TV

Batman: The Brave and the Bold
1x07 Dawn of the Dead Man!
1x08 Fall of the Blue Beetle!

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Nine
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Eight
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Films

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (2009)
[#76 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]
aka The Other Woman in the US.

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Seven
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Six
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Films

The Hunger Games (2012)
[#75 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

aka The Hunger Games: The Unseen Version in the UK, where it was originally released cut for violence (more details here). The unmodified "international cut" is now available on Blu-ray only.

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Five
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

TV

Doctor Who
33x00f Asylum of the Daleks Prequel
Turns out today that Americans who subscribed to Who through iTunes or Amazon have been treated to an exclusive 2½-minute prologue to last night's new ep. So that's nice for them. British show and all that, eh. Anyway, it's typically unessential -- if it were essential it'd be in the episode, wouldn't it -- but, as these prequels go, it's quite good. You can watch it here or embedded below.

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Four
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Films

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
[#74 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

this week on 100 Films

Four brand new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week.

But before that, we're now in September, so there's also my round-up of August. Not a bad haul this month.

Now, those new reviews...

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

but I can't say a naval inaction film with Russell Crowe held massive appeal. Turns out I was completely wrong. For starters, it's definitely not an "inaction" movie. It's not an action movie in the regularly understood sense of non-stop fights on varying scales, but there are a few stunningly realised naval battles

Read more here.

The Saint's Vacation (1941)

The Saint’s gone on vacation indeed — with the saintly George Sanders nabbed for RKO’s rip-off Falcon series, here we’re treated to fellow Brit Hugh Sinclair’s take on Leslie Charteris’ hero. For “treated” read “subjected”. I’ll come back to him, because sadly he’s not the only thing that makes this the worst film in the entire series.

Read more here.

The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)

the series’ final film. Fortunately, it’s quite a good one. Whether it be by conscious effort or serendipity, several of the problems suffered by The Saint’s Vacation are rectified here. Consensus seems to hold this is even worse than Hugh Sinclair’s first Saint film, but I definitely preferred it.

Read more here.

The Spiral Staircase (2000)

it feels like an adaptation of one of those doorstop-sized airport romance paperbacks... Despite the implications of an “X months ago” prologue in which someone is followed by a spooky pair of eyes, the first half is more cheap, tacky, romance-of-the-week TV movie than serial killer thriller.

Read more here.

Plus, because of the above, I did a new Make/Remake piece on The Spiral Staircases, including my 2010 review of the 1945 version.

Finally, I added an editorial from a year ago to the new blog, 25 Films I Own That I Really Should Have Seen, complete with a one-year-on update. It's not very impressive.

More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
33x00b Pond Life Part 2
33x00c Pond Life Part 3
33x00d Pond Life Part 4
33x00e Pond Life Part 5
33x01 Asylum of the Daleks

I suspect Pond Life will work better as a single thing than it ever did in five parts, which is no bad thing.

And then the main course... Well, with the amount of attention thats's on Who -- including, apparently, no less than four preview screenings in four different countries -- it's incredible they managed to keep such a big secret for so long. What's also nice is that, as viewers with such a high awareness of behind-the-scenes machinations, we know this is going to have Big Consequences for Christmas and beyond; as will the ending, of course.

But until then, this works with their stated aim: to make a blockbuster movie every week. Not the most blockbustery movie episode ever, even by Who's standards (despite some grand bits, like the Parliament of the Daleks, Skaro, and the mountain range, it gets a bit self-contained once they're in the asylum), but pretty good nonetheless.

[Watch Pond Life and Asylum of the Daleks (again) at those links.]


London 2012 Paralympics
Day Three
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Articles

Joss Whedon Talks All Things Marvel: The Avengers 2, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Show, and Cut Scenes
by Kyle Buchanan (from Vulture)

Some interesting snippets from Mr Whedon on various bits & bobs mentioned in that title. Don't expect great insights, it's too early for that.

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,509 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,161 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 348 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,737 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,592 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,631 [up 13]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day Two
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Screenwriters - The BAFTA and BFI Lecture Series
1x05 Frank Cottrell Boyce
You can watch 10 minutes of 'highlights' of this episode on the BFI's website, or listen to the full audio on BAFTA Guru. The latter also has a complete transcript of the session, which is downloadable as a PDF from here.

TV

London 2012 Paralympics
Day One
Including The Last Leg with Adam Hills, their light-hearted end-of-the-day round-up, which I thought did a good job of hitting the tone between covering what happened and being amusing. Doesn't appear to have its own section on the C4 site though, or even be on 4oD, so...
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

TV

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 6 (of 7)
Episode 7 (of 7)
Who ever thought Rick Edwards would do an immeasurably better job than Jon Snow?
[Watch episodes six and seven (again) on 4oD.]

London 2012 Paralympics
Opening Ceremony
[Watch coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site and 4oD.]

A Touch of Cloth
1x02 Part 2 (of 2)

TV

Adam Buxton's Bug
1x03 Episode Three
1x04 Episode Four

Jon Snow's Paralympic Show
Episode 4 (of 7)
Episode 5 (of 7)
[Watch episodes four and five (again) on 4oD.]

The Rob Brydon Show
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Suburgatory
1x06 Charity Case
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

A Touch of Cloth
1x01 Part 1 (of 2)
Bloody funny, I thought. Glad that there's already two more commissioned.
Incidentally, the official site has some worthwhile bits & bobs, including a list of background gags you might've missed.

TV

Doctor Who
33x00a Pond Life Part 1
That was... brief. And quite funny, I suppose. It'll be better on DVD when they (presumably) edit it together into one four-and-a-bit-minutes thing rather than daily 50 second bursts.
[Watch it (again) on the official Doctor Who website.]

Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food
1x02 Feel Good Food
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Meat Loaf: Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
More slightly random music viewing thanks to Sky Arts. They really can be a treasure trove.

Person of Interest
1x02 Ghosts
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

The Falcon in Danger (1943)
[#73 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

Articles

Leading ‘Ethical’ TV Show BitTorrent Tracker Shut Down By FACT
by enigmax (from TorrentFreak)

They're referring to UKNova, which was excellent for acquiring smaller UK TV shows that might not be picked up by bigger international torrent sites. They were ethical because anything commercially available was banned -- they'd even stop allowing series halfway through if a DVD/etc release had been announced.
As someone on twitter said, "So the message is: if you try to help the rightsholders, they will burn you anyway. So might as well offer everything." Shooting themselves in the foot & all that.