TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x08 Old School
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
3x07 The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3x08 Second Sons
So much for all that stuff about double bills yesterday, eh? But I'm so close now to episode 9, one of the most talked-about episodes of TV last year. (You might argue it was the most talked about, but 2013 was also the year of things like Doctor Who's 50th and Breaking Bad's finale, so there's stiff competition.)

How I Met Your Mother
9x05 The Poker Game
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Veronica Mars review: A dark thriller with a marshmallow centre by Emma Dibdin (from Digital Spy)
and
The Veronica Mars movie is "worth the wait" - review round-up by Susanna Lazarus (from Radio Times)

A full review of the movie from DS, while RT rounds up the opinions of The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Hitfix and Indiewire -- and it all sounds great.

this week on 100 Films

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


North by Northwest (1959)

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Fountain (2006)

it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Movies have taught us many things, and here’s another: don’t take the train from Pelham Bay Park at 1:23. In the past thirty-five years said train has been taken hostage three times, and while once every 11⅔ years may not sound a particularly high average, I’d wager it’s higher than for most trains.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x06 The Climb
I'd say I normally double-bill Game of Thrones -- to be statistical about it, across the first two seasons I watched 60% of episodes as part of a pair. Not so this season, though. Not sure why. I mean, I know why -- because it's so good it feels wrong to be watching multiple episodes instead of savouring as individual instalments -- but previous seasons had that same quality too. Maybe they're now more satisfying as standalone episodes than they were before? Maybe it's just me? Probably that one.

The Voice UK
3x09 Battle Rounds 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x01 Spare Parts Part One

I've still got one story left in Big Finish's first 'season' of 8th Doctor adventures, but (for various reasons) instead of going straight on to that I've opted for this: Marc Platt (the writer of Ghost Light) 's acclaimed "origin of the Cybermen" tale, which as famously adapted into the TV story Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Based on this first instalment, however, it bears very little resemblance to what we got on TV. Maybe that comes later; maybe it was purely the "birth of the Cybermen" thing they took. This is much more traditional Who -- even with the potentially limitless budget of audio, it feels as if it could have been produced as a real-life Davison serial.

Collection Count

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

With several things I was expecting to be part of this update turning up just in time for the last one, there's absolutely nothing to report this week. Might be the same next time, too.

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x05 Kissed by Fire
Wow. After a bit of a slow start, over the past two or three episodes this season has really kicked off -- and how. I was going to double-bill this with the next one, but (as I discussed at one point last season) when it's this good it seems foolhardy to race through it too fast.

The Last Leg
4x05 (28/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Death in Paradise
3x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Game of Thrones
3x03 Walk of Punishment
3x04 And Now His Watch is Ended
Every time you might think, "they're brilliant, they're my favourite character", someone else comes along and does something else awesome.
At the minute, though, I'm most consistently intrigued by Margaery Tyrell. Is she really all sweetness and light, or is there some more devious twist to be revealed? And if she is the former, what inevitable crushing blow will befall her?

Person of Interest
2x11 2-Pi-R

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
18x04 The Stones of Venice Part Four

Hooray for obvious-from-the-start 'twists'! And I think the actress who plays Miss Lavish, Elaine Ives-Cameron, gives the fruitiest performance known to man.

TV

Friends
8x10 The One with Monica's Boots [5th or so watch]
aka The One Where Ross Can.

Game of Thrones
3x02 Dark Wings, Dark Words

The Mentalist
6x10 Green Thumb
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
5x06 (28/2/14 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


Arrow
2x11 Blind Spot


Friends
8x09 The One with the Rumor [5th or so watch]
aka The One with Brad Pitt.


Game of Thrones
3x01 Valar Dohaeris

A slightly earlier Blu-ray release than before means it's only 11 months (as opposed to a full year) since the last season of Game of Thrones for me. OK, this also means I'm watching it almost a year after "everyone" else — but I've remained largely unspoiled, and I get to watch it all in about a week (or even less) rather than having to wait over two months as it gradually unfurls. I've criticised Netflix for premiering their original series in "box set"-esque chunks (it hampers episode-by-episode audience discussion and therefore the creation of a community/fanbase), but golly if it isn't a better way to watch.

