Thursday, 19 May 2022

Wednesday, 18 May 2022

TV

For All Mankind
1x05 Into the Abyss
Crikey: it’s over a year since I last watched an episode of this! And apparently I only watched four — I thought I’d got a bit further through than that. Thing is, I didn’t intend to stop watching, it just… happened. It’s, weirdly, a show I think is great while it’s on, but don’t feel much drive to watch in between episodes; and when there’s always so much else to watch, that can end up with it falling by the wayside. Anyway, here I am making a concerted effort to finally get on with it. I thought this was another great episode, by the way.

Tuesday, 17 May 2022

Video

Doctor Who: The Fan Show
- Steven Moffat On Writing, Weeping Angels, and More
- Steven Moffat On Matt Smith's Era, Writing The 50th Anniversary & MORE!
- The Steven Moffat Interview: Part 3

When Steven Moffat stepped down as showrunner of Doctor Who, he did a three-part over-an-hour-long interview with The Fan Show YouTube series, covering his entire time on the show. I'd meant to watch it at the time but kind of forgot. Something brought it to mind the other day, and so I've finally watched it. It's interesting and with some insightful observations, although you may have heard them repeated or retold elsewhere in the intervening years. And, in fact, he worked on the show for so long that even an hour-or-so doesn't feel like long enough to cover everything worth covering. But they do their best.

[Watch them (again) at the above YouTube links.]

Sunday, 15 May 2022

Podcasts / Audio Drama

Doctor Who: Redacted
1x04 Angels
[Listen (again) on BBC Sounds.]

Kermode & Mayo's Take
13/5/2022 The one with Gaspar NoƩ, The Essex Serpent, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Video

RetroAhoy
The Secret of Monkey Island
Stumbled across this on Letterboxd, so thought I might end up logging it as a film, but eh, not really. It's very slickly produced, though, even if it does stray from its ostensible title: the part about The Secret of Monkey Island is actually only 10 or 15 minutes of the 74-minute video, proceeded by a potted history of the birth of the adventure game genre, and followed by a look at the sequels, other LucasArts adventure games, and what's happened to the genre since. All very interesting, mind, and I've ended up with about half-a-dozen titles to look up.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube.]

this week on 100Films.co.uk

7 new reviews were published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


Fast & Furious 9 (2021)
before long they're racing around (literally) after one Macguffin or another, plus all the requisite shooting stuff and blowing stuff up and performing physics-defying CGI-aided stunts that have become The Fast Saga’s hallmarks. If that makes it sound a bit tired — just “more of the same” — well, remember, we’ve reached film #9.
Read more here.


West Side Story (2021)
I remember when I first heard about this remake, I couldn’t quite understand what they were going to add by redoing it. The original is a widely-acclaimed classic — why remake it? I should’ve remembered one of the golden rules of cinema: always trust Spielberg.
Read more here.


2022 | Weeks 12–13
Featuring...
- Muriel's Wedding (1994)
- Cobra (1986)
- Django & Django (2021)
- A Man Escaped (1956)
- Death on the Nile (2022)
Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Saturday, 14 May 2022

TV

Eurovision Song Contest: Turin 2022
The first time I've been able to watch Eurovision live since 2018! And thank goodness I could, because what a show to experience live! So close...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Games

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition

And that's the end. Took me pretty much exactly the same time it took to complete the first one, a little to my surprise.

I find it hard to say which of the two is better. The first has more classic memorable moments, but the second feels more expansive, and does have its fair share of great bits. They're both great classics, ultimately.

Collection Count

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

I had one of my "carried away" weeks this week, with 9 new additions here and a bunch more in the post for next week. Of this week's lot, four are new releases (out next Monday); two were titles I happened to see recommended; one I thought was a recent release (it actually came out last September), but I'd been waiting for a sale price and now I got it; and the other two were just a bit random... and they're also DVDs.

That's right, I bought DVDs! And not one, but two! It does still happen, once in a blue moon; and only for titles not available on Blu-ray, and not likely to be available on Blu-ray, of course. (It'd be just my luck for someone to announce BD releases of them next month now. But they cost less than £4 each, so it'd be no true hardship.)

Number of titles in collection: 2,831 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,057 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,774 [up 7]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 169 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 7,050 [up 10]
Number of films: 3,376 [up 9]
Number of additional cuts: 260 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,268 [no change]
Number of short films: 958 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 13 May 2022

Films

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
[#32 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2022 #4

Games

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition

My opinion is now swinging the other way: I feel like I'm nearly at the end, and I've got there quicker than in Secret. Possibly I've just been playing it in a more condensed timeframe, though, because I'm at about five-and-a-half hours of playtime for 87% complete.

Thursday, 12 May 2022

TV

Would I Lie To You?
15x10 The Unseen Bits
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Games

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition

Just over 3 hours playtime and apparently 37% complete. Might be worth mentioning that I don’t remember this one as well as I did Secret, so I am having to actually solve more of the puzzles. Still, the game feels bigger, with more stuff to look at, more characters to talk to and for longer, and the need to traverse multiple islands with multiple locations on each.

Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Games

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: Special Edition

Setting sail on game #2! The save game once again charts my progress, so after an hour's play I'm allegedly 10% of the way through. If that's true, MI2 is a much longer game than the first, as I thought. But the first game's progress percentage was poppycock, so we'll see.

Tuesday, 10 May 2022

TV

Taskmaster
1x06 The Last Supper [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Monday, 9 May 2022

TVt

Taskmaster
1x05 Little Denim Shorts
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Sunday, 8 May 2022

TV

The British Academy Television Awards 2022
I used to watch religiously, but it turns out this is the first time I've watched the TV BAFTAs since 2017 — that's five years! This year, It's a Sin deserved to sweep up, with multiple nominations, but in the end it didn't win a single thing. Tsk.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Taskmaster
1x04 Down an Octave
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Films

The Monolith Monsters (1957)
[#31 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]

Podcasts

Kermode & Mayo's Take
5/5/2022 The one with Tom Hiddleston, Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Cabaret

As I said the other day, I've long been aware of Kermode & Mayo's popular film radio show / podcast but never joined in listening, so this new start seemed as good a time as any.

Articles

Ncuti Gatwa is the Doctor
(from DoctorWho.tv)

In case you missed the news.