Films

Chicken Little (2005)
[#16 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) (2012/2013)
[#16a in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

I watched and reviewed the theatrical version of the first instalment of The Hobbit trilogy around this time last year. Now, with Part 2 about to debut on DVD/Blu-ray (and especially as I already have my copy), I thought I'd finally get round to this extended version before seeing what happens next. And I'll be reviewing it too, of course.

this week on 100 Films

In an improvement on the last few weeks, one new review was published to 100 Films in a Year...


World War Z: Extended Action Cut (2013)

things turn from claustrophobic to post-apocalyptic. The storyline feels moderately fresh, showing us the global scope of such an outbreak, rather than how a global event impacts a small group of people... However, what’s new to the zombie genre isn’t necessarily new in any other respect, and by the time we get to Jerusalem and the characters are again being chased through crowded streets, it begins to feel a tad repetitive.

Read more here.


Hopefully, more next Sunday.

TV

Friends
8x20 The One with the Baby Shower [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x12 The Quarter-Finals
3x13 The Quarter-Finals Results
[Watch the Quarter-Finals and the Results (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
[#15 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

The second Hobbit film, The Desolation of Smaug, is out on DVD & Blu-ray on 7th April in the UK and 9th April in the US... but my copy turned up earlier this week (hehehe).

And that's it for additions this time... although there is the monthly running time update to keep things lively.

Number of titles in collection: 1,662 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 464 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,152 [up 3]
Number of films in collection: 1,787 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

Last but not least...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
297 days, 10 hours, and 3 minutes.
(Up 11 hours and 36 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Castle
3x13 Knockdown
Light fun Castle is back with... kind of a grim episode. Surely it would've been better to make this the last one before a break rather than the first one back, C5?
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Friends
8x18 The One in Massapequa [5th or so watch]
8x19 The One with Joey's Interview [5th or so watch]

How I Met Your Mother
9x07 No Questions Asked
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Last Leg
4x07 (14/3/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Friends
8x17 The One with the Tea Leaves [5th or so watch]

The Mentalist
6x12 The Golden Hammer
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Only Connect
Sport Relief: Scribblers v Terriers
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

X-Men
1x11 Days of Future Past Part 1 [2nd watch]
1x12 Days of Future Past Part 2 [2nd watch]
See today's Comics.

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x03 Spare Parts Part Three

Ooh, it gets good here -- finally really seeing what everyone's on about. And so much better than the TV version.

Comics

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont & John Byrne

The seminal two-part X-Men tale, just released in a lovely hardback edition with all of its sequels. It's the inspiration for the new film coming this summer, of course, so I thought I might do some kind of retrospective on 100 Films looking back at previous versions.

TV

Friends
8x16 The One Where Joey Tells Rachel [5th or so watch]

Room 101
14x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Shetland
2x02 Raven Black Part 2
Well, I thought that was really good. Weird lack of trailer for the next story, though -- why put one after a cliffhanger but not after something that looks like it could be the end of the series if you didn't know better?!
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

World War Z (2013)
[#14 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

DVD Extras

Zombie Town Hall: Knights of the Living Dead
A special feature on the Sainsbury's-exclusive version of World War Z, in which filmmaker George A. Romero, WWZ author Max Brooks, and some other chap who has apparently also written some zombie stuff, chat entertainingly about the genre and their place in it for an hour in front of a film-festival audience in Denver.

TV

Friends
8x15 The One with the Birthing Video [5th or so watch]

Shetland
2x01 Raven Black Part 1
Enjoyed the first series/pilot last year, so glad to see it back with adaptations of three more novels. Some have said it's just a standard murder mystery tarted up with some semi-Scandi scenery, but even if that's all it is, it's still effective.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x14 The One with the Secret Closet [5th or so watch]

The Michael McIntyre Chat Show
1x01 (10/3/14 edition)
Not a bad start. Feels a bit... untopical. Hard feeling to pin down. Maybe it's the lack of a news-riffing opening monologue, like Graham and Jonathan have. Not necessarily a problem, but it means it feels less like a chat show and more like a comedian's recorded-well-in-advance TV show, such as Sarah Millican's programme.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Silk
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapter 26

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x06 Knight Vision
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Person of Interest
2x13 Dead Reckoning

The Voice UK
3x11 The Knockouts 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x13 The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x10 The Knockouts 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

An early appearance on my doormat by The Hunger Games 2 (out Monday) brings this week's smidgen of additions. Still, the forecast for next week is nothing.

