Song Of The Month

I've been listening to this pretty much most days since I saw the excellent 'Sucker Punch' movie a while back. This song from the film is called 'White Rabbit' by Emiliana Torrini who has an amazing voice. There's other slower versions of this song and I really want to get my hands on them. The whole of the Sucker Punch soundtrack is amazing though with contributing artists such as Skunk Anansie and Bjork. So here it is, my song of the month - White Rabbit.

Tv Of The Month

It's been a cracking month tv wise. The month kicked with the excellent Louis Theroux going back to visit the vitriolic biblical buffoons known as the Phelps family on BBc2, April 3rd. The family headed by failed lawyer and misguided ranter Fred Phelps are of course more of a cult than a real church. In his second jaunt to see them called 'America's most hated family in crisis' we learn several members have left to start what I'd call real lives. Louis has such a style and approach that he manages to get the cult members to unwittingly reveal perhaps more than they'd want to, great and insightful tv.

Neil Oliver has also made a return to BBC2 (Tuesday's 9pm) with his new mini series called 'History of Celtic Britain'. Mr Oliver is always good to watch and I love his enthusiasm though during this series I found myself being critical on several points as I felt he quickly brushed past some key areas of interest, Queen Boudica not really getting the coverage she deserved really, still, another great offering from the enthusiastic Caledonian.

Next up, and keeping with the theme of history was Dan Snow and 'Filthy Cities' (BBC 2, 9pm) covering the history of London, Paris and New York in their most grimy and disgusting periods. Dan really got stuck into doing some of the horrid jobs they had to do back in the day, such as carving up animals in a back alleyway and washing their entrails into the street as well as generally shovelling raw excrement onto backs of carts. He deserves a medal for it and it provided a vivid look into how filthy our great cities used to be.

Zombies made a welcome return to our screens this month with 'Walking Dead' coming to Channel 5 (Sunday 9pm). Although only a short six or seven part series adaption of the comic I feel its very much a thinking man's zombie series with some great characterisation and acting with Andrew Lincoln playing embattled cop 'Rick Grimes' with a great supporting cast.

At last the much vaunted 'Game of Thrones' has come to Sky Atlantic (Monday 9pm). All I can say after seeing the first two episodes is a resounding wow! It's too early days to write too much about it but I suspect it is really going to be epic, HBO can certainly turn out some quality stuff and I don't think this will disappoint. Amazing cast, great actors, deep and twisty plot and the promise of lots of things to come, I can't wait.

So all in all, a great month of television.

A Bit Of A Pause

Well hopefully I'll get around to blogging after a fairly quiet period. There's been no real reason for this apart from lack of blogging mojo and other preoccupations. I've been working on a writing project a fair bit this month which I may get around to posting it on my long forgotten creative writing blog 'Tenebrous Tales' at some point.

I'll try and post a few blogs over the coming bank holiday period because I won't be watching the royal wedding or celebrating it. It's not because I'm anti-royalist, I'm just fairly indifferent towards them but do feel they are out of touch with many real issues.

Sucker Punch

After seeing the rather unremarkable 'The Eagle' I was looking forward to seeing Sucker Punch last Friday. I'd read a fair bit on it and most of the movie review sites weren't impressed but as I like Zack Snyder stuff I had a feeling I would like it regardless.

I wasn't disappointed, sure the movie felt very Snyder but hot babes in sexy combat outfits fighting with robots, dragons or steam punk nazi's is a win/win in my book. Visually it looked stunning and I can imagine it will look gorgeous on blu-ray on release. Story wise, well much of it I thought was ambiguous and open to interpretation. There's no doubt it can be perceived from different perspectives but I liked that aspect. I shan't spoil or try and dissect the movie here, I just sat back and enjoyed amazing visuals, cute chicks and a truly awesome soundtrack. When the Beatles cover of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' cut in by Carla Azar I was blown away as they descended onto the runaway train guarded by robots.

I'll confess the ending wasn't what I had hoped for but there was a message there to be picked up by diligent watching of the movie. Zack Snyder has given me my fave movie of the year so far and I hope he isn't discouraged by the bad press it received because frankly I loved every minute.

And here is the trailer;