TV

Goodnight Britain
Episode 1 (of 2)
Episode 2 (of 2)
[Watch episodes one and two (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Great British Bake Off
3x14 Masterclass 3 [season finale]

Articles

Skyfall becomes highest-grossing film ever in UK
by Mayer Nissim (from Digital Spy)

The film has taken £94,277,612 [in just 40 days]. Avatar took 11 months to reach its lifetime gross of £94,025,632.

Hurrah! And thats without 3D too, which would've added a huge premium to Avatar's numbers. Well done, Bond.

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x14 (29/11/12 edition)
Skipping one again, this time due to Virgin's incompetence. Maybe I should go back and fill them in on 4oD...
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Castle
2x19 Wrapped Up in Death
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

John Bishop's Big Year
Episode 1 (of 2)
Seems a little early for a review-of-the-year programme, but I suppose it gets around having to tape it in late December in order to be up-to-date.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Articles

Spearhead From Space Remastered In High Definition
by John Bowman (from Doctor Who News)

Short piece on the work they've done for the Blu-ray release (next summer) of the only classic Doctor Who story that can be released in true HD. Sounds promising, though when they say that it's had its "grain lessened" I do hope they mean "lessened" and not "scrubbed out". If they've made it as clean as video, what's the point?

TV

Bring Me Morecambe & Wise
1x02 The Guest Stars

Elementary
1x05 Lesser Evils

Stephen Fry: Gadget Man
1x02 Tasty Tech
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x12 (27/11/12 edition)
That must be the smallest contribution to the prize pot yet. Unsurprisingly none of them were bright enough to even get to the final question, never mind actually win the money. Only fair.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Dragons' Den
10x10 Episode 10
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

James Bond: A BAFTA Tribute [2nd watch]
BBC special from 2002 celebrating 40 years of the Bond films. It's interesting to watch it again now: 10 years doesn't necessarily seem like such a long time, especially when you're only going back to the '00s, but it actually really feels it. You wouldn't think TV has changed so much in that time, for instance, but at points this has a borderline-old-fashioned sense; and certainly everyone looks older now, especially Roger Moore (as seen on HIGNFY the other night).

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Person of Interest
1x18 Identity Crisis

this week on 100 Films

The start of December means two things for 100 Films in a Year this year: firstly, the November update, which is as fascinating as ever; secondly, the inaugural 100 Films Advent Calendar, sharing 25 new reviews throughout (most of) December. The first two are up already and, of course, are shared below -- along with the one other brand-new review posted in the last week.


2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Poor acting, a plot done by the numbers, and a style that sometimes feels like a rap video writ into a film. Oh dear. Yet the chases and other car-based action sequences are pretty coolly done, and there’s more of them than I remember there being in the first film. That’s a definite plus — really, it’s all you want from a film like this.

Read more here.


Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part I (2012)

the team behind these direct-to-DVD DC animated movies have taken a reverent route to bringing DKR to the screen. It’s in two parts because the original story is too long to faithfully adapt in their limited-length movies, but that also works out OK from a storytelling point of view: this first half ends with a major threat rapped up and a great cliffhanger to kick off the second half.

Read more here.


Tombstone (1993)

Not knowing more than the name, and a few key players, I fully expected the gunfight at said corral to be the story’s climax. Maybe it is in other versions, but here it comes about halfway through. It’s the pivot around which the story turns, however, with the first half building to it and the second handling its consequences.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


Heat (1995)

will probably always be best remembered for two things: the excellent running shoot out on the streets of L.A., and De Niro and Pacino on screen together for the first (and, so far, last) time.

Read more here.


Ivanhoe (1952)

swashing buckles are the order of the day... Most notable is an excellent siege sequence, a moderately epic extended battle that is certainly the film’s high point. The randomly hurled arrows and choreography-free sword fights may look a tad amateurish sixty years on, but the scale and rough excitement of the battle easily makes up for it.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Live at the Apollo
8x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
5x05 Red Dawn
For the 100th episode, the series goes back to the first time the CBI team met Patrick Jane. Nice idea, but not wholly satisfying in its execution, if you ask me.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Merlin
5x09 With All My Heart
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Spy
2x07 Codename: Ball Busted

Films

The Keep (1983)
[#92 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]

I hadn't even heard of this before yesterday, but Mike's review at Films on the Box put me on to it. In the comments section I said it sounded like "a fascinating failure", and that pretty much sums it up.

