TV

Death in Paradise
2x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Doctor Who
1x39 A Change of Identity
1x40 The Tyrant of France

Being parts three and four of six-parter The Reign of Terror, released on DVD this week. Two of the serial's middle episodes, The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity (which I'll be watching tomorrow), no longer exist in the archives, so for the DVD have been animated to fan-made recordings of the full soundtrack. I'm all for the idea of animating missing episodes of Doctor Who -- the chances of many (or any) more being recovered are remote, so why not plug the gap in this way? It's only a shame it's so expensive and can't be done for all 106 lost episodes.

That said, I wouldn't want to see any more done in this style. You don't have to slavishly emulate the static wide shots used in '60s Doctor Who -- indeed, one may well argue you explicitly shouldn't -- but this seems to have been edited by a child with ADHD who has no concept of the purpose of specific shots. It jumps around between close-ups, extreme close-ups, high-angles, and more, sometimes at lightning speed, most of the time to little or no effect. It's a real shame, because the actual art and underlying animation is good enough, but the choice of camera angles and the whip-fast way they're cut between not only jars with the '60s soundtrack and style of the remaining four episodes, it's also plain amateurish in and of itself.

Recently they rejected Ian Levine's animated reconstruction of Shada. I'm not entirely sure why (I don't know if it was made public), but one mooted reason was the animation wasn't professional enough. Well, the screenshots you can see from a quick Googling look alright, but that's not motion. Either the full thing must be really dreadful quality, or I'm not sure the commissioners at 2entertain have much taste...


The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
Episode 4 (of 4)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


John Bishop's Only Joking
1x03 Episode 3

DVD Extras

Audio commentary on Doctor Who: A Bargain of Necessity

Or The Reign of Terror part five. This is one of two episodes in the serial missing from the archive which has been animated for the DVD (more here), but the animation wasn't complete when the commentaries were recorded, so they had to come up with something different. For this episode, fan/journalist/comedian Toby Hadoke interviews missing episode hunters Philip Morris and Paul Vanezis for 25 minutes.

TV

Doctor Who
1x37 A Land of Fear
1x38 Guests of Madame Guillotine
Being parts one and two of The Reign of Terror, released on DVD yesterday. It's been a while since I watched any first Doctor adventures, so I'd forgotten quite how often they go off on tangents for no particular reason. I wonder just how many six-parters are actually four-parters with the odd episode-filling aside thrown in... Still, it's all good fun. And, as the last story of the series' first season, feels particularly season-finale-like, with lots of references to previous adventures and whatnot.

The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
Episode 3 (of 4)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Sarah Millican Television Programme
2x02 Episode 2

Articles

David Bradley to play William Hartnell in Celebration of Doctor Who
(from Doctor Who official site)

Announcing the cast for Mark Gatiss' birth-of-Doctor-Who drama.

Hartnell was 55 when Doctor Who started; Bradley is 70. Just an observation.

TV

The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
Episode 2 (of 4)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Miranda
3x06 A Brief Encounter [season finale]
Over so quickly! Well, at least there has to be a fourth series -- with that cliffhanger and those ratings, how can there not be?
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Stella
2x02 Episode 2

Films

City Lights (1931)
[#10 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

TV

QI
10x15 Jolly (XL edition)

Films

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)
[#9 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

This is on Film4 on Friday, so I shall endeavour to have a full review up by then. But I will say that it's an awful lot of fun.

this week on 100 Films

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


Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part II (2013)

two big battles form the cruxes around which the story works: Batman vs the Joker, and Batman vs Superman. I won’t spoil the outcomes for those who’ve not read the book, but both are excellently realised on screen... I’d go so far as to say the Superman fight improves on the novel’s version

Read more here.


Repo Chick (2009)

the second of director Alex Cox's “microfeatures”: films shot for a budget below the Screen Actors Guild cut-off of $200,000. By shooting his actors quickly (in ten days) on green screen, then putting in sets made from toys, Cox made the entire film for closer to $180,000. It’s not going to work for every film, but perhaps there’s some lessons big over-expensive Hollywood productions could learn…

Read more here.


