TV

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 1 (of 7)
Can't say I think much of Snow as a presenter -- constantly talking over people, cutting them off, not giving them time to answer, racing on to the next thing... It's good not to let a programme be too slow, but this seems over-stuffed considering the speed they kept having to move on.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Pointless
6x42 (10/5/12 edition)

Films

The Falcon's Brother (1942)
[#71 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x04 Invasion of the Secret Santas!
1x06 Enter the Outsiders!
I sort of have and sort of haven't caught up with Channel 5's airings now -- they've also had six episodes, but skipped the Christmas one (understandably). So... I mean, it doesn't matter, does it.

The Newsroom
1x05 Amen

Yes, Prime Minister
2x04 A Conflict of Interest

Films

The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
[#70 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Discovering Hergé
Documentary about the creator of Tintin, Georges Remi, aka Hergé, with specific focus on, well, Tintin.
It's a good informative piece, for my money. One review said it skirted round the controversies of his life, but to me it seemed those were the focus. It doesn't dwell on any one because it's 45 minutes and has more years than that to get through, but it seemed to me to skip past the Tintin books with less controversial content and focus on those that have provoked some debate. Which as it was about Herge and not Tintin seemed fair enough to me.

The Great British Bake Off
3x02 Bread
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Vexed
2x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Gates
1x02 Episode 2

Horrible Histories
4x11 Episode 11

Person of Interest
1x01 Pilot
So good it prompted US network CBS to move perenially-popular CSI out of its time slot for the first time in a decade, Person of Interest is a crime series with a difference: they're trying to prevent crimes, not solve them. It's always tough to judge a show from its pilot -- this could become just case-of-the-week filler, with the danger of becoming po-faced about it; but there's enough promise to keep going. And considering the people behind Lost are involved, there's a remarkable lack of hints at A Big Story. Not even a season arc, never mind a take-over-the-whole-show one. Maybe that's all to come.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

A Date with the Falcon (1942)
[#69 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

Top 10 jokes of the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe
(from The British Comedy Guide)
Oh, very good.

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x03 Evil Under the Sea!
1x05 Day of the Dark Knight!
I don't know what Aquaman was like in the comics before, but his New 52 incarnation is certainly nothing like this! If you've seen Thor, essentially it's Thor and Loki. I didn't even know Aquaman had a brother.
And in the next episode, Green Lantern proves to be even more annoying than in his film, and Green Arrow isn't that likeable either. There's a lesson here...
(For some reason my download has episode five as episode four and episode four as episode five. Dunno why. Either way, next one's Christmas themed.)

Suburgatory
1x05 Halloween
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

The Gay Falcon (1941)
[#68 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]
RKO's Saint-esque Falcon series begins here.

Articles

Hollywood director Tony Scott jumps to death from bridge
(from BBC News)

I've long admired Tony Scott's films, thinking he's been a bit overshadowed by the critical and awards success furnished on his older brother. The outpouring of praise across twitter, etc, today has shown that I wasn't alone in this belief. Sadly, I think he may be one of those people who's more appreciated after he's gone.

TV

Pointless
6x41 (9/5/12 edition)

Films

The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)
[#67 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

The final film in RKO's eight-movie Saint series. My reviews of the first six can be found here, here and here.

this week on 100 Films

Six (yes, six) brand new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week! They were...

102 Dalmatians (2000)

It’s at its best early on, with Cruella de Vil turned nice. It’s different and allows more room to be original and funny. Director Kevin Lima imbues it with a kind of craziness that transcends being a Silly Children’s Film and borders on silliness-as-art. A moment where London is completely dalmatian-coloured is particularly good

Read more here.

The Saint Strikes Back (1939)

Sanders’ portrayal of Templar is witty and enjoyably knowing, even more so than Louis Hayward in the previous film. He’s at once more laid-back and less self-certain; by which I mean you can sometimes see him working out his devilishly clever plans as he goes along, rather than floating through with invulnerability... Though I’ve never seen the ’60s TV series, here I can see clearly how Roger Moore was suited to the role.

Read more here.

The Saint in London (1939)

Best of all is Sally Gray as Penny Parker, a charming girl Templar bumps into — as he’s wont to do — who forcibly strings along for the ride. Every film in the series contains a pretty young thing who falls for the Saint, and who he seems to fall for back before casually disregarding at the end. Of all the girls the series offers, though, plucky Penny is the one you’d wish had stuck around.

Read more here.

The Saint's Double Trouble (1940)

the way events unfold feels like no one paid a huge amount of attention to the plot. It all just about makes sense, if you care to think about it, and some of it is deliberately confusing... But I don’t think that excuses everything; instead, I believe it’s structured to sweep you along from one bit of derring do to the next.

Read more here.

