TV

As Seen on TV
1x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Wildest Dreams
Part 5 (of 7)
What a poor show -- on the part of the makers, not the contestants. They were constantly, repetitively criticised for not "spotting the signs" and "seeing the story". How the hell were they meant to? They had two days, they're not familiar with the region or the animals, and their guides had obviously been told not to tell them anything -- it was only when they directly asked precisely the right question that they finally owned up. And throughout this we had to suffer one of the biggest tits on TV, Nick Knowles, taking the moral high ground. As if he would've noticed if he didn't have two -- two -- experts guiding him round and pointing it all out to him.
I'm severely disappointed to the point of anger with this edition, the only solace being that the contestants were evidently better at their jobs than they had any reason to be and all spotted the signs just in time. But it was pathetic, mean-spirited and unfair to expect them to get there any quicker in the way the task was presented to them, and for this stupidity the show loses serious marks in my book.
[Suffer it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

A Few Good Men (1992)
[#38 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
The final half-hour, finally. Could I handle the truth? Well, yes.

Articles

Ofcom regulation "astonishing", says Murdoch
and
BBC hits back at Murdoch criticism
and
BBC's Peston questions Murdoch's rationale
(all by James Welsh, from Digital Spy)
James Murdoch clearly thinks he's making some intelligent, if controversial, points. In fact, as the BBC's reasoned response only highlights, he's just having a whiney rant.
"The BBC are bigger than us, it's not fair, wah wah wah!"

TV

The Cube
1x01 Episode 1
ITV1's latest Phillip Schofield-fronted game show, which started last week. It's sort of almost good, but, let's be honest, it's just a bit too ITV.
That said, some of the slow-motion camera work was appropriate and impressive -- a rare thing, especially for a game show.
And that said, The Body is a shameless attempt at creating a Stig clone. Tsk tsk.
See here for an interesting article on the making of the show.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Mock the Week
7x08 (27/8/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The X Files: I Want to Believe - Director's Cut (2008)
[#44 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
Please look here for my review of this film.

Articles

The Cube, ITV1 by Robin Parker
(from Broadcast)
A very interesting (from a technical standpoint) article about how they film and edit ITV1's new game show, The Cube.
See here for a couple of my thoughts on the show itself.

new reviews at 100 Films

Three new reviews today -- a brand-new one, plus two I forgot to mention when they went up. First, a film that's on TV this evening...

The X Files: I Want to Believe - Director's Cut (2008)

The idea that I Want to Believe was a bit rubbish and thoroughly disappointing is as much (if not more) the fault of those viewers and reviewers who expected a different kind of film and didn’t get it. On the surface, it's a standalone low-key supernatural thriller... but one that also tackles issues of moving on, obsession and belief, and how they can impact on a relationship

Read the full review at 100 Films.

And secondly, those forgotten reviews...

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Eastwood’s two Iwo Jima films make good companion pieces. In no serious way do they present Part One and Part Two of a story, but instead two vastly different perspectives on the same events. The points of crossover between the two are neatly used, occurring naturally rather than forcing “you’ll understand this later”-style mysteries upon the viewer, but mainly they explore the way two very different cultures reacted to the same battle.

Read the full review at 100 Films.

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Every key sequence provides something genuinely worth looking at while still relating the intricate plot, though the cruise offers many of the best bits — the hot, sweaty foreign climes are conveyed brilliantly, aided by sumptuous location photography, and these sunny scenes contrast nicely with the noir plot.

Read the full review at 100 Films.

There are currently 16 films in the review pipeline at 100 Films. Updates here as and when they're posted.

TV

The Tudors
3x03 Dissension and Punishment
3x04 The Death of a Queen
The Duke of Suffolk may just be the best character in The Tudors -- note his development over the past three seasons from womanising wideboy to morally conflicted husband-and-father. What a gift to almost-Bond Henry Cavill this part must be.
[Watch both episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who: Greatest Moments
Part 1 The Doctor
Part clip show, part retrospective, from the team behind Doctor Who Confidential, looking back at memorable moments and themes from the revived version of the series. Plenty of clips, plenty of musings from the cast (interestingly, only one crew member... and he was a cast member too) -- it's pretty lightweight, but it's quite nice.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
3x03 (24/8/08 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
[#43 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]

Articles

Five, Sky, ITV2 rule out Big Brother bid by Dan French
(from Digital Spy)
"Five, Sky1 and ITV2 have ruled out bidding for Big Brother when it becomes available in 2011"
After yesterday's announcement, some more good news.

Review of Sita Sings the Blues by Adrian Smith
(from Retro Ramblings)
This sounds like a very interesting film, not least because it's available for free (legally, that is) in a variety of formats (including full 1080P high definition).

TV

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

Taking the Flak
1x06 Big Beasts
1x07 Enter the Lion [season finale]
And, in a surprising twist, I achieved my goal. Hurrah!
All in, this turned out to be a rather good series, so here's hoping for another round.
[Watch both episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

First up, just to highlight it:

“They sucked his brains out!” - Starship Troopers (1997) by primus
(from The Ark)
A nice, lengthy review of Starship Troopers, in which the author aims to "present my case for inducting Starship Troopers in to the Sci-Fi Cinema Hall of Fame (if such a thing were to exist)."
He's got me convinced. (Now I just need to watch the thing...)

And now, some damn fine news...

Big Brother axed by Channel 4 by Mark Sweney & Leigh Holmwood
(from guardian.co.uk)
Hurrah, hurrah, the day has finally come!
Though don't rejoice too much -- it's likely it'll just move to another channel. Damn.

And elsewhere...

