TV

The Mentalist
2x22 Red Letter
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Mock the Week
9x04 (15/7/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Sandbaggers
3x02 To Hell With Justice

Wallander [Swedish]
2x10 Vålnaden (aka The Ghost)
Another rather good episode, for the most part -- very filmic, nicely shot and evocative of a summer heatwave.

Fiction

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Part 2, Chapters 6 - 7 [the end]

Very good. Still not sure if I've read it before.

Anyway, I read it via iBooks on my iPhone -- that's how I started it, for one thing, and it's surprisingly pleasurable to use, not to mention portable. I've been using the good preview copy I mentioned when I read Chapter 1 because, well, it was the best one. But, reaching the final chapter, I discover they are sensibly cunning: the preview includes all of the novel... except the final chapter. Oh no! Unfortunately for them, I already own two hard copies of the complete Holmes so have finished it off with one of those.

But, as it's only £1.99 for a very readable almost-complete collection, I may buy it anyway. It's just unfortunate that, out of the three copies I found on iBooks, by far the most readable is also the least complete: it misses The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, still under copyright in the US, while one of the other two is actually the complete Arthur Conan Doyle -- and is as unwieldy to use as you might imagine a single book containing dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories would be.

this week on 100 Films

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

The International (2009)

A lot of scenes involve people explaining the plot to each other, or discoursing in clichés about why they’re going to be thrown off the case or justice is an illusion or whatever. In a rare moment of something approaching innovation, we don’t have to suffer a romance between the two leads. It should be something of a concern when one of a film’s high points is something it doesn’t do.

Is Anybody There? (2008)

Far from being “lightweight”, it’s a subtle tale that covers a lot of ground in an unshowy way. Aside from the main plot, which is very worthwhile in itself — about how a lonely, slightly odd 10-year-old boy and a lonely, stubborn old man accidentally wind up bringing out the best in each other and helping each other to move on from the troubles they’re stuck in — the supporting characters are used to paint succinct pictures of old age, abandonment and regret.

Max Payne: Harder Cut (2008)

director John Moore doesn't use Matrix-derived bullet-time visuals, but, despite keeping a snow-bound New York and a revenge plot, he's somehow managed to also throw out everything that made Max Payne: The Game good. Despite the similarities in plot and setting, this doesn't feel at all like the game. Max Payne: The Film, to put it simply, is a load of crap.

Also this week, an editorial piece on the abundance of Director's Cuts (and the like) that we now see. Which is the definitive version of a film these days? Read my thoughts here.

More next Sunday.

Films

Is Anybody There? (2008)
[#68 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Fiction

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Part 2, Chapters 3 - 5

Articles

Rushdie to write his lost chapter by Ben Hoyle
(from The Australian)

Salman Rushdie has started work on perhaps the most anticipated literary memoir of them all: the story of his decade in hiding from a fatwa.

I think I was always too young to realise exactly how serious the threat against Salman Rushdie was -- and the actions that were carried out by deranged extremists against other people involved in publishing his novel around the world.

TV

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x24 (9/7/10 edition)
So, as most viewers dig into Wossy's last-ever show (on TV) (on the BBC), I'm still watching last week's, as usual. Ho hum. Particularly good episode though, I thought.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

That Mitchell and Webb Look
4x01 Episode 1
When the third series of Mitchell & Webb started (just over a year ago), I noted that I still hadn't watched the second series. And I still haven't. So... yeah...
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Fiction

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Part 2, Chapters 1 - 2
Study in Scarlet certainly has a crazy structure. Holmes solves the case, catches the villain, declares he's finally ready to explain it all... and then it suddenly cuts to decades earlier in America. Time to be a trusting reader... (though I know more or less where it's going anyway).

Sherlock stuff

It's exciting, and so here I share it (taken direct from the official site).

Trailer:

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss interview:

Collection Count

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

More funny number-flippery this week, as another Blu-ray film upgrade replaces two DVDs and a new TV DVD throws further spanners in the works. No doubt it looks much less confusing than it feels, and looks much less interesting than... no, it's not really interesting, is it.

Number of titles in collection: 1,188 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,094 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 94 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 2,924 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,251 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,121 [up 10]

Statistic of the week:

DVDs I never even watched before upgrading them to Blu-ray:
16

A couple of months back I counted the number of DVDs I'd upgraded to Blu-ray, but, despite some similarity, this number isn't that. No, inspired by the double-DVD-replacement I mentioned earlier, this is just the number of titles I've upgraded which I hadn't actually watched when I replaced them with a Blu-ray. Also known as the "list of stuff I really wasted money on" (doubly so in the couple of instances where I still own the DVD, for whatever reason).

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Dragons' Den
8x01 Episode 1
Why have they changed the theme tune? Now it sounds like an '80s American action series.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Wallander [Swedish]
2x09 Dödsängeln (aka The Angel of Death)
It's rare that mystery dramas can pull off a genuinely unforeseen twist that works these days (as much as anything because often everyone's a potential suspect), but it's pretty late in the game that one gets an inkling in this Wallander. A strong episode on the whole, in fact.

