Flavours of the Month: July 2011...

LOOKS:

Futurama - season 6 is underway and it's great to have this hilarious and intelligent show back!

Carnivale - missed it entirely the first time around, but thanks to Sky Atlantic, I've just gotten into this show. I'm only a few episodes in to it, but it's slowly pulling me in. It's a very, very, very slow-paced show, but it's also surprisingly good at luring you into it's mysterious web.

Last Man Standing - I haven't seen this Bruce Willis actioner in well over a decade, so it was a bit of a nostalgia trip to see it again (and, at last, in the correct aspect ratio).

The League of Gentlemen - I missed the boat almost entirely when it was originally airing (I had only ever seen the Christmas Special before), but I'm glad I finally hopped on board (albeit more-than-fashionably-late).

Uncle Buck - this John Hughes comedy from 1989 is a beloved flick from my early years. When I was a kid I loved the mayhem that John Candy's titular uncle caused, and especially loved his bombed-out old car. While I still love those things, being much older I appreciate it in a whole new way - and it's a surprisingly sweet and touching movie.

SOUNDS:

Ringo Deathstarr "Colour Trip" - shoegaze music from a band I've been waiting for what seems like ages to release an album (admittedly I totally forgot I was waiting for their album, as it was taking a while, so it was a nice surprise to discover that it was already out so I could hop right into it). "Do It Everytime" and "Two Girls" would have to be my favourite tracks.

Foo Fighters - live performances on the telly and their brilliant new album "Wasting Light".

M83 "Echoes" (sample), "Midnight City", and "Saturdays=Youth", "Digital Shades Vol.1" - with news that a double-album is coming soon from M83 (with a sample track that debuted on YouTube), I figured it was a good time to get the French shoegazer back into my CD auto changer.

New Order "Age Of Consent" - I can thank the end credits of Skateland for this. What a spiffing track.

Mohr Stories Podcast - a new podcast on the SModcast Network from comedian Jay Mohr, and it's bloody good fun. Episode Four was especially hilarious.

This Mortal Coil "Song To The Siren" - as heard at a haunting moment in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - it's a stupidly brief game (4 to 5 hours for a play through of the single player campaign), but nevertheless it's a wonderful action game experience, so it's not surprising therefore that this was my sixth play through.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - Assassin's Creed II kicked arse, but it wasn't without it's flaws, and it's follow-up - Brotherhood - is much the same. One thing to note - it feels overlong with padding, and the structure of a number of missions leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed there are many annoying little nuisances either within certain missions, or the game in general, that really (much like in ACII) start to spoil the whole experience. That said, you do get more of what you loved about ACII. Let's hope that they get rid of all the silly nuisances, that have so far been endemic in the franchise, in this year's Assassin's Creed Revelations.

Mark Kermode "It's Only A Movie" - my film critic of choice. I got this for Christmas, but with a stack of other books to get through, I've only just given this a look-see, and despite a couple of chunks that aren't hugely involving, the majority of the book plays well to a fellow film fanatic. Most specifically, the chapters on Kermode's event-filled trip to Russia, and his time interviewing Werner Herzog, make for fascinating reads.

The Walking Dead: Season 2 Teasers - as a huge fan of the zombie genre, The Walking Dead has been the best thing to happen to zombies since Day of the Dead, and with season two fast-approaching (it debuts in mid-October), the preview trailers have made for fervent excitement amongst us zed heads.

Double Bill Mini Musings: The League and The Lovely...

The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse:
I'm years behind-the-times with this modern British comedy classic of a series, but this month it's all been about Dyson, Gattis, Pemberton, and Shearsmith's darkly delicious vision of the warped Northern town of Royston Vasey. The film is a satisfying outing, bringing fresh territory to the series, and a sense of scale that exceeds the consistently impressive TV show. When the town of Royston Vasey begins to crumble - the titular apocalypse - it's up to Hilary Briss (the butcher), Geoff Tipps (the clumsy dolt who can't tell jokes - and who practically steals the entire film), and Herr Lipp (the innuendo-driven German tour guide) to save their town, by entering the real world to get their creators to keep writing about them. Bloody good fun.


The Lovely Bones:
Peter Jackson's adaptation of the book that concerns the aftermath of a teenage girl's murder, from both sides of the divide between life and 'the place in-between', is a visually inventive, dramatically tense, and chilling affair that will linger hauntingly in your mind afterwards. The emotional drive of the film - the torture of losing a child to murder - is keenly and tensely depicted throughout. Then throughout the flick, the visions of 'the place in-between' provide moments of wondrous melancholy, but also threat from unresolved trauma.

