Sunday 10 November 2013

TV

Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited
1x07 The Seventh Doctor

Friends
4x17 The One with the Free Porn [4th or so watch]
4x18 The One with Rachel's New Dress [4th or so watch]

The Sarah Millican Slightly Longer Television Programme
3x05 Episode 5

Films

The Falcon's Alibi (1946)
[#99 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

this week on 100 Films

100 Films in a Year begins its mini-celebration of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary this week...


Make/Remake: Doctor Who and the Daleks
Something about those pepperpot-shaped apparently-robotic villains clicked with the British public, and Dalekmania was born. Toys and merchandise flowed forth. The series soon began to include serials featuring the Daleks on a regular basis. And, naturally, someone snapped up the movie rights.

Rather than an original storyline, the ensuing film was an adaptation of the TV series’ first Dalek serial...
Read more here.


Plus, archive reviews new to the new blog...


Avatar [3D] (2009)
All this is realised through unrelenting CGI. It’s very good, but here Avatar falls victim to its own hype once again, because it’s still not 100% perfect. Perhaps it’s the closest yet seen — it certainly remains consistent throughout — but nothing had me wondering if they’d perhaps used prosthetics in addition to the CGI, as Davy Jones did at several points during Dead Man’s Chest, and I remain convinced that wonderful modelwork, as seen in the likes of Lord of the Rings, is still an unbeatable tool for creating convincing environments.
Read more here.


The Departed (2006)
An all-star cast lead Scorsese’s Oscar-winning remake of Hong Kong action thriller Infernal Affairs. It’s an unusual yet striking mix of elements: cops vs. robbers thriller, gangster drama, relationships of those who protect/threaten us drama, and several more.
Read more here.


No Country for Old Men (2007)
real life: random and lacking closure and satisfaction. But this isn’t real life, it’s a movie; and a movie with a near-fantasy (or, more accurately, horror) aspect too, in its unstoppable villain; so I think I want my proper tied-together plot, thank you very much
Read more here.


Notes on a Scandal (2006)
Judi Dench is brilliant as ever in a rare villainous role (the Oscar would’ve been hers were it not for Helen Mirren’s equally brilliant but more obvious turn in The Queen)
Read more here.


Wanted (2008)
If you don’t mind your action being computer-aided and as realistic as… well, a comic book… then there’s much to enjoy. Except, you already enjoyed most of it in the trailer.
Read more here.


More next Sunday.