TV

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x11 (2/4/10 edition)
Aaron Johnson was great in Kick-Ass (and, apparently, in Nowhere Boy), but he's certainly uncomfortable in interviews. Needs some kind of training I think, especially if he has to do the American press junket yet.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

This confounds my regular array of categories, but still, it counts...

City Sightseeing bus tour of Edinburgh

Collection Count

Collection Count is on its Easter holiday.

Wish you were here.

Films

Kick-Ass (2010)
[#39 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
It was a review cliché even before the reviews were published, but it's still true: Kick-Ass kicks ass. See it.

Articles

10/40/70 #1: Starship Troopers by Nicholas Rombes
(from The Rumpus)
An intriguing new series of columns, this, best explained by its own introduction:

what if, instead of freely choosing which parts of the film to address, I select three different, arbitrary time codes (in this case and for future columns, the 10-minute, 40-minute, and 70-minute mark), freeze the frames, and use that as a guide to writing about the film

It's a little bit film-school pretentious at times, but it's an interesting enough idea to make it worth keeping an eye on.

First iPad Reviews Are In by Rosa Golijan
(from Gizmodo)
...and they're all shiny & good. Hurrah!

Films

Alice in Wonderland (2010)
[#38 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
In 3D. Which is... fine.

Articles

Pullman defends new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
(from find-book.co.uk)

Pullman is no stranger to controversy. His previous books [depicted] the Catholic Church as a shady, corrupt establishment

What, he wrote the truth?

Articles

A to Z of Awesomeness by Neill Cameron
(from BuzzFeed)
The alphabet, comics style. Yay for D! And T! And others are good too.

The Most Ironic Signs Of All Time
(from The Huffington Post)
Hilariously funny. (Apart from 16, which is an old gag. Though at least that's funny if you've never seen it, whereas 17 is just fake. But otherwise.)

TV

Doctor Who [classic]
3x05 Mission to the Unknown [Loose Cannon reconstruction]
aka Dalek Cutaway... despite that never being on screen or anything. But this is essentially a Doctor-less precursor to the slightly-later epic story, The Daleks' Master Plan. The episode is lost, so this is a reconstruction from the original soundtrack and photos. More thorough information here.

Articles

Claudia Winkleman named as Jonathan Ross's successor on Film 2010 by Paul MacInnes
(from guardian.co.uk )
Well, now, I don't think anyone saw that coming. But maybe she can "prove [her] doubters wrong".

Matt Smith: 'I wrote Doctor Who stories' by Daniel Kilkelly
(from Digital Spy)
Are fans clamouring for them to be released or that Mr Smith shouldn't be so presumptuous as to think he can write fiction? God only knows, I can't be bothered to find out.

Steven Moffat Interview, Part One by Nick Setchfield
(from SFX)
Good interview about new-nuWho.

TV

The Bubble
1x06 (26/3/10 edition) [season finale]
"My David."
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who [classic]
A Fix with Sontarans [Jim'll Fix It sketch]
The first thing-I've-never-seen I watched as part of #InsomniacWhovian! Shame it was so inauspicious... Hashtag: #AFixWithSontarans, of course.

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x10 (26/3/10 edition)
With Matt Smith and an exclusive clip from Vampires in Venice.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Russell Howard's Good News
2x01 (25/3/10 edition)
Mr Howard's filthy news review returns. Completely forgot that they never put the extended version on iPlayer (boo!) so had to watch the shorter one.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Radio

Doctor Who Radio Trailer
Apparently exclusive to Paul O'Grady's Radio 2 show and only to be broadcast once -- Lord only knows why, it's hardly specific. On the other hand, it's a bit daft and lacking, so why play it again?
If you really want to hear it (without having to shuffle through all of this week's show looking for it), it's up at Blogtor Who.

this week on 100 Films

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

Doctor Faustus (1967)

stylistically reminiscent of a Gothic Hammer Horror, which is either wholly inappropriate or an ingenious genre mash-up... There are repulsively horrific corpses, a harem of naked ladies, an array of special effects, plus a medieval-styled gothic atmosphere to all the sets and costumes

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

it’s about boxing, a subject I couldn’t care less about, and indeed I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boxing-centric film before. Unfortunately, Million Dollar Baby did nothing to allay my suspicions that I wouldn’t care less about those either.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

From the posters on Tony’s walls, to the fashions, to how it’s shot, it seems to have been designed specifically to exude seventies-ness in a way few other things seem to. It feels natural, then, that some of its original elements have become shorthand definitions for the era: the Bee Gees music, the dancing, and in particular that pose.

