TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Thirteen

After yesterday's lull, definitive diversity today: a bit of swimming (another medal miss), a bit of synchronised swimming, a bit of dressage (two medals!), a bit of gymnastics, and a bit of athletics; all wrapped up with a bit of Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Thursday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]


Parents
1x06 Episode Six [season finale]
Well... that's that over.

Articles

London 2012: 20 lesser-spotted things of the Olympics so far
(from BBC News Magazine)
Meant to mention this a few days ago; forgot (obviously). It's a fun/interesting list of "some of the less asked questions and lesser-spotted oddities of the Games so far."

Doctor Who drama to mark show's 50th birthday
(from BBC News)
A lot of people predicted they'd do something like this; then genuine rumours began to emerge; and no it's been confirmed: Mark Gatiss is writing a 90-minute drama about the creation of Doctor Who, provisionally titled An Adventure in Time and Space. Exciting times.

Superheroes and the law: How would Batman or Captain America fare in court?
by Matthew Huisman (from Law.com)

A new book asks the questions most comic fans haven't — how would superheroes, and villains, manage if they had to legally answer for their actions? This slideshow provides some educated guesses.

Both interesting and fun it is too.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Twelve

It felt like there wasn't a great deal going on today, like things were winding down. That's presumably just some kind of fluke, because there were still 16 golds awarded... just no medals for Team GB. But we're still positioned for some later in the Games, both as favourites and as 'guaranteed at least silver's, so it's not over yet.

Nonetheless, watched a bit of BMX, a bit of athletics, and of course found out what had been going on thanks to Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Wednesday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Luther creator eyes Alice spinoff
by Jon Weisman (from The Vote at Variety)

Didn't really expect that, though it was nice to know why Alice disappeared in the last series. Sounds like Luther has a very intriguing future: third (and final) series, an almost-definite film version, and now a spin-off. Crazy.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Eleven

A less varied day today -- just cycling and athletics -- though with glimpses and smidgens of gymnastics and triathlon; and all wrapped up and summarised, of course, by Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Tuesday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Joe Carnahan Close to Daredevil, Fantastic Four Characters Could Go Back to Marvel
by Silas Lesnick (from SuperHeroHype)

Well now here's a twist! Everyone was assuming Fox would have to either rush a new Daredevil film into production or let the rights slip back to Marvel, something they clearly don't want -- he's a popular character and we're still in an age of incredibly successful superhero movies. But instead it looks like they're offering Marvel selected characters from the Fantastic Four licence (which they also want to hang onto) in return for longer to make Daredevil.

But other reports say it may be something completely different, and much more normal, that they're considering: co-funding. Blah. Be interesting to see how this plays out.


Joss Whedon Signed for The Avengers 2 and Marvel Live-Action TV Series
by Peter Sciretta (from /Film)

Hurrah! And for a clarifying Disney statement too, see here.

Now just gotta see the first one...

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Ten

An increasingly eclectic selection of viewing, it feels like: starting with Beth Tweddle's bronze (hurrah for her!) in the gymnastics and continuing with synchronised swimming (weird); then there was Jason Kenny's gold in cycling, and finally a largely disappointing evening of athletics.

Today also saw Team GB take a team gold on the horsies. Didn't see that live, but such things are what Olympics Tonight is for.

[Watch Monday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Websites

Medals Per Capita

Subtitles Olympic Glory in Proportion, this site includes all sorts of ways of looking at one piece of data: the amount of Olympic medals won by each country. There are all sorts of ways to cut it up, and you can do it by every individual Olympics or an All Time list.

Current favourite has to be London 2012 Weighted Medals per Capita, which shows how well every nation is doing in the current games relative to the size of their population. Britain places 8th; the next nearest country with a population comparable to ours is France, in 22nd; the next nearest nation with a similarly high weight score is the USA, in 30th (I say "similarly" -- it's still much higher).

Basically, it proves how bloody amazingly we're doing.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Nine

Big day for those of us focused on the tennis as it came to an end with three finals (and their respective bronze medal play-offs). So gutted for Federer that he was denied a career Golden Slam, but Murray did play exceptionally well. Thank goodness he's not had real success until after becoming a Nicer Person and Better Sportsman with Ivan Lendl's training -- his previous stroppy attitude has not been vindicated. A shame that Murray and Laura Robson didn't quite manage victory in the mixed doubles, too. My tennis supporting day didn't go so well.

Also today was gymnastics, where two of our guys did extraordinarily and still didn't quite get gold. I don't think it's possible to miss out by any smaller margin, poor guy.

Finally, athletics, Usain Bolt, blah blah blah; and, of course, Olympics Tonight.

[Watch Sunday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]


Twenty Twelve
2x07 Loose Ends [series finale]

Generally very good last ever (presumably) episode. The bell-ringing thing seemed unnecessary, but I suppose they needed something for Siobhan to do. And the cheek of that ending...!

this week on 100 Films

Just one brand-new review was posted to 100 Films in a Year this week...

Cars 2 (2011)

why is the police car wearing a giant hat?!

Read more here.

But there were also a few archive reviews, including...

Cars (2006)

I’ve often heard people criticise the world of the movie for not making sense... it does play on your mind while watching, and because it shouldn’t matter I think it’s indicative of faults elsewhere: if the characters and story were keeping your attention, if the film was consistently funny or exciting or engrossing, you wouldn’t be wondering who built these cars, or where their builders went, or how they reproduce… It’s like a child’s game writ into film

Read more here.

