TV

The Newsroom
1x01 We Just Decided To
Seems to have been quite a lot of criticism of this in the press, but I really enjoyed it. Took a while to get going certainly, and there were flaws in other areas too, but overall I thought it worked. If it can build up the good bits and pull back on the bad over the next few episodes, it'll be great.

Mock the Week
11x05 (12/7/12 edition)
Last week it was episode 100, week before that they'd actually made a Monsoon Poultry Hospital DVD, this time Andy Murray's in the audience -- they seem to be rolling out the special this series.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Famous Five set for a TV comeback
(from ScreenTerrier)

This has all kinds of intriguing written all over it, from the premise (modern girl travels back in time to join '50s gang -- way to get modern kids on board) to the format ("allowing channels to run it as a 13x45 minute or 26x22 minute series").

Collection Count

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

This week, everything that was meant to turn up last week arrives -- and more! And almost all of them DVDs too. Can't remember the last time I bought so many DVDs (as opposed to Blu-rays), especially when they're all films and several of them from the past decade (I still get plenty of classic TV on DVD).

So I sail past 1,500 and on to... a number slightly bigger than 1,500. Shame really, because this week also sees the monthly running time update, and wouldn't it have been nice to have that at a round number like 1,500? Ah well, never mind.

Number of titles in collection: 1,504 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 1,161 [up 5]
Of which Blu-rays: 343 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,719 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 1,587 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,566 [down 13]

Also this week, I came across a glaring error in my list, where I discovered I'd credited a single-film BD as having 2 films and 13 episodes of TV. The fact I didn't notice this before concerns me that my current explanation (2:13 is also the film's running time, so I think I'd accidentally duplicated it) is a coincidence and somewhere I've listed something else (or somethings else) incorrectly. But I'll just have to go with what I know and have adjusted the numbers accordingly.

With that said, here's the always-exciting running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
267 days, 6 hours, and 13 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 4 hours, and 16 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Once Upon a Time
1x11 Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

Pointless
6x38 (4/5/12 edition)

Twenty Twelve
2x05 Catastrophisation
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror is handed second series
by Alex Fletcher (from Digital Spy)

Very pleased about this. Enjoyed the first series and I think there should always be room for thought-provoking boundary-pushing sci-fi on TV. And anthology series too, which are also few and far between but an excellent form.

TV

Once Upon a Time
1x10 7:15 A.M.
They have all the fairytale characters speaking cod-historical fantasy dialogue, then one asks, "are you OK?" Must try harder.

Pointless Celebrities
2x06 (26/5/12 edition)

TV

A Short History of Everything Else
1x04 Episode 4
Why does anyone ever book Roisin Conaty? She's not funny and seems to be quite incredibly dense.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Superstar
1x01 Auditions
1x02 Superstar Island Auditions
Andrew Lloyd Webber tries to find his own personal Jesus, as it were.
[Watch episodes one and two (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Batman Returns (1992)
[4th or so watch]

Tim Burton's first Batman film is great, no doubt, but Returns is a much better film in so many ways. The direction, writing, acting, action and effects are all slicker. They spent over twice as much money on it and it really shows. Plus they have exactly the same running time (to the very minute), but Batman feels surprisingly small scale and Returns feels epic.

Watched today, Batman feels Old now, whereas Returns… it's from '92, of course it doesn't feel New -- but it feels more like newer films, in a good way. Easily the franchise's best effort until at least Begins, possibly until Dark Knight, perhaps even of all (I've not seen Nolan's two for a long time, so we'll see when I get to them).


Passchendaele (2008)
[#55 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Dexter
5x10 In the Beginning
5x11 Hop a Freighter
5x12 The Big One [season finale]
Episode 10 ended with too much exciting unresolvededness to stop, and then 11 felt more like the first half of a finale than its own episode (honestly, that ending… it felt like they made a double-length episode with various possible break points halfway through and just went with the place nearest the middle).
Anyway, the season as a whole I enjoyed. Like I said some time before, it's probably not the very best Dexter's had to offer, but it's not below its usual standard either. Though I agree with critics that Lumen's exit wasn't wholly plausible and could perhaps have been handled better.
I've not heard fab things about season six... but then, same for this one, so we'll see.

Episodes
2x09 Episode 9 [season finale]
Good ending. Hope we get a third series.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Batman (1989)
[4th or so watch]

I realised yesterday that I haven't watched a Batman film since the Adam West one three years ago, and I haven't watched one of the modern (i.e. Tim Burton and later) ones since I saw The Dark Knight in cinemas! With my curiosity piqued, I worked out that I probably haven't watched the others (i.e. Batman, Returns, Forever, and Robin, Begins) since 2006. That's like forever.

So, with the final part of Nolan's Bat trilogy less than two weeks away, I thought, "what better time to re-watch them all?" So I intend to.

Main thought after this one is how weird it is watching it in the wake of Nolan's films. This used to be the dark and serious take on superheroes, treating them in a more grown-up fashion. Now, it looks positively comic book-y. Sure, it's a bit grown-up -- there's elements of psychology and adult relationships, not just Boy's Own Adventure -- but the level of heightened reality and camp... nothing like comic book adaptations now.

Also, you forget just how true it was that the earlier Batman films focussed more on the villains than the hero. Batman's in the first scene, but that's it for a while, and it takes Bruce Wayne ages to appear. The story follows Jack Napier/the Joker and a pair of journalists, primarily Vicki Vale, though (again) I think it's easy to forget how prominent her partner (Alexander Knox, played by Robert Wuhl) is. The film puts a little more emphasis on Wayne/Batman later on, but for a hefty chunk it's not really about him at all. You can really see why Nolan & co thought that was a seam waiting to be tapped when it came to Begins.