Number of titles in collection: 1,661 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 463 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,149 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,786 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x09 Sal's Pizza
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
8x12 The One Where Joey Dates Rachel [5th or so watch]

The Last Leg
4x06 (7/3/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Coronation Street: A Moving Story
Not as much about the technicalities of the move and the new set as I'd've liked (s'why I watched), but hey-ho, should've gussed it'd be 'soapier'.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Elementary
2x16 The One Percent Solution

Friends
8x11 The One with Ross's Step Forward [5th or so watch]
The Blu-ray menus call this The One With Ross's Step Forward; TV.com call it The One with the Creepy Holiday Card. Who to believe?!

Yonderland
1x08 Dirty Ernie [season finale]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x02 Spare Parts Part Two

TV

Arrow
2x12 Tremors

The Mentalist
6x11 White Lines
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Room 101
14x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x05 Episode 5

Game of Thrones
3x10 Mhysa [season finale]
Tad underwhelming after the last episode, but by no means bad.

Person of Interest
2x12 Prisoner's Dilemma

Top Gear
21x04 (23/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Game of Thrones
3x09 The Rains of Castamere

Crikey.

To be perfectly honest, I guessed something like that would happen -- fans and creators have been talking about the Red Wedding since before season one began, mentioning it would be the climax to season three; and then there was the massive reaction online after it was broadcast (even without reading people's thoughts, the sheer volume of articles indicated how significant it was; I've had half a dozen saved since then to read once I got past this episode); and considering the characters involved, and their potential for deception (in particular Walder Frey), I had my suspicions that all would not end well.

But it was still shockingly, strikingly done, and the writers and makers did an excellent job of misdirecting the viewer. Indeed, it's so effective that even if you knew exactly what would occur (which even book-readers didn't, thanks to some modifications), it's still disturbingly executed.

Most fascinating, perhaps, is what it means for the series as a whole. One of the main driving plots for the entire thing seems to have just been cut off. Where does it go from here? Especially considering we're not even halfway through. Hopefully episode 10 provides some answers, and an indication of the course forward.


Outnumbered
5x06 The Musical [series finale]
A funny, moving, fitting finale. I know they've said they might come back for specials, but you kind of feel like they perhaps shouldn't -- how could they end it better? And would coming back for a random, disconnected, one-more-time be right?
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Silk
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

DVD Extras

"The Rains of Castamere" Unveiled on Game of Thrones Season 3

A Maximum Movie Mode-style feature looking at the creation of one of the season's (indeed, the entire series') most pivotal episodes. Packed with interesting detail, but executed in an incredible viewer-unfriendly fashion, sadly.

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapters 23-25

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x08 Old School
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
3x07 The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3x08 Second Sons
So much for all that stuff about double bills yesterday, eh? But I'm so close now to episode 9, one of the most talked-about episodes of TV last year. (You might argue it was the most talked about, but 2013 was also the year of things like Doctor Who's 50th and Breaking Bad's finale, so there's stiff competition.)

How I Met Your Mother
9x05 The Poker Game
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Veronica Mars review: A dark thriller with a marshmallow centre by Emma Dibdin (from Digital Spy)
and
The Veronica Mars movie is "worth the wait" - review round-up by Susanna Lazarus (from Radio Times)

A full review of the movie from DS, while RT rounds up the opinions of The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Hitfix and Indiewire -- and it all sounds great.

this week on 100 Films

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


North by Northwest (1959)

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Fountain (2006)

it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Movies have taught us many things, and here’s another: don’t take the train from Pelham Bay Park at 1:23. In the past thirty-five years said train has been taken hostage three times, and while once every 11⅔ years may not sound a particularly high average, I’d wager it’s higher than for most trains.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x06 The Climb
I'd say I normally double-bill Game of Thrones -- to be statistical about it, across the first two seasons I watched 60% of episodes as part of a pair. Not so this season, though. Not sure why. I mean, I know why -- because it's so good it feels wrong to be watching multiple episodes instead of savouring as individual instalments -- but previous seasons had that same quality too. Maybe they're now more satisfying as standalone episodes than they were before? Maybe it's just me? Probably that one.