Room on the Broom (2012)

It’s a simple story with simple rhyme for little kids, of course, but that’s where its joy lies. Pre-schoolers are treated to far better poetry (because, ultimately, that’s what it is) than the dreary stuff us adults are meant to engage with.

Read more here.


Special (2006)

If you’re looking for comparisons, Special is more in line with Super than Kick-Ass. It doesn’t quite have James Gunn’s crazy surreal touch, but it shares the low-budget realist aesthetic and a surprisingly recognisable cast (albeit with smaller, TV-er faces here).

Read more here.



And new to the new blog...


Ashes of Time Redux (1994/2008)

Reviews talk about it being a confusingly-plotted art film — and those are the positive ones — which, coupled with my relative dislike of Chungking Express, meant I didn’t really expect to like it a great deal. But I found myself surprised, because I really enjoyed it.

Read more here.


The Hurt Locker (2008)

The Hurt Locker is episodic, moving from one bomb-based set-piece to the next. But this is surely a realistic depiction of the environment and this job: they’re not going to end up on the tail of some master bombmaker, or single-handedly end the war in Iraq

Read more here.


Panic in the Streets (1950)

not a particularly film noir-y film noir [but] there’s still a criminal underworld, a (slightly) downtrodden hero, criminal wrongdoings, some shadow-drenched photography, and a smattering of other traits that do place it within the genre, but it’s not a textbook example.

Read more here.


The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007)

allegedly based on Susan Cooper’s five-volume fantasy series... Changes from book to screen abound, however... Fan-baiting changes aren’t the only things wrong with the film, though. For much of the first half I was almost considering a scene-by-scene account of the irritations and weaknesses, but that would mean watching it again.

Read more here.


Son of Paleface (1952)

It slowly morphs into a live-action cartoon, in the process becoming a lot funnier and, in recreating the style of cartoons, technically impressive too. The comedy is genuinely entertaining when it finally reaches these sections

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Weirdly, exactly the same as last Sunday. The things this blog makes me notice...

Blandings
1x02 The Go-Getter
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Room 101: Extra Storage
13x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Splash!
1x04 Semi-Final
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Collection Count

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

Just one new title this week, a film, but I also spotted some TV episodes I missed, so that number gets corrected. And it's the running time update! Thrills.

Number of titles in collection: 1,526 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,147 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 379 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 3,842 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,604 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,712 [up 2]
Number of short films in collection: 374 [no change]

And the running time update comes to...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
277 days, 5 hours, and 51 minutes.
(Up 10 hours and 54 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
Episode 1 (of 4)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Skyfall becomes tenth highest-grossing film of all time
by Emma Dibdin (from Digital Spy)

It is predicted that Skyfall will ultimately climb to number seven in the list, bumping The Dark Knight Rises down to eighth place

Awesome.

TV

Britain's Brightest
1x02 Episode 2
So, to be Britain's brightest, you have to be prepared for them to change the rules mid-round without letting you know? Right.

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

Films

Armored Car Robbery (1950)
[#8 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

TV

Yes, Prime Minister [2013]
1x02 The Poisoned Chalice
Feels particularly pertinent, given today's news.

Films

You Only Live Twice (1967)
[5th or so watch]

My latest go at "Bond from the Beginning" stalled in October and ground to a halt in November, but I'm picking it up again now, hopefully with a concerted effort.

So, I'll be reviewing this as #7a in 100 Films 2013, alongside the other '60s Bond films, at a later date.

TV

John Bishop's Only Joking
1x02 Episode 2

The Sarah Millican Television Programme
2x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Spies of Warsaw
Part 2 (of 2)
Felt like there was more incident in this part. Maybe the first just needed a little more oomph, or something.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Miranda
3x05 Three Little Words
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Non-Fiction

Bond on Bond by Roger Moore (with Gareth Owen)
Bond on Screen
Bond on Films [the end]

I'll again echo my thoughts on the first half. Though it's a shame the last chapter is just a list of main credits and box office stats -- it might've been nice to hear Moore's thoughts on the films themselves, as opposed to elements of them. Though asking an 85-year-old man to distinguish between 22 broadly similar features would probably have been a bit much...