TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x02 (13/11/12 edition)
C4's new daytime quiz show, which I primarily watched because it's presented by Sandi Toksvig and she seemed an arbiter of quality. It's not bad, but it's basically just a simple question format -- pleasant enough but hardly taxing. Not likely to make the jump to a prime-time variant. (And I started with episode two because episode one wasn't available on Virgin Media's version of 4oD, because Virgin are useless like that.)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Hebburn
1x04 Feeling Dynamic
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Hunted
1x06 Ambassadors
See also today's Articles.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Only Connect
Children in Need Special: Goldfingers vs Fowls
I did surprisingly well at this... though, as you may remember from last year, they apparently make it slightly easier for the celebrity/special editions, so that might not be saying a whole lot.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

BBC1 spy drama Hunted axed after one series by Tom Cole
and
ITV axes James Nesbitt medical drama Monroe by Jack Seale
(from Radio Times)

A pair of cancellations yesterday. Can't say I'm surprised by Hunted -- it's never quite clicked -- but it's a shame about Monroe. It faced unbeatable competition from BBC's not-as-good behemoth, New Tricks, and I should imagine was dropped because of it.

TV

Arrow
1x02 Honor Thy Father

Spy
2x04 Codename: Mistaken Identity

TV

Crime Stories
1x01 Episode 1
ITV1 enters the daytime drama sphere that's been such a success for BBC One with this documentary-style drama about relatively minor crimes (things like theft, as opposed to the incessant murders that occupy prime-time detectives). The choice of a documentary aesthetic means it can looks cheap without looking cheap, though the largely improvised (I hope!) acting is distinctly daytime. Still, has promise in its own way.
[Watch episode 2 on ITV Player.]

Heston's Fantastical Food
1x01 Heston's Big Breakfast
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Weekend Report: Skyfall Scores Best Bond Debut Ever
by Ray Subers (from Box Office Mojo)

Bit late to the party on this one because I've been mostly away from the 'net since Sunday, but in case you missed it too this is worth reporting. Essentially, Skyfall had a fab opening weekend in the US, smashing previous Bond records (the next nearest, Quantum of Solace, is nearly 24% lower) and winding up the fourth-largest opening of the entire year. Go Bond!

TV

Castle
2x16 The Mistress Always Spanks Twice
Castle finally returns to Channel 5's schedule, after a whole five months' pause mid-season... but at least it's not the mooted next-year, so hurrah. Double-billing it with the tonally similar Mentalist seems excessive, but I suppose if they then feed off each other's success...
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

The Mentalist
5x02 Devil's Cherry
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Monroe
2x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
I would wonder where we'll find the characters next series, but based on the fact this was consistently trounced by BBC One's lower-quality New Tricks, we may not see another run. Shame.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

QI
10x09 Jeopardy (XL edition)
I skipped one. Will fill it in later.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Comics

2000 AD Free Comic Book Day 2012

Continuing my attempt to re-start reading the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, I went for this year's FCBD issue. Five stories, only one of which I'd read before. The first is an all-new four-page Judge Dredd, written by creator John Wagner, which manages to be both entertaining and function as an intro for complete newbies. This is what the launching-soon US Dredd comic from IDW should aspire to with its first issue... except even if it does, it'll take 20 pages to achieve what Wagner does so well in just four.

Also, the first part of The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael, from a couple of years ago. It seemed an enticing introduction, certainly made me want to read more. A new tale started a while after this (not somewhere I've got to in my reading, obviously), but to continue his origin I guess I'll have to find the paperback. Then the first part of Zombo from my first Prog; a classic self-contained Ro-Busters by Alan Moore and Steve Dillon (from 1982); and a fun superhero-lampooning Future Shock (from 2010), perfect for this US-comics-fan-aimed one-off promo.

Good fun and fairly representative of what 2000 AD is like week-to-week, I thought. Nice job droids.

Comics

2000 AD #1806-1808
Judge Dredd: The Cold Deck, Parts One - Three by Al Ewing & Henry Flint

This seems to be getting an uncommon amount of praise and attention online, so I decided to skip ahead with my frankly shocking 2000 AD backlog (I last read a full Prog a year ago (crikey!), and I was behind then) and see what all the fuss is about with the still-ongoing Dredd story. If you want a go too, they've made Part One available online for free.

Plus, three Progs' worth is more or less the same size as a regular US comic, so it's a fair chunk to assess. That said, a good 2000 AD writer will get as much into six pages as your typical US comic will in 20, and Al Ewing is a good writer. Clearly the story is set in the wake of a Massive Event (the day of chaos stuff that was going on even when I last read a Prog), but it still makes sense and is an interesting read. I don't get why people were harping on about the amazing twist at the end of part two, though, so I wonder if that's something striking in light of everything that's happened in the past year-ish? In which case, maybe stop trying to push it so hard to casual readers/newbies!