The Voice UK
3x09 Battle Rounds 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x01 Spare Parts Part One

I've still got one story left in Big Finish's first 'season' of 8th Doctor adventures, but (for various reasons) instead of going straight on to that I've opted for this: Marc Platt (the writer of Ghost Light) 's acclaimed "origin of the Cybermen" tale, which as famously adapted into the TV story Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Based on this first instalment, however, it bears very little resemblance to what we got on TV. Maybe that comes later; maybe it was purely the "birth of the Cybermen" thing they took. This is much more traditional Who -- even with the potentially limitless budget of audio, it feels as if it could have been produced as a real-life Davison serial.

Collection Count

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

With several things I was expecting to be part of this update turning up just in time for the last one, there's absolutely nothing to report this week. Might be the same next time, too.

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x05 Kissed by Fire
Wow. After a bit of a slow start, over the past two or three episodes this season has really kicked off -- and how. I was going to double-bill this with the next one, but (as I discussed at one point last season) when it's this good it seems foolhardy to race through it too fast.

The Last Leg
4x05 (28/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Death in Paradise
3x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Game of Thrones
3x03 Walk of Punishment
3x04 And Now His Watch is Ended
Every time you might think, "they're brilliant, they're my favourite character", someone else comes along and does something else awesome.
At the minute, though, I'm most consistently intrigued by Margaery Tyrell. Is she really all sweetness and light, or is there some more devious twist to be revealed? And if she is the former, what inevitable crushing blow will befall her?

Person of Interest
2x11 2-Pi-R

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
18x04 The Stones of Venice Part Four

Hooray for obvious-from-the-start 'twists'! And I think the actress who plays Miss Lavish, Elaine Ives-Cameron, gives the fruitiest performance known to man.

TV

Friends
8x10 The One with Monica's Boots [5th or so watch]
aka The One Where Ross Can.

Game of Thrones
3x02 Dark Wings, Dark Words

The Mentalist
6x10 Green Thumb
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
5x06 (28/2/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


Arrow
2x11 Blind Spot


Friends
8x09 The One with the Rumor [5th or so watch]
aka The One with Brad Pitt.


Game of Thrones
3x01 Valar Dohaeris

A slightly earlier Blu-ray release than before means it's only 11 months (as opposed to a full year) since the last season of Game of Thrones for me. OK, this also means I'm watching it almost a year after "everyone" else — but I've remained largely unspoiled, and I get to watch it all in about a week (or even less) rather than having to wait over two months as it gradually unfurls. I've criticised Netflix for premiering their original series in "box set"-esque chunks (it hampers episode-by-episode audience discussion and therefore the creation of a community/fanbase), but golly if it isn't a better way to watch.

11 months is still an awfully long time to remember all of this show's complex on-going plots though, so thank goodness for the Blu-ray: there's both a 10-minute "previously on" covering both seasons one & two, and a 14-minute featurette recapping last season in a little more detail. And I thought Dexter's routine five-minute recap at the start of each season was crazily long! But, for a show that relies so heavily on its on-going storylines, it's very handy to so thoroughly refresh the memory.

That said, a lot of this premiere is about reestablishing characters and setting up where things will be heading this season. And there are so many characters and threads that it doesn't even touch base with everyone! Not necessarily a great episode in itself, then, but with some good scenes and interesting balls set in motion, it has places to go...


Room 101: Extra Storage
14x06 Episode 6
First edition this series that's had an extended repeat.
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume I: Mr Norrell, Chapters 20-22

TV

The 86th Annual Academy Awards
aka the Oscars, obviously. Despite all the (justified) talk about how this was the closest and most unpredictable awards for years, pretty much everything went where it was expected to go. Which is what happens when you have an entire industry built up around predicting the results, plus half a dozen other awards ceremonies with many of the same voters.

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x04 Episode 4

Outnumbered
5x05 The Chinese Horde
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

The Culture Show
Forget the Oscars, Here Are the Kermodes [2014]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Oscar 2014 Nominations Special

Oscar 2014: Red Carpet Live
As last year was Sky's ninth with the Oscars, that must make this year the tenth. Nice round number, back to terrestrial next year, yeah?