Comics

2000 AD #1812
Judge Dredd / The Simping Detective / Low Life: Trifecta by Al Ewing, Simon Spurrier, Rob Williams & Carl Critchlow

In an incredibly rare occurrence, the anthology comic gives over its entire 28 pages to a single story, the climax of the three-way crossover that's been running for the last couple of months. An epic feat it is too, and surely deserving of such an accolade. It's in shops from Wednesday.

Next Prog, the bumper-length Christmas issue. Then in January it's back to business as usual, which is in danger of feeling a bit pedestrian after two such epic Progs. Though for me, I now have over a year's worth that I need to get caught up on...

Collection Count

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

A couple more things this week, with even more in the post to make next week a big'un. And it's once again time for a running time update, so look for that slab of excitement at the end of the regular stats.

Number of titles in collection: 1,508 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,146 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 362 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 3,765 [up 10]
Number of films in collection: 1,556 [up 9]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,700 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 371 [up 1]

Plus...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
273 days, 4 hours, and 46 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 15 hours, and 42 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x11 (26/11/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Graham Norton Show
12x05 (23/11/12 edition)
Having missed a couple (since this one, exactly a month ago), trying to get back on track -- I still have most of series 11 to watch, so don't want 12 going the same way.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News For You
44x06 (23/11/12 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

QI
10x10 Jungles (XL edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Bond Designer Danny Kleinman On His Skyfall Title Sequence (And How To Craft A Great 007 Opener)
by Jan Yamato (from Movieline)

I loved Skyfall's title sequence, so I also liked this short piece in which Kleinman discusses some of the thinking behind it.


Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: 49 Ways The BBC Could Celebrate
by Dave Golder (from SFX)

On one hand, this article is quite jokey. On the other, an awful lot of these are actual very good ideas. The more of them that actually happen the better.

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x10 (23/11/12 edition)
Missed one. Seems the only thing I missed were the questions as no one won. That said, questions are the only reason I watch, so...
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Arrow
1x04 An Innocent Man

Hunted
1x08 Snow Maiden [season finale]
I knew it wasn't going to wrap everything up, because the Radio Times said so, but even still it was disappointing. I mean, what the hell was that "One Month Later"? How did she survive being shot in the chest and falling so far into a river? Are we meant to believe that's her baby? And so on and so forth. I didn't care about there being a second series before, but now I want some proper bloody answers please.

Articles

The Dark Knight Rises Epilogue – Nightwing, Huntress, Robin and more
(from Live for Films)

Short fan-made comics about what might happen to several major characters in the wake of The Dark Knight Rises. They'd make a pretty awesome fourth film... one that we'll never see, but still.

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x08 (21/11/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Person of Interest
1x17 Baby Blue

Proms 2012
Prom 59 The Broadway Sound
Very belatedly watching this year's John Wilson Prom

Articles

Skyfall sinks Titanic to become second highest grossing UK box office film
by Author (from RadioTimes)

It seems like such a short time ago that Mamma Mia sat quite clearly atop this list -- that was a big story at the time, which I don't recall happening when Avatar, Toy Story 3, Harry Potter 8 or Titanic's re-release all overtook it.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, Skyfall is now a solid second (almost £3m up on third place). Can it take the top spot? It's got nearly £11m to go if it will -- quite a stretch after five weeks on release. But you never know -- after all, it took Mamma Mia 23 weeks to sneak past Titanic...

TV

Dragons' Den
10x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Hebburn
1x06 A Very Big Day [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
5x04 Blood Feud
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Rolf's Animal Clinic
1x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Articles

Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart return for X-Men Days of Future Past
by Paul Martinovic (from Digital Spy)

Ooh, exciting news!

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x07 (20/11/12 edition)
Gooood riddance.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Elementary
1x04 The Rat Race

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Stephen Fry: Gadget Man
1x01 Super Commuter
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]