24

Top 10 films and TV shows of the year? Let’s meme!

12 December 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

The American Film Institute publishes two top ten lists each year: the top 10 movies and the top 10 TV shows. This year’s has just come out. What do you think? And if they’re right, what does it say about 2006: a good year or a bad year?

AFI Movies of the Year

  • Babel
  • Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
  • The Devil Wears Prada
  • Dreamgirls
  • Half Nelson
  • Happy Feet
  • Inside Man
  • Letters From Iwo Jima
  • Little Miss Sunshine
  • United 93

AFI TV Programmes of the Year

  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Dexter
  • Elizabeth I
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Heroes
  • The Office
  • South Park
  • 24
  • The West Wing
  • The Wire

I think there are some good ones in the TV list, but it’s not been a great year for movies, by the looks of it.

Still, let’s meme. I can’t help out with the films list for once, since I doubt I’ve seen 10 films in the cinema this year (Casino Royale and The Prestige would both be on such a list, and Inside Man was all right, I s’pose). But here’s my pick of the top 10 shows of the year, in no particular order, with links to my various comments on them.

Ooh. By the looks of it, I must be the only person in the world who hasn’t written about how great Planet Earth is. Well, it is. That’s all that’s needed.

So there’s the meme: top 10 TV shows, top 10 films or both. Any channel, from any country of origin, any language, so long as they aired or were distributed in 2006 and weren’t a repeat/re-run.

The morning’s news

12 December 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment
  • The Hollywood Reporter reckons the Sci Fi Channel is working on a remake of Flash Gordon. Part of an article looking at how US networks are warming to science-fiction.
  • A few spoilers over on E!’s Watch with Kristin: interesting snippets about Heroes, including confirmation that Claire’s gay best friend isn’t gay any more; more on Jack Bauer’s family in 24 (with one very important spoiler); useful stuff about Liev Schreiber’s forthcoming character in CSI; and some nuggets on BSG and Scrubs.
  • Mel Gibson’s new Mayan film, Apocalypto, might look historically authentic but it isn’t.
News

News that happened while I was away and over the weekend

11 December 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Some of it you might know, some of it could well be news:

Runway Bride Torchwood

Doctor Who

  • Jessica Stevenson, who is 5’6″ and has grey/green eyes, is filming a two-part Doctor Who episode.
  • There’s going to be a hint of Torchwood in this Christmas’s episode (see pic. Click on it to make it bigger and look for the logo at the back).
  • Newsround has a load of publicity shots from that episode, too.
  • The Daily Mail (and other ‘newspapers’) are claiming that new companion Martha Jones and the Doctor are going to wind up in bed together – fully clothed, mind. Adds The Sun, ”TV Biz can reveal feisty Martha (Freema Agyeman) has a huge crush on the doc (David Tennant). The pair are forced to bunk up together in one scene and Martha moves in for the kill. But her love intentions are ruined — by a monster.“
  • There’s an interview with Dan Zeff, director of Love and Monsters, over on Ain’t It Cool News.
  • There’s a clip from The Sarah Jane Adventures available from the Beeb’s Doctor Who web site.

Film

  • There’s a preview of Mitchell and Webb’s Magicians over on Ain’t It Cool News, based on a test screening.

British TV

  • Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are re-uniting for a new sketch show.
  • The Beeb is planning a show about Merlin. It’s going to be a ”3g“ show, which now means ”three generations“ apparently. Because that’s what family television needs more of – shows about slightly dodgy wizards that live their lives backwards and have a demon for a dad.
  • Instead of doing something sensible like getting State of Play 2 together, Paul Abbott has created another bollocktile drama for ITV1 (cf the UK version of Touching Evil). Called Butler Did It, this ”three x 120-minute returnable franchise“ (urgh) tells the story of a top MI5 officer who is ”imprisoned for murder but, after the government realises his potential as a powerful weapon, he is reprogrammed as a ruthless, state-controlled assassin“.
  • Lucy Davis, star of The Office and rising star of Studio 60, got married on Saturday at St Paul’s Cathedral – handily, her dad Jasper Carrott is an OBE.
  • Matt Lucas is reportedly being lined up to play Friar Tuck in the next series of Robin Hood. He’s already set to appear as Toad in The Wind in the Willows this Christmas.

US TV

US TV

Review: Big Day

1 December 2006 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Big Day

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC

In the UK: ITV2 at some point

Weddings can be tricky things, can’t they? I don’t know how yours went – or if yours went at all – but mine had a few not-so-smooth moments, even though we chose to outsource the entire process to Las Vegas to make things easier.

Now some bright spark has come up with the idea of 24 meets a comedy wedding. Yes, an entire season of shows that follow a wedding day in real-time. Feel the tension, the adrenaline, the nerves, all without having to go through the process yourself.

Wouldn’t it be good if it was funny as well?

Continue reading “Review: Big Day”