Silk
3x01 Episode 1
Has it really been over 18 months since the last series?! No wonder I struggled to remember the on-going plot threads.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Top Gear
21x03 (16/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Gravity (2013)
[#13 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Loved it. Will definitely be backing it at the Oscars tonight.

this week on 100 Films

Three things to report from 100 Films in a Year this week...


Firstly, it's now March, so there's the February update. It wasn't a great month, but that doesn't mean there isn't something to read about.


Secondly, one shiny new review:

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

The goal is clearly to present an objective, fact-driven account of how the CIA eventually found their most-wanted target, but how successfully it does that has been called in to question multiple times: there were those who felt it justified the use of torture, and those who claimed its facts were all wrong. On both these facts, any one viewer’s mileage might vary.

Read more here.


And finally, one re-posted archive review:

Throne of Blood (1957)

Kurosawa moves Macbeth from Scotland to 16th Century Japan in this retelling of Shakespeare’s infamous Scottish Play... It works well in the new setting, with some of the themes — honour, respect, betrayal — perhaps becoming more understandable when placed in samurai culture.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Voice UK
3x08 Battle Rounds 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

A couple of new releases (one out last Monday, one out next) and a couple of long-awaited US imports (oh, transatlantic post can be slow!) make for... well, the following.

(Note, in particular, that three of the releases contain a short film. Highly unusual, that.)

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [up 5]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [up 3]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x07 48 Hours
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


How I Met Your Mother
9x04 The Broken Code
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


The Last Leg
4x04 (21/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


The Mentalist
6x09 My Blue Heaven

After Patrick Jane (spoilers!) murdered Red John in the previous episode, the series just continued the very next week in America, even though the entire series seemed to be over ("seemed" being the operative word) and this episode presents a "two years later" format reboot. Here in the UK, however, we've had a more respectful couple-of-months break, and I think it works better for it.

It's a relatively genteel way in, dealing with where the characters have been for the last couple of years and setting up why they might return (or won't) to something akin to their old way of life), rather than diving right in with "here's the new setup". Even by the end that isn't wholly clear: there's a kind-of-cliffhanger rather than fully establishing how the show will work from now on. Even though I know where it must be going, I wanna see what happens next now.

So the show still works, then.

[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

Up (2009)
[#12 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #2!

Comics

She-Hulk #1 by Charles Soule & Javier Pulido

Not a title I'd pay any attention to normally, but I happened to read such good reviews that it seemed worth a go. Paid off too, because I thought it was good fun.

The titular Hulk-relative is a lawyer by day, and this series (or at least this issue, but by extension I presume the series) is concerned with that rather than the usual superhero activities of "punching things". Writer Soule (a practising attorney himself) keeps things fun but also detailed, and moving too -- even though it's only 20 pages, there's a decent chunk of story here; indeed, a whole tale. Why can't more comics manage that?! Pulido's art isn't popular with everyone, but I liked his clean, chunky, retro style for this title, especially when ably supported by Muntsa Vincente's colours.

This could well be a keeper.

TV

Death in Paradise
3x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
18x03 The Stones of Venice Part Three

TV

Friends
8x08 The One with the Stripper [5th or so watch]
Which one with the stripper, you may ask? Well, it's the one with the stripper who isn't a stripper. Also, the one where Rachel tells her dad.

Suspects
1x02 Episode 2
I was giving this a second chance, but it's often laughably bad -- literally: some of it was very (unintentionally) amusing. Whether it's funny enough to keep me watching, I've yet to decide.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
18x01 The Stones of Venice Part One [2nd listen]
18x02 The Stones of Venice Part Two

I'm getting stuck in to the massive pile of Big Finish dramas I own by listening to them on dog walks. Well, that's the plan -- it worked for this first day, so, y'know, we'll see.

Before Big Finish 'officially' started doing seasons with the BBC7-initiated New Eighth Doctor Adventures, the 8th Doctor's adventures in their main range nonetheless appeared in season-esque clumps. A nice idea: he was still the incumbent Doctor when they started, with an unfilled gap between his sole TV appearance and his regeneration (which, of course, we finally got to see last year), so why not treat him to TV-style on-going adventures rather than occasional one-offs?