And then I read the intro to Prog 1809 (in stores Wednesday), which pointed out that the plots of Dredd and another current Thrill are linked -- so I guess that was the twist. Kinda lost if you're only reading one to catch up on what everyone's on about. Still, guess what I'm reading next...


2000 AD #1804-1808
The Simping Detective: Jokers to the Right, Parts One - Five by Simon Spurrier & Simon Coleby

Once 2000 AD starts a line-up of strips, they usually stay in the same order until they end. In Prog 1806, they suddenly re-arrange so that Dredd is immediately followed by The Simping Detective. I guess they wanted to make sure people immediately saw the link.

And immediate it is, in 1807, connecting via the same line of dialogue. Simping Part Four plugs the gap between Dredd Parts Two and Three, and then... then they become unconnected again (and are re-split in the next Prog). Will they reunite again later? Tharg only knows.

this week on 100 Films

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


16 Blocks (2006)

A Bruce Willis action movie? You know what you’re in for here, don’t you? Well, not quite. 16 Blocks casts Willis as less John McClane and more John McCane: old, fat, drunk, limping. He’s a copper still, but the kind of detective whose primary duties are being left to watch over an apartment full of bodies until uniform can show up.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


Night of the Demon (1957)

beloved by some, but I don’t think I quite got it myself. There are some great sequences, but I didn’t always find it hung together in between. Ironically, while many have criticised the actual appearance of the titular beast at the end, I think it works rather well.

Read more here.


The Thief (1952)

if The Thief is known for anything it’s for its dialogue — as the poster proclaims, “not a word is spoken…!” At some points in cinema history that would go without saying, but this is 25 years after the first talkie, so it’s being Experimental. It’s not silent film styled either, unlike recent attempts to recreate that early era like The Artist.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Friday Night Dinner
2x05 The Yoghurts
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Merlin
5x06 The Dark Tower
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

This week, I tip over 1,500 titles in my collection -- again. I barely noted it last time, but what I meant to do was compare it to this, a record of my DVD collection at 750 titles, four years and eight months ago. After the regular stats, then, there's a replica of that post with new stats.

Number of titles in collection: 1,501 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,144 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 357 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 3,743 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,544 [up 6]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,689 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 370 [no change]

So, as mentioned, here are those new numbers.

We begin with ones you know: that I now own 1,501 titles with a grand total of 3,743 discs. That's an average of 2.494 discs per title -- slightly higher than last time's 2.367, but not by much. Box sets and multiple-discs-for-single-films are only slightly more prevalent, then.

Last time I listed my eight largest individual sets. This time it will be nine, because there are three tied at seventh place; plus one drops out, so there's only two new ones here: the complete Lost on Blu-ray (36) and The Sopranos (30). The others remain Angel (30), Babylon 5 with Crusade and TV movies (41), The Bergman Collection (30), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (39), Farscape (42), The West Wing (44) and The X-Files (59). If we take eight of them (ignoring one of the three 30s), these 0.53% of my titles make up 8.58% of my discs -- it might sound a lot, but it's nothing like as big as last time.

A fairer way to look at it might be to again take the top 1%-ish of titles and see how many discs they contribute -- I imagine that's what I was going for last time, and why I did the top eight sets rather than ten. Last time that single percentile accounted for 17.5% of my discs; now it's 13.2%. Clearly I've not bought so many huge box sets in the past few years... though come Christmas the ginormous Harry Potter set will kick things up a little further.

What about the spread of decades -- do I own many films? Last time the largest part of my collection was the then-present '00s, at a massive 52%; now, it's 46.8%. It's nice that I've spread things around a bit more, but then since then we've changed decade -- the last three years are the '10s (obviously). They've already contributed 7.3%, which together with the '00s makes 54.1%... but that's covering 13 years, not last time's 10, so it's all a bit scruffy. Either way, the '00s are already in fifth place -- ahead are the '90s at 13.99% (formerly 20.6%), the '80s at 9.2% (formerly 10.2%), and the '70s at 7.9% (formerly 7%). It's interesting that the proportion of '70s films has grown as my collection doubled -- wouldn't've called that one.

I imagine some of the other slides are due to the '00s diluting the waters, and maybe earlier decades bulking up. The 1890s and 1900s weren't present last time, though they account for a grand total of 0.1998%; the '10s increase marginally, from 0.2% to 0.3%, while the '20s are more significant, up from 0.6% to 1.67%. The remaining decades all see their percentage share increase too: the '30s up to 1.87% (from 1.3%), the '40s to 2.07% (from 1.6%), the '50s to 2.47% (from 1.3%), and the '60s to 5.66% (from 5%). I guess this general spread of increases accounts for the drops elsewhere -- I've clearly bought primarily new releases and a lot of older titles, and not so many from the '90s and '80s. So there you have it.

I've at this point noted how arbitrary many of the remaining stats are -- even more so than those decades. Maybe that's why I skipped them last time.

