Flavours of the Month: August 2010...

A bit earlier this month, and I'm trying out a new style of doing this monthly blog post.

LOOKS:

Blade Runner - finishing off that 5-disc DVD box set.

Everybody Loves Raymond - repeats during lunch time.

Creature Comforts - repeats recorded from late night ITV2.

Friday 13th: Parts 2, 3 and 4 - what with it being a Friday 13th, they showed several of the films from the franchise. I'd forgotten how relatively tame the second movie was, with its really brief moments of violence, I finally got to see the third movie in its full 2.35:1 original aspect ratio (rather than the grainy Pan & Scan 4:3 VHS I've been used to), and to round things off I got to see the uncut version of the fourth movie.

SOUNDS:

Alan Wake OST by Petri Alanko - the perfect compliment to thinking about the game a lot (and giving the prequel short film Bright Falls another viewing).

The Black Angels "Passover" - linked to Alan Wake with the opening track "Young Men Dead", I've really gotten into this 'rock dirge' album.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

I finally got around to, and finished, reading "Driven to Distraction" by Jeremy Clarkson. As is customary at Christmas, any self-respecting Top Gear fanatic will end up with one or more books written by one or more of the presenters. "Distraction" was an epic tome; a weighty hardback too large for comfortable reading ... but once I got back into the style of Clarkson's aritcles I enjoyed it as I always do.

I've been getting some good prep work done on "Allen Bridge" - my next script - but there's plenty left to think about. Speaking of scripts, "Summer Road" was finished off and posted off to the BBC Writersroom.

Finally there's been a lot of summer time painting and decorating going on (a task I'm good at, but find utterly mind-numbing), as well as some rather late (or rather early) spring cleaning - I've been digging through my chock-full cupboard, weeding out junk for recycling and items for charity shops. On top of all that my entertainment centre in the corner of my room has changed significantly. My trusty 21 inch Samsung CRT has been replaced with a 24 inch Goodmans HDTV ... my Naiko VHS player has been swapped-out for a 12 year old Sony monster chock-full of bells and whistles ... and to cap it all off the hand-me-down DVD player that had been gradually going on the fritz has been replaced by a Samsung Blu-Ray player. I've even got a new cable for my Xbox360 so I can game in HD.


It was the announcement - after three years of waiting - of the home video release of the theatrical version of Grindhouse that pushed me over the edge. The 2-disc DVD has no new extras, whereas the Blu-Ray has all the existing ones and a whole shedload of new content ... and as a huge Grindhouse fan, it was the straw that broke the camel's back - I had gotten utterly fed up of home video releases of movies I was most looking forward to buying getting shafted on DVD in favour of Blu-Ray. Some other examples would be Cop Out, Kick Ass, and Iron Man 2. I'm an extra features whore (especially for making ofs, particularly if they're feature length), and so that Grindhouse announcement was the last straw and more than three hundred quid later, here I am!

Flavours of the Month: July 2010...

July has been a generally muggy month interspersed with spells of fresh cool, and power cuts. It has also been a month of - By Any Means 2: Sydney to Tokyo - which I gave a second viewing on DVD, and which was a good step up from the slightly disappointing first By Any Means.

A few weeks back I got into the ruddy thrilling first season of Prison Break, and I've now caught up on the other three seasons. Season Two was a strong follow-up, even if it did tail off a smidge in the last episodes, Season Three was the weakest (clearly affected by the Writer's Strike at the time) and often drew out small events to fill entire episodes, and finally Season Four, was back to the usual thrilling form ... but once again it tailed off a bit in the final third once there was yet another double-cross and things took yet another detour to drag everything out again ... and while the ending is a smidge unsatisfying in more than one respect, it was still an affecting finish to a bloody good and rather enjoyable show.

I finally caught up on the latest Splinter Cell game ("Conviction"), which seemed to encourage you to not be able to sneak around and just get you into a firefight, and while I wasn't always following the plot, I always enjoy a bit of Sam Fisher shadowy goings on. At least the "Deniable Ops" portion allowed for classic stealth gameplay in "Hunter Mode".

I've also been thoroughly getting into The Walking Dead, in anticipation of the October premiere of the TV adaptation. I've done the first three "Volumes" (or "Trades") and while Volume Two was a bit hit and miss, Volumes One and especially Three have been tip top zombie fun ... but the dialogue could use some improvement at this stage to rid itself of too much exposition and on-the-nose bluntness. Good lord though, with all the snippets of info coming out regarding the TV adaptation (including a leaked trailer from Comic-Con), it's been an absolute zed-head nerdgasm!

Musically it's been a bit of everything, but a late entry would have to be the Alan Wake soundtrack - specifically the licensed tracks featured in the game (the full orchestral soundtrack comes out in August). Particular tracks would be "Young Men Dead" by The Black Angels, "Up Jumped The Devil" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "Haunted" by Poe, "War" by Poets of the Fall" and "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison. Alan Wake is such a well crafted game and as such the music chosen to play throughout is inspired and really supports and extends the overall tone and feel of the game.

I've also been having a Blade Runner kick with a return to the 5-disc DVD. It's one of those films that you like more, and think higher of, each time you watch it.

Finally, I've been cracking on with final touches to Summer Road. I'm looking forward to getting it finished and sent off to the BBC Writersroom. I've been working on this for seemingly ages now. Actual writing has taken place over three months in spare time, and before that I was slowly piecing everything together in the form of notes.

I'm really looking forward to getting onto Allen Bridge as well, for which I've got some considerable notes mapped out including entire scenes, and being that it's a totally different vibe (and genre) to Summer Road, it will come as a welcome change of pace for my writing - that said, I'm really quite proud of Summer Road ... I've invested a lot of time and self into it, and I think that is reflected in the almost-final (at the time of writing) product.