{"id":3115,"date":"2015-08-07T23:02:18","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T21:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2015-08-07T23:02:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T21:02:18","slug":"mixed-media-friday-7-august-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2015\/08\/07\/mixed-media-friday-7-august-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Media, Friday 7 August 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following a tip-off on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jwz.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/veruca-salt\/\">jwz&#8217;s blog<\/a>, I&#8217;ve been listening to a lot of Veruca Salt lately, especially their new album <a href=\"http:\/\/verucasalt.com\/album\/ghost-notes\/\"><i>Ghost Notes<\/i><\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allmusic.com\/album\/veruca-salt-iv-mw0000734774\"><i>IV<\/i><\/a> from 2006.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/verucasalt.com\/music\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2015\/veruca-salt-ghost-notes.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/verucasalt.com\/music\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2015\/veruca-salt-iv.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also, Sleater-Kinney&#8217;s new album <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sleater-kinney.com\/no-cities-to-love-out-today\/\"><i>No Cities To Love<\/i><\/a> has been out since January. I just realized that I&#8217;ve been listening to it for a good few months now, but have neglected to mention it here. I didn&#8217;t get into Sleater-Kinney first time round, before they split up in 2006. Remedying that now. <i>No Cities to Love<\/i> is stomping and excellent. Kicking myself that I missed them when they played Paradiso in March \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sleater-kinney.com\/no-cities-to-love-out-today\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2015\/sleater-kinney-no-cities-to-love.jpg\" width=\"458\" height=\"460\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On TV, Abi and I have finished watching season 3 of the US <i>House of Cards<\/i>. We&#8217;ve started on the original UK series now. I watched the original mini-series long, long time ago, but had forgotten most of it. We&#8217;re half-way through <i>To Play The King<\/i> now. I don&#8217;t think it has aged as well as <i>House of Cards<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Films, quickly, in a big long batch:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/minions\/\"><i>Minions<\/i><\/a>: Decent<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/terminator_genisys\/\"><i>Terminator: Genisys<\/i><\/a>: Better than the critics would have you think<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/search\/\"><i>2 Guns<\/i><\/a>: Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington have fun in this. I enjoy watching them in general, but the film itself was flimsy.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/an_honest_liar\/\"><i>An Honest Liar<\/i><\/a>: Poignant documentary of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Randi\">James Randi<\/a>, one of my heroes<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/the_voices\/\"><i>The Voices<\/i><\/a>: REALLY WEIRD. Tries to walk a very fine line between sitcom-ish comedy, sympathy for a character suffering from schizophrenia, and serial killer fandom. Falls off the line a lot. Very uncomfortable watching.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/adventureland\/\"><i>Adventureland<\/i><\/a>: Amusing coming-of-age comedy. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart play well together on screen; I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing them together again in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/american_ultra\/\"><i>American Ultra<\/i><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/coherence_2013\/\"><i>Coherence<\/i><\/a>: Excellent. Intense, low-budget science fiction that relies on a simple idea and good characterisation rather than special effects. 6 people, one house. No-one has to save the world.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/blackfish_2013\/\"><i>Blackfish<\/i><\/a>: Strong, sometimes manipulative documentary about the marine amusement parks that keep orca whales for spectacle. I didn&#8217;t mind the manipulation, because I&#8217;m on their side.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/antman\/\"><i>Ant-Man<\/i><\/a>: Throwaway fun. Lots of Edgar-Wrightish touches, even thought he wasn&#8217;t able to see the project all the way through. Pity that every single character is a colossal stereotype.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/mission_impossible_rogue_nation\/\"><i>Mission: Impossible:: Rogue Nation<\/i><\/a>: Spectacular action, well balanced between plot tension, stunts, and laughs.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/kingsman_the_secret_service\/\"><i>Kingsman: The Secret Service<\/i><\/a>: Much better than it had any right to be. Composed and aristocratic, irreverent and wild. Some jaw-droppingly choreographed and filmed action scenes. Watched this with Alex &#038; Fiona at home yesterday evening; Fiona watched it on the iPad again today.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/armadabook.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2015\/ernest-cline-armada.jpg\" width=\"497\" height=\"757\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I read Ernest Cline&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/armadabook.com\/\"><i>Armada<\/i><\/a> in a single day last week \u2014 I haven&#8217;t read a book in a single day for <em>ages<\/em>. It&#8217;s good, but not as good as <i>Ready Player One<\/i>. One improvement over his debut is that the pop- and videogame-culture references are optional extras this time round, rather than integral to the plot. (You don&#8217;t have to have an intimate knowledge of Rush&#8217;s <i>2112<\/i> to understand the second half of the book.) It tries to bite off more than it can chew, though. The first half promises a lot, revealing layer upon layer of secrecy. When it hits the bedrock of the reality as posited, it carries on to a reasonably satisfying action climax&#8230;but it never goes <em>even deeper<\/em>. It could have been truly mind-bending, but it chooses a simpler pay-off instead. The fact that I had to finish it in a single day says how much I enjoyed it, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following a tip-off on jwz&#8217;s blog, I&#8217;ve been listening to a lot of Veruca Salt lately, especially their new album Ghost Notes, and IV from 2006. Also, Sleater-Kinney&#8217;s new album No Cities To Love has been out since January. I just realized that I&#8217;ve been listening to it for a good few months now, but &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2015\/08\/07\/mixed-media-friday-7-august-2015\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mixed Media, Friday 7 August 2015&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3135,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/3135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}