Graphic Novel: Cuba: My Revolution

Cuba: My Revolution: A powerful story which takes you to emotional extremes.

Cuba: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez and Dean Haspiel

Cuba: My Revolution is an affecting account of Sonya, a seventeen year old Cuban girl who dreams of becoming an artist, and who is initially a passionate believer in Fidel Castro and his revolution.  However, as she begins to witness the brutality, oppressiveness and inequality of Fidel’s rule, she gradually becomes more and more disillusioned with the reality of Fidel Castro’s government.

It’s a thought-provoking and affecting story based on actual events in the early life of writer Inverna Lockpez and one which leaves a powerful lasting impression, as well as an appreciation for the freedoms we often take for granted.

The story begins with Cuba full of excitement and enthusiasm for the future, with dreams of justice and equality as Fidel Castro marches into Havana to the triumphant sound of canon salutes.  The nation is in celebration at the removal of former president and dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and when you learn how Batista was violently oppressive of anyone who dared to disagree with him, resorting to torture and censorship, you can understand why Fidel Castro was initially so popular.

Music: Strange Weekend by Porcelain Raft

Strange Weekend: An atmospheric album filled with ideas.

Strange Weekend by Porcelain Raft.

There are some albums where the success of the album is down to the pure and simple brilliance of the songs.  Then there are other albums where the overall creative soundscape is what gives them their inventive genius and makes them stand out from the crowd.

Strange Weekend by Porcelain Raft is an album which has a foot in both camps.  It’s without doubt a very creative collection of music and a refreshingly interesting album to listen to, but whereas with some artistic albums the soundscape covers up for the lack of quality songs, this is far from being the case with Strange Weekend.  Strip away the cool dreamy production and you’re still left with a collection of excellent songs.

Listening to Strange Weekend conjures up words such as floaty, dreamlike or even hypnotic and in fact the names of some of the songs such as Drifting In And Out and Put Me To Sleep suggest that Mauro Remiddi was in that chilled out state of mind when putting lyrics to his musical creations.

iPod App: Glass Tower 2

Glass Tower 2: A simple but fun and well presented iPhone game.

Glass Tower 2 features a wide range of bonuses,
but watch out for the blocks rain!

The object of Glass Tower 2 is simple.  You begin each level with a tower of red and blue glass blocks and have to destroy the blue blocks but save the red blocks.  Tapping on a block causes it to shatter and disappear and thus the challenge of the game is to eliminate the blue blocks in such a way that the red blocks aren’t lost over the sides of the supporting platform.  Once all blue blocks are removed the level is complete and bonus points are awarded for each red block saved.

You start the game with a generous quantity of ten lives and lose a life for each red block which is lost over the edges.  During the early more straight forward levels this initial healthy helping of lives seems rather generous but on later levels if things don’t go exactly to plan you can end up with several red blocks falling off the sides and therefore your allowance of ten lives comes in handy.

TV: Red Dwarf X

Red Dwarf X: Recaptures the sci-fi comedy vibe of earlier series.

Red Dwarf X ... it feels like it's never been away.

Red Dwarf has returned and it feels like it’s never been away, as very little has changed.  Rimmer is still sitting, and failing, his astronavigation exams, Lister is just as slobby as he ever was, Cat is just as vain and image-obsessed, and Kryten’s mannerisms are all still  firmly intact.  And of course, most importantly the jokes are just as funny and as silly as ever.

In fact right from the opening few notes of the theme tune to the first episode, I immediately started to feel a sense of nostalgia as memories of watching the early Red Dwarf shows as a child started to return.  The whole show has a reassuring air of familiarity to it, with the sense of humour pretty much identical to those early days.  The same sense of manic daftness to things is in attendance, while at the same time as you’d expect Red Dwarf X also features some creatively clever ideas.

The Worthy Of A Bigger Audience 2012 Awards (Part 3)

My favourite B side, cover version and remix featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.

Over the last two weeks I’ve rounded off the year by choosing a favourite from each category (albums, movies, TV shows, etc) featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.  As well as regular reviews, however, I occasionally feature music related posts such as Six Cover Versions Worth Checking Out, Six Remixes Worth Checking Out and Six B Sides Worth Checking Out, so to round things off completely here are my favourite cover version, remix and B side (or bonus track) featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012:

Lady With The Spinning Head can be found as
one of the bonus tracks on U2's One CD single.

B Sides (Bonus Tracks):

1) Never Want To See You Cry by The Verve (B side to Lucky Man)
2) Lady With The Spinning Head by U2 (B side to One)
3) For Where There Is Love, There Will Always Be Miracles by The Charlatans (B side to Up At The Lake)
4) Headset by Underworld (B side to Two Months Off)
5) Won’t Let You Down by Oasis (B side to Lyla)
6) Lull by Radiohead (B side to Karma Police)

All six of these tracks are brilliant B sides but the tune I love the most is probably Lady With The Spinning Head which as mentioned in my original post is immediately recognisable as an early version of The Fly.  The song has an infectious motivating energy which fills you with enthusiasm when you listen to it and it also provides an interesting insight into the U2 song writing process.

Winner – Lady With The Spinning Head by U2

The Worthy Of A Bigger Audience 2012 Awards (Part 2)

My favourite movie, website, travel destination, radio show and graphic novel featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.

Last week for a bit of self-indulgent fun I listed my favourite album, book, iPod app, party and TV show featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.  This week I round things off by covering the movie, website, travel, radio and graphic novel categories.

Submarine: A charming coming of age story.

Movies:

Super
Changeling
Catfish
Cube
Frozen
Submarine

The movie category was quite a difficult category to decide because although all of the above movies are great movies which I would recommend checking out, with the exception of Changeling they’re not really mainstream movies with a broad universal appeal to a wide audience.  They’re movies which I would guess will have an enthusiastic and appreciative group of fans, rather than massive box office movies which spent weeks at the top of the charts.  Ultimately though, I decided to go for Submarine as of all the movies it’s probably the one which may appeal to the widest audience and it was such a nice movie.

Winner: Submarine

The Worthy Of A Bigger Audience 2012 Awards (Part 1)

My favourite album, book, iPod app, party and TV show featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.

Worthy Of A Bigger Audience is only a small blog I run in my spare time as a hobby but I’ve enjoyed sharing my opinions on some of the music, movies, TV shows, etc, which I love and think deserve to be appreciated by a bigger audience.  So as 2012 is now at a close, just for a bit of self-indulgent fun I thought this would be a good excuse to revisit the reviews featured over the last few months and pick my favourite choice from each category.

So without further ado here are my favourite albums, movies, TV shows, etc, featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 21012…

The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable

Albums:

Wonder by Lisa Mitchell
Singing From The Grave by Anna Von Hausswolff
Proof Of Youth by The Go! Team
The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable
Pomme Fritz by The Orb
The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man On Earth
High Violet by The National

This was by far and away the most difficult category to decide and not just because I’ve reviewed more albums than anything else on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience.  I absolutely love all of the albums reviewed in the list above so if I was to compile my top fifty favourite albums of all-time then pretty much all of those listed above would be strong contenders for conclusion.  In the end though, I had to pick a favourite and I decided to go for The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable simply because it just keeps getting better and better with every listen.

Winner: The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable