We’ve Moved

We’ve moved BurnAllZombies to a new server, so it might mean those of you following on RSS may need to change feeds etc. But don’t worry, thinks haven’t changed too much: we’re still as awesome as ever……right?

You’ll be able to find all new BurnAllZombies stuff at BurnAllZombies.com so hit up the site, click the RSS button and do all the things you’d normally do when checking us out.

It’s A Sabotage

Sean Devlin: Irishman. Race-car driver. Terrorist.

If that last word brought on a tiny bit of a wince, then you’ve just reacted the same way as I did when I first encountered EA Games’ The Saboteur. Sure, the game might be set in Paris during World War II (with Nazis as the bad guys, so killing them is a good thing), but there are still some connotations that don’t sit particularly well, and that’s one of them. To get away with something like that, you’ve got to have a pretty good game, or at the very least, one that’s incredibly fun to play.

Gran Turismo: Real Life

With Gran Turismo 5 released over the next few months on Sony PlayStation 3, gamers in Ireland have been given a special opportunity to download the GT Academy Time Trial and win a chance to become a real racing driver.

PlayStation 3 and Nissan Ireland have joined forces once again for GT Academy 2010. GT Academy wants to find Ireland’s fastest gaming racing driver and give them an opportunity to transfer their skills to real world racing tracks. Download the GT Academy time trial to your PlayStation 3 console and take the first step towards becoming a professional racing driver by posting your fastest lap time.

Driving fans with a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Network (PSN) account can download the GT Academy Gran Turismo 5 time trial from the PlayStation Store. Participants will race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and record lap times in both a standard road version of Nissan’s stunning 370 Z as well as a tuned version of the same car. Combined lap times will give each player their leader-board place and they have until January 24^th 2010 to complete and register their time. Holders of the 20 fastest lap times will then be invited to take part in a head to head final in February 2010 to determine Ireland’s national champion.

At this stage, the competition will move from the virtual to the real world. The national champion will travel to Silverstone to undergo an intensive weeklong training programme to see if they have what it takes to make it as a real world racing driver. They will compete against their European counterparts to find two overall winners who will go on to spend a further 8 weeks in Silverstone to qualify for their international racing licence. Only one of these final two participants will be successful and go on to race a full season as part of the Nissan team in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z car.

If all that sounds appealing, you’ll need to download the time trial by steering your PS3 to the PlayStation Store and get practising on that fastest lap before January 24th. You can find more information on the Time Trial, and the PlayStation Store here.

Burnt Zombie Awards 2009

It’s been a hectic last few weeks here at BurnAllZombies: those of you who know us will know why it’s been a bit quiet on the updates, but with 2010 just around the corner, updates will be coming at you so fast, you won’t know what’s hit you.

New Year’s Eve is as good a time as any to look back over some of the best of what 2009 had to over. On that note, we bring you the inaugural Burnt Zombie Awards, a run-down of the finest movies, games, music, TV and comics had to offer this year. Of course, if you disagree, we can discuss below. It’s not as if we’ll send the zombies around if we don’t agree with you…

Comic Catch-Up: New Releases, 03.12.09

Amongst the other bad guys that the Comic Catch-Up came up against this week, we had to deal with aliens, Doombots and a lot of decapitation. With no DC stuff this week (don’t worry, we’ll be looking more in-depth at Blackest Night eventually), we take a look at some annuals coming at the end of the year, with Dark Avengers Annual #1 and X-Force Annual #1 as well as Siege: The Cabal, Strange #2 and Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #5.

A Crack In Time Saves Nine

In terms of great platforming duos, few names roll off your tongue like Ratchet & Clank: even Mario and Luigi or Sonic and Tails doesn’t sound right. The duo return to the PlayStation 3 for their ninth game, an epic intergalactic jaunt through space and time that the rest of us can refer to as Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time.

Separating our two lead characters for most of the game, A Crack In Time picks up shortly after Quest For Booty (the previous game) with Clank being abducted by the Zoni, mysterious creatures with an affinity for time and who are working with the villainous Dr. Nefarious. While Clank tries to attain freedom, investigating the mysterious “Great Clock” at the centre of the universe, best buddy Ratchet realises he may not be the last of his kind after all, and teams up with bumbling superhero Captain Qwark to find and save Clank.