Still, they weren't officially demarcated as seasons, so as I listen I won't be number them in season terms, as some fans do (that would just become confusing when they eventually abandoned the idea). But I will try to make note of where the stories come, and this is the third story in his first 'season' of adventures. The most striking thing now is how "classic Who" it feels. Makes sense -- it was released a good four years before the series returned to TV -- but with the 8th Doctor leading Big Finish's way in becoming more new series-like, it's striking now. An intriguing tale nonetheless, once it settles in, with a nice quirky edge.

Finally for now, it's funny to look back and see that the 8th Doctor's initial stories spanned releases 16 to 19 (his first two, Storm Warning and Sword of Orion, I listened to many years ago. I might return to them, but as I've already tried that a couple of times down the years I wanted to forge on into new stuff). When Big Finish began the 8th Doctor was conspicuous by his absence, and it felt like an age before they finally got McGann on board. As they're in sight of story #200 (out June 2015), with dozens (hundreds?) of other Who productions along the way, #16 seems hardly into the range at all.

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x03 Episode 3

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
7x08 (22/2/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Person of Interest
2x10 Shadow Box
Gave up on waiting for Channel 5 to re-start this and just got on with it by... my own means.

Films

The House of Fear (1945)
[#11 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

The 10th movie starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.

TV

Arrow
2x10 Blast Radius

Elementary
2x15 Corpse de Ballet

Outnumbered
5x04 The Gap Year
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Room 101
14x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume I: Mr Norrell, Chapters 15-19

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x06 Halloween
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x03 Last Time in New York
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Stella
3x02 Episode 2

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
5x05 (21/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
8x07 The One with the Stain [5th or so watch]

Top Gear
21x02 (9/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Voice UK
3x07 The Blind Auditions 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Ghosting
by Andrew O'Hagan (from London Review of Books)

A fascinating account of what it was like to ghostwrite Julian Assange's book, by the man who did just that.

(Worth noting that this article is over 26,000 words long -- i.e. long enough to firmly count as a novella (based on the selection criteria of awards that offer a prize for such things), so don't expect to just rattle through it in a spare five minutes.)

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week. Except last week, when I was away, making posting trickier, and there was nothing to report anyway.

This week makes up for it, though: there's a couple of new additions, plus it's time for every month's highlight, the running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 1,656 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 458 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,142 [up 7]
Number of films in collection: 1,781 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [up 16]
Number of short films in collection: 406 [no change]

And finally...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
296 days, 22 hours, and 27 minutes.
(Up 14 hours and 29 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Last Leg
4x03 (14/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
7x07 (15/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Voice UK
3x06 The Blind Auditions 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x05 The Vulture
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x02 Episode 2

Room 101
14x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Death in Paradise
3x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x02 Coming Back
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Suspects
1x01 Episode 1
Channel 5 chose not to renew their rights to CSI or NCIS or something and instead invest the money in this original homemade improvised police procedural drama. It's... well, it's a nice idea -- but I don't believe the police procedure in it can be anything close to reality (maybe the actors needed more training), and improvisation doesn't make for great dialogue. Maybe in a character drama it does, but not in situations like this. Undecided on if I'll give it a second chance.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

TV

The British Academy Film Awards 2014
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

See also: Bafta: Unseen, a 45-minute online-only programme that presumably contains all the awards they didn't fancy showing on TV.

this week on 100 Films

No brand-new reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, but Masters of Cinema re-issued their Lubitsch in Berlin box set, so I re-posted all my reviews from 2010...

(Spot the also-posted incongruity.)


Anna Boleyn (1920)

In an age where Henry VIII is young, slim and sometimes irritatingly called “Henry 8”, not to mention more interested in shagging every young girl he can find than in, well, anything else, it’s somewhat refreshing to return to a time when he was always older, fatter and more interested in polishing off a huge slab of meat than seeing his wife. OK, so they call him “Heinrich VIII”, but at least that’s because this production team spoke a different language.

Read more here.


Die Austernprinzessin (1919)

Lubitsch stages numerous epic set pieces on gigantic sets: Ossi’s bath, where a stream of maids carry her to and fro, wash and dry her; a huge cast of choreographed waiters, kitchen staff and guests at the wedding dinner; a mad foxtrot sequence that follows it; or the ladies’ boxing match, where for the third time in as many films Lubitsch shows a gaggle of women fighting over a man.

Read more here.


