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Crocs to cobras, mambas to cottonmouths, komodos to geckos – let's get snappy and slide in some song suggestions

Every few months sensational news items announce how a crocodile is on the loose somewhere in Britain. "Goose-killer lurks in London's River Lea near Olympic Stadium" ran one headline in 2011. Last year a huge crocodile was reportedly spotted in the English Channel. It turned out to be a piece of wood. And in February this year police were called out after someone supposedly spotted a crocodile under a bridge in Bristol. None were found. Still, while discarded terrapin pets are regularly to be seen thriving in park ponds, it's hard to beat the idea, for attention-grabbing public frenzy and what-lies-beneath terror, that some man-eating scaly monster will come up through the sewage system and bite your bits when you're on the toilet.

Reptiles also do leap out prominently in song, but they...

James Bond is a well travelled man, there’s no doubt about that. His passport bears the stamps of more countries than most of us will visit in a lifetime, as a career spanning twenty three films has sent him from his home of Great Britain to everywhere from the United States, Mexico and Brazil to Japan, India and China.

There are a handful of notable places across the globe that Bond has yet to visit, however, and it is six such locations that the following list shall focus on.

Where He Has Been

Before we begin, here is a quick rundown of countries and overseas territories that 007 has visited during his 23-film career, excluding the United Kingdom. For countries that no longer exist (such as the Soviet Union), the modern day nation that the specific location visited by Bond finds itself in is shown in brackets. Scenes not featuring...

The simian star of new Disney film Chimpanzee is the latest animal to be portrayed as having human emotions. But does such anthropomorphism give a distorted view of nature?

You could say cinema and nature got off on the wrong foot, or paw, right from the start. In 1926, to much excitement, an adventurer named William Douglas Burden brought back two komodo dragons to New York's Bronx zoo – the first live specimens the western world had ever seen. Most of that excitement had been generated via a movie Burden had made depicting these semi-mythical reptiles in the Indonesian wild, voraciously devouring a wild boar. By comparison, the real, live komodo dragons were something of a disappointment. They just lay about lethargically in their cage, and died a few months later. It later transpired that Burden's film had been heavily edited and staged to amp up the drama. The dragons hadn't actually...

“Behind their feisty charm lies an amazing character” begins David Tennant’s comforting introduction to the 3 hour penguin-fest of Penguins – Spy in the Huddle which has been “filmed as never before” using a whole range of ingenious technologies and clever camouflaging.

Producer/Director John Downer has already made a name for himself with the bird-centered Earthflight and also Polar Bear – Spy on the Ice but with this series he takes on three different species of penguin in their natural environments and sends in his carefully disguised cameras to film these engaging members of this subfamily spheniscae. He’s taken on quite a challenge here as this ground has been well and truly trodden by the epic, and nearly 8 year old, March of the Penguins which had the deep, warm tones of Morgan Freeman narrating the Emperor Penguins challenging Antarctic struggle and which picked up an Oscar for Best Documentary in...

Blu-ray/DVD Release Date: April 9, 2013

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $24.97

Studio: BBC Home Entertainment/Warner Home Video

Cute animals, James Bond and the BBC. What’s not to like in One Life?

Daniel Craig (Skyfall) narrates the nature documentary, which was directed by Michael Gunton, from Earth: The Movie, Madagascar and Africa, and Martha Holmes, from The Blue Planet.

They follow life from all over the globe, stories of survival and animal ingenuity from birth to the next generation. Whether they have wings, flippers, eight legs or two, the movie shows that life connects us all.

And with filmmaking pedigree like Gunton and Holmes, not to mention the excellence of BBC behind the film, you know the documentary will be gorgeous.

One Life is only available as a Blu-ray/DVD Combo in the U.S., not a single DVD. The discs contain these special features:

“The Making of One Life” with...

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he once used a chameleon as a car alarm. The veteran broadcaster and naturalist recalled that his car was broken into while staying in Madagascar, encouraging him to take the unusual course of action. "When I was in Madagascar a few years ago we had a Land Rover, and I caught one of these big [chameleons] in a cage," Attenborough said during the launch of his new programme Attenborough's Natural Curiosities at the Saatchi Gallery. "If this species gets angry, it goes black and gets red stripes on it. One night our car was broken into and the window was smashed. (more)...

Without a doubt, Sir David Attenborough is one of the many reasons we are proud to call ourselves British. Odd as that may sound, we all know it’s true. He has an instantly recognisable voice, and when the latest of his documentaries begins, we flock to our television screens and cannot get enough.

This year saw him narrating and presenting the incredibly popular seven-part Frozen Planet series, as well as Desert Seas, Attenborough and the Giant Egg, and the three-part series Madagascar.

His latest documentary, The Bachelor King 3D, airs tonight on Sky 3D, and is set to be an absolutely brilliant look at the story of the King Penguin and his search for love and a family. He’s been speaking to MSN about the project, and you can watch the interview with the man himself below.

“In a city of six million inhabitants on a remote island...

If you're one who is into nature documentaries, you can't go wrong with the good stuff that BBC Earth dishes out, and one of their latest, Madagascar, an informative look at the titular island in the Indian Ocean, is no exception. Narrated by a gentleman named David Attenborough, who is, if anything, an authority on Madagascar, the documentary takes a cut-and-dry look at the Earth's oldest island.

As with any Blu-ray nature documentary, the visuals are the first thing you'll notice as you start the show. The super-detailed and invasive close-ups are characteristic of disciplined camera crews and their expensive equipment, as are the wide panoramic shots of the varying regions Madagascar boasts. Madagascar is broken up into three different episodes, each one more or less discussing the land mass's three most distinct regions.

Read more...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

While it’s not the much-desired fully-restored Blu-Ray editions fans have been clamoring for, Universal has released the original (best) Marx Brothers films as individual DVDs of The Cocoanuts, Duck Soup, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, and Horsefeathers (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 Srp each) outside of the box set they were originally released in way back in 2004. So if you want to be able to watch them...