I will take a look at the ever-popular running time, though. Last time that came to 118 days, 18 hours and 55 minutes. Now, it's 271 days, 23 hours and 41 minutes. the number of titles has (just over) doubled, but the running time has clearly much more than -- closer to two-and-a-half times as big, actually. Box sets, I guess.

So that's that then. See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Downton Abbey
3x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
Aww, everything's resolved Happily Ever After... until the Christmas special, anyway. And series four, of course.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Red Dwarf
10x06 The Beginning [season finale]
Aww, everything's resolved... except it isn't, because there were those couple of mentions of Kochanski that didn't go anywhere. So, Series XI? After the ratings this got, I expect so.

TV

30 Years of the Comic Strip
Everyone goes on about Five Go Mad in Dorset, and indeed that's the only one I've seen, so it was nice to get this thorough overview of some of the Comic Strip's other greatest hits.

Hebburn
1x03 Dressing Up Fancy
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Hunted
1x05 Ambassadors
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Frankenstein: A Modern Myth
Well-made overview of the ongoing impact of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, featuring footage from Danny Boyle's theatrical production (which apparently ended its run 18 months ago! Time flies). Lots of analysis of the continued relevance of the tale; lots of clever editing with archive footage, often drawing comparisons and parallels of its own. Good stuff.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Spy
2x03 Codename: Lie Hard

Yes, Prime Minister
2x05 Power to the People

TV

Cuckoo
1x06 The Wedding [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News For You
44x04 (2/11/12 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Nick Nickleby
Part 1 (of 5)
BBC daytime gets all clever-like with this modern-day adaption of Charles Dickens' novel The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. It does feel conspicuously like a Victorian novel relocated to the present day, in spite of updates to the story to make it more relevant (transposing private boarding schools for elderly care homes, for instance); and despite their aim to make primetime-worthy drama for daytime, it looks quite cheap and, for want of a better word, daytime-y. Valiant effort though.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Around-the-World Roundup: Skyfall Adds Incredible $156 Million Overseas
by Ray Subers (from Box Office Mojo)

One of the many great things about the James Bond series is it makes a mockery of American websites' US-focused view of film box office stats. Unlike, say, Tintin (which a lot of sites were aware America had never heard of and so was a much harder sell in the US than the rest of the world), they know Bond; people in the US do go to see Bond films; and so they think it'll follow the pattern of a regular blockbuster... and it never, ever does.

Latest example: Skyfall has yet to take a penny in the US and it's already the seventh highest-grossing Bond film of all time worldwide.

The US market will be important to what its final total is, obviously, but... well, I was going to say "nothing like as important as with most other big films", but that's not actually that true. The top ten highest-grossers of all time (worldwide) have roughly a 34/66 average split between the US / the rest of the world; conversely, the first two Daniel Craig Bond films come out at 28.5% from the US versus 71.5% from elsewhere. Not that out of step, really, and in the Brosnan era the States accounted for a closer-to-average 35%.

I suppose the difference is Skyfall has had two whole weeks to boost that always-big international box office, which is normally lost under stories about the US gross because it comes out everywhere else first. And actually, if you look at the top ten highest grossing films of all time in the US alone, the list is quite different (only half match up), so, y'know, there's that. (Look, this is going on, you probably don't care, let's take a look at the next article.)


How do you solve a problem like Potemkin?
by Michael Brooke (from BFI)

On the issue of presenting frames with atypical frame rates on home media formats (mainly silents, but potentially a problem in the future too). That might sound dry, but for film/tech fans it's an interesting issue, and one that deserves to be more mainstream (a little bit, anyway) so that whatever replaces Blu-ray doesn't miss the same opportunity. If more and more films begin to be shot at 48fps or 60fps, perhaps the need for a solution will become more pressing, and will retroactively aid the presentation of silent films. Fingers crossed.

TV

Derren Brown: Apocalypse
Part Two (of 2)
That... was kind of lacklustre. Best bit was the "28 Days Later" 'gag' when he went to meet him a month later.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Men Who Made the Movies: Alfred Hitchcock
1973 documentary about the Master of Suspense, mixing interview snippets with analysed film clips. Quite good; very spoilersome for a variety of his movies.

Monroe
2x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Top Gear
Fifty Years of Bond Cars
Aside from passing references to James May, the Stig and Top Gear's poor track record at building things that work, this could just be a solid Richard Hammond-fronted guide to the notable cars featured in Bond films down the years. So that's good then, because it's pretty much the right tone and content for part of the series' 50th anniversary celebrations.

Films

Tiny Furniture (2010)
[#88 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Comics

Legends of the Dark Knight #1

Batman-starring anthology comic collecting the digital-first series in print. Three stories in this first issue, headlined by The Butler Did It, written by Damon Lindelof and drawn by Jeff Lemire. It's a very effective little tale, actually, a perfect example of the short comic story form. If only most modern writers could show such economy! This achieves so much in just 10 pages, whereas your typical comic arc ekes proceedings out for six issues or more.