Believe In The Assassins

Widely hailed as one of the best games of 2007, Assassin’s Creed never quite made it onto my own list of that year’s top games: it was fun, pretty to look at and with an assassin as the main character, the entertainment should have been assured. But this was a game with far too much exposition, simple controls and not enough killing, with the end result being a game that was far more watchable than it was playable and didn’t encourage future gaming sessions. It’s an interesting dilemma as the lines between traditional and interactive media blur, but one that doesn’t necessarily bode well as long as traditional expectations of video games remain.

But this is a conversation that can be held off for another time with the release of the much-improved Assassin’s Creed II, available now on PS3 and XBox 360. Like many recent sequels, this is a game which has improved upon its predecessor and earned itself a place amongst one of this year’s best games.

Comic Catch-Up: New Releases, 25.11.09

BurnAllZombies’ Comic Catch-Up fittingly returns from the grave with some nostalgic heroics, a comatose man who is no longer ‘iron’ and one of Marvel’s lesser-known heroes taking down an airship with his hand. It’s the first look at some of DC Comics’ titles, including Detective Comics #859 and Superman: Secret Origin #3 while Marvel’s entries this week are Amazing Spider-Man #613, Fantastic Four #573, Invincible Iron Man #20, New Avengers #59, Secret Warriors #10 and Uncanny X-Men #517, though we’re not forgetting about Ultimate Comics Avengers #4.

BurnAllZombies Update

Yep, it’s an update on all things BurnAllZombies related: things have been a little bit hectic recently, so updates have been slow, but that’s all going to change in December. There’s been a few changes, and here’s what’s coming soon

• The Comic Catch-Up will be back soon with a bang: Dan will be looking after it. He’ll also be bringing you some other updates and trailers for next year’s big movies and games and other news as and when it’s newsworthy.
• In the world of Games, we’ll have reviews for Assassin’s Creed II and Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time up soon…once I can get past the really hard bits.
• Stuck for some Christmas presents? There’ll be an epic multi-part guide to Christmas presents: you want to buy your loved ones some games, consoles, DVD/Blu-Ray movies or maybe even some books or comics? We might be able to give you some ideas.
• As the nights are getting darker, it’s time to start hitting the cinema more, and we’ll have movie reviews for Where The Wild Things Are, The Box and coming soon, we’ll also have James Cameron’s epic Avatar.

Keep checking back for updates, or even better: follow us on Twitter, or become a fan on Facebook or subscribe via RSS feed up in the corner there. Go on, you know you want to.

Take That (And Party…If You Want)

Even if you weren’t a teenage girl in the early nineties, with Take That posters on your walls, you now like Take That; if you say you don’t, you’re lying. But it’s okay, there’s no shame in liking Take That, a band whose career has covered two decades, spawned some pretty successful careers (and then there’s Robbie Williams too) and feature a man often regarded as one of the best songwriters of today. With the release of SingStar Take That on the PS2 and PS3, there’s a tough decision ahead of you: do you admit to knowing all the words and being able to sing the songs pitch-perfect, or do you embarrass yourself in front of all your friends when they realise you can’t?

EyePet Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas

It’s a common request from thousands (if not millions) of kids around the globe: they want a pet for Christmas, but it isn’t always practical. For starters, Santa Claus has to find a way to transport them, and putting them in a bag with all the rest of his presents is just cruel. That, and he can’t guarantee that he’ll be able to keep the boy puppies and girl puppies away from each other. That’s why Santa invented the Tamagotchi a few years back (there’s an argument over rights, at the moment, so you won’t find him credited on Wikipedia just yet) and now, why Sony have invented the EyePet.

Heresy, Thy Name Is Dante

A family shouldn’t have to wait until Sunday to worship the Lord. Now you can go to church every day without leaving your home. Participate in more than 24 unique and exhilarating Ceremonies. Be sure to try them all. The more you play, the more Grace points you collect. Then trade in your Grace points to unlock the Holy Mysteries. Only from Prayer Works Interactive. Help bring your family closer. To Heaven. Learn more at MassWePray.com

via Mass: We Pray – The Video Game.

A few days ago, when the above video and site went live…well, let’s just say that people were confused. And rightly so. Few hardcore gamers (or people who spend more than five minutes a week on the internet) could say with any sense of certainty that such a game would or wouldn’t definitely exist.

