Flavours of the Month: March & April 2026...

Killer mutated vines, isometric law enforcement, and a galaxy that's a bit of a walk away is just some of what's been setting the tone of my March and April 2026...

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Flavours of the Month: March & April 2025...

A bit of the old bish-bash-bosh, retro in a half-shell, and a ruddy good flashback is just some of what's been setting the tone of my March and April 2025...

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Flavours of the Month: March & April 2024...

Apocalyptic retro-futurism, laid back pixel packing, and a trip to Delta City is some of what's been setting the tone of my March and April of 2024...

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Flavours of the Months: February, March, and April 2023...

March was a rough month, drawing to a sad but somewhat merciful close to a very difficult three years that was only going to get even worse, which is obviously why these 'flavours of the month' are later than usual.

So ... an apocalyptic adaptation, globetrotting with Agent 47, and Mando on the skids are some of what's been flavouring my February, March, and April 2023...

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Flavours of the Month: April/May 2022...

Random arse-kicking in the valley, goofballs putting their nuts on the line, and last year's big splash are just some of what's been setting the tone of my April/May 2022...

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Flavours of the Month: April/May 2021...

Polite Kiwi paranormal activities, more alternative history, and some acrobatic aerial explosive chaos is just some of what has been setting the tone of my April and May 2021...

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Flavours of the Month: April 2020...

The wild and foul-mouthed west, hardcore synthwave, and undercover action on the rain-slick streets of Hong Kong are just some of what's been setting the tone of my April 2020...

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FWOAN Interview with Ali & Lucy...

"For Want Of A Nail" producer Ali Causon and director Lucy Joan Barnes were recently interviewed as part of the FEEDBACK Female Film Festival, which took place last month in Los Angeles.

True to its name, the festival organisers provided video feedback from audience members for each screened film.

What motivated you to make this film?

Lucy (director): The script and it’s message, it was not trying to “sugarcoat” what having OCD is really like.. it was showing how intense it can be for the person who suffers from it.

Ali (producer): Although I was not looking for a script that specifically focused on mental health, after reading FWOAN just a couple of times, it felt like a natural follow up to my previous short about PTSD.  

From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this short?

Lucy: I believe it was about a year…

Ali: Writer Nick and I had been working together for a few months before mainly to find a director we wanted to work with. Lucy, Nick and I then ran a development workshop with volunteers from OCD Action and Actors to learn more about the condition.

Read the full interview with Ali & Lucy HERE.

Flavours of the Month: April 2019...

Hilarious social awareness, the unfolding conclusion to an epic, and a masked movie monster are just some of what's been setting the tone of my April 2019...

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FWOAN's first award...

For Want Of A Nail has picked up its first award - Editor of the Month - from The Monthly Film Festival (April 2018). Congratulations to our editor Ryan Tian, and hopefully this will be the first of many awards!

FWOAN was also nominated for Film of the Month, Original Score of the Month (Alex Williamson), and Cinematogragher of the Month (Yana Ritz-Cairns).

You can see the results and nominations HERE. Our film's page on TMFF is here.

Flavours of the Month: April 2018...

Bittersweet Deadites, Killer Klowns, Controversial Jedi, and kablowie explosions - some of what's been the vibe of my April 2018...

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Flavours of the Month: April 2017...

The Walking Dead Season 7 in review, comedians doing their thing, and time travellers from Finland - just a handful of what's been setting the tone of my April 2017...

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Flavours of the Month: April 2016...

Giallo gems, cliffhangers, alcoholic spies, horror rock, assassination, and - of course - a fair bit of writing (including a word or two on O.C.D. and Intrusive Thoughts), are just some of the things that have been setting the tone for my April 2016...

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Flavours of the Month: April 2015...

There's been a pervasive amount of Rob Zombie scattered throughout my April 2015, from his music (solo efforts and early White Zombie) to some of his cinematic outings such as "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects" ... but that's just a little of what's been tickling my fancy for entertainment.

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Flavours of the Month: April 2014...

LOOKS:

Lost Season 6 - and so ends the return trip to the island. The final season did feel a bit over-long, and certain elements didn't tie-up quite as well as they should have, but ultimately I was still impressed by how the show ended.