The remaining two stories aren't quite as iconic, but fun and concise stories nonetheless. All of the Above, by Jonathan Larsen and JG Jones, manages an amusing use for the oft-referenced Bat-Shark Repellant from the 1966 movie. Finally, The Crime Never Committed by Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott doesn't come with a "Batman learns something" twist likes the other, which is probably to its benefit.

The variety of type of story this format allows, plus the chance to get a self-contained tale, certainly marks it out from the vast majority of essentially-samey multi-issue arcs most comics trade in. Appreciated.



Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation² #3 by Scott & David Tipton (with Tony Lee), J.K. Woodward & the Sharp Brothers

This is the last issue of this I've bought, partly because it's been so dreadful and partly because it looked like the collected edition was going to be a helluva lot cheaper than continuing to collect individual issues. But then it turned out they were intending to publish this dreck across two volumes, at least doubling the price! So at the minute I have no further parts on order, because it was barely worth what they were asking for just half of it. So why am I reading this? Well, I did buy it, so I thought I should still read it. And I can always acquire the remaining five issues (five more?! God!) by... other means...

Anyway, there's actually a slight improvement in quality here: an extended flashback to an adventure featuring the Fourth Doctor and the crew of the original USS Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, that lot) is rendered in a crisp, clear, '60s-cartoon-esque style by the Sharp Brothers, and it looks glorious. The Tiptons' dialogue is still appalling, but by telling a self-contained tale in about ten pages the story finally moves at a decent rate. Bookending this are more scenes on the TNG ship, featuring Woodward's sloppy, indistinct, drab art and a snail's crawl of plot to match the clanging dialogue. Even the speech bubbles are badly placed (also a problem in the flashback bit.)

How this is still selling, God only knows...

Articles

Cool Stuff: Here’s What A Star Wars Theme Park Might Look Like
by Germain Lussier (from /Film)

Title pretty much has it covered.

TV

Regular Sunday viewing, it would seem... plus The Mentalist...

Downton Abbey
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Dragons' Den
10x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
5x01 The Crimson Ticket (aka The Red Glass Bead)
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

This week on 100 Films in a Year sees November kick off, which means my review of October is here. Fascinating reading as ever.

You may remember from last week that I was re-posting all my old Saw reviews. Those continue below, but as part of it I wrote a new overview of the series. You can read that here.

And so to regular business: two new reviews were published to the blog this week, and they were...


Serpico (1973)

it certainly has a biographical feel. That came as a bit of a surprise, to me at least — I was expecting a thriller about a good cop exposing the corrupt ones, but instead got Frank Serpico’s life story from the time he left training on... More than a corrupt cop thriller, it’s a biopic about someone involved in that world.

Read more here.


The Beast Stalker (2008)

As a Hong Kong-produced thriller, you’d expect the focus here to actually be on the action sequences, but that’s not the case — there’s a real effort to look at the characters and the investigative side of the story. It’s by no means a procedural, and the character drama isn’t as deep as it might like to be, but the intentions are good.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


Saw IV (2007)

too complex, ultimately descending into the realms of incomprehensibility. There are around four different plot threads, at least two of them jumping around in time like a TARDIS with ADD. Goodness knows how many different time zones are included, how many progress in a linear fashion, and whether they have any bearing on each other. Even references to previous films are confused.

Read more here.


Saw V (2008)

Saw Part 5 might be a more apt moniker for this film: it picks up directly from the end of Saw IV — which, you may remember, took place concurrently with Saw III, ultimately appending about 30 seconds to that film’s climax. Even if you wanted to start your Saw viewing here, you wouldn’t have a hope of following what’s going on.

Read more here.


Saw VI (2009)

It doesn’t start well. The opening sequence is awful, sinking to torture porn levels again... And then, almost suddenly, it gets good. It’s probably the best Saw movie since the first.

Read more here.


Saw 3D (2010)

it isn’t so much stupid as disappointing. The problem is that there are some good ideas, but few are executed as well as they could be or paid off appropriately. The setting for the opening trap is a marvellous twist on the format [but] it’s a one off. It doesn’t even have any bearing on the rest of the plot.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Elementary
1x02 While You Were Sleeping

Friday Night Dinner
2x04 The New Car
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Great British Bake Off
3x12 Revisited
Looking back at series two and what the contestants have done since.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Merlin
5x05 The Disir
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Thunderball (1965)
[3rd or so watch]
I'll be reviewing this as #87a in 100 Films 2012, alongside the other '60s Bond films, at a later date.

Collection Count

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

Small updates this week, but the star attraction is the ever-exciting running time update. You may remember that last month it went down, much to my surprise -- I think that was the first time, and I have no idea what I removed from the list to cause such an occurrence. Can't help but feel I must've mis-listed something somewhere... Anyway, it's up again this time. See how much longer my collection has become in the past month at the end of the post.

