Sunday, Sunday / Monday, Monday (13)

More Pokemon? Yes please.

I was working on uploading this yesterday, but since it was Father's Day and all this post went on the back-burner. I managed to get it half done, but not enough to actually post it.

• To keep up to date with entertainment/culture news, I've recently bookmarked many news sites. All those sites did not bring me news of the new Pokemon reissues however -- that came in the form of a newsletter from the Pokemon Company themselves.

In the same vein of Omega Ruby and Sapphire, these ultra-versions of Sun and Moon are essentially upgrades to the original games. In terms of Ultra Sun and Moon, there will be alternate story-lines to the original games, and will still be set in the Alola region. 

There will be new Pokemon forms added, but there is no information as to what these will be. These forms will appear alongside a variety of new features. Both games are to be released later this year, on November 17. 

CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara of Nintendo also announced a new Pokemon RPG for the Nintendo Switch at E3 last week (13 June - 15 June), which is currently in development. Nintendo will also be releasing Pokken Tournament DX this fall on Nintendo Switch (22 September) , alongside the release of Pokemon Gold and Silver for the 3DS (via the Nintendo eShop) as they were originally on the GameBoy Colour. 

(sources: Heavy, Polygon, The Pokemon Company)

• I'm not up to date (at all) with The Weeknd. I loved his 2015 record Beauty Behind the Madness, but I haven't really listened to his 2016 release Starboy other than the single 'False Alarm'. Like 'False Alarm', the track 'Secrets' isn't a single from the record. 

I found myself on the trending tab on Monday (12 June), and a new music video from The Weeknd is number one. There's me getting excited that he's dropping a new record, forgetting about 'Secrets' on Starboy. 

Filmed at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Toronto Reference Library and directed by Pedro Martin-Calero, the video echoes the hypnotic staircase sequences of the 1986 classic Labyrinth. 

The song itself also samples 'Talking in Your Sleep' by Crystal Gayle and 'Pale Shelter' by Tears for Fears, making it sound more vapourwave than the romantic era of the eighties produced by Tears for Fears. 

• If you're a fan of John Landis and An American Werewolf in London (1981) like me and my mum, this interview with Landis by Jack Watkins for The Guardian. From locations to special effects, wolf sounds and music, the interview is a goldmine for BTS trivia. 

You can read the article here. 

• And how can you talk about The Guardian without talking about the master in film reviewing that is Peter Bradshaw. His latest review of the recently-released remake of The Mummy is a must-read, he completely rips it in two. I still don't know what Universal was thinking in remaking that film, let alone rebooting/remaking their entire classic movie universe; they should have kept that universe in its tomb. 

• In an article written by Natty Kasambala on Dazed.com, it has been revealed that 'music is the same as drugs and sex, according to your brain.' Well, I'll be damned. This revelation comes from a study conducted at Montreal's McGill University, where a group of participants were given the drug Naltrexone: 

'The substance aims to block drug highs, and is prescribed addicts to help numb the brain's opioid receptors, eradicating any pleasure from drug use ... They found that the highs felt when taking drugs were not the only thing Naltrexone impacted -- it also considerably numbered the pleasure felt by their favourite songs. 

"'Music can reliably induce feelings of pleasure, and indeed, people consistently rank music among the top ten things in their lives that bring pleasure, above money, food and art,' Levitin wrote in the paper, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports. 'Although the neural underpinnings of music cognition have been widely studied in the last 15 years, relatively little is known about the neurochemical processes underlying musical pleasure'". 

(source: Dazed)

• Dazed.com also shared an article of St Vincent’s advice on anxiety and confidence for teenagers, talking about issues on how to effectively tackle anxiety. She did so on ‘The Rookie Podcast’ – hosted by Tavi Gevinson (editor of Rookie Mag) – participating in a segment called ‘Ask a Grown Man/Woman.’

