Film: Thoughts on Heathers
Get Crucial!
TV: Lucky Louie – I Like It!
Lucky Louie was a short lived sitcom made by American network HBO that aired during 2006 and was essentially a vehicle for the brilliant comedian Louis CK. The humour in Lucky Louie is mostly derived from CK’s stand up material and often falls into the bracket of typical sitcom fare; the brutal banality of parenthood, hating your spouse, getting on with the next door neighbours etc.
The refreshing twist of the show is that rather than skating around these hackneyed issues in a light hearted, cutesy manner they are instead confronted head on in all their obscene glory. For example, Louie is caught by his wife having a wank in the broom cupboard. He manages to inadvertently, yet constantly, offend his African American neighbours. And most enjoyably, he seems to garner no pleasure whatsoever from taking care of his cute but overactive daughter.
Games: Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! – Hunting Frenzy
Er. We’ve been a bit quiet lately. Sorry about that. I have a few unfinished articles queued up. In keeping with the Hallowe’en theme, one is on why Resident Evil is bloody horrible, and not in the way it intended. For now, though, I couldn’t resist talking about this…
Yeah. Innovative.
Hunting Frenzy is a hunting game. Or, as the title of its press release calls it, “a downloadable animal-blaster aimed at youngsters.” Yeah, that’s what I thought too.
Ordinarily when an unspeakably awful press release lands in my inbox, I’ll ignore it. But something about the tremendousness with which this one defies all belief compelled me to finish reading.
It’s obviously translated. But I can’t help but assume it was written in a completely broken form of its mother-tongue, then translated verbatim. Which is presumably why its developers claim it to have “completely unique gameplay mechanics,” when actually it’s the sort of thing we’ve seen before a hundred times, and a lot better.
“The game has innovative twist that breaks apart of what has seen until now,” says the press release. And the twist is… that… “The audience of this game are kids but the adult can enjoy this game as well.” Tremendous! So, it’s not just aimed at kids! Adults can have fun killing innocent animals as well! I don’t want to get all activist on everyone – and sure, the game is about animals killing other animals, rather than the dispicable man versus beast kind of hunting – but it strikes me as impossibly strange to market a hunting game at children. A really, really strange idea.
Film: Thoughts on Biozombie
In the run up to Halloween we here at The Daily Scoundrel are asking some of our favourite writers about the spooky films, books, music and games that they would recommend for All Hallows Eve. Here, Art Fist editor Jonathan Cronshaw talks about 1998 Chinese zombie movie Biozombie…
When it comes to underrated Chinese zombie films from the late nineties in which Lucozade has been tainted by some top-secret military bio-weapon, one of my favourites is Biozombie (1998).
Music: Damnation Festival Preview
Be prepared this month my friends. For legions of black clad heavy rock fans are set to descend upon our good city with the sole intention of enjoying the finest in extreme music performed by the veritable cream of the heavy metal crop. Yes, the hugely popular Damnation Festival is coming to Leeds University on 24th October to play host to the most exciting metal bands on the scene, as well as featuring appearances from some truly titanic legends of the genre.
Music: Thoughts on The Cubical – Come Sing These Crippled Tunes
*Growl* Photograph: Michael Dolan
I am not going to beat around the bush here, The Cubical’s new album, ‘Come Sing These Crippled Tunes’ is nothing short of fantastic.
From the first track right through to the last it never loses any of the excitement that the band seem to carry around with them in abundance. I was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time with the band in Edinburgh recently and shared a flat with them for a night. Several beers later and we were singing Shakin’ Stevens’ famous Christmas song, lead singer Dan wobbling his knees around and the rest of us stomping our feet on the floor like the morning was never going to break. The sofa tore back and Percy the drummer was magically surrounded by his drum kit. Alex, one of the guitarists, pulled his Tele’ from nowhere and struck all the right chords and we were away, dancing and singing at the top of our voices. Sadly, the bar was right below us and we knocked of a couple of ceiling tiles, which made the Landlord less than happy – so we soon had to stop.