Number of titles in collection: 1,497 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,142 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 355 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,737 [up 5]
Number of films in collection: 1,538 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,689 [up 3]
Number of short films in collection: 370 [no change]

And the running time update tells us...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
271 days, 13 hours, and 4 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 12 hours, and 24 minutes from last month; and up 2 days, 5 hours, and 52 minutes from the month before.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Miranda
2x06 The Perfect Christmas [season finale; 2nd watch]

Happened to be watching BBC One when this began and it's addictively, un-turn-off-able-ly good. And rather than an out-of-season Christmas special making me feel it was stupid to air it, I genuinely feel a bit Christmassy now. Impressive.

There are some quarters keen to dismiss the entire show, and sometimes you begin to wonder if they might be right with some of their criticisms... but then you happen across just one episode and immediately recall just how bloody good it is. So sod them all. Can't wait for the third series, which surely must be arriving soon.

[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]


Person of Interest
1x15 Blue Code


Red Dwarf
10x05 Dear Dave

Articles

Skyfall Biggest Ever First-Week Box Office Earner In The UK
by Dave Golder (from SFX)

Skyfall has now taken an extraordinary £37.2 million in its opening week, overtaking Deathly Hallows Part 2 to secure the biggest seven day gross of all time in UK box office history.

Plus a list of the current UK top ten highest grossers. Skyfall's currently 39th, but only £20m from overtaking Star Wars Episode I and cracking the top ten.

TV

Hebburn
1x02 Ghost Town
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss
Having covered the development of British and American horror cinema pretty thoroughly in his 2010 series A History of Horror, here Gatiss turns his attention to nearly a century of European horror movies, from 1920's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to 2006's Pan's Labyrinth (with nods to even more recent fare, hence my "nearly a century" comment). It's equally as compelling and informative as his earlier series, the only downside being it's a single 90-minute episode -- there's clearly enough to be said here to fill another series.
There's a related article, in which he lists his five favourite European horror movies (one of which isn't even featured in the programme), here.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Hunted
1x04 Kismet
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

QI
10x07 Journalism (XL edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Suburgatory
1x22 The Motherload [season finale]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
3x13 Masterclass 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News For You
44x03 (26/10/12 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless Celebrities
3x02 (27/10/12 edition)
"We've had four answers. Three of them have been incorrect. The one correct one... was from a duck."
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Adam Buxton's Bug
1x07 Episode Seven
1x08 Episode Eight [season finale]

Arrow
1x01 Pilot
The modern, contemporary, urban, all-that-jazz take on DC Comics' Green Arrow. It's basically Batman Begins: The Series (with a different superhero, obviously). Sounds good to me, and this is a fairly promising start.

The Graham Norton Show
12x02 (26/10/12 edition)
aka The James Bond One, featuring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Javier Bardem.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Person of Interest
1x14 Wolf and Cub

Spy
2x02 Codename: Riding High

Articles

Rust and Bone: Marion Cotillard and the spoiler debate
by Tim Masters (from BBC News)

Despite the title implying it's about one film, that's just a topical place to hang a general discussion* of when a spoiler's a spoiler, and at what time becomes OK to discuss a film's (or a TV show's) major plot points. And it's quite good and sensible, actually.

* As you can tell from the fact it's a BBC News article with a credited writer, it's a proper article rather than just a news piece.

TV

Comedy World Cup
1x07 Final [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Cuckoo
1x05 Connie Sings
I love how all of Cuckoo's episode titles sound like they're just the two- or three-word pitch the writer gave for the episode.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Monroe
2x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Suburgatory
1x21 The Great Compromise

Articles

Secrets of the Olympic Opening Ceremony revealed
by James Gill (from Radio Times)

Children’s author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce was the writer of the Olympic Opening Ceremony – a key collaborator with director Danny Boyle in a madcap spectacle that captured the imagination of the world. He talks us through just how they managed it.

TV

Downton Abbey
3x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Dragons' Den
10x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Birth (2004)
[#87 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

The films that time forgot
by David Thomson (from the Guardian)

"Somewhere out there is an alternative history of film – David Thomson unearths 10 lost works of genius." Including Birth, which is how I came across this list. I also happen to own two other titles from the list on DVD (well, one on BD; and the other is actually available on BD now too) -- perhaps they have become less under-appreciated in the last two years. And having read this, several others are now on my "want" list too. Sadly, despite the numerous links claiming the films are "available from Amazon", most are ridiculously-priced imports.

this week on 100 Films

First off this week, I went to see the new James Bond film, Skyfall. It's brilliant. Full spoiler-y review at a later date, but for now here are my spoiler-free initial thoughts.

Besides that, just one new review was published to 100 Films in a Year this week:


Stepping Out (1991)

Lewis Gilbert is the director of You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker... Here, he tells the tale of a small amateur dance glass, mostly populated by middle-aged women, trained by former big-stage wannabe Liza Minnelli... eclectic is an understatement!

Read more here.