The Saint Takes Over (1940)

Fernack has been suspended from the force. Naturally his BFF Simon Templar swings by to help. What ensues is a 180 from the usual formula: rather than Fernack constantly suspecting the Saint of being the actual perpetrator of the crimes he claims to be solving, here every murder occurs while the Saint is out of the room, but while Fernack has plenty of opportunity to commit it. Much fun ensues as Templar teases his chum.

Read more here.

The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)

Wendy Barrie is, for once, simply the ingénue and not some form of criminal mastermind. Don’t worry, there’s another girl for that: Linda Hayes, who seems a promising match for the Saint but, though prominent early on, is ultimately disregarded. The highlight for both women comes when they get invited along for a horse ride with the Saint and have a good bitch at each other. It’s a pickle quite unlike the ones Templar usually finds himself in!

Read more here.

And as if that weren't enough, I added a couple more animation reviews too...

Presto (2008)

Completely dialogue free, it quickly becomes a breakneck feast of visual, mostly slapstick, humour. It may be violent, but it’s also highly witty, marvelously inventive, and wholly entertaining… even if the hero is morally dubious. But then, Roadrunner was a total wanker and he always won.

Read more here.

Ratatouille (2007)

it is a good film, but it is also a flawed one. It’s not nearly funny enough for a kid’s movie — laughs are almost non-existent in the first half and hard to come by in the second — and it’s too long, needing a good chunk taken out of that duller first half. It’s a bit confused as to who the villain is, meaning there’s a lack of real menace from either of the candidates. Despite a professed aim to make rats lovable, they’re not really.

Read more here.

More (though I seriously doubt more) next Sunday.

TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x01 The Rise of the Blue Beetle!
1x02 Terror on Dinosaur Island!

This most recent of the many Batman animated series recently came to an end (well, nine months ago), but it's just begun being shown on Channel 5 over here. It started during the Olympics, so I'm playing catch-up now (they're up to episode five, so not much catch-up).

I believe it was consciously designed to be a lighter, brighter, more kid-centric Bat-cartoon, after decades of darkness across the likes of Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond. It means it's a crazy kind of colourful fun that you don't find anywhere else in the Bat-verse right now (and soon won't find any longer, as the new animated series replacing it -- Beware the Batman -- very much swings back towards the dark). Far from the gritty real-world / quasi-real-world of current Batman films and comics, these two episodes feature space travel through a wormhole to save an amoebic alien race on the other side of the galaxy and a battle against a race of gorilla-men on a dinosaur-populated island. You don't get much less "gritty" or "real" than that.

Each episode, Batman teams up with a different DC hero. That part doesn't work so well in these two episodes. I mean, they're not bad, but both feature a lesser-known member of DC's cast, and both have essentially the same character arc (prove they're worthy to be a hero, saving Batman in the process; while he also does some saving-y stuff so as to not appear useless). Hopefully there's more variety to come.


Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food
1x01 Easy Entertaining
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Once Upon a Time
1x15 Red Handed
That was, by OUaT's standards, exceptional. By anyone else's it was "quite good", but, y'know, every little helps.

Films

The Saint's Vacation (1941)
[#66 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Collection Count

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

Just another DVD-to-BD upgrade this week, this time of the TV series Rome -- so one less disc, and a whole lot of shelf space saved!

Number of titles in collection: 1,507 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,160 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 347 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,733 [down 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,591 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,618 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Outnumbered
2x01 Episode 1 [2nd watch]
2x02 Episode 2 [3rd watch]
Stumbled across these on one of the endless repeats channels. Remembered them so clearly, I was surprised to discover that a) they were only series two (thought it had been running a while by this point, for some reason), and b) I supposedly haven't watched them since at least 2009. Probably seen bits here and there. If by some weird fluke you still haven't seen Outnumbered, you really really should.

Playhouse Presents
1x05 City Hall

Wilfred
2x01 Progress
You may happen to recall that I abandoned the first series of Wilfred nine months ago, but a good review in the Radio Times -- including mention of a guest appearance by Robin Williams -- led me to give it another shot as season two began. It was always fine, this is no different; don't imagine I'll bother continuing.

Films

The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)
[#65 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

TV

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Behind the Magic

Last June, with Deathly Hallows Part 2's cinema release imminent, I finally watched the TV making-of about Part 1. Now, another year on, I've finally cleared Part 2's equivalent off my V+ box. Funny how these things work out. (It's also provoked by the fact that Part 2 is coming to Sky Movies soon, so I ought to get my bloody review up -- I only watched it at the start of January!)

Despite being on ITV and presented by Ben Shephard, these do a surprisingly good job of going behind-the-scenes. It's not a thorough, detailed exploration of how the film is made, of course, but in sharing a few interesting facts and figures and capturing the opinions of cast and crew -- particularly valuable (in a "for fans" way, obviously) as the series comes to a close after a decade -- it's nice.


Once Upon a Time
1x14 Dreamy
Ugh.


The Rob Brydon Show
3x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]