Creative Opinions: Physical Vs Digital

HMV and Blockbuster both collapsed in on themselves about a week ago leaving both music and movie-lovers feeling slightly lost. Where will they peruse the latest releases or pay a mere £3 for a DVD? Where will they find a deal as fab as the infamous '2 for £10' or such a relentlessly massive collection of headphones? Happy memories playing video games with complete strangers may fade and future generations could be at risk of never knowing what a 'CD' is... but does it really matter? Has the digital age finally taken over, wiping out all things physical in the process? Are Waterstones, and books in general, next to drop dead? Or will people rediscover the value in something you can wrap your arms around and hold dear to your heart, triggering a resurgence of independant stores? HCTV asked eight media-savvy individuals to exchange their opinions...

A look back at 2012 in the cinema

2012 has been a massive year for cinema. Bond struck back with Skyfall, The Hunger Games began, Spider-man did it all over again and The Cabin In The Woods pretty much reinvented everything we know about horror. Prometheus both amazed and appalled audiences, The Hobbit was either too long or not long enough and nobody even knew John Carter happened. The Avengers did 'comic book movie' better than ever before and Batman finished his run. It's been epic - so here's the best and the worst of the lot of it...!

Shopping List December 2012 - Five gifts you want for Xmas

Christmas is right around the corner and children everywhere are ready to burst with excitement at the thought of unwrapping an iPhone 5, Wii U or 3D TV on the big day. Sucks, doesn't it, how the magic has been torn from the festive season. Since when did all a child care about become the latest electrical gadgets, Furbys and Doctor Who? What happened to teddy bears, board games and wearing silly hats? Never mind. What follows is a list of five fab gift ideas the child inside all us geeky adults really wishes for come the 25th (if we survive that long)!

Podcast #8 - It doesn't matter if you Trick or Treat

Join Roo & Will for a DVD quiz, testing your knowledge of movie blurbs, before moving onto a discussion about Halloween and the movies that generally go hand in hand with the special spooky day. 

How do you deal with trick or treaters? Can they speak properly? Who is Professor Green? What are our thoughts on Michael Jackson and his many whacky adventures? All these questions will be answered in this, HCTV's 8th amazing podcast!

Find all the previous episodes by visiting HCTV's Podcomatic page here, or you can click the logo on the right hand side of the blog whenever you fancy popping back for some more. Be sure to subscribe with iTunes so that it's on you iPod for those horrendous journey's into work!

Podcast #7 - 3D pigeons, OAPs, one boob & the Titanic

Here comes yet another fabulously free podcast from Roo & Will for HCTV - the 7th so far, in fact! You can find the back catalogue on our Podomatic page by clicking here, or by using the link in the side bar! Be sure to 'subscribe with iTunes' too so that it's all synced perfectly with your iPod! Never again will you have to sit or stand in silence and looking sad on the way to work - with HCTV's podcasts you'll be laughing all the way!

This time around you'll find out if Will has the time and the money to visit the biggest screens cinema has to offer, if Titanic makes us feel old, how many boobs you're allowed in a 12A and whether or not it's best to buy a box set. And, here's a fun little game: A many number of ambulances pass during the recording of this podcast, so tell us on Twitter how many you heard!

The Spider-man DVD competition winner is...

Good lord, we have a winner! Congrats to Craig McFadyen - he's won HCTV's super-special birthday competition!

As you may recall, back when it was HCTV's 5th birthday, a competition was launched and it was decided that the winner would get a Spider-man DVD box set, as well as a nifty little HCTV badge, on Friday 14th September 2012 - that's today! All everyone had to do was click 'like' on HCTV's Facebook page, and it feels fabulous to report that we had a very pleasant response - but the competition is now well and truly closed. So tough luck if you missed out!

Shopping List September 2012 - Dexter, Daleks & Daley

September's already here and we're ferociously hurtling our way towards Christmas day faster than we'd like. Pay day's just been and we've only a short while left to spend money on ourselves before we need to start splashing out on everyone around us. What's worth buying, then? Here's 10 TV and film-related bits and bobs you need in your shopping basket...

Competition: WIN Tobey Maguire's Spider-man boxset!

No, you numpty - not Toby Maguire's own personal copy (although that'd be a far more attractive prize).

HCTV is half way to 10 years! Wowza. And, to celebrate such a skull shatteringly exciting event, we've already released some old pictures of how the website’s looked over the years, but that’s not all! This bit is a competition - yes! A chance to win something splendid that involves next to no effort on your part whatsoever! HCTV has the original Tobey Maguire-filled Spider-man trilogy on Blu-ray and a badge that says ‘I ♥ HELLOCAKETV’ on it – and it’s all up for grabs! Simply like the HCTV Facebook page before Friday 14th September and you’re automatically in with a chance of winning!

Malcolm In The Middle, in the end...

What's so great about shows like Malcolm In The Middle is that they don't shy away from being completely bonkers. They proper go for it, diving in head first and leaving the audience confused - stunned, even. It's the broader minded folks who don't let that get in the way of ploughing through the initial stage of overwhelming weirdness to go on and discover what's undeniably one of the funniest and most inventive sitcoms to have ever been shown on our teleboxes. While it had a few rough patches where it seemed to lose its footing momentarily, for the most part it stayed true to its characters and, most importantly, kept on being funny.

Review: Dexter needs a Doctor

 Warning: Semi-spoilerific 

The majority of Dexter fans will agree that the earlier seasons of the show were the best and that it peaked at season 4 - since then it hasn't recovered. Season 5 was naff, at best, but comes across as pretty much the best damn thing on TV since sliced bread commercials when you sit it next to the tat that was season 6. So, why exactly is the show on such a slippery slope? Its 'shock' moments aren't so shocking any more and the build up to reveals takes far too long for the result to turn out being such a bunch of bizarre, short-lived pay-offs. In other words, it's leaving a lot to be desired, because they're trying too hard to do 'cool' shit.