There was a huge pile of reviews new to the new blog though, including the first few Saw films. I'm re-posting my reviews of all of them in the run up to Halloween, so expect the rest next week.

Note that, of the below reviews, Eragon is on Film4 at 1pm, The Simpsons Movie is on Film4 at 3pm, and Scenes of a Sexual Nature is available on BBC iPlayer until late tonight.


Choke (2008)

Choke feels like it exists in Fight Club's shadow; a low-budget adaptation of another of an author’s works after one has been a high-profile success. This is a little unfair — despite the surface similarities, the meat of the film is not an attempt at Fight Club 2 — but the similar feeling and tone it exudes can leave that impression.

Read more here.


Eragon (2006)

Eragon wants to be the next Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter / Narnia, especially with its utter lack of resolution at the end, but it just isn’t. It has its entertaining moments, but it’s also lumbered with huge lumps of bad dialogue, bad acting and fantasy clichés abound.

Read more here.


Inkheart (2008)

the biggest flaw is that it doesn’t bother to set out the rules, a major oversight in a fantasy movie. The central conceit is that when Brendan Fraser’s character reads a novel aloud, what he’s reading about enters our world — and, in exchange, something is sucked in. But how is it decided what comes out and what goes in? What can and can’t be read? Why not just write your own story to get you out of trouble?

Read more here.


Magicians (2007)

It’s biggest mistake is in casting Mitchell and Webb as two people who’ve fallen out, meaning they spend most of the film apart. They’re funny individually, and they’re each paired off with a more than capable comedy sidekick, but as this is kind of pitched as The Mitchell & Webb Movie, it doesn’t make the most of their talents.

Read more here.


Saw (2004)

Between October 2009 and October 2011, I reviewed every film in the Saw franchise. As Halloween approaches again, it seems a good time to re-post them all to my new blog -- one per day, because I've timed it cleverly. Think of it as a kind of personal last hurrah for the '00s horror staple.

So we begin with undoubtedly the best of the series -- the original.

Read more here.


Saw II (2005)

The games-playing slaughterfest returns in what I’m told is many fans’ favourite entry in the series. Maybe they’ve never seen Cube...

Read more here.


Saw III (2006)

the point at which the franchise finally tips over into the justly reviled “torture porn” category. That’s not to say it’s solely focused on its gruesome deaths — as with the previous two films, there’s a thriller-ish plot to work through as well — but Jigsaw’s traps this time round are shown in excruciating detail.

Read more here.


Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006)

a half-accurate and half-misleading title for this low-budget British comedy drama. The first half is spot on — the film’s made up of seven unconnected scenes — while the second implies it’s ruder than it is. Effectively, Scenes is seven short two-hand plays stuck together, occasionally intercut for no good reason

Read more here.


The Simpsons Movie (2007)

I’m not a big Simpsons fan, unlike many film critics it would seem — I like the show, undoubtedly, but I’ve never watched it regularly. This might explain why the movie didn’t feel tired to me, as some have described it.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Derren Brown: Apocalypse
Part One (of 2)
In which Derren takes a bit of a git and tries to make him a better person by having him live through a zombie apocalypse. A bit like that infamous, excellent bit from one of his earlier series where he made someone believe they were in a computer game, except for a whole weekend. Fun times.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Merlin
5x04 Another's Sorrow
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Suburgatory
1x20 Hear No Evil

Collection Count

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

This week's additions include a 20-film Woody Allen box set, replacing three titles I already had -- so down go the top totals, while the bottom ones jump up.

Then there's the complete Shrek series on Blu-ray, which sadly isn't quite complete -- it's missing the 3D short (thats included in the Shrek Trilogy DVD set I have) and the two TV specials, as well as several special features from previous releases. But I don't really want two Shrek box sets that are mostly duplicates, so out goes my old DVD set.

Finally, a free 3D BD copy of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I don't have a 3D BD player (or a 3D TV), but I'm banking on this working in 2D. I thought that was always the case -- releases like Hugo, for instance, are only one disc for both 3D and 2D -- but I recently got the Prometheus BD and the 3D disc just comes up with an error message. That's partly because there's a separate 2D disc... but this is specifically the 3D disc of Cloudy..., so I'm slightly concerned it will do the same. We'll see.

And the end result of all that is... higgledy-piggeldy.

Number of titles in collection: 1,496 [down 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,142 [down 3]
Of which Blu-rays: 354 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 3,732 [up 16]
Number of films in collection: 1,534 [up 19]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,686 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 370 [up 3]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Elementary
1x01 Pilot
The US answer to Sherlock is, unsurprisingly, not as good. It's not a very good version of Sherlock Holmes fullstop, to be honest, as Sherlockology detailed the other day. As a US cop show it's not too bad, so there's that at least, and Jonny Lee Miller's performance is quite good. Lucy Liu seems to have all the expression Botox can buy though.