11 months is still an awfully long time to remember all of this show's complex on-going plots though, so thank goodness for the Blu-ray: there's both a 10-minute "previously on" covering both seasons one & two, and a 14-minute featurette recapping last season in a little more detail. And I thought Dexter's routine five-minute recap at the start of each season was crazily long! But, for a show that relies so heavily on its on-going storylines, it's very handy to so thoroughly refresh the memory.

That said, a lot of this premiere is about reestablishing characters and setting up where things will be heading this season. And there are so many characters and threads that it doesn't even touch base with everyone! Not necessarily a great episode in itself, then, but with some good scenes and interesting balls set in motion, it has places to go...


Room 101: Extra Storage
14x06 Episode 6
First edition this series that's had an extended repeat.
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume I: Mr Norrell, Chapters 20-22

TV

The 86th Annual Academy Awards
aka the Oscars, obviously. Despite all the (justified) talk about how this was the closest and most unpredictable awards for years, pretty much everything went where it was expected to go. Which is what happens when you have an entire industry built up around predicting the results, plus half a dozen other awards ceremonies with many of the same voters.

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x04 Episode 4

Outnumbered
5x05 The Chinese Horde
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

The Culture Show
Forget the Oscars, Here Are the Kermodes [2014]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Oscar 2014 Nominations Special

Oscar 2014: Red Carpet Live
As last year was Sky's ninth with the Oscars, that must make this year the tenth. Nice round number, back to terrestrial next year, yeah?

Silk
3x01 Episode 1
Has it really been over 18 months since the last series?! No wonder I struggled to remember the on-going plot threads.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Top Gear
21x03 (16/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Gravity (2013)
[#13 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Loved it. Will definitely be backing it at the Oscars tonight.

this week on 100 Films

Three things to report from 100 Films in a Year this week...


Firstly, it's now March, so there's the February update. It wasn't a great month, but that doesn't mean there isn't something to read about.


Secondly, one shiny new review:

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

The goal is clearly to present an objective, fact-driven account of how the CIA eventually found their most-wanted target, but how successfully it does that has been called in to question multiple times: there were those who felt it justified the use of torture, and those who claimed its facts were all wrong. On both these facts, any one viewer’s mileage might vary.

Read more here.


And finally, one re-posted archive review:

Throne of Blood (1957)

Kurosawa moves Macbeth from Scotland to 16th Century Japan in this retelling of Shakespeare’s infamous Scottish Play... It works well in the new setting, with some of the themes — honour, respect, betrayal — perhaps becoming more understandable when placed in samurai culture.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Voice UK
3x08 Battle Rounds 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

A couple of new releases (one out last Monday, one out next) and a couple of long-awaited US imports (oh, transatlantic post can be slow!) make for... well, the following.

(Note, in particular, that three of the releases contain a short film. Highly unusual, that.)

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [up 5]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [up 4]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [up 3]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x07 48 Hours
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


How I Met Your Mother
9x04 The Broken Code
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


The Last Leg
4x04 (21/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]


The Mentalist
6x09 My Blue Heaven

After Patrick Jane (spoilers!) murdered Red John in the previous episode, the series just continued the very next week in America, even though the entire series seemed to be over ("seemed" being the operative word) and this episode presents a "two years later" format reboot. Here in the UK, however, we've had a more respectful couple-of-months break, and I think it works better for it.

It's a relatively genteel way in, dealing with where the characters have been for the last couple of years and setting up why they might return (or won't) to something akin to their old way of life), rather than diving right in with "here's the new setup". Even by the end that isn't wholly clear: there's a kind-of-cliffhanger rather than fully establishing how the show will work from now on. Even though I know where it must be going, I wanna see what happens next now.

So the show still works, then.

[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Films

Up (2009)
[#12 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #2!