Flavours of the Month: January 2011...

LOOKS:

Kick Ass (Blu-Ray) - still a great flick. I'd forgotten how thrilling the action set pieces were, too.

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World (Blu-Ray) - three of the four commentaries and another viewing on top, plus all the special features. I must have heard the menu music a hundred times by now.

Inception (Blu-Ray) - Nolan's mind-bender blockbuster is still as spiffing as it was in the cinema, if not more so.

The Expendables (Blu-Ray) - Ultimate Recon Mode is quite impressively done, and one of the best Picture-in-Picture tracks I've seen so far. While I generally prefer Rambo to this, it's still a bloody good time and I look forward to a sequel.

Black Books - years late to the party, but we barged through the rest of the complete box set.

Boardwalk Empire - it took a couple of episodes to get into it, but you find yourself becoming really quite invested in the characters and the complexities of their relationships. Plus the re-creation of the 1920s is superb.

Clarkson: The Italian Job - I think his DVD from 2009 was better, but it was still good for a bit of a Top Gear-like fix. The best sequence was the race at the end.

Lost: Season Three & Four DVD Extra Features - now I just need to get my mits on the last two seasons.

Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide - 3 discs of video nasty goodness, and surprisingly informative. Definitive, most definitely.


SOUNDS:

The Black Angels "Directions To See A Ghost" - I love their first album (Passover), and I've come to really dig this second outing too.

Daft Punk - Tron: Legacy Soundtrack - the flick was the visual and aural treat of 2010, so Daft Punk's superb soundtrack has been in my CD autochanger ever since.

Sex Bob-Omb, Metric "Black Sheep", and Nigel Godrich "Hillcrest Park" - there's been a distinctly Scott Pilgrim flavour to January, so that naturally extended to the aural world too.

Kick Ass OST - not only was it a great action superhero movie, but it had a cool score to boot.

Black Spiders "Just Like A Woman" - as recommended by a fellow fan of Airbourne.

Bo Diddley "Hey, Bo Diddley" - as heard during one of the Mafia 2 cutscenes.


VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Cold - I haven't had one since January 2009, so that was a rubbish few days. I do maintain however that some people who say they have "the flu" actually have a cold, and they're just trying to sound tough. Cold or Flu, they both suck. As if the time of year when you're packing away all the festive decorations wasn't depressing enough, eh?

Script Writing - working on the new version of the short version of zombie mini-epic "The End" (working title), as well as working on an idea to enter for a Public Information Film.

The Big Book of Top Gear 2011 - it's just a bunch of silly old nonsense mostly, but I do love Top Gear.

Cyanide & Happiness Vol. 2: Ice Cream & Sadness - my favourite online webcomic in book form for a second year running.

The Walking Dead Vol. 5: The Best Defense - I continue to make my way through the trade paperbacks for the first time, and while the dialogue is still needlessly filled with unrealistic exposition, the scenarios are intense and gripping. By the end of this volume I was gagging to read the next.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Vol. 1) - the Scott Pilgrim feel to January extended to the first two (of six) volumes of the graphic novels.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Vol. 2) - it's interesting to see that volumes 1 and 2 basically make up an hour of the movie (which runs for an hour and 50 minutes), but it's also cool to see further exploration of the characters and entire sequences that never made it to the film version (such as Ramona and Knives' library battle).

Call of Duty: Black Ops - the second time around, like with the previous CoD, it's not about the hype and all about playing the game on its own level. It also helps that you know what to do, so you don't have moments where the action gets too confusing, which has been the case with first-runs for the last couple of CoD games.

Mafia 2 - I fancied some 1950s gangster action, so I gave this another spin. It's no GTA IV or Red Dead Redemption (essentially being a linear game in a sandbox world), but I still found myself really enjoying it as the story continues to make you invest in the characters. I even got to nab some more achievements and collectibles I'd missed the first time around.

Jeremy Klaxon - Driving Us Insane (A Parody) - just a bit of fun, and one of those pleasant surprise gifts you get at Christmas.

Flavours of the Month: September 2010...

LOOKS:

Mafia 2 - for a sandbox game it's pretty restrictive, and the plot isn't all that original (but was it ever supposed to be anything but a loving homage to The Godfather et al?), but I had a lot of fun with it regardless. The setting is involving, there is a lot of appropriate humour throughout, and the collectibles are a nice touch.

Robot Chicken: Season 4 - great as always, but the incessant Obama-love-in littered throughout some of the extras (which were shot on election day) is eye-rollingly blunt and self-congratulatory (something which is annoying regardless of politics).

The Warriors: Ultimate Director's Cut (Blu-Ray) - the only changes are utterly pointless 'comic book transitions', which provide no worthwhile information, nor do they make the movie make more sense. Fortunately they're not that common, and only the last two are genuinely intrusive. The flick's still cool though, and it looks good on Blu.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Blu-Ray) - being an utter whore for making of documentaries, I finally got to see the story of Fincher's sentimental yarn (the UK didn't get a 2-disc DVD, and the R1 was decidedly over the piffling UK import limit).

Sweeney Todd (Blu-Ray) - having recently been in Edinburgh, where I visited The Dungeon, I found all the featurettes concerning the myth and the possible reality to be quite fascinating (especially as Sawney Bean was connected to the creation of the Todd myth - Bean being one of the segments at the Edinburgh Dungeon).

Dead Rising 2 - as enjoyable and as frustrating as the original game, but with some nice additions, the best obviously being the weapon combo mechanic. Using Gems and a Flashlight to make a light sabre is my personal favourite way of dispatching the undead hoardes around Fortune City.

SOUNDS:

The Black Angels - "Passover"
Rammstein - "Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da"

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Holiday - straddling the end of August and the beginning of September, I had great time doing all the touristy things. Seeing some events at the Festival before it ended, doing The Dungeon, the Castle, a bus tour, visiting North Berwick for a real nostalgic trip, and everything else was a very welcome and enjoyable change of pace.

Decorating Room - I've been avoiding this for years, and my room was last done ten years ago, but with me out of the house I had a 60 Minute Makeover pulled on me (but not literally).

Chuck Palahniuk - "Tell-All"