Saturday 31 May 2014

Flavours of the Month: May 2014...

LOOKS:

Twin Peaks - finishing off season two. There were about eight episodes after the reveal of Laura Palmer's killer where the show went off the rails and didn't have a new main story and threat to pick up the ball. Various subplots and side stories didn't really work, so for those iffy episodes only parts of them are working. It stopped being strange, it got safe and even a bit plain. That said, in the last few episodes it swung right back up again and found the groove for a grand finale. Good news too about the imminent release of 90 minutes worth of deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me.

South Park Season 13, 14 and 15 - when South Park hits a home run, it really goes all out, but then you end up (unfairly) expecting every episode to be like the one where the Internet goes down, or the Facebook episode, or the World of Warcraft episode etc. However, watching these episodes for a second time on their own terms really frees them of any first-watch expectations you originally had. What was a tad underwhelming the first time becomes a rather good run of episodes with some forgotten gems hidden away.

Click "READ MORE" below for the other looks, sounds, vibes & flavours of my May 2014...

Mad Men Season 7 - splitting the season into two parts over two years is super lame, but this penultimate run of seven episodes has been very good. I felt that the show kind of lost its groove a bit in season six and, for me at least, this half-season has been tighter and more focused. Looking forward to the final seven ... not looking forward to a whole bloody year long gap in-between.

Fargo - I've got sucked into this new show in a big bad way. Absolutely loving it. Darkly comic, intriguing characters, controlled style, a strange sense that anything could happen at any moment - essentially it's brilliant.

Eastbound and Down Season 4 - I've always been a bit in-the-middle on this show. My opinion of it hasn't been glowing but hasn't been terrible either. Sometimes it felt like it was just going around in circles, or was too mean-spirited for its own good, but I did find the final season (which I put off seeing for months) to be a good way to cap things off. Possibly the best season since the first.

The Wolf Of Wall Street (Blu-Ray) - thoughts on it here.


SOUNDS:

The Black Angels "Passover" and "Directions To See A Ghost"

Rob Zombie "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor"

Airborne "Black Dog Barking"

White Zombie "Astro-Creep 2000"

The Sisters of Mercy "Floodland"

Ringo Deathstarr "God's Dream" and "Bongload"

Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch, and Julee Cruise



VIBES & FLAVOURS:

"Sleb" novelisation - this month I reached the end of the story (in a third draft state), took a few days away from it, and then headed back in for a fourth draft. There'll be one more draft soon before I put it online (aiming for the end of June), but in the meantime I've been looking into some of the other tasks to get sorted - such as the cover, the synopsis, and an extra little something I'll be doing to try and help spread the word for it. Current word count: 81,024.

Wedding - Gareth (Zombie Man himself) headed down the aisle and we all had a damn good time. Naturally, much booze was consumed, and there was a lot of dancing going on ... I even got up there myself, having not danced in over twenty years (as I think those "country dancing" lessons in primary school scarred me for life). A fantastic time indeed.

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