TV

Busy day in front of the telly...

Downton Abbey
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Lorraine's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food
1x04 Baking It

Merlin
5x01 Arthur's Bane Part One
I think the popularity of Merlin has caught some people by surprise. It started off OK, a lesser Doctor Who-slot drama, but as the series has grown so its audience seems to have been established -- this season five premiere gained around 6 million viewers according to the overnights, leaving it just behind Strictly and X Factor. It's in the same ballpark as Who these days, rather than a couple of million behind it. I wouldn't argue it's that good, but it is still fun with an increased edge as it's grown older. And as the producers always said they had a five year plan, perhaps getting somewhere fast too.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Peep Show
4x03 Gym
4x04 Handyman
Remember when I watched the first ever episode of Peep Show and didn't like it so never watched it again (despite what I said)? Yeah. But this was on Dave when I wasn't feeling so well and I just let it happen. And it was quite good, actually.

Person of Interest
1x09 Get Carter
Much like Suburgatory, having to download to catch up got me in the habit and now I've overtaken C5. Oh well.
[Watch it on Demand 5 from Tuesday 9th October.]

Suburgatory
1x15 Fire with Fire

this week on 100 Films

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

But before that, October has just begun, so here's the September update.

And with that out of the way, those reviews...


The Negotiator (1998)

As premises go, “hostage negotiator turns hostage taker” is a doozy. You can immediately imagine all the drama to be had from pitting The Best Negotiator In The World against The Second Best Negotiator In The World — he’ll know all the techniques! He’ll… well, mainly the techniques one. But also his colleagues will be working against him — will they be on his side? Or against him? It practically writes itself.

Read more here.


Unknown (2011)

In the film’s special features, producer Leonard Goldberg talks about how, having made thrillers his whole life, when he starts reading or watching them he can usually figure it all out early on, but the novel on which Unknown is based managed to surprise him. Thinking if it could surprise him it might surprise others too, he snapped up the rights, and I must say I think he was right.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...

Melinda and Melinda (2004)

One might argue that this is a remake of Sliding Doors, but only in a superficial and unsustainable way. Here, two stories are told, both taking the same premise — a Manhattan dinner party is interrupted — but one is told as a tragedy and one is told as a comedy. The only common factor is Radha Mitchell’s Melinda, who takes on a very different role in each tale.

Read more here.


Taken (2008)

remember Man On Fire? The Tony Scott/Denzel Washington one. Well, replace Washington with Neeson and Dakota Fanning’s character with “his daughter” and you’ve more or less got it. Taken is practically a remake, only in Europe, with a happier ending, and an hour shorter. It’s also not as good, but that’s a different matter.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week. I'm a bit under the weather at the moment, hence the overnight delay in this post. I doubt anyone noticed.

And there's not much at all to notice this week, either. I would've had Prometheus and the Indiana Jones BDs in the past, but all websites seem to be rubbish at getting pre-orders out early these days; plus for those I went with sites who have always been bad at it, so what do you expect.

In other news, it's the running time update. Big new Bond box set could make a large impact... except it replaces all the equivalent films on DVD. Still, that makes it 4.167% longer anyway...

Number of titles in collection: 1,492 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,143 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 349 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 3,703 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,507 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,679 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 367 [up 2]

And the running time update goes as follows...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
269 days and 40 minutes.
(Down 6 hours and 32 minutes from last month.)

...oh. I must confess, I'm not entirely sure how it's gone down. But that's what it says, so...

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Comedy World Cup
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Dragons' Den
10x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Monroe
2x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x05 Episode Five
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Dr. No (1962)
[4th or so watch]

50 years ago yesterday, Dr. No hit cinemas and a phenomenon was born. What more appropriate to watch on James Bond Day (well, just after it) than this?

I'm also hoping it'll be the start of a complete re-watch of all the Bond films, now on Blu-ray. I've tried twice before (once covered in part on this very blog) but not yet made it all the way through in a reasonable period of time. Third time lucky…

And therefore, all going to plan, I'll be reviewing this as #81a in 100 Films 2012, alongside the other '60s Bond films, at a later date. This is also one of the ones I covered on here before, back in June 2008.

TV

QI
10x03 Journeys (XL edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Vexed
2x06 Episode 6 [season finale]

TV

Arrested Development
1x06 Visiting Ours
1x07 In God We Trust
1x08 My Mother, the Car

Once Upon a Time
1x21 An Apple Red as Blood
1x22 A Land Without Magic [season finale]
Well that's that then. Wait, this got recommissioned?! How?!
I jest -- of course I knew it had been recommissioned (it's already started Stateside). The "how" still stands though.

