Flavours of the Month: June 2012...

LOOKS:

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Blu-Ray) - the second time around it's still great, and it still spins my head when the Burj Kalifa segment comes up.

Mad Men Season 5 - the last few months have had a decidedly Mad Men flavour to them, and now I'm finally all caught up on Don & Co's adventures in advertising ... roll on season 6!

2 Broke Girls - sometimes E4's relentless advertising of new shows really grates (I almost didn't start watching Lost specifically because I hated how often they trailed the first season on Channel 4), but now and then that doesn't factor in so much and you give a show a fair chance on its own merit. It took me a few episodes to get into it, but I've found myself somewhat curiously into this show, which is like a strange clash of 'ever-so-sitcommy' and 'post-modern-malaise'.

Hell On Wheels - all I knew of this show before reading an article in Total Film about it, was the title, and I'd just assumed it was a rip-off of Sons of Anarchy or something. However, having got utterly obsessed with Deadwood earlier this year, I was up for more western drama, and AMC are delivering. It's not in the same league as Deadwood (the first two seasons of which were downright perfect, while the third season lost its sense of pace until the final episodes), but I'm still watching it - so it must be doing something right. You gotta love the opening titles too - I've had Gustavo Santaolalla's toe-tapping, hard-edged themetune in my head for weeks.

Leon (Blu-Ray) - it's been a very long time since I saw this excellent flick, and I have to say the Director's Cut (133 minutes in length) is a superior effort. It delves much more into the ever-so-strange relationship between the eponymous assassin (Jean Reno) and his young ward (Natalie Portman).

Jackass 3 & 3.5 - the last time I saw these was a few weeks before Ryan Dunn was killed in a high speed car wreck along with Zachary Hartwell in 2011, and until now it felt a little strange watching anything Jackass knowing that Dunn was gone ... however it was about time I gave these another spin, and they're still hilarious. Dunn may be gone, but he ain't forgotten.


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