DVD Extras

Doctor Who: The Golden Age

Short featurette on the Tenth Planet DVD (officially out tomorrow) that sets out to expose the fallacy that there was once a "golden age" of the programme. And it's quite right too. Of course different people have different favourite eras, for whatever reason, but you can't really single out a point when it was unquestionably better than at any other point.

this week on 100 Films

Firstly, allow me to point you towards the 100 Films in a Year summary of what's on TV today. They all happen to be on Channel 5, oddly.


Now then, down to regular business. Three brand-new reviews were published this week, and they were...


The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

“Old fogies go to India” is the setup of this frothy comedy-drama... But when said fogies are played by Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie and Penelope Wilton, it will surprise no one to learn there’s something here for us all.

Read more here.


The Debt (2011)

a team of Mossad agents are hailed as heroes following a high-value mission, only to face serious repercussions decades later. A cast led by Oscar winner Helen Mirren and nominees Jessica Chastain and Tom Wilkinson help affirm this as serious-minded Cold War drama

Read more here.


Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece (1961)

the first of two live-action Tintin movies made by the French in the ’60s. It seems quite a low-budget affair, but that might just be applying modern tastes to an era of more simple means. For all the flat direction and pound-store costumes, there’s still a globetrotting plot involving sunken ships, numerous chases, helicopters, and that kind of thing.

Read more here.


And there were loads new to the new blog (four today alone), as follows...


Angels & Demons (2009)

It still concerns itself with Hanks’ Langdon dashing about trying to solve insanely cryptic clues in a limited timeframe, surrounded by irritating policeman, suspicious friendly characters, and a girl who is almost pointless. However, it’s a lot less talky

Read more here.


Angels & Demons: Extended Version (2009)

the extended cut is basically the same as the theatrical version. If you enjoyed that then you might want to seek this out for your next viewing, just because why not? If you weren’t impressed before, however, there’s no special incentive to try again.

Read more here.


Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff (2010)

It’s a biography of Cardiff’s work, moving chronologically through his major contributions to cinema. The insights are numerous thanks to the number of films covered and a lot of footage from an interview with Cardiff himself.

Read more here.


Glory (1989)

it would be easy to slide into Issue of the Week melodrama in handling such a tale, but Zwick manages it without undue sentiment — there’s an appropriate realisation of the importance of events, perhaps even occasional reverence, but time is taken to show doubts and prejudices.

Read more here.


Hercules (1997)

the tale is told with surprising faithfulness. There’s still a healthy dose of anachronistic content to liven up the humour though. In fact, the sequences with Hercules’ adoring fans and merchandising empire ring even more true in this Twilight-obsessed world than they did 13 years ago.

Read more here.


Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

The first half hour is great fun, but then it gets weird, adds in hefty doses of over-complex plotting, and drags along fairly slowly until it finds an exciting climax a little late on.

Read more here.


Vantage Point (2008)

I don’t imagine you’ve missed the endless comparisons [to Rashomon] But, in fact, it’s nothing like it... There are no lies and no real misdirection; none of the characters interpret what they see, we’re just shown it from where they were standing.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Atlantis
1x03 A Boy of No Consequence
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Friends
3x07 The One with the Race Car Bed [4th or so watch]
3x08 The One with the Giant Poking Device [4th or so watch]

Films

Fast & Furious (2009)
[#86 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

Comics

Dredd Underbelly: Part Two by Arthur Wyatt & Henry Flint
(from Judge Dredd Megazine #341)

In which things suddenly, almost inexplicably, leap forward from last time. It feels like some of the story has been skipped, even. Ho hum.

Collection Count

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

A big pile of Doctor Who DVDs this week (six, to be precise) sees my DVD collection of the classic series become almost complete... just as they find some more stories. But I have those on pre-order now, so yay. And aside from such as-yet-unreleased titles (which, obviously, I couldn't own) and a few Special Editions (which are all still a bit pricey), there's only one story I don't have! So if anyone sees The Ambassadors of Death for about a fiver, do let me know...

Number of titles in collection: 1,623 [up 7]
Of which DVDs: 1,193 [up 7]
Of which Blu-rays: 430 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,033 [up 9]
Number of films in collection: 1,719 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,994 [up 27]
Number of short films in collection: 404 [up 12]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Doctor Who
21x21 The Twin Dilemma Part One

While everyone else (not literally, but you know what I mean -- that's how it feels) is busy watching The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear off iTunes, I'm waiting for the DVDs (November and February respectively) -- and, instead, watching a story I've never seen.