Mock the Week
11x10 (27/9/12 edition)

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x02 Episode Two
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Red Dwarf
10x01 Trojan
Hurrah for the Dwarfers' long-awaited return! It's three-and-a-half years since even Back to Earth, never mind the 13 since the cliffhanger-ended Red Dwarf VIII... not that I imagine we'll ever see that resolved.

Music

Skyfall by Adele

Technically this is out later (in a few minutes after this is posted, actually), but it was played on radio earlier today.

After one listen... it's quite good, rather Bond-y, a change of pace from the last two. Takes far too long to get going though -- hope that's where they make the inevitable cuts for inclusion in the title sequence. It's always best when the title appears on screen when it turns up in the lyrics, and as this is the first film for 10 years to have the title in the lyric...

TV

The Great British Bake Off
3x08 Biscuits
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Person of Interest
1x08 Foe
I suppose Alan Dale had to turn up at some point. Makes a change for him not to be set up as a recurring character.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

TV

Once Upon a Time
1x20 The Stranger

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
1x01 Episode One
Or #pogdogs, as per the hashtag that was displayed on screen five times in 22 minutes.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Suburgatory
1x14 The Body

TV

Cuckoo
1x01 The Homecoming
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Family Guy
10x23 Internal Affairs [season finale]
10x22 Family Guy Viewer Mail #2
BBC Three finished this season of Family Guy last night. The new season began in the US last night. Not everything makes it over here promptly yet then, I guess.
And they showed them the way round listed above, which does seem to make more sense. It was the second one I was watching for, because it contained (essentially) Family Guy If It Was British. Which was... alright. The bit from Stewie's point of view was better.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Once Upon a Time
1x19 The Return

The Rob Brydon Show
3x03 Episode 3

Music

The 2nd Law by Muse

This is out today, though it's been available to stream since last week sometime. I've had it since Saturday but only got round to it now. It's Muse's first album for three years, since the pretty brilliant The Resistance. It's more... shall we go with eclectic. Not bad, just less convinced.

Articles

M Is For Music
by Andrew Ellard (from Noise to Signal)

Long but great survey of Bond title songs and scores, and their relationship to one another. Published before Quantum of Solace so sadly not bang up-to-date, but that still leaves you with 21 films to read about.


Review of Muse: The 2nd Law
by Simon Jay Catling (from The Quietus)

Criticising an album for being overblown while writing the most overblown review ever is some kind of irony. Also, it cites the album's influences as including "Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, Gustav Holst's Mars The Bringer Of War, the James Bond theme tune [and] Queen" as if that's a bad thing. Weirdo. Kind of a fun read, but I fairly thoroughly disagree with it.

TV

Downton Abbey
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Dragons' Den
10x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Person of Interest
1x07 Witness
Clever, unexpected twist there, I thought. Neat.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Suburgatory
1x12 The Casino Trip
Last time I said it was "no huge disturbance" to have watched episode 13 first, but I was wrong: it's the first time Suburgatory has done, essentially, a two-parter, and I accidentally watched them the wrong way round. Typical.

Films

Quantum of Solace (2008)
[3rd watch]

It's been 3½ years since I last watched 2008's #73, and I think it just improves with age. I've always liked it, against the consensus, but I enjoy it more every time I see it.

It's fair to say that it's not that great as A Bond Film, lacking many of the requisite elements that define what people think of that as; but as an action-thriller starring the character of James Bond, it really is rather good. One that merits re-evaluation, and I hope comes to be better-liked with time.

Articles

Disney confesses to messing up UK Avengers Blu-ray and DVD release
(from Home Cinema Choice)

This must've been reported a little while ago (the article is undated), but I've only just seen it. Essentially, Disney admit they messed up the UK DVD/BD release of The Avengers -- and they lied about it. Shocking behaviour.

this week on 100 Films

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


The Other Guys (2010)

It doesn’t trade on the idea of the Amazing Cops vs the Regular Guys enough, and that’s where the humour lies for me... Wouldn’t it have been more fun if everyone actually hated The Big Damn Heroes who make it hard for the regular guys to do their job? If a pair of normal detectives were assigned The Big Case and had to prove themselves worthy?

Read more here.