Friday Night Dinner
2x03 The Loft
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Great British Bake Off
3x11 Masterclass 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News For You
44x02 (19/10/12 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Red Dwarf
10x04 Entangled

Films

Skyfall (2012)
[#86 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Read my initial thoughts on the latest James Bond movie here.

TV

Hebburn
1x01 Welcome to Hebburn, Pet
This seems to fall into some weird space between very funny and dully predictable. Perhaps it will level out over time. I also thought it felt a bit like a BBC Three Gavin & Stacey, which, considering which show started on which channel, is a bit ironic.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Hunted
1x03 Hourglass
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x07 Episode Seven [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

Grand Designs
12x05 The Derelict Water Tower
I think I read somewhere that this was the 100th house Grand Designs has covered (in the Radio Times, in fact), which is pretty incredible really. But they didn't mention that in the programme itself, so I thought maybe it was another episode. Either way, this was a particularly stunning build/renovation, so if it was the 100th it was a very worthy one.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

3 Men and a Little Lady (1990)
[2nd watch]

Goldfinger (1964)
[5th or so watch]
I'll be reviewing this as #85a in 100 Films 2012, alongside the other '60s Bond films, at a later date. I've covered it on here before, back in November 2008.

TV

Comedy World Cup
1x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


Person of Interest
1x13 Root Cause

Apparently Channel 5 stopped showing this a few episodes back, for no good reason (to reduce the gap between season one and already-started-in-the-US season two I read somewhere, but why take a break mid-season as opposed to end of season?! Bloody stupid). I accidentally switched to downloading it a little while back though, so on I plough.

As for the episode itself... having started with no on-going plot threads, here they bring an apparently-one-off guest star back and kick off a new mystery -- how many do they need now?! Which ones are season-long, which series-long, which just an episode or three? Or are they playing the Downton game of never giving the audience a clue just how long a thread will take to unfurl? Though uncommon, that does have its advantages.

Articles

Sherlockology reviews Elementary
by Sherlockology (from Site)

"Scathing" would be an understatement for this review by the Holmes fansite. I haven't watched the show yet myself (I'd've told you if I had, wouldn't I?), but these seem very well-reasoned and plausible arguments. I can certainly believe it's just any-old US crime drama with Holmesian names tacked on, because that's just what it's always looked like.

Anyway, I'll still start it soon and see what I think for myself.


Skyfall - 10 things you probably didn't know about the new James Bond movie
by David Brown (from Radio Times)

Some interesting snippets of trivia about the latest Bond adventure. Exactly half of them are about just the pre-titles sequence, mind.

TV

Cuckoo
1x04 Ken on E
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Starlings
1x05 Episode Five

Articles

The Best James Bond Novels: Ranking the Fleming Originals
by Jeff O'Neal (from Book Riot)

Quite a good overview of Fleming's 12 Bond novels (skipping the two short story collections or any of the 30 continuation novels & film novelisations), but written from a faintly annoying America perspective. If that sounds jingoistic, skip to #9 ("Bond is so attuned to European sensibilities... seeing [him] in Japan and dealing with a radically different worldview is refreshing, as he is as clueless about the custom of the country as we are in the rest of the novels") or #5 ("Strengths: Felix Leiter, Bond’s friend and opposite number in the CIA, makes the most of his biggest part in any of the novels").

I've not actually read all the novels myself so can't comment fully, but coincidentally I've read the top three and that's not the order I'd put them in.


Top 10 James Bond Opening Credit Sequences
by Rodney Twelftree (from Top 10 Films)

It's complete coincidence that these two Bond top lists have come up on the same evening. Much like the last one, I don't disagree (much, if at all) with the selection, but I would tweak the order.

TV

Dragons' Den
10x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

QI
10x06 Joints (XL edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

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


Knight and Day (2010)

advertised as spy-action-movie spoofery, it should come as no surprise that that’s the kind of film it is... Plenty of reviews and online commenters have expressed disappointment with the film, perhaps expecting something else — sometimes it pays to listen to the advertising, eh?

Read more here.


War Horse (2011)

It might be best to define the film as an epic. It’s a relatively intimate one, focusing in on a handful of characters at a time rather than cutting back and forth between various groups, but the way it does move along several sets of characters, across varied locations, and through a lengthy stretch of time, all command a feeling of a grand story.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Golden Compass (2007)

[it] received quite the critical drubbing on its cinematic release, and wasn’t a huge success at the US box office either, which has cast doubt on the prospects of the following two instalments ever being produced. Which is a shame, because this is actually a fine family fantasy film.

Read more here.


Heaven Knows, Mr. Alison (1957)

The title may sound like a ’40s rom-com or a ’70s TV sitcom, but it's nothing of the sort. It’s set in the south Pacific in 1944, at the height of World War II, and begins with titular US Marine Allison (Robert Mitchum) washing up on an island that’s occupied only by a novice nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr). With no hope of rescue they must plot their own escape.

Read more here.