Last night, while waiting for the official confirmation of which missing episodes had been found, I worked out that there are around 310 previously-existing episodes of Who that I've never watched. So while this new find is exciting on many levels, and is all kinds of improbable and wonderful, for me it's not a "must see now!" moment -- it just increases the number of episodes I've never seen (and decreases the number of missing episodes I've not listened to, haha!) That's why I'm in no rush... which is great, because each story is something like £10 on iTunes, and then £13 again for each on DVD in only a few months, so I'm saving £20.

Anyway: #bbbDW50 (note the new link). It's time for the Sixth Doctor, and (as I mentioned before) after jumping 8½ years to get from the Fourth to Fifth Doctors, the time skipped to reach this is just one week.

There are several reasons for that choice, but one is the marvellous symmetry of it: Androzani is The Greatest Doctor Who Story Ever Made™, and it is immediately -- immediately -- followed by The Worst Doctor Who Story Ever Made™. Plus it's one of only two Sixth Doctor tales I've never seen (the other is Timelash, the second-worst story ever), which is a bonus.

And it really is dreadful. The writing, the acting, the costumes, the sets, the monsters, the music... everything is awful. It's slow, it's dull, it's unlikeable, it's irritating. It's not even so-bad-it's-funny. And ever so slow -- the Doctor and Peri spend the entire episode in the TARDIS! Dear God!

I imagine it doesn't improve from here.


The Great British Bake Off
4x08 Quarter Final
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Have I Got News For You
46x01 (4/10/2013 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Non-Fiction

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter by Russell T Davies & Benjamin Cook
Book One, Chapter 2

TV

Friends
3x06 The One with the Flashback [4th or so watch]
Oh, if only they'd known how many more flashbacks they'd do...

Mock the Week
12x11 (3/10/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
21x20 The Caves of Androzani Part Four [2nd watch]

And so The Greatest Doctor Who Story Ever Made™ comes to a close. It really is a corker, I think. OK, the monster is crap (and also needless), and there's a couple of bits of duff dialogue here and there -- but in the same way that no Who story is completely without merit, no great one is completely without some drawback. Everything else about Androzani is so exceptional -- particularly in this final part, where it all comes together magnificently -- that the minor sticking points can be largely overlooked.

Next time: after jumping 8½ years to get from the Fourth to Fifth Doctors, the time skipped to reach the Sixth is... one week. If you don't know what that means... well, you'll see...


Friends
3x04 The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel [4th or so watch]
3x05 The One with Frank Jr. [4th or so watch]


The Two Ronnies Spectacle
1x02 The Sketches

Films

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
[#85 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

Non-Fiction

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter by Russell T Davies & Benjamin Cook
Foreword by Philip Pullman
Introduction by Russell T Davies
Introduction by Benjamin Cook
Book One, Chapter 1

In 2008, then-showrunner Russell T Davies and DWM journalist Benjamin Cook co-wrote a book about Davies' experiences writing & running Who. I devoured it in 10 days back in January 2009, because it was fascinatingly insightful, brilliantly written, and gorgeously designed to boot.

Come the time for a paperback version in 2010, and Davies had finished his time on the show -- the original book covered Davies' final full series, after which they (of course) produced a run of specials. So the paperback is updated to include those episodes... but what's extraordinary and special and wonderful is that this update isn't just a chapter or two stuck on the end, oh no. Of the paperback's 693 pages, fully 353 of them are part of the updated section. Or, to put it another way: over half. It's another whole book again! Wonderful if you didn't buy the original Writer's Tale (essentially you're getting a whole extra book free); and even if you did, it makes the paperback a worthwhile proposition (if they'd just published the new stuff it would surely command the same price).

I've had this second edition/sequel/whatever it is for years now (I got it for Christmas the year it came out, if I remember rightly; though as it's a 5th printing, maybe it was for a later birthday/etc); but, even though I loved the first volume, it somehow wound up being put unread on my shelf. Well, with the 50th anniversary fast approaching, what better time to dig it out and dig in? The only question: do I re-read all of what I read before (it is nearly 5 years ago now -- more than enough time has passed to need a recap/appreciate a re-experiencing), or just go straight to the new stuff? It's a bloody long thing to re-read, after all; but if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Something I notice before I begin: the original had 15 chapters (and an epilogue-bit), while this version of the first book has just 12. I don't imagine they've omitted three chapters' worth of stuff, so I guess it got restructured. They did remove the four early-draft scripts that were in the hardback, so perhaps that necessitated some combining of chapters. Anyway...