The Trip To Italy - a second series of the delightfully entertaining comedy starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as slightly askew versions of themselves. It's a welcome return, although a subplot about infidelity does, to me at least, sit a little uneasily with the generally jovial tone of the show. We'll see how that particular thread plays out over the remaining episodes.

South Park Season 10, 11, and 12

Mad Men Season 7 - the final season, annoyingly split over two years. The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are more my kind of thing, but even still, I'm a big fan of this show. Three episodes deep - so far so good. A year-long mid-season break is going to be a pain though, just like with the final season of BB.

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Flavours of the Month: April 2013...

LOOKS:

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (Blu-Ray) - yet another visit to Edgar Wright's film adaptation of Brian Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series (which I re-read last month). It's a tall order to cram six volumes worth of material into one film; the compressed time frame doesn't leave room for the more expansive experience of the books, and Ramona is just a touch too aloof - but these are mere quibbles - the film is a jam-packed cult classic.

Storage Hunters - I've gone and got myself addicted to this 'reality/unscripted' show about people who bid on storage lockers that are being auctioned off. It appeals to the innate yearning in all of us - what's in the box?! How much will it be worth?! Will they earn a profit?! These questions simply must be answered!

Mad Men Season 6 - the welcome return of Matthew Weiner's superb 1960s-set drama. Richly textured and moreish in equal measure.

Click "READ MORE" below for the other looks, sounds, vibes & flavours of my April 2013...

Flavours of the Month: April 2012...

LOOKS:

Titanic (ITV) - Julian Fellowe's four-part drama was never going to be able to match the spectacle and scale of James Cameron's 1997 monster hit, so instead this televised dramatisation focuses on particular characters from the various classes of passenger aboard the doomed ship. The results are alright, but not memorable - a far more interesting story to tell would have been everything following the sinking of the ship itself. Dramatising the survivors coming to terms with what happened, their losses, and the ensuing legal battles and public fallout - that would have made for far more interesting Titanic-related TV drama.

Beavis & Butt-head Do America - a blast of nostalgia was the order of the day as it swung by on Sky Movies this month. I was flung right back to my teenage years in an instant.

Drive Angry (Blu-Ray)

Bridesmaids (Blu-Ray)

The Guard (Blu-Ray)

Craig Fergusson - as is so often the way when you're surfing around YouTube, you'll come across a clip of interest (e.g. Nerdist man Chris Hardwick appearing on the Craig Fergusson show in America) and you'll then watch a shed load more clips related to it. So I've ended up watching a ton of The Late Late Show With Craig Fergusson clips on YouTube as a result.

All Star Celebrity Bowling - as featured on the new-look Nerdist Channel on YouTube.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2011 (Blu-Ray) - another tip-top, extras-heavy presentation for another spiffing David Fincher flick. On second viewing there is indeed not enough pairing of Mikael and Lisbeth on-screen (even though their stories are both strong separately) - they don't meet until minute 76 (of 158 minutes), and from then on it's not like they're inseparable either ... but then again to me it's a nice companion piece to the original Swedish film. Each do things their counterpart doesn't, and vice versa.

Continue reading below for what's been this month's soundtrack, and a lengthy look at some ways in which I'd like to see a possible L.A. Noire 2 go.

Flavours of the Month: April 2011...

LOOKS:

Hot Tub Time Machine - still a bloody good laugh. "Great White Buffalo ... Great White Buffalo ... Great White Buffalo."

Event Horizon - I hadn't seen this for years, so it was a nostalgia trip as I used to watch this all the time when I was in high school (when it originally came out). Me and my mates loved it, and the fact that it featured "Funky Shit" by The Prodigy made it all the more appealing to us. I tell you what as well, it's a damn sight better than Pandorum, that's for sure.

Blue Velvet - there's a certain tone and vibe to a David Lynch project that makes them stand out from the crowd, and Blue Velvet is one of his strongest films. I'm rather looking forward to the Blu-Ray release, now that a whole load of deleted content has been recently discovered.

Jackass - I had another skim through the Jackass flicks, being that the third one recently came out on home video, for old times' sake. Now roll on whenever Jackass 3.5 comes out.

