Flavours of the Month: November 2009...

I'm about a week late on this one, but nevertheless, away we go!

John Cusack...

Yeah it's a veritable hetero-man-crush going on. I finally got to see the ruddy excellent Say Anything, and then saw the rather brash 2012 ... which is good in it's own 'cheese burger kind of way'. It's not Beef Wellington, but you know what, a cheese burger can really hit the spot too.

Also I've been mad-keen on High Fidelity again. I've watched the movie another two times and have been listening to the soundtrack like nobody's business. As I've said before, I will pick up the book at some point and continue my obsession.

Writing...

I've delved back in to "Zero", as I've been blogging about on here recently, and November was marred somewhat in this respect. Not by the script, but by the software. As you'll have seen from previous posts, Final Draft was causing a right old load of trouble. However, moving to Final Draft version 8 has sorted the problem out and I've been merrily chugging away on Draft 3.1 - which is itself nearing completion. I just need to obsess over those first 10 pages some more and then I'll post it off to the BBC Writersroom at the beginning of January.

The next DeadShed Productions short film...

I've been gearing up for the next short film, doing prop research and then finally making a decision and ordering said props (which I think will work very well indeed). I've been recording dialogue in preparation, and have just generally been getting ready for it. A filming date hasn't been set yet, but we've been talking about shooting it for a while now, and the project itself has been gestating for a long old while. So keep your fingers crossed that we can actually get it on tape at long last.

Top Gear...

The most awesomest show in the entire world is back for its 14th series, yo ... nuff said.

Foo Fighters, Rammstein, and Guns 'n Roses...

I've been on a Foo's retrospective kick of late, but going backwards through their catalogue. During this time I rested for a long while on my favourite Foo's album (There Is Nothing Left To Lose), which really inspired me while I was heavily into some script writing on "Zero".

It's also been a time for some Rammstein. Not content with just have their latest album in my disc changer, I nabbed a copy of Rosenrot for a fiver.

Similar to the Foo's, I've been having a GnR revival in my hi-fi, what with Use Your Illusion 1 (great album) and UYI 2 (not that great, but with moments of greatness - e.g. "You Could Be Mine"). Next up is one of my all-time favourite albums, Appetite For Destruction.

James Cameron...

I've been getting amped up for Avatar (out in a couple of weeks time, woo!) and Total Film had a full-on supplement all about the man himself. Further to my JC revival this past month, I got Aliens of the Deep on DVD, and have Ghosts of the Abyss on its way. Roll on Avatar!

400th Blog Post...

Indeed, in November this 'ere blog got to it's 400th post, woo!

Videogames...

Such is the way with the videogame industry, they all seem to want to pimp out their titles at the same time as everyone else. Why this is a good idea is beyond me, because every gamer will know that you always get logjams of games.

Then again as you can so often crack through them fairly swiftly the first time through, it's not like you've got three World of Warcrafts to play or something. No, instead it was GTA Episodes From Liberty City - in which the second episode "The Ballad of Gay Tony" was much better all-round than the first episode, which was "The Lost & Damned".

Next up was a bash through Ghostbusters. As a GB videogame it's a 9.5/10 ... as a videogame in general it's a 7.5/10 ... but blimey did it make me grin with glee everytime I popped it in to play.

Then of course it was the biggest entertainment launch of all time, and strong contender for Game of the Year the world over. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I maintain that it sits on level pegging with the first Modern Warfare. Each game does things better and worse than the other.

While MW2 is a thrillingly intense action festival, with some amazing sights and sounds, the plot is full of cavernous holes, and indeed the story frequently gets lost in the chaos. Some levels - such as Burger Town - become too frantic, and you find yourself confused thanks to constant radio chatter, a compass with too tiny letters for North South East and West, and sometimes preposterous amounts of bad guys facing off against your little squad.

The increased difficulty/chaos on Recruit (aka Casual/Easy) Mode is also annoying. I personally don't want to be challenged, I just want to play and have fun. So you have to pay more attention in MW2 than you did beforehand. This can occasionally become annoying at a couple of points in the game.

However, MW2 does provide a serious dose of awesome sauce directly into your veins, and upon a second play through (which I'm currently cracking through at a fair old lick) it just feels better than the first time. No doubt there was an element of hype overload when I first played MW2 - and I actively tried to avoid the hype as much as possible, while maintaining my own excitement. Even still, it's hard to avoid the bombardment of utterly pointless MW2 hyping videos when you're subscribed to both IGN Entertainment and Machinima on YouTube. Seriously - calm the fuck down.

So yeah, while I blogged extensively about Modern Warfare 2 last month (go on, have a gander), I won't go on about it too much here. Safe to say though, when all is said and done, it sits on the same level pegging as the first Modern Warfare. Hopefully MW3 will fix the issues I had with MW2, but also continue the greatness.

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So there you have it folks, another month and another flavour shot.