TV

Friends
3x03 The One with the Jam [4th or so watch]

The Sarah Millican Slightly Longer Television Programme
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wrong Mans
1x02 Bad Mans
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
21x19 The Caves of Androzani Part Three [2nd watch]
Aside from the poorly-realised Magma Creature, Androzani really is brilliant. The direction is first-rate, the performances are top-notch, the story is second-to-none... even the lighting, notoriously dreadful throughout the Davison era, has been nailed. And that cliffhanger...!

Friends
3x02 The One Where No One's Ready [5th or so watch]
We once studied this at university as a perfect example of economical but hilarious screenwriting. And it really is.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
27x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Newsroom
2x05 News Night with Will McAvoy

Fiction

Solo by William Boyd
Part Four, Chapters 6-12
Part Five, Chapters 1-2 [the end]

Well, I thought that was really good. A cracking spy story, a well-observed recreation of Bond and Fleming (without slipping in to parody), all-round a good read. It does have a bit of an open-ended conclusion, though, so (when combined with the fact it was so good) I dearly hope IFP can persuade Boyd back for another go.

TV

The Big Fat Quiz of the 90s
Channel 4 seem to have these on fairly regularly now, but I normally only bother with the 'traditional' year-end one. This one, however, had a good line-up of guests. And it was quite fun, so, yeah.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Castle
3x02 He's Dead, She's Dead
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Friends
3x01 The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy [4th or so watch]
I feel like I've seen season three even less than season two, but who bloody knows.

Films

Team America: World Police (2004)
[3rd watch]

Matt. Damooon.

Fiction

Solo by William Boyd
Part Three, Chapters 1-5
Part Four, Chapters 1-5

this week on 100 Films

First up, as it's now October that means its time for the always exciting 100 Films in a Year monthly update.

How good was September? This good. Also at that link: five great Shakespeare adaptations.


And that wasn't all this week, oh no. There were also three new reviews published, including...


Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition) (2013)

Given the choice, I think this adaptation functions better in its original, intended, two-part version; but the single-film version is not fundamentally different to double-billing its constituent parts. [But] though there are aesthetic reasons for choosing to watch The Dark Knight Returns as two separate features, there are several unavoidable reasons why picking up the Deluxe Edition is preferable.

Read more here.


Les Misérables (2012)

Jackman is the star of the show, and brings his musical theatre background to bear on a clearly-sung but emotive performance. He was unlucky to be in the same awards year as Daniel Day-Lewis’ all-conquering turn in Lincoln, because otherwise those gongs might well have been his.

Read more here.


Safe House (2012)

Denzel Washington is a fugitive, Ryan Reynolds is the CIA rookie who ends up looking after him — and later, chasing him — after Something Goes Wrong at the titular abode in this workmanlike thriller

Read more here.


And finally, reviews new to the new blog...


Great Expectations (1998)

It comes across more as an academic exercise in turning a British Victorian novel into a modern American movie than a believable tale that works in isolation. Indeed, many of the changes appear to be designed purely to help distance it: the changed character names, the focus on the love story, and so on. Yet it directly recreates many scenes from the novel, and it obviously retains its title

Read more here.


Solaris (2002)

When Andrei Tarkovsky adapted Stanislaw Lem’s thoughtful science fiction novel in 1972, it took 165 minutes. When Steven Soderbergh did it 30 years later, it took just over 90. Lem hated them both, stating that he didn’t write about people’s “erotic problems in space”, but for those concerned with what the film is about rather than what it (perhaps) should have been about, it seems that an abbreviated running time is no barrier to loading any adaptation of Solaris with a weighty thoughtfulness.

Read more here.


Stormbreaker (2006)

An adaptation of the first in Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling series of Alex Rider novels. It does a good job of translating the book, aided by an extensive cast of recognisable Brits (and some Yanks) and some entertaining action sequences.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

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

Belatedly, here's this week's small update... followed by the always-fun monthly running time update.

Number of titles in collection: 1,616 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,186 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 430 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,024 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,719 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,967 [up 1]
Number of short films in collection: 392 [no change]

And that all-action running time update tells us...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
288 days, 22 hours, and 6 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 3 hours, and 13 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.