It’s with something akin to a sigh of relief that the site has since been updated. Try pre-ordering the game (or clicking some of the other links) and you’ll be treated to an accusation of heresy, tying in with next year’s release of Dante’s Inferno, along with a new gameplay trailer and a facebook app.

The funny/weird/scary thing is, if Mass: We Pray were a real game, you can guarantee that someone, somewhere would be buying it.

Humbug, Humbug, Humbug

It just wouldn’t be the festive season without some Christmas movies to get us in the mood: early November might just be a little too early for some people to begin decking the halls, but the season is starting early with Disney’s presentation of A Christmas Carol, the classic tale written by Charles Dickens and now brought to the big screen by Robert Zemeckis.

Disney’s take on the fable is animated though uses a form of motion capture similarly to that previously seen in Zemeckis’ The Polar Express and Beowulf (although for this movie, the look is a lot smoother, embracing the fact that it is, ultimately, an animated film.) It’s a perfect opportunity for the multi-faceted Jim Carrey to play several roles, this time taking on Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts who haunt him on a Christmas Eve night.

For a modern adaptation, A Christmas Carol is surprisingly faithful to Dickens’ source: set in an impressively realised Victorian London, the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge shows off just how miserable he can be when dealing with gentlemen seeking alms, his nephew Fred (Colin Firth) who invites him along for Christmas dinner and his own clerk Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman.) That night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Jacob Marley (also voiced by Oldman) who pleads with Scrooge to recant on his greedy ways, telling him that he will have three visitors over the next two nights who will show him the folly of his ways. Those three visitors, as everyone should know, are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, of Christmas Present, and of Christmases Yet To Come.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Addiction is rarely a good thing, but there’s no greater compliment you can pay a puzzle game than by calling it addictive. So it’s by no means a bad thing that we’re caling Tower Bloxx Deluxe an addictive puzzle game. Developed by Digital Chocolate, and available now through XBox Live Arcade, the game has been available in a number of formats (including for mobile phones and flash-based games), though this is the first fully-fledged console outing. On paper, it’s simple, deceptively so, a multi-dimensional block-stacking game that sounds like it should be easier than Tetris but, in reality, it’s a lot more complex.

Paranormally Active

Few films have experienced the frenzied internet marketing hype that Paranormal Activity has received in the last few months: sure, this year has also given us the phenomenal trailer to Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (a far better experience than the film, reviewed here) and Neill Blomkamp’s debut feature District 9 proved that aliens could still rake in the cash at the box office. But the effortless success that Paranormal Activity has had in the US has kept the film riding high in terms of takings and hype. It’s even been a consistently trending topic on Twitter since even before its release.

Paranormal Activity doesn’t open this side of the Atlantic until the 25th November (though you might be lucky enough to catch a paid preview screening on Friday 13th) but it was also the surprise film at this year’s Horrorthon at Dublin’s IFI, and if that screening is anything to go by, the film will prove just as successful this side of the Atlantic as in the US.

Befitting a low-budget film (costing only $15, 000 to make), the film takes a mockumentary style in which the lines between reality and the film are blurred: some text at the beginning claims that the footage was found after the events of the film, footage which is recorded on a camcorder bought to record the strange nocturnal events in the home of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston (the actors lend their own names to the characters in the pursuit of realism.) What follows are about three weeks of footage (cut down to a little over ninety minutes) as Micah and Katie come to realise that the disturbances in their house aren’t just neighbourhood children or creaking floorboards, but a malevolent presence that doesn’t take kindly to being challenged or recorded.

Nathan Drake > Lara Croft

There’s a lot that Nathan Drake, star of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves on Sony’s PlayStation 3, has in common with Lara Croft, star of the Tomb Raider series: both make a living from some combination of being an archaeologist, adventurer and historian; both mingle with colleagues who aren’t always the most honest of business partners; and both know how to handle themselves in a fight. We’ve yet to see pictures of Nathan Drake in a clingy top that accentuates his cleavage, so I think it’s safe to say that that’s where the similarities end.

Uncharted 2 is one of the most eagerly anticipated games for relase this year on Sony’s home console, and if you’ve played the first game (subtitled Drake’s Fortune), it’s easy to see why: with a seemless blend of athletic platforming, puzzles and combat with an immersive story involving a hunt for lost treasure and a lovably charming lead character, where can you go wrong? And that was just the first game. Picking up about a year afterwards, Uncharted 2 raises the bar in terms of the gameplay and provides an even more thrilling storyline.

