Flavours of the Month: March 2012...

LOOKS:

The Walking Dead Season 2 - the second half of season two has been a storming success with Glenn Mazzara as the new showrunner. The scale of the look of the show has expanded, the pacing has been perfected, the drama has been ramped up even more, and boy-oh-boy did we zed-heads get some amazing zombie action too. I absolutely cannot wait for season three!

Deadwood - spotted it on sale, so figured I'd give it a spin and now I love this show. The first season is superb, as is the second (even if the dialogue became overly complicated and verbose ... as if the writers ran every word through a thesaurus), and while the third season lacks some of the propulsion and intrigue of the first two seasons (until the final three episodes when it gets nail-bitingly tense), you're so invested in the town and its residents, you don't mind that the final season has been a slower-paced affair with several vague subplots that never really developed. An excellent show all-round and I dearly hope we can finally get the much-talked-about, but never realised (thus far), TV movies that were intended to wrap up the storylines properly.

The Evil Dead - I've got it twice on VHS (cut & uncut), once on DVD (the 'Book of the Dead' edition), and now I've got it on Blu-Ray. It's a bit of an annoyance that we in Region B didn't get the original aspect ratio and a few other additional extras (as found on the now out of print limited edition that Region A got), but it's a spiffing way to catch up on some missed extra features from releases past, and get a remarkably good-looking spruce-up of the print.


L.A. Noire DLC Videos - not having Xbox Live, I was never able to check out the bonus cases associated with last year's excellent L.A. Noire. However, thanks to video walkthroughs posted on the internet, I've been able to have a look at them regardless. Not as fun as playing them yourself, but the next best thing when you are refused access because you don't have your Xbox online or a large enough hard-drive for the data.

Mad Men Season 1 - started the catch-up process on AMC's cool and witty drama about 1960s advertising executives. Loving it already.


SOUNDS:

The Walker Brothers "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" - it's all about The Walking Dead this month. As heard on the season one trailer.

Wye Oak "Civilian" - same as above, but heard on the season two trailer, and at the end of one of the episodes.

Bob Dylan "Not Dark Yet" - as heard on a season two episode of Deadwood.

Poets of the Fall "The Happy Song" - as heard in connection with Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

Foo Fighters "Wasting Light"

The Prodigy "Fat of the Land"

CKY "An Answer Can Be Found" & "Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild"

Guns n Roses "Appetite For Destruction"


VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Computer issues - my day-to-day work horse PC finally gave up the ghost after many years of heavy use. It did me proud, but the past year has been a slow exit for the old girl with intermittent freak-outs which would give way to months of working just fine. However the writing was on the wall and this month it gave up for good. I'm now having to get used to the various wonders and woes of upgrading to Windows 7 - but over-the-piece it's good, though I will miss my old work horse.