Nick R

Even with the last 30 seconds of Mildred Pierce? My choice for closest-to-perfect Sonic Youth album is Daydream Nation. (No, I don't skip Providence!) And Sister is not far behind, followed by A Thousand Leaves. Others that come to mind: Bjork - Post, Homogenic and Vespertine Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here Blondie - Parallel Lines It's surprisingly hard for me to think of things I'd be willing to nominate for this. Even with my favourite albums that I'd rate five stars, I'd hesitate to call them "perfect", and couldn't claim that all the tracks are consistent enough for me never to skip one track. Even on something like The Beatles' Revolver, which is my easy go-to answer for Favourite Ever Album, I can't pretend I'm in the mood for Yellow Submarine every time I listen to it, or that Doctor Robert and I Want To Tell You are as good as the best songs on there. (I'd say similar things about Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road and Rubber Soul.) Even some of my favourite, most consistently good musicians never made albums I'd put in the perfect category. REM, for example: as great as Lifes Rich Pageant, Document, Out of Time, Murmur and Automatic For The People are, they all contain dips I'm less keen on. Can we nominate compilations? Because if so I'm going to say that: the first disc of And I Feel Fine... The Best Of The I.R.S. Years is the most consistently good disc REM ever released. the best album by The Who is Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. The posthumous Jimi Hendrix collection Voodoo Child is a stronger collection from start to finish than any of his Experience/Band of Gypsys albums.

Phantasy Star Headline

Fontasy Star Online

Put a spoiler warning on that!

Typeset Radio

The Master System Mickey Mouse game I'd nominate is Land of Illusion, as I'm a lot more familiar with it than I am with Castle of Illusion. Also: Ninja Gaiden

Yuzo Koshiro playing 8-bit Sonic music from its original development floppy disk (and through a Roland Micro Cube!), including some unused stuff like an 8-bit Marble Zone: Here's the unused piece of music at 0:22: And 0:38: And 0:58: 1:00:

But that's not included with Prime! It used to be on there a few years ago, but not now. Buffy 6 and 7 are the weakest seasons, but still worth watching (and not just for Once More With Feeling, Storyteller, Conversations With Dead People and Chosen). As for ideal viewing order, I'd alternate series for the seasons where both were on air: Buffy seasons 1-4 Angel season 1 Buffy 5 Angel 2 Buffy 6 Angel 3 Buffy 7 Angel 4-5 That's as complicated as I'd ever go with a rewatch, though some people have suggested more complicated viewing orders that swap series every episode or two, to balance their original airdates with series continuity: https://www.reddit.com/r/buffy/comments/88a3ju/want_a_different_buffyangel_watch_order_here_ya_go/

From a quick look through the @BuffyHDBluRay Twitter account, it looks like all the complaints people had about the HD version a few years ago still apply. Here's a spoilery video about the problems. Channel 4 recently put all seven seasons on All4, and it's currently being broadcast on E4. But the trailers I've seen for it really bright (though those trailers are emphasising its sunny '90s cheerleadering-ness) and the 16:9 cropping looks awkward. So it looks like C4, Amazon, and anywhere else that's currently streaming it is using the poor remastered version:

Tom Ewing of Freakytrigger is currently running a cover versions tournament bracket on Twitter: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/nylpm/2020/05/the-peoples-pop-poll-starts-5th-may/ It's being run as a charity fundraiser for Refuge: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tom-ewing3 To save scrolling through the thread, at the time of posting this is the oldest vote that's still active (for a couple more hours). It's not the strongest of rounds... This is a playlist of all the tournament's nominated tracks that are available on Spotify (others are YouTube only): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01V01uAUvgzSwBWQc4VAMO?si=9z72FHUcTlin1l0OAfPYJg

I just linked to this interview in the JW3 thread - here's what Chad Stahelski says about Len Wiseman directing this: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chad-stahelski-john-wick-4-his-matrix-4-involvement-1296473

Long Chad Stahelski interview: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chad-stahelski-john-wick-4-his-matrix-4-involvement-1296473 He talks about the ending of John Wick 3 (spoilers!), Len Wiseman's direction of Ballerina, director's cuts and listening to fan demands, stunts, working with Lana Wachowski on The Matrix 4, and why he's not interested in showing off with long-take action sequences (whether "real" like Children of Men and Tom-Yum-Goong, or stitched together like 1917).

A video praising one technical aspect of Episode IX: If you only want to watch one bit, skip to 5:20 when it shows almost exactly the same shot being used in three Abrams films. They're fine shots, but it's funny seeing them one after the other like that! Here's the Brad Bird video he mentions. At 2:48 ("Bad robot!") he talks about a shot from Abrams' STID that is an example of this sort of nicely-blocked camera movement offering no advantage for storytelling:

Specco the Dolphin

Styes of Arcadia