Disney 'hints at Cars sequel title' by Tim Parks
(from Digital Spy)
" the studio registered several domain names in conjunction with [Cars 2], including cars2-worldgrandprix.com, cars2worldgrandprix.com, carsworldgrandprix.com and worldgrandprix-movie.com. The sequel to the 2006 animated movie is reportedly likely to be called Cars 2: World Grand Prix."
And the award for Worst Stating Of The Bleeding Obvious goes to...

Iannucci used LA experience for Loop by Simon Reynolds
(from Digital Spy)
""The BBC sold [the concept of The Thick of It] to the highest bidder rather than the best bidder," he noted. "I really wanted to go to HBO but they took it to ABC which is one of the main family networks run by Disney. Already you knew it was going to be a disaster.""

New Nolan third installment of his Batman Saga rumor... by Harry Knowles
(from Ain't It Cool News)
That it will all be shot in IMAX, apparently (The Dark Knight famously had a few sequences shot that way). It's only a 'maybe' because it would be both expensive and time consuming, but the results could be stunning -- not only would it look great on IMAX, but it increases the resolution so much that it looks better on ordinary film and Blu-ray too. That said, it would still be damn annoying for those of us without convenient IMAX screens.

TV

Taking the Flak
1x04 The Past is a Different Colony
1x05 Unfriendly Fire
[Watch both episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Wildest Dreams
Part 4 (of 7)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Inception Trailer
The new film from Christopher 'The Dark Knight' Nolan. Little/nothing is known about the plot, but it does look rather cool. On the other hand, it also looks a little bit Matrixy -- but hopefully not too much, because obviously that's a decade old now. Brilliant cast too, incidentally.

Articles

Loophole over DVD age rating law
(from BBC News)
"Retailers who sell violent video games and 18-rated DVDs to children cannot be prosecuted because of a legal blunder 25 years ago."
Oops.

Robin Williams keen to play Susan Boyle in film biopic by Ben Child
(from guardian.co.uk)
"The comedy actor, who donned drag and assumed a Scottish accent in Mrs Doubtfire, has expressed a wish to play the Britain's Got Talent star in a biopic".
I've not bothered to watch any of the Susan Boyle footage (not any of it), but that I'd watch.

Smith's Hancock sequel finds writers by Simon Reynolds
(from Digital Spy)
Well well well, I didn't see that coming. Of course, I'd only heard the poor critical reception -- I didn't realise it had done so well at the box office. As ever, money beats quality.

TV

From the Earth to the Moon
Part Five Spider
Please look here for my thoughts on this episode.

The Last Volunteer
A tribute to Henry Allingham, one of the last survivors of the First World War, who died last month aged 113. Despite his age, he was clearly still young at heart with a twinkle in his eye, attending events and speaking in schools about his experiences in the War, now almost a century ago.

A Poem For Harry
Broadcast at the same time as the Allingham tribute, this documentary (filmed in early 2008) follows then-Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as he tried to write a poem about Harry Patch, the last man living to have fought in the trenches, who also died just one week after Allingham. The film interviews Patch and investigates his life along with Motion, as he gains insight and inspiration for his poem, meaning that when he reads it publicly for the first time (shown at the end of the programme) we know where all the various references and allusions originated. Perhaps it's the fault of the documentary making sure to explain every nuance of the poem, but it seemed a bit too on-the-nose for me.

Taking the Flak
1x02 Black Gold, Code Red
1x03 Cursed is the Country
Hastily catching up on this before it disappears from iPlayer on Wednesday.
[Watch both episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

From the Earth to the Moon - Part 5

The fifth part of HBO's From the Earth to the Moon jumps back in time to the beginnings of the plans to go to the Moon to cover the development of the Lunar Module, the craft that would actually put men on the Moon's surface.

Such a change of pace, structure and -- for most of the episode -- cast continues this series' unusual approach to serial storytelling, where the only constant is Tom Hanks' slightly awkward opening monologues (always a minute or two of apparently-unrelated but actually thematically-relevant anecdotes that convolute themselves to conclude with a sentence ending "...from the Earth to the Moon").

Writer Andy Wolk also manages to inject some levity into the series, the amount of humour bringing a subtly different tone to this episode. It works especially well here, considering the story is essentially about a group of engineers designing a piece of machinery. As for actual space missions, Apollo 9 (the first test of the Module in space, where it went by the call sign "Spider" -- yep, this episode's title) gets a bit of a look-in in the second half, while Apollo 10 is relegated to no more than two minutes at the close.

Of course, the Module's greatest test is still to come. Next stop, the Moon...

TV

As Seen on TV
1x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Jam & Jerusalem
3x03 New Beginnings / Ladies in Lavender [season finale]
A nice ending to a too-short series. Hopefully there'll be more, but if not this serves as a nice little ending.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rules of Film Noir
A nice overview of the genre for BBC Four's Film Noir Weekend. Not much new to learn if you're decently aware of the genre, but for those who have just heard of it or never delved into it this was a more-than-decent primer and spot of analysis. Nice work BBC.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Channel 4 announces 3D programming week by Dan French
(from Digital Spy)
"Channel 4 has announced a special week of 3D programming to celebrate 3D footage. This autumn, viewers will be invited to don 3D glasses to watch the programmes -- broadcast in ColorCode 3D -- which include previously unseen footage of the Queen during her Coronation year. The two hour-long episodes, titled The Queen In 3D, tell the story of two young men who filmed a 3D colour newsreel they named Royal Review...
The special week will also see the transmission of Derren Brown's 3D Magic Spectacular, The Greatest Ever 3D Moments and several 3D movies."