TV

Comic Relief's Big Chat with Graham Norton
Part 2 (of 4)
The rest of this segment. Halfway there now...

Dexter
7x06 Do the Wrong Thing

TV

Comic Relief's Big Chat with Graham Norton
Part 1 (of 4)
Part 2 (of 4)
Remember this? I've had it lying around since it was on, when I watched some of the first chunk, so figured I ought to get on with the rest. Another 45 minutes down across these two sections...

How I Met Your Mother
8x22 The Bro Mitzvah
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Mad Men
6x12 The Quality of Mercy
When one of the show's cast said there were some big twists coming up about Bob Benson and who he was, that wasn't really what I expected. Unless there's even bigger twists to come in the finale...

TV

Dexter
7x05 Swim Deep

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
2x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

All the President's Men Revisited
New feature-length Discovery Channel documentary (it premiered in the US back in April, and was shown over here as part of the channel's White House Season), which reflects on the Watergate scandal and the resulting film about the newspaper investigation into it, All the President's Men. As it features fresh interviews with seemingly every major surviving player, I imagine it's a pretty definitive retrospective. That said, it clearly leaves a lot of stones unturned.

Mad Men
6x11 Favors

TV

The Hoff's Best Film ...Ever!
1x03 The Hoff's Best Sports Film ...Ever!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
12x02 (20/6/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Agatha Christie's Marple
6x01 A Caribbean Mystery
A script from a well-known writer and a cameo from Ian Fleming seem to have been the catalyst for some even-classier-than-usual touches in this particular episode. Lots of lovely direction, especially during the rain-drenched final act (even if, earlier, some bits were terribly awkwardly staged), and a Bond-referencing score that was consequently delightful.
Bit unusual, but there's a surprisingly thorough promotional photo gallery to be found at the bottom of this review, which I mention because it contains some uncommonly good photos for just TV promo images.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Dexter
7x04 Run

Would I Lie To You?
7x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

No new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, but new to the new blog were...


Big Nothing (2006)

A long time before the credits roll it degenerates into a grab-bag of random incidents and twists strung together until the made-up-as-it-goes-along script hits something approaching a produceable page count.

Read more here.


Flight 93 (2006)

Oh dear.

The Other Film About United 93 is just that.

Read more here.


Runaway Train (1985)

taken as a straight-up high-concept action-adventure, Runaway Train has an awful lot going for it. And if you want to get pretentious about it, well, it might just support that too.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Miranda
1x04 Holiday [3rd watch]
This is absolutely one of the best episodes of Miranda. A pretty perfect example of the half-hour sitcom form on the whole, actually.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Voice UK
2x15 The Final [season finale]
Well, someone lost a £10,000 bet on that. Serves 'em right, really.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

Remember how I said there'd be nothing to report this week?

Well, there's nothing to report this week.

Number of titles in collection: 1,569 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,165 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 404 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 3,914 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,680 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,773 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 380 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Graham Norton Show
13x11 (14/6/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
8x21 Romeward Bound
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

The Good Life
4x04 The Weaver's Tale

Comics

Superman: Red Son #1 by Mark Millar & Dave Johnson

I just got an iPad, and Comixology are having a Superman sale, so I managed to get digital copies of all three issues of this for a total of just over £2. Sounds like a deal to me.

TV

Dexter
7x03 Buck the System

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
2x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Ripper Street
1x05 The Weight of One Man's Heart

TV

Horrible Histories
4x12 Episode 12

Mock the Week
12x01 (13/6/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Queen's
Rally Against Cancer
A charity event from the final day of this year's Aegon Championships tennis at Queen's Club. Featuring Andy Murray and Tim Henman vs Ivan Lendl and Tomáš Berdych, and Murray vs Henman with rotating teammates including Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Carr, Michael McIntyre, Eddie Redmayne, Richard Branson and Boris Johnson. Much hilarity.
[Watch it (again) soon on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
7x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

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


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

found itself going head-to-head in the awards season with No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood... in some kind of thematic and stylistic triumvirate: they’re all products of what I’d call “American mainstream art house” cinema; all classifiable as Westerns, though none in a strictly traditional sense; all more concerned with their characters and their lives than the machinations of the plot.