Die Bergkatze (1921)

Location filming in snow-covered Alps adds a scale and breadth to the film's imagined-kingdom setting that would be inimitable in a studio. Perhaps art director Ernst Stern was right that the realism of using genuine locations doesn't quite sit with the highly stylised fort; on the other hand, a studio set simply wouldn't have the same effect

Read more here.


Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin: From Schönhauser Allee to Hollywood (2006)

Part biography, part making-of, part analytical retrospective, Robert Fischer’s documentary does what it says on the tin: tells the story of the life and work of actor/director Ernst Lubitsch from his formative years, living on Schönhauser Allee in Berlin, to when he made the move to America in the early 1920s.

Read more here.


Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918)

the kind of silent film that might surprise some among a wider film-viewing audience, both in terms of the attitudes prevalent in what is occasionally assumed to be a highly prim era, and, even accepting that it really wasn’t, the things people were prepared to put on film then

Read more here.


Die Puppe (1919)

[A] constant expression of humour, working at every level from intellectual wit down to slapstick tomfoolery, means that even if one element has been done to death in the past near-century, there’ll be several other moments or scenes to compensate.

Read more here.


Rambo III (1988)

he goes off to Afghanistan to defeat half the Russian army single-handed. He does all this showcasing the body of a plastic action figure coated in a year’s supply of Johnson’s Baby Oil, using weapons like explosive-tipped arrows, good for tasks like taking out helicopters. Or obliterating individual soldiers.

Read more here.


Sumurun (1920)

this is primarily an Arabian Nights-style drama… but, while on the surface this looks entirely at odds with Lubitsch’s previous comedy work, it actually concerns itself with the same topic: romance, and the various entanglements and complications that lead to it.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Death in Paradise
3x05 Episode 5 [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Outnumbered
5x02 The Swimming Competition [2nd watch]
5x03 The Goddaughter
[Watch The Swimming Competition and The Goddaughter (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

The Last Leg
4x02 (7/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
7x06 (8/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Room 101
14x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Death in Paradise
3x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x01 Episode 1

Films

The Next Three Days (2010)
[#9 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

The remaining 80-or-so minutes.

DVD Extras

Special Features on The Next Three Days

Including a pretty standard and brief Making of The Next Three Days, which mainly emphasised the choice of setting and filming in Pittsburgh; an equally speedy overview of The Men of The Next Three Days; a potentially interesting featurette called True Escapes for Love, marred by being just like one of those cut-price US TV documentaries where someone moderately famous reads an obvious script at camera intercut with old news footage and the like, though fortunately only for seven minutes here; and a smattering of the deleted & extended scenes, until I got bored with them.

Comics

Wolverine #12-13 by Paul Cornell & Alan Davis

I caught up!

...except then the next issue (the aforementioned new #1) dropped through my letterbox, so I'm instantly behind again. Hey-ho.

Killable was good though, I thought. All the S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff seemed like a bit of an aside from the enjoyably low-key Wolverine goings-on, but it tied back in nicely at the end. That said, being an issue shorter probably wouldn't have hurt it -- condensing all the stuff at the mall down to two issues instead of three, essentially.

TV

Elementary
2x14 Dead Clade Walking

Friends
8x06 The One with the Halloween Party [5th or so watch]
aka The One with Spudnik!

Comics

Wolverine #10-11 by Paul Cornell & Alan Davis

TV

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
7x05 (1/2/14 edition)

Star Trek: The Next Generation
1x01 Encounter at Farpoint
This isn't me making a start on TNG -- this is me making a start on the sampler Blu-ray released a couple of years ago.

Veronica Mars
3x20 The Bitch is Back [series finale]
Veronica Mars: The Movie is released March 14th. I'll see it as soon as the distribution of Kickstarter rewards allows.

Yonderland
1x07 The Heart of the Sun

Comics

Wolverine #8-9 by Paul Cornell & Alan Davis

Being the first third of Killable. Great stuff so far. Adams' art is excellent, too, leaving me a little baffled about why it wasn't to my taste in the first few issues. The inker and colourist haven't changed either, so goodness knows what was going on.

TV

Archer
4x12 Sea Tunt Part 1
4x13 Sea Tunt Part 2 [season finale]
Finally got round to these via other means after Channel 5 titted around with them at the end of last year. I might just download the next season at some point, rather than wait for C5 to mess it up again.

