Sunday 30 January 2011

Episode 5: The Other Guys, Devil, My One and Only, Lemmy, Spartacus, Shogun Assassin and Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

Episode 5

The latest episode is now available!


The latest podcast is now available.
This week's new reviews include American comedy The Other Guys (2010) supernatural thriller Devil (2010), rock documentary Lemmy (2010), 1950's period drama comedy My One and Only (2009), the 50th Anniversary edition of the Spartacus (1960), Samurai classic Shogun Assassin (1980) and the Christmas 2010 episode of Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol (TV 2010).

I'd love you to rate the podcast on iTunes to help it get a sufficient number of ratings for an average to become visible on iTunes podcast search (and thanks to the three folks who've already given the podcast five star ratings. Truly humbling!)


And if you're hard of hearing, or just don't have time to listen to podcasts don't forget you can always download the transcript of this week's podcast.

Check back later this week for links to the other two titles covered in this latest podcast. They'll be posted piecemeal over the next 7 days as I find time to complete them.

Due Out Over the Next 7 Days

The following titles are officially released on Monday, 31st January 2011 likely to be reviewed in next week's podcast (Episode 6):
  22 Bullets (2010)
  Amer (2009)
  Going The Distance (2010)
  Mr. Nice (2010)
  The Town (2010)
  Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
  Winter's Bone (2010)

The following titles are also released this week, but unlikely to be reviewed in next week's podcast:
  The Color Purple (1985) (the US import is a better release, issued in digi-book format)
  Legend of the Fist (2010)
  Wall Street (1987)/Wall Street 2 (2010) (the original Wall Street has been available on Blu-Ray for some time)

Sunday 23 January 2011

Episode 4: Grown Ups, The Hole, The Switch, Certified Copy, Soul Men and more!

Episode 4

The latest episode is now available!


As usual I review all the new releases that debuted on Blu over the last week, as well as giving a quick 'heads up' of new titles coming out in the week ahead and giving a rundown on the best-selling Blu-rays in the Official Sales Chart for the last seven days, up to the evening of Saturday, 22nd January 2011.

This week's new reviews include American comedies Grown Ups (2010) and Soul Men (2008), family-oriented horror film The Hole (2010), romantic comedy The Switch, Cannes film festival award winner Certified Copy, and two classics from the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu Equinox Flower (1958) and Good Morning (1959).

If you found this week's News and Chart rant interesting I've got an interesting blog post about Chart Hyping and the Increasing Power of the Supermarkets over on my personal blog.

I'd love you to rate the podcast on iTunes to help it get a sufficient number of ratings for an average to become visible on iTunes podcast search (and thanks to the three folks who've already given the podcast five star ratings. Truly humbling!)


And if you're hard of hearing, or just don't have time to listen to podcasts don't forget you can always download the transcript of this week's podcast.







Due Out Over the Next 7 Days

The following titles are likely to be reviewed in next week's podcast:
  Devil (2010)
  Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol (2010)
  Lemmy (2010)
  My One and Only (2009)
  The Other Guys (2010)
  Shogun Assassin (1980)
  Spartacus (1960)

The following titles are also released this week, but unlikely to be reviewed in next week's podcast:

  Backdraft (1991)
  The Breakfast Club (1985)
  Daylight (1996)
  Dead Space: Downfall (2008)
  Dead Space: Aftermath (2011)
  Definitely Maybe (2008)
  Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
  The John Cena Experience (2010)
  Liar Liar (1997)
  Meet Joe Black (1998)
  Notting Hill (1999)
  Out of Africa (1985)
  Shakespeare In Love (1998)
  Smokey and the Bandit (1997)
  Tremors (1990)
  Two for the Money (2005)

Sunday 16 January 2011

Episode 3: Resident Evil:AfterLife, Gainsbourg, F .. and more!

Episode 3

The latest episode is now available!

As usual I review all the new releases that debuted on Blu over the last week, as well as giving a quick 'heads up' of new titles coming out in the week ahead and giving a rundown on the best-selling Blu-Rays in the Official Sales Chart for the last seven days, up to the evening of Saturday, 15th January 2011.

This week's new reviews include hoodie horror F (2010), mockumentary I'm Still Here, gaming CGI-fest Resident Evil 4: AfterLife, acclaimed Swedish detective story The Girl Who Played With Fire, French 'fantasy bio-pic' Gainsbourg and Sky TV thriller series Thorne: Sleepyhead & Scaredycat.

