Flavours of the Month: May 2012...

LOOKS:

Shameless Screen Entertainment - "Phantom of Death", "Who Saw Her Die?", and "The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh" - follow the links for full DVD reviews.

Mad Men Seasons 2 through 4 - TV time, and the small hours of the morning as temptation took over, was entirely replaced for a couple of weeks with an obsessive catch-up with Don Draper and the gang. Next up, season five.

Blue Velvet (Blu-Ray) - preposterously, the release in the UK does NOT feature the 52 minutes of newly discovered deleted scenes! Fortunately, the American release is Region FREE on Blu-Ray, so I imported it. For any fan of Lynch's darkly twisted vision of the hell that lies beneath the white picket fences of Americana, it's well worth investing in.

The Real Ghostbusters: Season 1 - I used to adore this show as a child, so having spotted this on the cheap, I decided I'd sprinkle a daily dose of nostalgia into this month.

The Inbetweeners Movie (Blu-Ray)

Click "READ MORE" below for this months sounds, vibes, and flavours...

"Allen Bridge" script planning a-go-go...

It's been an absolute hive of activity when it comes to my next script "Allen Bridge" - a drama/mystery - as I spent all afternoon yesterday furiously scribbling down ideas for entire scenes and a whole backstory to the titular town.

It really is a case of the muse working her magic - the inspiration is coming thick and fast - so much so that when I thought I'd finished I returned to my notebook not once, but twice, to scribble in yet more ideas that suddenly sprung to mind. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle is forming of its own accord inside my head and I'm just trying to keep up with the thought process that seems to be beyond traditional thought ... that sounds kind of weird, I'm sure, but that's how inspiration works I guess.

As for "Summer Road", I'm currently working on the covering letter to go along with the script to the BBC Writersroom. It's amazing how tricky it can be to really get everything you want to say into one sheet of A4, and without talking about the specific plot or characters directly (so sayeth the Writersroom website).

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.

Flavours of the Month: June 2010...

Continuing on from last month, my obsession with Prison Break Season One exploded and I'm now eager to see the remaining three seasons. Initially I was sceptical as it does take a good four or five episodes to get you into the groove of the show, but after that you're totally sucked in and fascinated by how every single problem that arises gets solved ... and the last two episodes are nothing but awesome.

I read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, as I'm a big fan of the film adaptation, and naturally it was ruddy great, and then I simply had to watch the movie yet again - inspiring another mini-Cusack fest complimented by another viewing of Grosse Pointe Blank.

There's been a lot of script writing going on, what with Summer Road (comedy drama, now onto Draft 2.2) and Allen Bridge (drama mystery with a somewhat supernatural tint, now in the planning stages).

I also got the Season 1 through 3 box set of Robot Chicken, so it was nothing but that for a couple of weeks as I gorged myself on the extra features - and yes, season 4 is pre-ordered.

I finished Red Dead Redemption, which was a ruddy good game, and is Rockstar's best game to date, I'd have to say. You really care about John Marston and you end up caring about his family too, and what's more you really feel involved in the setting - that of the dying days of the wild west - and wow, the ending really packs a punch (just remember, the game ain't over till you've seen the credits roll). Speaking of the credits, the soundtrack to the game is tip-top, especially those two tracks on the credits which leave a memorable mark in the context of the ending.

As such, there has been a bit of a soundtrack festival on my CD changer - the soundtracks to Red Dead Redemption, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and The Road - two are westerns, two are by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and all three are excellent.

Finally, a hot topic for discussion over on Homepage of the Dead at the moment is the forthcoming TV series The Walking Dead, and having never read the source material before, I've now gone and gotten myself into that. At the time of writing I've read Vol. 1 "Days Gone Bye", and I've just started Vol. 2 "Miles Behind Us".

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And there we have it, a whole year's worth of Flavours of the Month - to see the first one, follow this link:
http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2009/07/flavours-of-month-junejuly-2009.html