Friends
8x04 The One with the Videotape [5th or so watch]
8x05 The One with Rachel's Date [5th or so watch]

Veronica Mars
3x19 Weevils Wobble But They Don't Go Down

Films

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
[#10 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Comics

Wolverine #5-7 by Paul Cornell & Mirco Pierfederici

When I said I didn't like Alan Davis' art, I meant it just wasn't to my taste, not bad per se. Pierfederici's is poor, though, with all kinds of messed-up faces, perspectives, and a sudden loss of detail in the middle of his third issue.

Next up is The Big Arc Everyone Talked About, which I suspect these first seven issues were all about facilitating: Killable. And Davis is back for it, which I now welcome.

this week on 100 Films

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


The Big Lebowski (1998)

it does meander a bit, and has a certain relaxed manner that isn’t going to be for everyone, I think that’s a valid stylistic choice rather than a filmmaking error. It’s perhaps a film to relax with, to laze even, rather than one to expect to grip you and hold your attention tight for two hours.

Read more here.


Oblivion (2013)

You could probably have generated a whole film about this world as it appears to Cruise and Riseborough, but it’s obvious from the very start that there’s something more going on. The guessing game is part of the fun, and as with almost any film with twists some viewers will get them bang-on and feel it’s all blatant, and some will be genuinely surprised.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

it’s easy to see why this was accused of being an American revenge fantasy. It’s not only got a bunch of Vietnamese soldiers being slaughtered (this time America wins!), but they’ve teamed up with the Ruskies (we’re still in the Cold War here, remember), so Rambo gets to blow a load of them away too. How satisfying for a certain facet of America

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x04 M.E. Time
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

How I Met Your Mother
9x01 The Locket
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Outnumbered
5x02 The Swimming Competition
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Voice UK
3x05 The Blind Auditions 5
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Next Three Days (2010)
[#9 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

The first 50 minutes thereof, anyway -- then the disc went screwy (again). I await a replacement for the remaining 80-or-so minutes.

Comics

Wolverine #2-4 by Paul Cornell & Alan Davis

Both the story and art grew on me over the remaining issues of the storyline. Though, in typical modern comics style, even though the story's over, it's not over. Tsk.

Collection Count

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

Just one again this week. May be the same next week too, though there should be a little bit of a rush towards the end of the month.

Number of titles in collection: 1,654 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,197 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 457 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,135 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,781 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,102 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 406 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Death in Paradise
3x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Friends
8x03 The One Where Rachel Tells Ross [5th or so watch]
"THAT IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!"

The Last Leg
4x01 (31/1/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Room 101
14x02 Episode 2

Suits
3x02 I Want You to Want Me
Dave advertise this so much, I decided to (semi-accidentally) give it a go. I quite liked it at first, but by the end it degenerated a bit into, "let me tell you what happened earlier and exactly how I feel about that so the audience are clear on it". Shame.
[Watch it (again) on Dave OD.]

Comics

Wolverine #1 by Paul Cornell & Alan Davis

Not the issue that was out on Wednesday, but the last "Wolverine #1"... which was out less than a year ago, in March 2013. Marvel have really gotten ridiculous with their re-numberings recently (they also managed to get this up to 13 issues in just 10 months, which is another typical Marvel move), although Wolverine is an almost-historic case-in-point: this was (by my reckoning) the fifth Marvel comic to be dubbed Wolverine #1, making the new one the sixth!

Anyway, I didn't really like the art and I'm not sure about the story yet. Hopefully things pick up because I've got all 13 issues of this particular iteration (which flows on into the 'new' #1, cementing that it's just a marketing ploy).

TV

Friends
8x02 The One with the Red Sweater [5th or so watch]
Pretty sure I'm grossly underestimating how often I've seen some of these episodes now. Hey-ho.

Films

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
[#8 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Articles

AMC officially developing Preacher as a TV series with Seth Rogen
by Sean O'Neal (from A.V. Club)

After all the other times Preacher was "officially" coming to the screen, I'll believe this one when I see it.

TV

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
7x04 (25/1/14 edition)

Veronica Mars
3x18 I Know What You'll Do Next Summer

TV

Friends
8x01 The One After "I Do" [4th or so watch]

Top Gear
21x01 (2/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Veronica Mars
3x17 Debasement Tapes

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume I: Mr Norrell, Chapter 14