Mulholland Drive - I'd not seen it until this month, but the Blu-Ray was released not too long ago, and coming hot on the heels of another viewing of Blue Velvet, it felt like the right time. It looks nothing short of seductive on Blu-Ray, and the extra features (which are mostly in French, somewhat curiously) are intriguing - particularly the one that uses Lynch's own list of 10 clues to decipher what the movie is (most likely) about. I loved it.

MacGruber - I'm totally unfamiliar with the SNL sketch on which this is based, but we laughed hard at the cinema when we went to see it, and I certainly enjoyed it a second time around. "KFBR 392, KFBR 392, KFBR 392."

Iron Man 2 - it was about a year ago that we saw this in the cinema, and we were insanely psyched to see it. It's a shame then that it just didn't live up to the excellent trailer, nor the very enjoyable and well paced first movie. The sequel's pace is too uneven, the final battle with Vanko is bizarrely short, and it gets a bit distracted by establishing the wider Avengers franchise. There's still some cool action, but here's hoping that the third movie - apparently under the tutelage of Shane Black - re-asserts the quality factor of the first flick.

SOUNDS:

CKY "An Answer Can Be Found" - I was a little bet let down by this album back in 2005, but it's definitely better than I remembered it as being. However, Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild, and Carver City, were both superior albums in my view.

The Prodigy "Invaders Must Die" - I think it was the use of "Run With The Wolves" in the trailer for Paul that inspired me to give this a few more spins.

Angelo Badalamenti & BlueBob - there's something about the vibe, that music produced for David Lynch projects, gives off that helps get my mind into a certain place that helps me write.

Foo Fighters "Wasting Light" - after being a little bit underwhelmed by their last two albums (although I still enjoyed them, just not as much as their 2nd, 3rd and 4th outings), this is a return to form in my view. A stripped back sound with catchy songs. Make sure you check out the 'Live at 606' version of the album on the band's official YouTube channel.

Scream 2 - I gave the soundtrack CD, which I bought back in 1999, another spin after seeing Scream 4 in the cinema. It's a rather mixed album - the good comes in the form of "Eyes of Sand" (Tonic), "Dear Lover" (Foo Fighters), "Red Right Hand" (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds), "I Think I Love You" (Less Than Jake) and "She Said" (Collective Soul) ... but the bad comes in the form of the absolutely dreadful opener "Scream" (Master P), and a series of mediocre offerings filling out the rest.

White Zombie "Astro-Creep:2000", and "La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1" - the former is definitely my favourite White Zombie outing. Every now and then I swing by these albums in my collection and give them another spin.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Brownies & Apple Juice - a recurring snack choice for this month.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - it's been a while since it was released, but I got around to it for the PC. It's good fun with some pretty cool levels and a nice sense of scale. Plus, naturally, the sound design is superb, and how could you not enjoy blowing holes in buildings and then rinsing the military occupants with bullets?

Hobo With A Shotgun - trailer contests, trailers, featurettes, music, there's been a decided Hobo vibe to this month.

Allen Bridge - having broken the back of the central idea (which originated in June 2010), I finally got into writing it, and as you'll have noticed here on the blog, I've been doing a series of posts specifically about it. Inspiration has come in the form of Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, and the music connected to those flicks, but that's not to say that this drama mystery of mine is particularly Lynchian. Those just happened to be the influences that got my mind into a particular space that allowed me to head off into my own directions and generally set a sort of tone ... if that makes sense. Continue to follow my progress with this script here on the blog.

Red Dead Redemption - replaying the story missions, ahead of L.A. Noire out later in May, I really enjoyed heading back to the dying days of the wild west with John Marston. It's possibly the best thing that Rockstar have thus far produced, even if certain elements feel very familiar from the likes of GTA.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - I've seen Blade Runner numerous times over the years, but I've never read the book. Now though I'm into the second half and I'm really enjoying it - especially as it's decidedly different to the film, so it's pretty cool to see how Blade Runner developed out of Philip K. Dick's android hunting paranoid vision.

Quiz Cocktail Supreme - it's that time of year when spring is slowly morphing into summer, and that means cider and pub quizzes. Teaming up with some chums of mine, with a name inspired by a Jackass 3D skit, we've been doing better than we thought we might.

