

    Have I Got News For You
    36x01 (17/10/08 edition)
    I stand by my assertion from last time I caught Have I Got News (in repeat form): this programme should be on all year round.

    The Sandbaggers
    1x05 Always Glad to Help

    Films

    Inside-Out (1999)
    [#66a in 100 Films in a Year 2008]

    As well as the opening scenes of Fargo, Capote and Little Miss Sunshine -- it's a Creative Writing MA thing.

    shameless eBay self-promotion: update 4

    You can read the full story behind these auctions in the previous four updates posted; here's just a list of what I'm currently selling. Anything in bold is being bid on, anything crossed out sold since this was posted; everything else also has a Buy It Now option.

    DVDs
  • Casino Royale 2-disc Collector's Edition
  • Doctor Who Complete Davros Collection box set (new)
  • Ghost in the Shell
  • L.A. Confidential
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 1
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 2

  • Books
  • Casino Royale (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Dr No (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • From Russia With Love (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Goldfinger (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Live and Let Die (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Moonraker (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Thunderball (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • You Only Live Twice (Penguin Modern Classics edition)

  • All these auctions end this weekend, with the exception of the Holmes DVD, which ends on Monday.

    I've still got two things left to sell: a Doctor Who Empress of the Racnoss action figure, and a copy of the UK 2-disc release of Se7en -- possibly my favourite film ever, which I currently have a spare copy to get rid of.

    Thursday, 16 October 2008

    TV

    8 Out of 10 Cats
    7x07 (16/10/08 edition)

    Never Mind the Buzzcocks
    22x03 (16/10/08 edition)

    Non-Fiction

    Letters Between a Father and a Son (aka Between Father and Son: Family Letters) by V.S. Naipaul, edited by Gillon Aitken
    Part VIII

    Articles

    Ten Doctor Who covers for SFX issue 176 by David Bradley
    (from SFX)
    Stephen Fry! Stephen Fry!




    Click to enlarge.

    Wednesday, 15 October 2008

    TV

    Heroes
    3x03 One of Us, One of Them

    Films

    Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)
    [3rd or so watch]
    After the disappointment I felt upon rewatching Hot Shots!, I approached this sequel with no small degree of trepidation. Luckily, this one's a lot better, and while some of the jokes are now dated (there are at least a couple of cultural references very specific to the early '90s) the majority still stands up today. Sure, it's still mostly immature and silly, but within that it's frequently amusing -- the point of a spoof, after all. In fact, it was even better watching it now than whenever I last saw it (as much as 10 years ago, possibly, if not more), because there were a few jokes I can now get, such as the references to The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Additionally, the film has been cut to shreds in the UK over time -- well, trimmed of some very funny bits, at least -- so watching it as I did from the US DVD, this is actually the first time I've seen all of it.

    Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
    [2nd watch]
    It's been a good few years since I've seen this too. I was meant to watch it for my degree two or three years ago, but didn't bother. Now I need to watch it for my MA, so this time I'm bothering. Logic dictates it's at least four years since I last saw it therefore, and I'm somewhat glad I didn't watch it sooner -- the gap has allowed me to both forgot how brilliant it is, and grow up enough to enjoy it even more. Pure cinema, unremittingly excellent, and well deserving of all its high placings on Best Films Ever lists. An experience to be savoured.

    Non-Fiction

    Letters Between a Father and a Son (aka Between Father and Son: Family Letters) by V.S. Naipaul, edited by Gillon Aitken
    Parts V - VII

    shameless eBay self-promotion: update 3

    You can read the full story behind these auctions in my previous three updates; here's just a list of what I'm currently selling. Anything in bold is being bid on, anything crossed out sold since this was posted; everything else also has a Buy It Now option.

    DVDs
  • Casino Royale 2-disc Collector's Edition
  • Doctor Who Complete Davros Collection box set (new)
  • Ghost in the Shell
  • L.A. Confidential
  • Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles with Richard Roxburgh, Ian Hart and Richard E. Grant
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 1
  • The West Wing Season 1 Part 2

  • Books
  • Casino Royale (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Diamonds Are Forever (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Dr No (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • From Russia With Love (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Goldfinger (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Live and Let Die (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Moonraker (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • Thunderball (Penguin Modern Classics edition)
  • You Only Live Twice (Penguin Modern Classics edition)

  • Toys
  • Doctor Who Micro-Universe: Captain Jack's Chula Ship (with exclusive Captain Jack mini-figure)

  • All these auctions end next weekend, with the exception of the two Holmes DVDs, which end on Monday.

    I've still got two things left to sell: a Doctor Who Empress of the Racnoss action figure, and a copy of the UK 2-disc release of Se7en, possibly my favourite film ever.