Articles

The classic Doctor Who monster that terrified young John Barrowman by Carole E. Barrowman
(from io9)

Carole Barrowman talks about growing up as a fan of Doctor Who alongside her younger brother John — who became famous as the Doctor's sexiest companion, Captain Jack Harkness, in this excerpt from the anthology Chicks Dig Time Lords.

Do note, John didn't become famous as Captain Jack in this anthology. Just in case you read the sentence as it was written.

Renamed Dredd wants to lure you in with new title, dark story by Nathalie Caron
(from Blastr)
That's Judge Dredd to you and I. And that's not a good move. I know titles shouldn't really matter, but now it sounds like a crap horror with a 'cleverly' misspelt title. And it's needless -- are people really so stupid as to think "the old film was rubbish, so the new one must be, even though it has no relation besides the same character"? Really? And that's if they even remember a near-20-years-old flop.
All that aside, the rest of the news about this project does sound promising. Fingers crossed...

Ridley Scott Talks Alien Prequels by Adam Quigley
(from /Film)
More hints emerge about Scott's plans for the two new Alien prequels. Not sure if I think it sounds intriguing or franchise-ruining.
The full interview from which the quotes come is here, in which Scott talks about his whole career, the reception and forthcoming Director's Cut of Robin Hood, and generally sounds a bit too self-agrandising.

there is an "I" in "TEAM"

via Dash M and @tweet_fail

this week on 100 Films

3 new reviews were posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

Dragonslayer (1981)

a little scrappy, in a way — the narrative, the acting, the effects — and yet, for that, it’s a minor treat... as someone who in his childhood watched many examples of this kind of film on video from the small rental place in town, it fits nostalgically into that era. And there’s a lot to be said for nostalgia.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007)

allegedly based on Susan Cooper’s five-volume fantasy series, The Dark is Rising, and specifically the second novel, The Dark is Rising, changes from book to screen abound... the lead character is changed to an ex-pat American, because, of course, Americans would never go to see a fantasy movie starring a British kid.

Terminator Salvation: Director's Cut (2009)

it turns out McG is a surprisingly good director — he certainly does better work than the cheap hack job Jonathan Mostow made of Terminator 3. I doubt everyone agrees on this point, but whatever else you may wish to say about McG, he knows how to put an action sequence together. Most of the time.

You may also have noticed we passed into September this week. Ah, the bliss of children finally back in school. But it also meant it was time for the August update -- also blissful, in its own way.

More next Sunday.

TV

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness
Plus most of the DVD extras, mainly Freddie montages from the first half of the show.
Sadly, said first half isn't on the DVD (it was included on previous VHS releases), not to mention the deletion of Innuendo and cropping the picture to widescreen. Ho hum.

TV

Dexter
4x08 Road Kill

Mountain Gorilla
Part 1 Kingdom in the Clouds
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

It's Official: Duke Nukem Forever Coming From Gearbox Software by Michael McWhertor
(from Kotaku)
Christ, this has been in development since I was a proper gamer -- and that's many years ago indeed.

Jane Espenson tells us about Torchwood's 'intense' next season by Thomas Mill
(from Blastr)
More tidbits emerge...

Collection Count

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

As if last week's jump wasn't enough, here's one that's even bigger (in some regards, anyway). Hurrah! Should begin to quieten down again now though. These things cost money y'know.

Number of titles in collection: 1,217 [up 10]
Of which DVDs: 1,109 [up 4]
Of which Blu-rays: 108 [up 6]

Number of discs in collection: 2,975 [up 16]
Number of films in collection: 1,276 [up 11]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,205 [up 10]

Statistic of the week:

Number of titles in the 'Thriller' genre:
178
(14.6% of the total)

'Thriller' is my second-largest genre. (I've previously covered the largest, Drama, and two of the smallest, Anime and Music. Incidentally, the once-king 'Action' has slipped all the way to fourth. Maybe I grew up or something.) With several new titles supplementing Thriller's ranks this week, it seemed as good a time as any to highlight it.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Grandma's House
1x04 The day Simon decided he was forlorn
Every episode, I love this series a little bit more. I was going to quote some more excellent lines, but in the end there were just too many.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

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

Roger & Val Have Just Got In
1x04 Be Our Guests
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

The Stig. He’s ours by Andy Wilman
(from Transmission blog at the Top Gear official site)
As the BBC lose the court case to keep the Stig's identity secret to the money-grabbing fun-spoilers at HarperCollins, it's worth remembering why the defence of this seemingly inconsequential little bit of TV silliness did actually matter.

