TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
7x01 (5/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Crimes of Passion
1x02 King Lily of the Valley
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
[#84 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Articles

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Jack the Ripper unmasked: How amateur sleuth used DNA breakthrough to identify Britain's most notorious criminal 126 years after string of terrible murders
by Russell Edwards (from Mail Online)

Sorry to link to the Daily Fail, but this is a rather fascinating story, all over Twitter today.

I started reading it with a high degree of scepticism -- surely it wouldn't turn out to be true? It would be someone deluding themselves about some "well, maybe... kinda..." evidence. But it does sound pretty convincing, actually. I'm sure other experts will weigh in and review the evidence over the coming days/weeks/months, and perhaps then we'll know for certain.

this week on 100 Films

Right back at the start of this week, September started! Which of course means 100 Films in a Year took pause to look back at August. Read all about it here.


Following that, four brand-new reviews were published. They were...


The Battle of the Somme (1916)

Arguably the most famous clash of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme lasted four-and-a-half months from July to November 1916 and, with over a million men wounded or killed, is “one of the bloodiest battles in human history.” As the BBC’s History website puts it, although it was “intended to be a decisive breakthrough, the Battle of the Somme instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter”. Not that you’d guess it from this contemporary documentary, which is essentially a propaganda piece produced by the British government.

Read more here.


Crimes of Passion: Death of a Loved One (2013)

the latest Scandi-crime acquisition for BBC Four, airing in their regular “foreign crime” slot of Saturday nights at 9pm. [This first episode debuted in cinemas in March 2013.] Marketed as “Mad Men meets The Killing”, it would be more accurately be described as “Agatha Christie with subtitles”.

Read more here.


The House of Fear (1945)

it felt to me like it wasn’t really going anywhere until Holmes suddenly figured it all out at the end. Certainly he draws on clues encountered along the way, but even then most of those come late on.

Read more here.


Wrath of the Titans (2012)

A confused story connects workmanlike action sequences and mediocre CGI... New ideas sporadically rear their head, but Liebesman can’t ring anything interesting from them. Its predecessor’s strong points — creature design; retro-styled gods — are AWOL.

Read more here.


But just one review was re-posted to the new blog this week (oops).


Clash of the Titans (2010)

the film is built to provide action sequences, though these are passable and rarely more. They’re fine while they’re happening, but pretty much forgotten after — none of it shows a great deal of inspiration. The history of film is littered with far worse examples, but that’s about the best I can say.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

I half forgot to post this yesterday, half hadn't done all the sums -- so here it is today! Complete with exciting monthly running time update...

Number of titles in collection: 1,694 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,202 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 492 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 4,224 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 1,829 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,219 [up 5]
Number of short films in collection: 438 [no change]

And the aforementioned running time update tells us...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
304 days, 7 hours, and 50 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 23 hours, and 59 minutes from last month.)

Yep, one minute off exactly two days. Ah well.

See you next week, faithful reader.