I could have done with these sorts of discussions when I was a teenager suffering with my developing GAD. 

Read the article here. 

• After the release of the ‘Lust for Life’ music video (May 22), Lana has been teasing segments of her new track ‘Changes’ on Instagram with haunting yet beautiful selfie-videos of Del Rey singing along to the track. 

Listen/watch here. 

• The Glastonbury line-up has been updated to its final form, with Liam Gallagher taking the ‘Other Stage’ on Saturday at 5.45pm. Noel will also be appearing at the festival, but only to introduce a special screening of the amazing Oasis documentary Supersonic, directed by Mat Whitecross. Liam joins a variety of artists across the weekend, including some personal favourites of mine: 

Pyramid Stage: Radiohead, Royal Blood, Foo Fighters & Biffy Clyro

Other Stage: Lorde, Halsey, Alt-J, Liam Gallagher & Haim Avalon Stage: Kiefer Sutherland (?!) & Lissie 

The announcement also included the reveal of new stage ‘Cineramageddon’; a drive-in cinema curated by UK filmmaker Julien Temple. In an interview with NME, Glastonbury founded Michael Eavis said of the event:

‘”We’ve got a massive film screen and 100 ‘60s American and Cuban cars,’ … Eavis told NME last night (February 16). ‘We’ve put them all in straight lines, so you can sit in the cars, watch the films and the sound comes into the cars by a little Bluetooth thingy on the wing mirror. Julien Temple is doing all the film choices. This is the biggest thing of the year.’” 

Johnny Depp will also be introducing a personal choice of films on Thursday alongside Temple. Below are a selection of films appearing over the weekend on the Cinearmageddon stage:

Withnail & I, Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome edition), David Bowie: The Last Five Years, Easy Rider, Dazed & Confused, 1977 Special: Sex Pistols & The Clash, Apocalypse Now, Akira & The Battle of Algiers. 

(sources: Glastonbury Festivals, Fact Mag, NME)


• Queens of the Stone Age dropped a video (June 14) hinting at their upcoming record ‘Villains’, and the first single off the record ‘The Way You Used to Do’ the following day (June 15). They also announced a world tour alongside this with only two dates in the UK. Two?! I think I’m gonna wait a while for them to do some more. Those tickets are going to sell way too fast.

You can read my review of ‘The Way You Used to Do’ here. 

• Royal Blood also released their new record – How Did We Get So Dark? – on Friday (June 16), which I will be reviewing soon. I completely forgot that it was coming out this month. Whilst I get my review up together, NME have a fantastic piece on the influences that Royal Blood had whilst creating the record; one of which was David Bowie. 

(source: NME)

• H3H3 and Jenna + Julien both uploaded their weekly podcasts, which were hilarious as always. Ethan and Hila were joined by Ethan’s parents for nearly three hours (Podcast #11), and Jenna and Julien gravitated around the subject of ‘Don’t Get Me Started’ (Podcast #144).

You can watch both podcasts below. 

• Both Jenna and Julien also uploaded videos of a thrilling pool party for Marbles, Peach and Kermit which was totally the highlight of my week. Any dog in a small pool in pool floats will make my week tbh. 

• Last but not least, Foo Fighters debuted new song ‘Lah Di Dah’ at Iceland’s Secret Solstice Festival on Friday night (June 16), alongside their other two new tracks ‘Run’ and ‘The Sky Is a Neighbourhood’.

The highlight of the show, however, was Dave Grohl’s 8-year-old daughter Harper bounding on stage to play drums with her Dad and the band for a cover of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’. Grohl told the audience: 

‘About two weeks ago, my daughter said ‘Daddy, I want to play the drums.’ And I said, ‘Okay, you want me to teach you?’ She said yes. And then I said, ‘Do you want to get up on stage in front of 20,000 people in Iceland and play? And she said yes. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome the next generation [laughs] … there’s another Grohl on the drum set now. And this is the first song she learned.’