They’re Coming Right For Us

Some of us love it; others call it offensive and crass, but there’s no denying that South Park has proven one of the most successful TV comedy shows of recent years. The show has been running for thirteen years, longer than either Friends or Frasier (although it only has about twelve episodes a year, so less episodes in total than either show.) It’s also easily held its own against close rival Family Guy with the quality of the latter falling off of late while some may even say that South Park has improved with age. Nonetheless, it’s surprising that South Park hasn’t proven to be a bigger franchise, even taking into account several pieces of merchandising, a movie and some successful video games.

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! is the latest such video game and after having a go at first-person shooters, party games and racing games, this time around the characters are seeing how they get on in a tower-defense style strategy, available now for download exclusively through XBox Live Arcade.

The town of South Park is under attack from all manner of evil creatures, including gingers, underpants gnomes and zombies and it falls to our four favourite pre-pubescent kids, Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman to protect the town across several levels, including the High School, their homes and Hell’s Pass Hospital. It’s up to the kids to take down the invading forces by throwing snowballs, building obstacles and putting defensive towers around the map, including lasers and fireworks.

Beware Of Bathrooms

With Zombieland crashing into cinemas next week, just in time to scare all of us for Halloween, we’ve got an Irish exclusive clip of the movie, giving you an idea what to expect from the horror-comedy, directed Ruben Fleischer.

As the world descends into zombie-infected madness, Jesse Eisenberg teams up with Woody Harrelson to survive the harsh wilds of flesh-eating madness, and with the zombies moving like this, the film promises to be both hilarious and scary in just the right measure.

Check the hilarious clip below (though be prepared for the zombies with toilet roll) as Eisenberg shares his rules for survival in a zombie-infected world.

Zombieland is in cinemas October 9th.

In Space. Screaming. Yadda.

Horror movies set in space are always a bit hit-or-miss: for every Alien, there’s a Jason X, and a hell of a lot more in between. Pandorum, a US/German co-production from director Christian Alvart, might have a trailer that tries to sell it down the Alien-route, but having watched the film, you might be left wondering if you have to re-evaluate your opinions on what makes a bad horror-in-space film.

On board the space-ship Elysium, Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) awakens from suspended animation: disoriented, he remembers little other than the role he was trained to fulfil as a member of the flight crew, taking over from another team who will then enter “hypersleep” themselves, who are strangely absent. When Bower is joined by the similarly awoken Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) the two struggle to find a way out of the anteroom in which they’re trapped. As both deal with the after-effects of their extended sleep, both physical and psychological, Bower makes his way out of the room and into the ship proper, where he finds what appears to be an abandoned ship is instead haunted by flesh-eating monsters, intent on stopping him from reaching his goal in the reactor.

Get Your Gunn: MAG on the PS3

Produced by Zipper Interactive, MAG is already shaping up to be one of the most interesting titles to hit the Sony PlayStation 3 over the next few months. With the game currently in beta, we were lucky enough to play through some of the game and were also guided through the world and its inception by the game’s creative director, Ed Byrne.

Set in the not-too-distant future, MAG puts players in the role of a soldier working for one of three PMCs (or private military companies.) As worldwide resources dwindle and countries find themselves unable to support their armed forces, three PMCs come to the fore, Raven, Valor and SVER, who will sell their military services to the highest bidder. The competition between the three PMCs increases until it becomes a conflict known as the “Shadow War,” a reputation-based conflict as the three PMCs try to undermine each other and lay claim to various resources that will increase their own reputation, and therefore their own business.

Carrey On Christmas

It might be a little bit early to talk about Christmas (three months and counting) but I’m still unsure how I feel about Robert Zemeckis’ steady decline in terms of movie-making. True, very little of what he’s made has been poor, but there’s a big difference between the Back To The Future movies and Beowulf.

But I’m slightly more optimistic about his CGI take on A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge (and the ghosts) and presented in Disney 3D. To be honest, I can’t much stand Charles Dickens, but there’s something about his Christmas tale of mizerly Scrooge that has always appealed to me and I really enjoy reading it or checking out some of the adaptations around the season.