The Royal Wedding - while I wasn't all super-psyched about it, or especially looking forward to it, I remain in favour of the Royal Family for numerous reasons (which I've gotten into elsewhere, so I won't get into it here). I ended up watching the whole thing and actually quite enjoyed it, particularly for the sheer military precision and organisation of the entire event. Besides, it's not often that an event like this happens, and we Brits are reserved in our patriotism - saving it up for grand gestures and events, such as this, every once in a while - and we really show a global audience (estimated at two billion) just how to pull off pageantry properly.

Flavours of the Month: April 2010...

Continuing on from the end of March, I finished off the DVD for Tremors: The Series - it was an enjoyable show, if a bit under-funded, and you do miss Burt Gummer in the last couple of episodes (presumably off filming Tremors 4 at the time), but yeah - it's a fun show for the Tremors franchise fans.

In full-on Tremors mode I toured through the four movies again - the original is a classic with perfect pacing and brilliant lines of dialogue, the second is a riotous action-packed romp, the third is weak on the production front but affords us plenty of quality Burt Gummer fun and returns us to Perfection all these years later. Tremors 4, meanwhile, was a flick I didn't like at all the first time around, but six years later giving it a second chance I do like it. It is a bit of a let down in some respects, but the production value is great (and kicks the ass of Tremors 3 in that respect) and on its own terms it's actually pretty good. I do hope that Tremors 5 does happen ... I'm eagerly awaiting a new slice of Burt Gummer action!

Other viewing experiences this month have included The Mist (ruddy good monster movie Stephen King adaptation, which has gotten me in the mood for Alan Wake, oddly enough, and The Walking Dead, which is being brought to us by Darabont) ... then Funny People (enjoyed it more on its own terms this time around, and the DVD is plenty enjoyable), then Poultrygeist (gory Troma fun - although from the making-of I'm still astonished they're this disorganised and prone to production-haulting bickering after 35 years of filmmaking) ... *gasps for air* ... and then, plucked from my DVD shelf and blown-free of dust, the Soderbergh movie Full Frontal, and all-over-the-place Japanese zombie movie Wild Zero.

I watched Full Frontal as part of my film degree when we were discussing the Dogme 95 Manifesto (we also watched Festen), and Soderbergh's flick while initially slow to get going, and only vaguely living up to the Dogme 95 mindset, is actually quite an intriguing movie. The first twenty minutes bored the pants off me, but then I found myself getting quite into it ... so it was fun to have a bit of a nostalgia trip back to 2002/2003.

I finished off Assassin's Creed 2, which was ruddy good fun ... aside from a few niggles - including all those annoying NPCs carrying boxes, or playing guitars and getting in your way, or that your Villa chest can only carry about 55,000 florins but I can lug about 650,000+ just fine on my person ... silly, silly, silly. However, as I said, aside from a few dodgy little things here and there (including some small, but undercooked gameplay mechanics or the odd mission - such as "CTF"), it was a ruddy fun game - and a breath of fresh air into my sandbox gaming, being that you're yomping around 15th Century Italy.

Naturally, being a Brit, there's also been a lot of General Election based chit-chat, and I've found myself exhausted by it all quite quickly (as have friends of mine who are interested in politics - cue endless and fruitless political arguments between us all, which we all decided were more annoying than anything productive - best to remain friends, you know?) ... anyway, I've found myself utterly turned off by BBC News and Sky News - their obsession with the three leaders and nothing else (*ahem* what about the hundreds of constituencies and local issues up and down the nation?!) ... indeed, Sky News' coverage of their hosted debate was ludicrous and nothing short of masturbatory ... ... the "meeja narrative" has also been extremely evident in the last couple of weeks. How about reporting FACTS, rather than the opinions of the 24 hour news channels? The constant re-framing (or "spinning") of what's actually going on - into some warped, non-sensical hodge-podge of time wasting - has been a total turn off. As such I'm sticking with newspapers and blogs, because 24 hours news is (mostly) just pathetic and self-involved (and it has been for a very long time).

Finally, I got to check out In The Shadow of the Moon on telly the other day, and it was a really compelling examination of how mankind got to the moon, and the men who took us all there. Fascinating stuff. If only mankind still did things as boundary-pushing as that these days...