TV

Now all that sport is over, it's time for a massive catch-up...

The Great British Bake Off
3x03 Tarts
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Rob Brydon Show
3x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Wallander [British]
3x03 Before the Frost [season finale]

Articles

Wallander is on the case again, in six new Mankell thrillers
by Jorn Rossing Jensen (from Cineuropa)

Swedish actor Krister Henriksson has embarked on his third assignment as Ystad Detective Inspector Kurt Wallander - the lonely, slightly overweight, but excellent crime investigator - in an €11.3 milllion package of six thrillers based on Swedish author Henning Mankell's character...

Swedish director Agneta Fagerström-Olsson last week (May 28) started principal photography for The Troubled Man, from Mankell's tenth and last Wallander novel... The Troubled Man will be released theatrically, while the five following films will go straight to television-home entertainment.

Despite this news being months old, I've only just stumbled across it. Very exciting it is too. Hopefully BBC Four will pick them up once they're all done.

TV

Gates
1x03 Episode 3

London 2012: Our Greatest Team Parade
and
Our Greatest Team: Athletes' Parade Live
The Channel 4 and BBC coverage (respectively) of the TeamGB/ParalympicsGB celebratory parade, which I watched a bit of both of for failed-recording reasons. Worth it for Boris' speech alone.
[Watch the BBC's coverage on iPlayer, and Channel 4's on their Paralympics videos site.]

TV

The Great British Paraorchestra


London 2012 Paralympics
Day Eleven
Closing Ceremony

That's it! Shame it came to end with a glorified Coldplay gig, but hey, the sport stuff was good. Whatever will we do now?

[Watch archived coverage, including the closing ceremony, on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

this week on 100 Films

Four new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

George Sanders as the Falcon
Reviews of the first three films in RKO's crime-adventure series: The Gay Falcon, A Date with the Falcon, and The Falcon Takes Over, the last of which is the first screen adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel (Farewell, My Lovely, to be precise).
Read more here.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Thematically it boils down to a man vs nature parable; about how we mistreat it, but also how we think we’re so far above it. Some of these themes may seem obvious, but they’re not overly spelt out — no one stands around bemoaning experimentation on animals, or lamenting man’s hubris in not taking the ape threat seriously enough.

Read more here.

And new to the new blog...

It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004)

If you’re into dance music/clubbing/Ibiza/etc, then this film is definitely aimed at you. As for the rest of us normal folk… well, to be honest, it’s actually a fair bit better than I was expecting!

Read more here.

The Outrage (1964)

If you’ve ever seen Akira Kurosawa’s classic Rashomon, the opening minutes of The Outrage will leave you in no doubt that you’re watching a Hollywood remake... But don’t mistake this effort for a thoroughly pointless rehash — though it can’t better the original, The Outrage has much going for it.

Read more here.

More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
33x02 Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Living up to their blockbustery aims here, I think, with an episode that's technically just as confined to a single facility as last week's but somehow feels grander.

There's an argument to be made it was the perfect evocation of Who: exciting, funny, emotional, subversive, with a clever continuity, and, most of all, utterly barmy. People have picked faults, but most of them are bad natured -- this is about having fun, and it achieves that massively with no serious problems. (Seriously, you're whinging the Triceratops was too slow? Go watch something else, you've missed the point!)

I imagine I'm in the minority, but while I did like Asylum of the Daleks, I properly enjoyed Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Fun wins.

[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


London 2012 Paralympics
Day Ten
Final day tomorrow! Final Last Leg tonight! Gonna miss it.
[Watch archived and live (when it's on) coverage on Channel 4's Paralympics site.]

Collection Count

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

Quite a surge this week to the main numbers, as you'll see, but it's had a surprising minimal effect on the monthly running time update. That's because the 18 TV episodes are actually an adjustment I missed, so it's actually just five new films. Neat increase number though.

There may be some uncommonly big changes next week -- I'm thinking of making some changes to how I record the collection that could knock some numbers around. We'll see.

Number of titles in collection: 1,514 [up 5]
Of which DVDs: 1,163 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 351 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 3,745 [up 8]
Number of films in collection: 1,597 [up 5]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,649 [up 18]

And that running time update...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
269 days, 7 hours, and 12 minutes.
(Up 22 hours and 22 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

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.