The King of Comedy (1983)

Underrated black comedy from the prolific partnership of director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro. De Niro gives an excellent performance as an obsessive wannabe comedian, stalking the host of a popular talk show in his desperation for a guest spot. The depth of his delusion is both hilariously funny and deeply unsettling

Read more here.


Pale Rider (1985)

The mysterious stranger isn’t a gunslinger, or a do-gooder, or the new sheriff, or anything else. He is, on the one hand, a preacher — “surely a man of God is opposed to violence?”, etc. — and on the other, is he even human? Either way, it’s a bit different.

Read more here.


Snakes on a Plane (2006)

It certainly captured the imagination of online geekdom, who knew everything they wanted just from those four words and famously launched a viral marketing campaign for a film they’d not seen. Ultimately, it’s for that reason it will be remembered, because without the evocative title and the reaction it provoked this would be forgotten quicker than Samuel L. Jackson can utter his Oedipal expletive-laden catchphrase.

Read more here.


That Touch of Mink (1962)

It’s also briskly paced and constantly amusing, including some real laugh-out-loud moments. In particular, a punchline delivered by two ladies from a centre for unwed mothers was one of my favourite comedy lines for a good while. (Built as it is on a series of events, it doesn’t bear repeating in print.)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
12x01 (19/10/12 edition)
I will finish watching the last series at some point, but it seemed to make sense to try to get back into the habit by watching the new ones.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Merlin
5x03 The Death Song of Uther Pendragon
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
9x10 (30/9/10 edition) [2nd watch]
Ah, late night Dave. See also: Not Going Out.

Not Going Out
2x06 Dating [2nd watch]
Ah, late night Dave. See also: Mock the Week.

Suburgatory
1x19 Entering Eden

Collection Count

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

After last week's shortfall, this week sees most of the damned things arrive. Indeed, all four of them should've turned up for last week, and none of the other stuff that might've come this week has. Why have etailers got so slow?!

Amongst the stuff that has arrived is Masters of Cinema's Die Nibelungen, a long-awaited release (the restoration has taken half a decade or so) that's officially out on Monday (I intended to watch it in advance, but not got round to it yet).

Also, the Indiana Jones Complete Adventures set, in its limited edition form. That means I really should ditch my old DVDs... but, though all of its extras have been brought over, the 2003 set (of the original trilogy) is a rather pretty one; and as to the fourth film, the vast majority of its bonus content has been ditched for this release. Disappointing. I think I'll hang on to the lot for now.

Number of titles in collection: 1,497 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,145 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 352 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 3,716 [up 10]
Number of films in collection: 1,515 [up 7]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,686 [up 7]
Number of short films in collection: 367 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Monroe
2x03 Episode 3
Apparently New Tricks is absolutely trashing this in the ratings, which is a shame because this is quite good while the BBC old timers cop show is actually quite rubbish. Hopefully ITV bear the regular dominance of said competition in mind when it comes to considering whether to recommission Monroe.
[For some reason currently unavailable on ITV Player.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x04 Episode 4
How can a show filled with such huge irritants (Nick Grimshaw, Conor Maynard, Nancy Dell'Olio) be so funny?!
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

QI
10x05 J-Places (XL edition)
Every once in a while, you wonder if they couldn't've come up with a better episode title...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Spy
2x01 Codename: Growing Rogue
So glad this is back, it's genius. And for 11 episodes too! Super.

Adam Hills signs a deal with Channel 4
(from The British Comedy Guide)

Who'd've thought a series about the Paralympics would be recommissioned? But The Last Leg went down so well you can see why they'd want to bring it back, and so they are -- hurrah! I imagine it won't be so wholly focussed on sport... probably...

TV

Comedy World Cup
1x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Hunted
1x02 LB
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x06 Episode Six
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Red Dwarf
10x03 Lemons

Films

War Horse (2011)
[#85 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Comics

Saga Chapter One by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

I've been hearing tonnes of praise for Saga for months now, but half ignored it for no particular reason. Inspired to look into it (again, for no particular reason), the description of it as a mature (as in "for grown-ups", not as in "hehehe porn") mixture of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones actually sounded right up my street. Then I discovered you can get this first issue for free on digital comics monopoly Comixology, so I did. Worth noting that it's double the length of a normal comic (more than double what you get in some these days), so it really is an exceptionally good free preview.

As for what it's actually like... Well, it certainly throws you in at the deep end of a complex world with lots of catching up to do. Thank goodness it is double length, because by the end of a typical first issue it's barely got anywhere. There's some intriguing stuff, but there's also a lot of good ol' modern decompressed storytelling, and I don't find the art detailed enough to support that personally. So, intrigued, but also unconvinced.

Additionally, I discovered the paperback collection of issues one to six is available in a "specially priced volume" -- presumably to get you started, then make you pay regular prices for future volumes. Not convinced it's worth spending money to continue though. I shall consider.

TV

Friday Night Dinner
2x02 Mr Morris
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x04 Episode Four
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Person of Interest
1x12 Legacy