(Incidentally, I first saw Batman when I was a kid, so I have no idea how many times I've actually seen it. Same goes for Returns (same situation) and Forever (which I saw in the cinema, but don't really know how many times I may've watched it on TV, etc). All of these numbers are, therefore, a guesstimate.)

TV

Wimbledon 2012
Andy Murray, the first Brit in the men's final for 76 years... and he lost to Roger Federer. Thank God.
[Watch the men's final, and many other matches, on iPlayer.]

Yes, Prime Minister
2x01 Man Overboard

Films

16 Blocks (2006)
[#54 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

The Judge Dredd Movie Trilogy, As Loosely Planned By Writer Alex Garland
by Brendon Connelly (from Bleeding Cool)

They know roughly what they'll do for sequels to Dredd, and that sounds exciting. This is an important point to take away, for those of us hoping we'll get more:

Putting a number on it is always a bit approximate, but Garland said that $50 million box office from Dredd in the US would be enough to get a sequel in motion.

These things are never 100% -- it could flop at the US box office but do incredibly well round the world, say, and if you're making a profit in most markets then a sequel is still a good idea. Plus there's always DVD/Blu-ray, which can be huge for a film like this: Kick-Ass 'only' made $96m at the worldwide box office, but it's done more like $250m with home ent included. (I believe Dredd cost a little more than Kick-Ass, but they're in the same ballpark.)

this week on 100 Films

One new reviews was posted to 100 Films in a Year this week...

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

Naturally there are plenty of action sequences, several of them tacked on for the sake of it. Personally I wasn’t impressed. They’re all clearly shot on digital video, several are under-lit, there’s too much Hollywood-style choppy editing, it felt like some had bits missing, others are stop-start in a way that adds up to not very much… Many of them left me confused about what was meant to be going on, not in awe of the performer’s abilities or entertained. One of them features the hero fighting a gaggle of cheap CGI deer.

Read more on my new blog or my classic blog.

As its terrestrial TV premiere was last Friday night, I also added my review of the 2009 film version of State of Play to the new blog. You can find that here.

More next Sunday.

Films

Green Lantern: Extended Cut (2011)
[#53 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Comics

Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation² #2 by Scott & David Tipton (with Tony Lee) & J.K. Woodward

This is marginally better than the awful issue one, but not by much. That showed us an adventure with the TARDIS crew in ancient Egypt, ending with them meeting the Enterprise gang in '20s San Francisco; this issue shows their perspective, having an 'adventure' on a water-covered planet before encountering the Doctor & co, in what is actually a Holodeck simulation (of course). Except their 'adventure' involves four or five pages of people discussing mining works, followed by a little bit of flooding. It's as thrilling as watching paint dry.

When the two crews get together things liven up a little, but it's all too brief. I say "brief" -- it's a 20-page comic, it's just hardly anything happens on each page. The Tiptons' dialogue is clunky, though that might just be the Trek style. Still, it doesn't wring right, often coming across like a first draft no one bothered to refine. Woodward's art is still awful, a loose mishmash of photo reference and indistinct long-shots.

With the two crews teaming up, and some mysteries that promise to be built upon (the cover for #3 features the fourth Doctor, Kirk and Spock), there's potential for this series to improve. But Woodward's art isn't going to do it any favours, and the kerfuffle over regular IDW Who scribe Tony Lee leaving the book halfway through is concerning too. I don't hold out great hope.

Articles

Ron Perlman Is Hellboy Again For Make-A-Wish
by Brendon Connelly (from Bleeding Cool)

Reviews of Batman: Earth One from
ACB by John Barringer
CBR by Doug Zawisza
iFanboy by Chris Arrant
IGN by Joey Esposito

They're all very positive, and make it sound enticingly intriguing -- not something you'd expect from yet another re-telling of Batman's origin story -- which is why I've decided to dive in and buy it.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x10 The Passage

How I Met Your Mother
7x20 Trilogy Time
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Mock the Week
11x04 (5/7/12 edition)
aka Episode 100. Loved the "best bits" montage.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

Animal Man #7 & #8 by Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh & Travel Foreman

I've slipped dreadfully far behind with Animal Man (#11 was out last Wednesday, and there's been an annual too), so it's about time I began to catch-up -- starting (obviously) with this two-parter.

Sadly, I didn't think it was up to the standard I remember the book having. It's too slow (taking four pages to tell something you could do with just as much depth in two) with the occasional horrendous gap in logic (you're driving along, you see a massive stampede of angry animals coming toward you, so you... get out and run the other way on foot?!) The second part is better, with some twists and a big cliffhanger, but still slight.

And there's no way this should only be rated T+.

Articles

10 Interesting Things From The Dark Knight Rises Press Pack
by Alasdair Stuart (from Bleeding Cool)

My favourite was about how they've done the Batcave (#9 on that list). The full, surprisingly lengthy (49 pages! Throw in a few pictures and paperback-sized formatting and you've got yourself a book!), press pack can be found here.


Dark Knight Rises: Christopher Nolan takes Batman to new place
by Geoff Boucher (from Hero Complex at the Los Angeles Times)

An in depth feature on TDKR -- and a proper newspaper-with-access-y one, not a fansite "cribbed together from old news articles and our opinions"-y one. Belying the professionalism, it was riddled with typos when I read it last night, but they may have fixed those by now.