In the end, No Country garnered most of the awards, There Will Be Blood seems to have settled in as a critical darling, but, for my money, this purest Western of the three is by far the best.

Read more here.


The Harry Potter Films of David Yates

Later than promised, but here it is: a director-focused overview of the final four Harry Potter films.

Plus, some closing thoughts on the series as a whole.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Cube Trilogy
An overview of:

Cube (1997)

In its series of careful, measured, necessary reveals, the film strikes a perfect balance between what it lets the viewer know and what it keeps hidden, either for the viewer to deduce or interpret for themselves

Read more here.

Cube²: Hypercube (2002)

The new cube set is bigger, shinier, simpler, emptier, always one plain colour, and devoid of traps. Consequently, but perhaps inadvertently, it seems to symbolise the film itself.

Read more here.

Cube Zero (2004)

answers too many questions, which might be acceptable if the answers were remotely original or satisfying, but, of course, they aren’t: they’re derivative and, worst of all, quite irritating.

Read more here.


Plus:


Coraline (2009)

[The novel] won a Hugo, Nebula and Stoker, while the film adaptation was Oscar-nominated (naturally it lost to whichever Pixar film was eligible) and widely well reviewed (an 89% Tomatometer). All of which seems to set it up for a fall. But... Coraline, in short, is excellent.

Read more here.


Transporter 2 (2005)

In spite of the odd bit of CG-aided silliness, or the lack of anything as inspired as the first film’s oil fight, the fights are still a lot of fun; one involving a fire hose is especially well executed.

Read more here.


Transporter 3 (2008)

Megaton over-directs and over-edits the action (and a lot else besides) too often — it would be nice to tell what’s going on. Someone also needs to tell him that speeding up footage of two cars racing doesn’t make it more exciting, it just makes it look silly.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Dexter
7x02 Sunshine and Frosty Swirl

The Voice UK
2x14 The Semi-Finals
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

5 Versions Of Jurassic Park You Never Saw
by Drew Taylor (from The Playlist)

An interesting insight into the development of Jurassic Park, which is 20 this year (bloody hell!)

Most interesting bit: for all the talk of its pioneering effects and extensive use of CGI, it has just 15 minutes of dino action, and only 6 of those are computer generated!

Collection Count

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

Just one new addition this week (another Doctor Who DVD), but it's also time for a running time update, so there's that.

Number of titles in collection: 1,569 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,165 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 404 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 3,914 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,680 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,773 [up 2]
Number of short films in collection: 380 [no change]

And finally...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
281 days, 21 hours, and 33 minutes.
(Up 9 hours and 26 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader, when there may be nothing to report at all! Gasp!

TV

The Graham Norton Show
13x10 (7/6/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Hoff's Best Film ...Ever!
1x02 The Hoff's Best Horror Film ...Ever!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless Celebrities
3x08 (22/12/12 edition)

Articles

How Hit Movies Become Flops
by Matt Singer (from Criticwire)

As the new Superman movie hits cinemas, a look back at how the last one was and is regarded. The general gist:

Weird fact: Superman Returns got good reviews when it was released, and made more money than Batman Begins. Now it's considered a flop.

What a Doctor Who-ha!
(from Private Eye)

Private Eye on the recent problems that have dogged Who. Nothing significantly new, though it does sum it up neatly. Especially this bit:

between January 2012 and June 2014, when under Doctor Who’s previously-accustomed schedule 41 episodes would have been broadcast, the BBC will actually put out a grand total of 16. That period includes the show’s 50th anniversary year, during which Moffat had announced: “I promise you, we’re going to take over television, trust me.”