However, despite the impressive presentation and emotionally deep and grounded direction, there's a curious sense of lacking at the final hurdle come the film's end. Many characters feel cast aside throughout, and the closing moments of the film comes in a way that lacks a sense of closure for many of them, rather than in a way that would have more satisfactorily tied together the various plot strands. Indeed, the inevitable comeuppance is somewhat lacking in itself - you don't get the totally relieving sense of vindication that you feel you deserve as a viewer, and the execution of it doesn't pack the punch you'd expect given its foreshadowing earlier in the film. Perhaps these problems aren't so present in the original book (where they will have, naturally, spawned in the first place) - problems that have become more evident through the adaptation process.

Despite these stumbles though, The Lovely Bones is a beautifully realised vision with confident, considered direction, strong performances, a perfect sense of tension building, and a chilling balance of grim and glorious subject matter that allows the film to walk the line between drama for general audiences, and the horrific implications of the actions of truly dark individuals. Flawed, but satisfyingly haunting.

Hextuple Bill Mini Musings: Art, Ponciness, Hard 10s, Mowers, Aliens, and Speeding...

The Stendhal Syndrome:
Another season of Dario Argento movies is running on The Horror Channel, which has improved a hell of a lot over the last 12-18 months. The eponymous syndrome is that when the victim suffers a collapse after being overwhelmed by artwork, after which they suffer the effects of a split personality. It's an intriguing concept, but for my liking it isn't explored quite enough. It needed to go into darker and stranger territory for me, but it felt somewhat lacking and - oddly - in need of some classic Argento flourishes. A great idea at heart, but the execution is disappointing. Definitely not one of his best works, but even still, it's one of his most interesting ideas.


Rubber:
The movie about a killer car tyre - who the hell wouldn't want to see it?! Well, half of it anyway. The half that follows the tyre discovering its powers and exploding heads is enjoyably daft ... but the other half is an eye-rollingly pretentious load of old bollocks, that is so self aware it's not in the slightest bit funny, witty, or entertaining. If all that wasn't in the movie, it'd be a spiffing 40 minutes - or personally, I would have gone in a different direction with such an idea as a killer car tyre.

The opening monologue, about "no reason", is apparently supposed to be ironic. Now, is that because none of the examples given demonstrate "no reason" at all, or is it ironic for another reason and the annoying monologue is actually being serious? I enjoyed the silliness of the cop arriving in the trunk of a police car, which knocked over a series of chairs in the middle of a road, but for goodness sake I didn't need the poncy-arsed bullshit that came afterwards and was dotted throughout the movie. So it's a very split flick - one half of it is total crap that thinks far too much of itself, and the other half is an enjoyable askew idea of a killer car tyre blowing up people's heads in and around the desert motel that was memorably featured in Rob Zombie's wonderful The Devil's Rejects.


She's Out Of My League:
A nerdy guy who works for TSA (a "5") meets and gets into a relationship with a jaw-droppingly gorgeous girl (a "hard 10"), and nobody can quite believe it. I really enjoyed this somewhat raunchy comedy, which packed a perky and funny script populated by entertaining characters. Not much to say about it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.


The Straight Story:
Another dose of David Lynch with this tale of an OAP who treks across state lines on his ride-on lawnmower to visit his ailing brother with whom he hasn't spoken for a decade. It's a simple story - a straight story if you will - but at the same time, it's an odd one. Lynch's film, a typically idiosyncratic ode to rural America, finds the curious in the normal, and the normal in the curious. It's a meandering yarn with a gentle, laid back feel, and despite being quite different from the likes of Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive, you can feel Lynch's hand at work throughout - indeed, the same can be said of long-time Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti, who scored the flick.


Monsters:
A lot has been made of this film - mostly down to the micro budget and that Gareth Edwards (the Writer/Director) put the visual effects together "on his laptop". However, the pace is too slow and the male lead is too annoying for too long ... but on the other hand the subtleness of the fact that South America is now a quarantine zone populated by giant alien squids provides some nice tension. The plot is a bit sparse, and it doesn't quite convince at certain points (most notably the reason the two leads have to trek through the zone), but the low-key-yet-involving spectacle of the finale is impressive. It's also an impressive feat technically and stylistically, but it's a bit lacking at points throughout the uneven script. That said, it's a solid debut from a fellow Brit, and I look forward to seeing what Edwards can do with a bigger budget and a tighter script.


Gumball 3000: Coast To Coast:
I'm a bit of a fan of Gumball 3000 (and Bullrun), keeping up with them through the DVD releases and TV shows made about them over the years. This one I've only just discovered, and it's about the L.A. to Miami rally in 2009. It's nowhere near as good as Gumball 3000: The Movie, nor 3000 Miles, so it's a disappointing effort. 'Nuff said.