Fiction

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Part 1, Chapters 2 - 7
Couldn't resist continuing -- Conan Doyle's tales are so addictive. Plus A Study in Scarlet is actually quite a short book, so I rattled through to the end of Part 1 in all of an hour.
I've read various Sherlock Holmes tales down the years -- I know I've got through Hound of the Baskervilles at least twice, for example, and read The Sussex Vampire many times because it a) always sounds interesting/unusual and b) is really short -- but it's been a long time since the last time (last I remember was the second (or third) time I read Baskervilles, just before the Richard Roxburgh/Ian Hart TV version... in 2002). So it's no surprise I can't definitively remember which I've read and which I haven't, and among this number is A Study in Scarlet. "It's the first, surely I've read it?", I think... and yet I can't remember when, or having to get through the Holmes-less second half, so maybe I haven't after all? And as I've seen a couple of TV adaptations of it (most recently, this one), it's impossible to tell just from knowing the plot.

Articles

If Movie Titles Were Honest
(from Cracked.com)
Photoshop-based hilarity ensues.

TV

Top Gear
15x03 (11/7/10 edition)
It sometimes amazes me how entertaining Top Gear still is -- you'd think they'd've run out of decent stunts by now.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Hipster Priest: A Quietus Interview With Alan Moore by John Doran
(from The Quietus)
Interviews with Alan Moore are always interesting, if often odd. And they remind me that I still haven't read the first issue/book of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III. Not sure where I've left it either...

Mr. Sherlock Holmes by Dr. Joseph Bell
(from Wikisource)
Bell was Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, not something he mentions in this essay, which is more generally about the detective's appeal. And its ending is a pretty fine summation of why Holmes and his adventures endure:

in addition to the creation of his hero, Dr. Conan Doyle in this remarkable series of stories has proved himself a born story-teller. He has had the wit to devise excellent plots, interesting complications; he tells them in honest Saxon-English with directness and pith; and above all his other merits, his stories are absolutely free from padding. He knows how delicious brevity is, how everything tends to be too long, and he has given us stories that we can read at a sitting between dinner and coffee, and we have not a chance to forget the beginning before we reach the end. The ordinary detective story... really needs an effort of memory quite misplaced to keep the circumstances of the crimes and all the wrong scents [in mind]. Dr. Doyle never gives you a chance to forget an incident or miss a point.

Muse: 'We sold our soul to Twilight' by Clare Wiley
(from Digital Spy)
It's a little bit reassuring that they feel that way about it.

You Can't Appreciate How Completely Apple Has Humiliated The Cellphone Industry Until You See These Charts by Henry Blodget
(from SAI (Silicon Alley Insider) at Business Insider)
Does what it says on the tin. Thoroughly.

the double rainbow saga continues...

The funniest take on "Double Rainbow" so far

-- Stephen Friz Frizzle

(For the start of this double rainbow thingamie, look here.)

TV

Stand Up for the Week
1x03 (9/7/10 edition)
I have come to the only reasonable conclusion for my continuing Jack Whitehall dilemma: he must be getting funnier. This explains why I've been finding him funny of late without meaning I've lost my sense of (good) humour. Win-win!
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Fiction

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Part 1, Chapter 1
Giving iBooks a test run on my iPhone, a sample chapter from the complete Sherlock Holmes seemed a good a choice as any.
I tried several different editions: two showed why reading books on your phone is as ridiculous as it sounds, one was excellent and showed why it can actually work. Goes to show how care and attention to your product can make all the difference. Not to mention that the book itself is a great opening to Holmes' first case.

Articles

Today seems to be Steven Moffat Press Release Day at the BBC...

Father who? The Doctor crashes Christmas
(from the BBC Press Office)
Interesting casting for the Doctor Who Christmas special. Still no title or plot details though.

Sherlock press pack
(from the BBC Press Office)
Soon to be Moffat's Other Series, I'm rather excited for this present-day re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes. Page two has a great interview with Moffat and co-recreator Mark Gatiss about their thinking behind the series and how they've gone about adapting various elements of the original adventures.

TV

The Mentalist
2x21 18-5-4
Why, in dramas, are people's email addresses always something like "beastslayer646"? I don't know anyone that has [generic gamer name]+[random numbers] for their address -- and I don't believe the kind of people who have them in dramas would settle for that either.
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Murderland
Part 3 Carol's Story [final episode]
Despite ITV's promotion claiming this final part follows the murdered mother, the title gives away the truth: it's actually the tale of the grown-up girl, part one's Carrie with the adult version of her name. Hard to say if that's marketing trying to cover something perceived as a twist, or just trying to liven up an otherwise unexemplary flashback structure with the idea that the final episode followed the deceased victim.
Still, the plot itself manages a couple of final reveals that subvert where it seemed to be leading you, although the ultimate culprits aren't that surprising really -- it's the kind of end that pulls of moderately unexpected twists without making them properly shocking or raising the level of the series above "good". Ho hum.

Rev.
1x02 Episode 2
I'm not particularly a fan of Christians, but these 'iChristian' types must be the worst by a country mile.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]