TV

Blue Peter
The 12th Doctor: A Blue Peter Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Two Tribes
1x01 (18/8/14 edition)
1x02 (19/8/14 edition)
New quiz show fronted by Richard "Pointless" Osman. Pretty good format, very question-packed.
[Watch episodes one and two (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Battle of the Somme (1916)
[#71 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
5x03 Bread
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ripper Street
2x06 A Stronger Loving World

Films

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (2014)
[#70a in 100 Films in a Year 2014]
Still the most recent Marvel short, as found on the Blu-ray of…

Thor: The Dark World (2013)
[#70 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Articles

Doctor Who Confidential returns online under new guise
by Alex Fletcher (from Digital Spy)

Doctor Who Confidential's back?!

No, not really. Though the series description -- "the inside take on series 8 from the people who made it... Casual viewers will enjoy the fun, fast pace and lighter side of Doctor Who Extra but there’s plenty for fans, too... reflecting on how Doctor Who’s history is echoed in this current series" -- does sound an awful lot like Confidential's initial setup.

Only 10 minutes an episode, though. Still, better than nothing.

TV

Cuckoo
2x02 Potato Party
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Gilmore Girls
2x11 Secrets and Loans [2nd watch]

A Touch of Cloth III
3x02 Too Cloth for Comfort Part Two

TV

Cuckoo
2x01 A New Beginning
Taylor Lautner -- who knew?!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Gilmore Girls
2x10 The Bracebridge Dinner [2nd watch]

Ripper Street
2x05 Threads of Silk and Gold

A Touch of Cloth III
3x01 Too Cloth for Comfort Part One
You feel like this should have lost its spark by now, but it's as funny as ever.

TV

Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled
1x03 The Bringer of Spiders
Because I watched episodes four and five when they first aired, this is the last one for me. I thought it was a particularly good one too... though I might have said that about any episode: somehow, this slightly bizarre format really works.
[Watch it (again) on Dave OD.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Musketeers
1x05 The Homecoming

this week on 100 Films

One brand new review was published to 100 Films in a Year this week...


The Expendables 2 (2012)

Whereas the first film was played straight and fairly serious, the sequel has more of the self-awareness that fans expected — and, indeed, wanted — from the franchise: the action sequences are bigger, faster and dafter; the cameos are longer and more knowing.

Read more here.


Despite my commitment to re-posting archive reviews daily, an incredibly busy week means just one archive re-post...


It (1927)

Proof if it were needed that the format of the rom-com has gone largely unchanged for at least 80 years!

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

The Great British Bake Off
5x02 Biscuits
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Tumble
1x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,689 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,203 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 486 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,204 [up 1]
Number of films in collection: 1,826 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,177 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 435 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Last Leg
5x02 (8/8/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Pointless Celebrities
6x12 (9/8/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Simpsons
25x20 Brick Like Me
I haven't watched The Simpsons in a very, very long time (so long it's never been mentioned on this blog aside from the movie, in fact), but the promise of a LEGO-themed episode (i.e. this one) got my attention. It was pretty good, though the fact so many reviewers have described it as "the best of the season" proves the show must be a shadow of it's former self: not bad -- in fact, funny and entertaining on the whole -- but not laugh-out-loud, instantly-memorable, classic TV. Which I suppose would happen to anything after 25 years and 550 episodes.

this week on 100 Films

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


Amélie (2001)

My quirky review of a quirky film about the quirky life of a quirky girl.

Read more here.


Cloudy 2: Extra Toppings (2013)

On Blu-ray, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 comes with a selection of four “mini-movies” — that’s “shorts” to you and me. When the film airs on Sky Movies Premiere, each screening will be preceded by three of these, under the Extra Toppings title.

Read more here.


And seven were new to the new blog...


Fatal Instinct (1993)

It’s a little difficult to understand exactly why it flopped so badly in the US... perhaps its targets were just too broad to attract a mass audience. While it ostensibly tackles then-recent thrillers like Basic Instinct, Cape Fear and Fatal Attraction, it also has a lot of time devoted to the tropes of film noir, in particular Double Indemnity. Relying so heavily on a 50-year-old film isn’t likely to earn you much favour among the masses.

Read more here.


High Anxiety (1977)

Mel Brooks pays comedic tribute to Alfred Hitchcock — in case you can’t tell, the second credit is a prominent dedication — but those unfamiliar with the Master of Suspense’s output need not apply.

Read more here.


Matchstick Men (2003)

Twists are fine. Twists can be great. You can guess a twist is coming and it can still work. A really good twist works even when you know for certain it’s coming; its existence raises what you’ve seen, makes it all work even on repeated viewings when the element of surprise is obviously gone. Matchstick Men doesn’t have that kind of twist. It has the kind of twist that undermines everything you’ve just seen. Not because it’s illogical — it isn’t in the slightest — but because it tramples over the film’s emotional resonance.

Read more here.


Nosferatu (1922)

One of the earliest and most-referenced horror films, and the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (faithfully, albeit unofficially). With such a weight bearing down upon it I found it quite hard to watch it objectively...

Read more here.


Seraphim Falls (2006)

it makes for an unusual story. It’s centred neatly around Neeson chasing Brosnan, but the encounters they have along the way are increasingly bizarre. It’s readily apparent that there’s some Meaning and Subtext here... but I’m not sure if one has to process this to appreciate the film — it’s a still a chase movie

Read more here.


Sunshine (2007)

what some would call "grown-up science fiction", often more concerned with the crew's moral dilemmas than thrilling action set pieces or dazzling CGI. Luckily, though, the former aren't too pretentious and both of the latter are still present.

Read more here.


Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaborate for the sixth time (as the DVD’s blurb is so keen to point out) for a film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical adaptation of the classic tale of the titular barber who slaughters instead of shaves and sells the resultant meat to all of London in the pies of his accomplice, Mrs Lovett.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Gilmore Girls
2x09 Run Away, Little Boy [2nd watch]

The Musketeers
1x04 The Good Soldier

Films

After Earth (2013)
[#69 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

Somehow some of my totals have gone screwy. No idea how that happened, but as best I can tell I've fixed them now -- just in time for a running time update!

Number of titles in collection: 1,688 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,203 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 485 [down 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,203 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,825 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,177 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 435 [no change]

And that running time update tells us...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
302 days, 7 hours, and 51 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 18 hours, and 35 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
1x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ripper Street
2x04 Dynamite and a Woman

TV

The Great British Bake Off
5x01 Cake
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ripper Street
2x03 Become Man

TV

Gilmore Girls
2x08 The Ins and Outs of Inns [2nd watch]

The Musketeers
1x03 Commodities