Flavours of the Month: December 2011...

LOOKS:

Glove And Boots - a new favourite YouTube channel of mine, I discovered it via their video "The Walkie Talkie Dead". If you like puppets, you're going to love Mario, Fafa, and Gorilla. Fantastically funny stuff!

Carnivale - I finished up the second season this month on Sky Atlantic and well, they certainly cancelled it back in 2005 on a bit of a cliffhanger, didn't they? I preferred the first season, especially as the second seemed to get a bit too lost and a bit too plodding at times ... and you can't beat that first season closer.

Ross Kemp On Afghanistan - a new run of the hard-hitting documentary on Sky 1. Illuminating, fascinating, chilling.

Black Mirror - from the mind of Charlie Brooker (which says a lot already), comes this trio of darkly twisted tales. The first episode was perhaps the most caustic, bleak, and ultimately haunting dose of satire I've seen in a long old while (perhaps ever). The second episode was overlong and lacked focus, but there were impressive ideas, and a strong cast. The third episode picked things up again by taking a brilliant little sci-fi 'what if' idea and spun it against the backdrop of a classic plot about adultery.

Charlie Boorman: Extreme Frontiers Canada - for a very long time now I've had this fascination with Canada (indeed I one day hope to visit the country), and being a fan of all the sorts of journeys that Boorman has undertaken over the years, I quite enjoyed this four-part series on Channel 5 ... but it would be nice if they put an extended version out on DVD.

Boardwalk Empire Season 2 - this richly detailed, masterfully written, deeply considered series is one of the best shows on television. The second season ramped up the complex motivations, suspicions, and double-dealings of all the well drawn and perfectly performed characters, and bloody hell - don't worry, no spoilers - the season finale is not only a brave move, but one that literally dropped my jaw and made me sit bolt upright in shock. I eagerly await the third season of this utterly engrossing drama - and if you haven't checked it out, then for goodness sake get yourself in on it.

Prometheus - the teaser trailer finally appeared and oh, the intrigue of it all. This is my most anticipated movie of 2012, with The Dark Knight Rises coming in second, and The Avengers in third on the anticipation scales.

Super 8 (Blu-Ray) - I loved it when I saw it in the cinema, and a second viewing confirms my love for this wonderful film. It's got real heart, real spectacle, a great range of adult and child characters, and well, it's just so damned nifty.

SOUNDS:

M83 "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" - sometimes you need the right time to listen to an album properly, especially a double album, and I finally got a chance to return to this great record that I've not been able to listen to enough for my liking. Top stuff.

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross ft. Karen O "Immigrant Song" - a driving, pulsing, thumping cover of Led Zeppelin's track, as featured in David Fincher's version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This track provided the backdrop for the superb teaser trailer.

Saints Row The Third - numerous tracks, but particularly "Pepper" by Butthole Surfers, "Angry Elephants" by Junkie XL and "Slow Revolution" by Tugboat.

Prometheus - the music from the trailer ... ooh, it's spine-tingling. That aural call-back to the trailer for the very first Alien movie just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end in an instant.

Dick Figures "Bath Rhymes (Instrumental)" - from the excellent YouTube cartoon series "Dick Figures".

Alice Cooper "Spark In The Dark: The Best Of" - nearly two-and-a-half hours of excellence.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky - after weeks of pouring through this deep, dense, dramatic novel, I finally got it finished. It was a demanding read at times - for good reasons and bad at different times - and despite some sections around the middle where it seems to get a bit lost and lumpen in its storytelling, once we arrive at Polis the pace picks right back up again. Fascinating, extremely detailed, and very atmospheric.

The Festive Season - Christmas adverts on the telly (including that old one from Coca Cola that everyone of my age loves and considers the kick-off for the season once they've seen it), mince pies fresh from the oven, decorations, wrapping (with a nifty little tip I learned from James May's Man Lab Christmas Special on BBC2), and all the assorted festivities. 2011 has been a bit of a rough year - indeed at times it's been utterly awful - but then again there were good times and productive times, so it wasn't a total write-off ... but I do hope 2012 proves to be far better than 2011 was.

Dirt 3 - nabbed it on sale. The first non-shooty-or-sandboxy game I've bought for four ruddy years; I'm gradually getting the hang of this spiffing rally racer which features an entertaining Gymkhana section.