Citizen Kane (1941)

As of 1st August 2012, Citizen Kane is no longer the greatest film of all time. Here’s some brief, aimless thoughts I had about it when I saw it for the first time, almost exactly five years ago…

Read more here.

The Hitchcock 4
The new Greatest Film Of All Time is a Hitchcock, so here I bring the four Hitch films I've reviewed over to the new blog. Those being Rebecca, Notorious, Marnie and The Birds. Really need to watch some more Hitchcock...

And finally, now that we're in August, there was also my round-up of July, including some extra stuff on something the BFI tweeted recently.

More next Sunday.

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Eight

Super Saturday! Rowing in the morning; tennis and cycling in the afternoon; swimming and athletics in the evening; Olympics Tonight to round it all off -- and medals throughout! A great day for British sport, that's for sure.

[Watch Saturday's Olympics Tonight (again), as well as loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

TV

London 2012 Olympics
Day Seven
Tennis as ever, particularly the nail-biting record-length match between Federer and Del Potro. Tough for the latter to lose it, but so happy the former one -- guaranteed medal, and hopefully it'll be gold... although the home crowd will be against him. Hey-ho.
Also, various successes (and disappointments) in rowing, cycling and swimming. Plus some rapid-fire pistol shooting, which turned out to be surprisingly boring so I stopped.
Finally, I've taken to half-watching the Gabby Logan-hosted (never mind) post-news round-up programme, Olympics Tonight, which is handy for an overview (today, for instance, saw things kicking off for athletics in the main stadium -- a major thing I pretty much skipped live). So that's... way more than I was ever expecting.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Parents
1x05 Episode Five

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,162 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 345 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,735 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

How I Met Your Mother
7x24 The Magician's Code Part 2 [season finale]
Well, that was intriguing. Barney's bride was no surprise at all, but didn't really expect Ted's ending. How many seasons has these got left now, though? Getting time for an ending...
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

London 2012 Olympics
Day Six
Tennis. Swimming. Cycling. Even a little bit of judo.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Suburgatory
1x03 The Chatterer
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

The First Class Sequel is Officially X-Men: Days of Future Past
by Silas Lesnick (from SuperHeroHype)

I loved First Class. I used to love the X-Men animated series (I probably still would, but I've not seen it for nearly 20 years -- can still hum the theme tune though), and the Days of Future Past adaptation is one of the storylines that really stuck in my head. Ought to get round to reading the original comics.

Anyway, what this combination of factors means is -- I'm incredibly excited for this sequel. Be interesting to see how faithful it is though, and if they bring in characters/actors from the first three X-Men movies, and if they do how big a part they play.

Ooh, it's exciting!

TV

Adam Buxton's Bug
1x01 Episode One
1x02 Episode Two
Wasn't sure what I'd make of this -- Buxton can be very funny, but sometimes it just doesn't work for me -- but it's actually consistently brilliant. Shame it's buried away on Sky Atlantic.

London 2012 Olympics
Day Five
And there we go -- golds in rowing and cycling. Hurrah! Also in today's viewing: gymnastics and, as per usual, tennis and swimming -- where we got a silver too. Helps take us from 21st on the medal table last night to 11th tonight. Lovely.
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Articles

Lots to report today, so...


12 Gotham Newspaper Headlines During The Dark Knight Rises by Dan Hopper (from Jest)
and
New Alternate TDKR Poster by thefirerisesnolan (from Reddit)

Both of these are absolutely stuffed with spoilers, but if you've seen the film the newspaper headlines are funny and the poster is awesome. I'd include it below but, like I said, spoilersome. (In case you can't find it on that page (took me a bit), here's a direct link.)


BBC Two orders another series of Rev
and
Room 101 recommissioned for 13th series
(from The British Comedy Guide)

Fantastic news and pretty good news respectively, as far as I'm concerned. Just a shame Rev. won't be back until 2014 -- that's at least 18 months from now, and two-years-plus since it was last on! Madness.


The Doctor Daleks Danger!
(from Doctor Who official site)
A big new pic from the next series of Who, before a new trailer hits at 6am (8pm on the telly).



The Greatest Films of All Time 2012 by Nick James (from Sight & Sound)
and
Vertigo is named 'greatest film of all time' (from BBC News)
and
The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time (from BFI)
and
On Writing My Top Ten For ‘Sight & Sound’ by Edgar Wright (from edgar wright here)

It's the film poll, and it only happens once a decade, and here's the new top 10 -- including a new #1! I won't go into all the details, but the various links above will. Worth noting, however, that the most recent film on the list is 44 years old. Should the debate be, is this poll still relevant when it only selects such old films?

TV

How I Met Your Mother
7x23 The Magician's Code Part 1
The title had no apparent relevance to the episode and there was no it's-halfway-through-the-finale cliffhanger. What?
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

London 2012 Olympics
Day Four
Today's viewing: mixed results in the swimming and tennis, plus (expected) disappointment in gymnastics. Still no gold medals, but that should change tomorrow. Should...
[Watch loads of live coverage from the BBC.]

Films

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 Trailer
Exciting stuff, even if they can't use the right spelling of "Knight" in the official trailer!

The Final Destination (2009)
[#61 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Skyfall US & International Trailers
Finally, a full-length trailer for Bond 23... and we get two! Fundamentally similar, but with different shots and structure in places. Either way, looks fantastic to me. Can't wait.

Articles

An Olympic Fencer Refuses To Leave The Floor After Getting Screwed
by Kevin Lincoln (from BuzzFeed)
Quite a story, this. Really, you have to read it for yourself.