Music: Thoughts on Zero 7 – Yeah Ghost
Even the cover art's more abstract than ever before.
Zero 7 must be pretty annoyed by the majority’s reaction to their new record, Yeah Ghost. Released last week to a collection of relatively decent reviews, there’s a thread running through both the critical and consumer commentary. Zero 7 has always been the baby of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, and there’s no change to that formula now, but the concensus seems to be the same either way: it just isn’t the same without Sia.
Sia, of course, now has a lucrative solo career, and with good reason. Her soulful voice combined with more commercial pop songs has been going down a treat for a few years now, with her ear for a good melody shining through everything she writes and performs. But while she was never even a full-time member of Zero 7, it would be silly to claim her departure to be irrelevant. Her distinctive tones lent themselves perfectly to a sizealbe chunk of the renowned electronica band’s first three albums, something this outing lacks. And, y’know, it’s noticeable. The vocal talent on display here is more than strong enough, but there’s little escaping the facts. It isn’t the same without her.
Film: Bukowski On Screen
Charles Bukowski, the bard of the bar room and laureate of the lowlife, is a monumental figure in post war American fiction. As ground breaking as Hunter S Thompson, Kerouac or Burroughs at their best, Bukowski’s rejection of the American dream is still as thrilling today as it was when first published.
For me, reading books like Post Office, Factotum and Ham on Rye for the first time as a teenager was a real smack in the face that tore through all the so called ‘realist’ fiction I had been getting into. All of a sudden the ‘beats’ sounded like spoiled, entitled, deluded stoners. Bukowski depicted a world of boredom, cheap women, cheaper booze, boarding houses with thin walls and unforgiving landladies, fist fights, cruelty, madness and toil. But his was no capitulating resignation to the gods of fate, he positively raged against the indignities of life and the banal brutality of existence. And in poetry volumes like Love is a Dog From Hell and The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills he wrote some of the most poignant, heart breaking poetry since Keats, showing that beneath his legendarily battered mug and booze hound swagger there lay a damaged romantic of sorts.
Games: Take A Break & Mums’ Army vs Rockstar Games
I hope there aren't any kids in the way of these cars...
There I was getting wound up about one semi-games-related thing, and my girlfriend shouts through from the other room with another. Seems, in this week’s edition of women’s real-life mag Take A Break, the editor’s mounting a campaign (along with the more motherly of the magazine’s readership) to ban the Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt series.
Predictably, much of it is nonsense, and clearly written by someone who’s never even had the slightest interest in playing the games in question, not even for the sake of journalistic integrity. Here are a few choice quotes:
“The magazine’s philosophy? Bringing mum’s together, taking back our streets from yobs, campaigning to end violence against women” – all of which, the article claims, are supported by Rockstar’s GTA and Manhunt titles.
“Rockstar stood for women as victims, prostitutes and sexual objects,” the article subsequently claims. “Take A Break stood for women as campaigners, mothers and a force for good.”
And eventually, with some conviction, “We’re happy to go on record on behalf of our readers to say we think that such games should be censored.”
But it gets worse. Oh, how it gets worse.
Film: Spookerama – Dead of Night
I’m a real sucker for vintage horror anthology flicks. There was a veritable raft of scary gems produced by studios like Amicus and Hammer during the 1960s and 70s including titles like The House That Dripped Blood, Tales From the Crypt and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. These portmanteau films comprise a selection of supernatural tales usually linked together by a nefarious fortune teller or some such conceit. Aside from featuring horror film royalty like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee there is so much to love about these films. Admittedly they are often predictable and stretch credulity to the point of ridiculousness, but when the scares really work, such as in the terrifying denouement of Asylum, they have an uncanny power and resonance.
Given my love for the genre it’s surprising that it has taken me this long to get round to watching Ealing Studio’s 1945 production Dead of Night, the original and arguably best horror anthology film ever made.