TV

Agatha Christie's Marple
5x01 The Pale Horse
A Bank Holiday means ITV trot out a Marple; one that was probably filmed half a decade ago, knowing them. It's also not adapted from a Marple story, as per about half the episodes (it seems).
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Articles

Review: CLiNT Magazine #1 by Danny Graydon
(from Bleeding Cool)

Review of Mark Millar's attempt to bring comics back to the British mainstream -- essentially, by packaging a few that are either written by star-studded names or tied to successful movies in which a bunch of lad's mag content. Hopefully it has potential -- the basic idea of selling comics into the mainstream has legs -- but it sounds like a faltering start.

Of course, the alternative perspective is that all the lad's mag twaddle that doesn't appeal to people with taste who already enjoy comics will appeal to the kind of people who don't read comics but might be persuaded to, and so it'll hit that market right on the nose, while comics fans will buy it and ignore the laddish bits. What you're still missing are the audience who aren't adverse to comics but have grown beyond the level of a particularly filthy 13-year-old boy.

Maybe if CLiNT's a success someone will try another new magazine aimed at them. Fingers crossed.

TV

The Deep
Part 4 Everything Put Together Falls Apart
As full of codswallop as The Deep is, I do quite like its structure: it's a five-part story, yes, but each episode also manages to present a fairly self-contained, almost stand-alone chunk of this longer narrative. That's quite neat.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
5x14 The Perfect Week
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Vexed
1x03 Episode 3 [season finale]
Well, in spite of what the Radio Times had to say, I enjoyed that. Here's hoping for a second run.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

BBC's Sherlock to return in 2011 by Colin Daniels & Paul Millar
(from Digital Spy)
The return of Sherlock has already been announced, this just confirms the already-suspected format (another three 90-minuters) and already-suspected time (in a year). The real news here is that Luther has managed to earn itself another run. Be interesting to see how they get out of that cliffhanger, and where they take the characters from there.

TV

Dexter
4x07 Slack Tide
That was probably the most uneventful, borderline-dull episode of Dexter ever. Apart from the nice twist at the end, that is, even if I did see it coming.

Who Do You Think You Are?
7x06 Alexander Armstrong
I don't normally watch this (as you may've noticed from its near total absence from this blog), but this one was meant to be rather good. It certainly has a surprising, quite extraordinary ending.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
4x06 (27/8/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007)
[#89 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
Read my review here.

Articles

Next series of Doctor Who to be split transmission (from the BBC Press Office)
and
Live blog: Doctor Who Masterclass by Neil Wilkes (from Digital Spy)

Today's big TV news, then: the next series of Doctor Who will be split in two, with the first seven episodes to air from Easter (when the whole series has aired since the revival), followed by the remaining six in the Autumn, and the regular Christmas special. It seems to have divided opinion, but I quite like it.

While it's been nice to a large, unbroken 13-episode run, this means (as Moffat noted) that kids (and, indeed, fans) will never be a few months away from new Who on the telly, and that we get two season openers and two season finales every year. I hope this doesn't mean they go overboard on the Great Big End Of The Universe finales we've had for all five series so far, though; but it does mean an extra promotional push, which is always a good thing -- it attracts new viewers. Plus Who surely works better as the nights are drawing in, rather than when the distractions of sunny evenings are beginning to open up.

Also worth a quick watch is this two minute video of Moffat making the announcement. In it he mentions something no news article I've seen has covered: that we shouldn't think of this as "one series split in two" but as "two separate series". He has a point when he says that 13 eps of Who is two series compared to most UK shows, true; but, more interestingly (from a fan point of view) will this mean they're branded and released as Series Six and Series Seven? Or are his words here the same as when he called Series Five Series One, and they'll just get released as Series Six Part One & Series Six Part Two (or just the Complete Series Six)?

I know it doesn't really matter, especially to the casual viewer, but as a fan it's the kind of thing we ponder. Well, I ponder.

this week on 100 Films

Just 1 new review was posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and it was...

Snake Eyes (1998)

I always like a bit of noir. Snake Eyes fits the bill, with ‘heroic’ characters of questionable morality, voluptuous femme fatales, vicious villains, double dealings, punch-ups in shadowy alleys, and dozens of other generic signifiers that I’ll leave it for you to discover and/or remember. I was rather surprised to discover it wasn’t on Wikipedia’s era-encompassing list of film noir (until I added it)

More next Sunday.

TV

Joanna Lumley's Nile
Part 4 (of 4)

Proms 2010
Prom 49 A Celebration of Rodgers and Hammerstein
The full programme for this Prom can be found online here.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

5 Annoying Trends That Make Every Movie Look the Same by Dan Seitz
(from Cracked.com)
Funny, but true.