Outland (1981)

Two years on from Alien, director Peter Hyams has adopted the same grungey, real-world, lived-in aesthetic for the mining outpost setting. It’s a style that doesn’t date, which means that it doesn’t feel 30 years old. The plot is even more timeless: lone hero stands up to bad guys that no one else is brave enough to confront. It works as well in space as it does anywhere else.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...

Copycat (1995)

The Radio Times compare this favourably to David Fincher’s excellent Se7en, because both are high-concept serial killer thrillers released in 1995 but only one has been widely remembered. The Radio Times consider this unfair, suggesting Copycat deserves a similar level of recognition. Unfortunately, they’re wrong.

Read more here.


Late Spring (1949)

Late Spring’s consistently cheery, bouncy music is a surprise [though] it would seem to reflect Noriko’s ceaseless smiling, laughing and happy demeanor; which all serves to increase the emphasis on her anger and sullenness when the prospect of marriage and leaving her father seriously raises its head.

Read more here.


The Night Listener (2006)

What sounds like an intriguing concept is actually based on a true story... and is executed with good performances, a well-paced screenplay and direction that renders the film tense or mystifying when it needs to be. Sadly it seems to go nowhere, the mystery fizzling out and the characters gaining little from the experience.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
33x05 The Angels Take Manhattan [mid-season finale]

Most of this episode was pretty great, in my estimation. New York looked wonderful, there were new and clever elements added to the mythology of the Angels (not least finally using the TARDIS to go back and retrieve someone dumped in the past, a waiting-to-be-used-as-a-major-plot-point part of their mythology if ever I saw one), some marvellously atmospheric and scary sequences, indeed great noir-ish direction throughout. Stuff like the book and the chapter headings were also clever.

Sadly, the ending -- the farewell to the Ponds -- didn't hold mustard for me. In a plot prone to holes as it was (and I'm sure there are even more if we stop to think about it), getting rid of the Doctor's beloved Ponds in a way that meant he could never see them again was surely #1 priority on the list of Things That Need To Make Absolute Sense. But no, it doesn't.

The Doctor can't travel back to New York in 1938 because of all the time paradoxes -- fair enough. Why not get them a few years later? Can the Doctor never ever go to New York ever again? Closes off that as a potential future location, but OK, it could be allowed. So why can't the Ponds leave New York? That's never established. Can the Doctor never visit anywhere else on planet Earth between 1938 and 2012? I doubt that. Can he not send them a letter? No one says why not. So why can't he send them a note to pop up the road, far enough away from all those TARDIS-bouncing paradoxes, and he'll go pick them up? If there's a reason why that can't be done, I missed it.

So for all the people crying about the Ponds' departure on twitter... I'm not one, because it doesn't hold up. And that's a shame, because "sent to the past by Angels to a place where the Doctor can't get them, but that's OK because they're happy together" is a nifty idea for an exit.

And still, everything up to that point was pretty good.

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



QI
10x02 Jam, Jelly and Juice (XL edition)

Collection Count

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

Big changes are afoot this week, thanks to three new releases. There's The Raid and Masters of Cinema's Cleopatra making tweaks, but the big wave is caused by the Bond 50 box set. Not only does it contain all 22 official Bond films to date on Blu-ray, it also replaces 21 of my 22 individual editions (depends on the state of special features, and if I can bear to part with its lovely box, whether I sell the Casino Royale Deluxe Edition).

So while the total number of films barely moves, it's a big old shift for total titles, DVDs and discs (all 21 of those upgrades go from two DVDs to a single BD). Exciting times.

Number of titles in collection: 1,491 [down 18]
Of which DVDs: 1,142 [down 21]
Of which Blu-rays: 349 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 3,702 [down 16]
Number of films in collection: 1,507 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,679 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 365 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Arrested Development
1x04 Key Decisions
1x05 Charity Drive
It's always hard when you watch something regarded by so many as The Greatest Ever to determine whether you're meant to absolutely love it from the get-go or if it gets good later. The equally geek-beloved Community, for instance, apparently takes something like 19 episodes to get good. Arrested Development, I don't know -- it's certainly highly amusing, but not Best Thing Ever great.

Comedy World Cup
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Suburgatory
1x13 Sex in the Suburbs
Unnoticed downloading troubles meant I accidentally skipped 12. Just as they developed some proper ongoing storylines too! Ah well, no huge disturbance.

Wallander [film series]
Sidetracked Part 2 (of 2) (aka Villospår)
See yesterday.