Several months without a post is inexcusable but I think that I have good reason for my absence.  A house move, renovating said house, a potential redundancy situation at work, PhD stuff, a conference presentation, producing the department teaching timetable and preparing for a new academic year have all got in the way, sapping my blogging time.  But, for better or for worse, I am now back.  Expect to see some signs of life here from now on.  And now, over to Devo.

"You have to let me play Frank! Because I am Frank!"

Who are the best online DVD and Blu-Ray retailers?  It is a very good question, one I get asked a lot.  Rather than produce a list I recently came across this post a the Empire film forums which does an excellent job of identifying the best online retailers from all over the world. My thanks go to the original poster for producing such a valuable list.

Peter Graves dies at age 83.

Christmas has all but come and gone.  I have been feeling under the weather for the most part but have had chance to kick back, relax and catch up on some films and television shows that were put aside over the past few months.  I have been watching episodes of Thriller, an acclaimed 1970s British anthology television series; the Blu-Ray release of the cult British series The Prisoner which is becoming very addictive; the Blu-Ray releases of Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009), Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) amongst many others.  I am currently watching the Blu-Ray disc of Crank 2 (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, 2009), a definite guilty pleasure from this year.

At this time of year it is customary for bloggers to produce lists of their favourite films, albums, books etc and I am afraid that I will be no exception.  Over the next few days I will be listing my ten favourite films of the year and also my favourite films, albums and television shows of the past decade.  Let's start with my favourite films of the year, in no particular order of course:

Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)
Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)
Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007)
500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)
The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009)
Harry Brown (Daniel Barber, 2009)

As I mentioned above, Crank 2 was without doubt my favorite guilty pleasure of the year; it is absolutely insane and a must-see for lovers of action films. Still on my to watch list are Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009), The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009) and Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009). 

I'll be continuing the listing fun later today.  Now back to Crank 2.

Could Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1986) and Die Hard 2 (Renny Harlin, 1990) be the best alternative Christmas movies?  I try to watch both every Christmas Eve, closely followed by Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974) and then National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik,1989) on Christmas Day. 

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

Thanks to Google Mail's spam filter I rarely get any spam in my inbox.  However, I recently the received the email below.  It made me laugh, a lot.

I search for the man for serious relations. I want visit your country.

Hello there!
Is anything the metter?
I am Margie
I find my prince...
I young and pretty.
With huge desire, would hear about you.
I wait from you for the answer.
ALL THE BEST...

I took some movie posters to be framed to The Framers at the Custard Factory in Birmingham.  Anyone who collects movie posters will know how difficult it is find adequate ready made frames and how expensive it can be to pay for custom framing.  However, The Framers only charge £35 for a British Quad poster to be framed.  This is quite a bargain compared to some of the over quotes I have had, £115 was one of the cheaper quotes I received in the past.  Looking at some of their handiwork in their gallery I was quite impressed.  As you can see in the picture, I was rather surprised to find an original Italian poster for Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1974) staring me in the face as I walked in the shop.  Apparently, the person who had this framed never returned to collect the poster.  That was three years ago.  The asking price is £400; a little too steep for me, unfortunately.  I'll post my thoughts on the quality of the framing when I collect them in the next few weeks.

I won this on eBay a couple of weeks ago and it arrived from Lebanon this morning. There are a few pinholes but for £8 it is an absolute steal. I am hoping to get this one framed.

I'll post my thoughts on this great piece of Ozploitation shortly.