Flavours of the Month: March 2013...

LOOKS:

James Bond is Kind of a Prick - I saw this too-little-seen YouTube parody video on a RudeTube repeat and tracked it down online. Absolutely hilarious and bloody catchy to boot.

The Walking Dead Q&A Panels - the obsession continues unabated. "An Evening with The Walking Dead" and the "Paleyfest 2013" panels were particular highlights.

Derek - Ricky Gervais' Channel 4 comedy drama has been a real treat. Laugh out loud hilarious one minute, and then heart-breakingly serious the next. Rarely has a comedy drama juggled gasped guffaws and tear-jerking pathos so skilfully.

Click "READ MORE" below for more Looks, Sounds, Vibes & Flavours of March 2013...


Ocean's Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen - the first is top stuff, the second I didn't like at all the first time around, but many years later I find much more to like about it on a fresh viewing, and the third may be indulgent and tries awfully hard to recapture the magic of the first one, but it's still ruddy good fun.

The IT Crowd Series 1, 2, 3 & 4 - I've been rewatching Graham Linehan's superb sitcom that ran for four series. The DVDs themselves are top notch too - the menu design is some of the best I've ever seen (they all resemble various generations of videogames).

The Following - after a decent, but not amazing, first episode, it's been nothing but a downhill slide for Kevin Williamson's serial-killer-cult TV drama. My patience was wearing thin by episode two, and yet there was always one scene (usually involving Kevin Bacon - the only good part of the show) that managed to do the barest minimum to drag a further week's stay of execution from the delete button on the programme planner. However, with 'shock twists' mounting to little more than some bored and lazy writer throwing slices of salami at a wall of faces and seeing what sticks, and some of the dumbest characters I've ever seen (this show makes the FBI look like completely inept children), I simply had had enough. It's rare for me to ditch a film or TV show part way through (I've got that completist complex), but geez - this is rubbish - and it's got a second season! Madness.

Vegas - I gave it two episodes. Ditched it. If I want to see mob-era Vegas, I'll watch Martin Scorcese's brilliant "Casino" (and so I did - and it's still superb), not some watered down network TV procedural with all the thrill and intrigue of a stale sandwich.

Pete Holmes - I was familiar with some of his work in the form of those College Humour "Badman" videos (spoofs of the 'Dark Knight' trilogy), but didn't know it was him. I then stumbled upon some of his stand up comedy on YouTube and promptly consumed his YouTube Channel's content with gusto and proceeded to dig into some of the episodes of his great podcast "You Made It Weird" on the Nerdist website. A properly funny bloke.

Re-Animator & Bride of Re-Animator - the original's a horror classic, and while the sequel has a lot of very good points, the pacing and script are a bit leaden now that I view it for the first time in years.

The Walking Dead Season 3 Finale - in the parlance of the interwebtubes "OMFG". That is all.


SOUNDS:

M83 "StarWaves" - the new movie "Oblivion" has a soundtrack from M83. There's one reason to watch it, right there.

Fever Ray "If I Had A Heart" - I first heard this on Breaking Bad (early in season 4, if I remember correctly), and then it was at the end of 1x07 of The Following. Creepy, haunting, cool.

Garry Schyman "Elizabeth's Theme" - from the soundtrack to BioShock Infinite.

Nico Vega "Beast of America" - as heard on trailers for BioShock Infinite.

Guns n' Roses "Use Your Illusion 1"

The Black Angels "Directions To See A Ghost"

Nine Inch Nails "With Teeth"

Nirvana "In Utero" - can you believe this album is now 20 years old?!

Sheryl Crow "The Globe Sessions" - this is the only album of Crow's that I own. I bought it during my GCSEs (back in 1998 or 1999), and I still dig this album. "Riverwide" in particular always makes me think of "The Crucible", which we were studying in English Literature at the time. Certain songs and certain albums transport you vividly back to a time in your past - this is one of those songs/albums.

"You Made It Weird" Podcast


VIBES & FLAVOURS:

"The Walking Dead: The Road To Woodbury" Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga - some of the things in the prose from "Rise of The Governor" that irked me remain, and sometimes the structure of scenes can prove frustrating, but when all is said and done I think Bonansinga's prose has improved since ROTG. However, there are some things that annoyed me: for instance, whenever a bunch of characters fail to notice or hear (let alone smell) a horde of corpses surrounding them, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense. These people have done well enough to survive this long, and yet they make basic tactical errors when out in the wilds of this post-apocalyptic world. True, they have to get into scrapes now and then, but I feel that a few small tweaks to these scenes would help sell them a little better.

This all said, at 30 pages lighter than the previous book, it feels a bit breezier, even though the initial chapters are a bit slow to get going. There's a handful of issues dotted throughout, but for fans of The Walking Dead who seek further back story to the town of Woodbury, it's definitely worth a spin.

Cold Shadows Draft 1.2 - read more about it here.

Sleb - read more about it here.

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1-6 - a second spin through Brian Lee O'Malley's superb Manga-inspired graphic novel series.