Ross Kemp On Afghanistan - I was given this book for Christmas two years ago, and I never got around to it until now. Fresh from the latest series on Sky1, and in search of (relatively) lighter reading after the demanding-yet-involving Metro 2033, I ploughed through this. Like the series its connected to, it proved to be a fascinating, illuminating, and at times sombre read. It really makes you better appreciate - from the comfort of your living room, admittedly - what the soldiers fighting on our behalf go through.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - one of my presents this year. I've only done the first act of the story mode, but so far it's rather enjoyable. Nothing that changes the formula, but it's good to return to this particular story arc. More on it in next month's Flavours of the Month.

Until then - I hope you've all had a spiffing holiday season, and here's to 2012!

Flavours of the Month: November 2011...

LOOKS:

The Walking Dead (Season 2, Part 1) - the best thing to happen to zombies since Romero's Day of the Dead in 1985, AMC's superb zombie drama (adapted from Robert Kirkman's deliciously dark comics series) continues apace despite the odd spell of behind-the-scenes trouble. The first half of the season has come to an end (the remaining six episodes will begin airing in February 2012), and it's been an excellent run of episodes. One thing though - bloody spoilers - some out there in the world of the interwebs have been annoyingly loose-lipped at times, and for us Brits that's been quite frustrating (we see the episodes five days after they air in America). Indeed one of the biggest shocks of the season was completely spoiled for me. Despite the minefield of spoilers though, many twists and turns were left un-spoiled, and it has been a very satisfying series of episodes. Now the desperate fanboy wait for February begins...

SOUNDS:

David Lynch - he recently released an album titled Crazy Clown Time, and while a number of the tracks weren't to my liking, several were: "Pinky's Dream", "So Glad", "Noah's Ark", "Football Game", "The Night Bell With Lightning", and "These Are My Friends".

Julee Cruise "Nightingale"

God Is An Astronaut "Forever Lost"

Alice Cooper - I've respected his music and dabbled in it for quite a while now, but after seeing his 2011 Halloween concert on Sky Arts, I've been seeking out some of his albums at long, long last.

Blink182 "Neighborhoods" - their new album takes me back to my formative years when "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket" was practically on an endless loop at the Sixth Form.

Daft Punk "Tron Legacy Reconfigured" - a number of the tracks are utter tosh (a lazy, generic, ill-fitting dance beat that occasionally halts to drop a bit of the original track to quality for the compilation), but others are terrific remixes: "Derezzed" by The Glitch Mob, "Fall" by M83 & Big Black Delta, "The Son Of Flynn" by Moby, "Encom Part 2" by Com Truise, "End Of Line" by Photek, and "End Of Line" by Tame Impala are the stand-outs for me.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

The Walking Dead Vol. 7 & 8 - I'm forever trying to catch up with the comics, and this is as far as I've got so far. No spoilers for those who haven't got to this point, but bloody nora is volume 8 a memorable one!

Illness - this autumn/winter season I've had this bizarre muscular/nervous flu which roams around various parts of the body. Aches, pains, headaches, exhaustion, stiff joints, sharp pains - and all on a constant rotation around my body for at least a couple of weeks. Fortunately it seems to have all gone, but what a weird one.

Homefront - it's not the most polished example of an FPS out there, and the ludicrously short single player campaign (3.5 hours from start-to-ruddy-finish!) has a few stumbles and design faults, but the central conceit of a Unified Korea occupying America in a bleak near-future is still quite interesting. Hopefully Crytek will fully crack it for the apparent sequel that they're working on.

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky - so far I'm half way through this very dense piece of horror fiction set in the unforgiving Russian subway system in a post-apocalyptic world. At times it's a little too slow paced, and the author's style isn't particularly fond of paragraph breaks, but the world of the Metro is vividly depicted with a complete overview of the socio-political situation down there in the dark, danger-infested tunnels.

Saints Row The Third - while Crib customisation has all-but been removed in favour of new features, this third entry in the once sub-GTA franchise is easily the best of the three. The sloppy coding, gameplay, and balancing of Saints Row 2 are gone (mercifully), and in their place is a very solid and very enjoyable game. I've only encountered a couple of small glitches along the way such as the odd texture issue, no max-speed sound effect for any of the vehicles, or the odd roadblock on the occasional mission - but the latter have easily been remedied by starting again from the most recent checkpoint. I'm about 3/4 of the way through at the moment and it's pretty much a vast improvement across the board - the plot is tighter and actually interesting this time (if not particularly meaningful - but that wouldn't fit in anyway), the gameplay is tight and enjoyable, the in-game cell phone is perfectly formed for handling all your upgrade, mission, map, contact, and monetary needs, and the high level of utter daftness is most welcome. Professor Ghenki's Super Ethical Reality Climax (one of the many activities you can take part in) is a particularly good example of the sort of barmy fun you can have with this game. Well worth your time and money!