Saw V (2008)

what Saw V suffers in backstory it makes up for with simplicity... A working knowledge of the preceding films is essential, true, but with that in hand one can actually follow the story easily this time. Indeed, one might even argue it’s too easy

More next Sunday.

TV

The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins
3x03 (27/3/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Over the Rainbow
Programme 1 (of 20)
Programme 2 (of 20)
[Watch programme 1 and programme 2 in HD (again) on iPlayer.]

The Future...

What the future looked like in 1993.

One assumes this video will be hilariously outdated... and then, surprisingly, most of its content has come true, and the bits that haven't are largely on their way or available in a slightly different form.

Freaky.

TV

Doctor Who [classic]
21x05 The Awakening Part One [2nd watch]
21x06 The Awakening Part Two [2nd watch]
As mentioned yesterday, this was watched for Insomniac Whovian on twitter with @frizfrizzle (though a bit later than planned). See the hashtag #TheAwakening for what we had to say about it.
You might be able to watch The Awakening legally (and for free) on the BBC's YouTube channel's Doctor Who section, but it wouldn't work for us last night.
For the near-future schedule of Insomniac Whovian, look here.

Doctor Who [new]
2x03 School Reunion [3rd watch]
An impromptu Insomniac Whovian. See what we thought on the hashtag #SchoolReunion (they have a pretty obvious format, these).

Mad Men
3x10 The Color Blue
Looks like it's all about to hit the fan...
[Watch it again in HD on iPlayer.]

Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds
Part 2 Out of Sight
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Doctor Who: It’s About Time by Ian Wylie
(from Life of Wylie)
A full transcript of the Moffat/Smith/Gillan interview from the Doctor Who press launch. Great for fans.

See you at the movies by Roger Ebert
(from Roger Ebert's Journal)
Being in the UK, I've never seen the recently-cancelled series At the Movies, but this is an interesting post nonetheless.

When Headlines Don't Match Their Pictures: The Funniest News Photo Fails Ever by Katla McGlynn
(from The Huffington Post)
They are funny!

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,156 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,081 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 75 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 2,811 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,222 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 3,874 [no change]

Statistic of the week:

Number of Doctor Who stories I own that I've never seen:
35

This week's stat is inspired by a comment on twitter, and is vaguely related to the the Statistic of the Week from January 29th.

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Doctor Who [new]
2x11 Fear Her [3rd watch]
Watched for Insomniac Whovian on twitter with @frizfrizzle. See the hashtag #FearHer.
Join him and/or us and/or others later (around 1am) for the same thing again with The Awakening (inevitable hashtag: #TheAwakening), which you can also watch legally and for free on the BBC's YouTube channel's Doctor Who section.

FlashForward: What Did You See?
A full-episode-length "Previously on..." covering the first 10 episodes (thanks to a 15-week mid-season hiatus). It was so engrossing I actually fell asleep.
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Articles

Kevin Smith slams "nasty" critics by Catriona Wightman
(from Digital Spy)
On the one hand, he's just getting pissy about bad reviews. On the other, he has a fairly valid point:

"Realised whole system's upside down: so we let a bunch of people see it for free & they s**t all over it?" he posted. "Meanwhile, people who'd REALLY like to see the flick for free are made to pay? Bulls**t: from now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: you wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.
Why am I giving an arbitrary 500 people power over what I do at all, let alone for free? ... Why's their opinion more valid? It's a backwards system."