If you can't wait for the podcast subscription to appear in iTunes you can always use the RSS feed on the right to subscribe outside of iTunes.


And if you're hard of hearing, or just don't have time to listen to podcasts don't forget you can always download the transcript of this week's podcast.







PODCAST CORRECTION: Please note that in the closing "Next Week's releases" section I incorrectly state that The Switch stars Patrick Bateman. I did, of course, mean to say Jason Bateman.


Due Out Over the Next 7 Days

Some of these will be fully reviewed in next week's podcast:

   Certified Copy (2010)
   Equinox Flower (1958)
   Good Morning (1959)
   Grown Ups (2010)
   The Hole (2010)
   Soul Men (2008)
   The Switch (2010)

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Now on iTunes!

The podcast is now available on iTunes although it will apparently be a couple more days before it shows up on searches.

The logo seems to have gone AWOL, which is strange given that it showed up in the submission form, but hopefully that can be sorted out in the next few days.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Episode 2: Dog Pound, A Serbian Film, Deep Red and more!

Episode 2
In this episode I have a quick look at the hot news topics this week, which include: Blu-Ray discussion at CES in Las Vegas, multiple store closures for HMV and the big 'Star Wars is coming to Blu-Ray' announcements.
As usual I review all the new releases that debuted on Blu over the last week, as well as giving a quick 'heads up' of new titles coming out in the week ahead.
This week's new reviews include one of the American/French remake of Scum, called Dog Pound and I also look at the highly controversial torture-porn flick A Serbian Film from, oddly enough, Serbia.
I also explain why 1970's Italian horror classic Deep Red wasn't on my shopping list this week.
And, as usual, I've also got the Official Top 10 Sales countdown, reflecting Blu-Ray sales for the seven day period ending on the 8th January 2011.

If you can't wait for the podcast subscription to appear in iTunes you can always use the RSS feed on the right to subscribe outside of iTunes.

And if you're hard of hearing, or just don't have time to listen to podcasts don't forget you can always download the transcript of this week's podcast.
Behind the scenes I've been working hard on souped-up information pages for the podcast reviewed titles, so if you want to know more click on the picture links below. See you next Monday, when new Blu-Ray releases really start to ramp up again.


Due Out Over the Next 7 Days

Some of these will be reviewed in next week's podcast:

   F (2010)
   Gainsbourg (2010)
   The Girl Who Played With Fire (2010)
   I'm Still Here (2010)
   Resident Evil 4: AfterLife (2010)
   Thorne: Sleepyhead / Scaredy Cat (TV 2010)

Friday 7 January 2011

Episode 1: Scott Pilgrim, Piranha 3D, Jonah Hex and more!

Thanks to the excellent service and support offered by my new podcast hosting company LibSyn I now have a proper podcast feed and hopefully the podcast should soon be appearing on iTunes

The next episode should be up late on Sunday evening (9th January 2011) and will have a similar "podcast player" button to that shown below in the associated blog post made here when the podcast is available.


If you can't wait for the podcast subscription to appear in iTunes you can always use the RSS feed on the right to subscribe outside of iTunes.

And if you're hard of hearing, or just don't have time to listen to podcasts don't forget you can always download the transcript of this week's podcast.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

The podcast is on its way!

In fact I launched the first episode last week. The problem is that I chose PodcastFM in the UK to host the podcast and it's been a disaster from the start. NOTHING on their web site works: the upload process, the FTP password mechanism, the Contact Us page, the ability for you to log in without getting a 'Write failed. No space' error page full of messy stack traces and php source information. Farcically bad!

So as a temporary measure, I've placed the first podcast, which runs to 32 minutes, up on my personal web site here However the download is slow and there's no RSS feed or iTunes support (yet!)

I'm hoping to finalise an arrangement with a new podcasting company by next Monday (10th January 2011) so that the next episode (a short one as there were only 3 releases in the UK this week!) can be properly supported. If all goes according to plan there will even be supporting applications in the iTunes app store to enable downloading of the podcast direct to to your iPhone/iTouch/iPad device with some fun extra's like the ability to download the pdf transcript too. More information when I've got things set up.

Stay tuned!