You can check out the trailer below, but at least it’s steering clear of the uncanny valley that The Polar Express journeyed through. Certainly, judging from the trailer, there’s nothing to indicate that this may be nearly as good as seeing Bill Murray or Patrick Stewart in the role.

A Christmas Carol is due for release in 3D (selected cinemas) and 2D in UK and Ireland on 6th November.

Sometimes Real Life Just Gets In The Way

The title says it all, really, and there’s been a few things going on this last while that just haven’t made it easy to update BurnAllZombies.

But keep checking back to BurnAllZombies, because over the next while, we’ll have some great stuff for you, including:

• movie-wise, October is a big month for horror movies, and we’ll have a look at Pandorum and Zombieland. Also, with Halloween coming up, we’ll have a look at some great horror films and, if you haven’t seen them yet, you should be ashamed;
• For games, we’ll have a look at Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 and a look at MAG on the PS3, along with a chat with designer Ed Byrne;
• the Comic Catch-Up will continue…it just needs to be caught up on;
• and to top all that off, we’ll have more competitions, features and news, as always.

In the meantime, it’s been too long since our last Flashback Feature so if you’re interested in seeing more, vote below on what you want to see next.

Comic Catch-Up: New Releases, 16.09.09

The after-effects of the Utopia crossover continue to be felt in the Marvel Universe, both from the mutant side of things and as other characters have started to look at their own actions during the Dark Reign, along with some long-seated revelations in the X-books. This entry of the Comic Catch-up takes a look at Dark Avengers #9, X-Factor #48 and X-Men: Legacy – Annual #1.

XBox 360 Preview ’09, Part 1 (Halo 3 ODST, Forza 3, Beatles RockBand)

We recently got a chance to check out some upcoming games and new releases for Microsoft’s XBox 360 console, and it just wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t share the experience. We only got a chance to play a little bit of each game, so you can expect full reviews at a later stage, but until then, we give you a preview of Halo 3: O.D.S.T., Forza 3 Motorsport and The Beatles: Rock Band.

It was a performance by The Beatles that opened Microsoft’s press conference at this year’s E3, and with the game already released, is as good a place to start as any. Taking the familiar Rock Band controls and gameplay, The Beatles: Rock Band covers the band’s career from the early days in the Cavern Club right up to full-blown Beatlemania. The concept is simple, rhythm based input using either the guitar or drum controllers, or sing along to one of the 45 songs featured in the game.

Cover Your Ears, This Might Get Messy

It’s a Saturday night, and hordes of nobodies are making a name for themselves by murdering classic songs on TV. So you think to yourself, “I could do that…but I don’t much fancy the idea of having to sing for an audience, Simon Cowell kinda scares me and I can never tell whether Dannii Minogue is happy or sad.” You might even find yourself taken by urge to say “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be…” before realising they don’t show that anymore, and your dreams have been crushed.

So Sony PlayStation gave us the Singstar series of games, and coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Motown Records, the latest offering in the series is Singstar Motown, available now on both PS2 and PS3. Now, the only people judging you are your friends, neighbours and some red-and-blue lines as you sing to your heart’s content along with Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and Lionel Richie.

Comic Catch-Up: New Releases, 10.09.09

Even with the best intentions, the second week of the Comic Catch-Up escaped me, so here’s a quick catch-up for the week of September 10th, a week of Marvel comics that saw Norman Osborn taken down a few pegs with regard to the mutant situation in the culmination of Matt Fraction’s Utopia arc, ushering in a new status quo for mutant-kind, and beginning the important The List banner of books which may or may not lead to the end of the Osborn’s Dark Reign.

This entry of the Comic Catch-Up takes a look at Dark Avengers: Uncanny X-Men – Exodus one-shot, Dark Reign: The List – Avengers one-shot, Thunderbolts #135, War of Kings: Who Will Rule? one-shot and Ultimate Comics: Avengers #2.

Even With Your Pants Down, Keep Your Guard Up

There’s a new trailer for horror-comedy-action flick Zombieland hitting the internet, and we’ve got the trailer in HD for you to check out.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, the film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. Yep, that’s the same Abigail Breslin as was in Little Miss Sunshine, keeping it in comedy ville but not afraid to tussle with the indead.

The film promises some fun deaths (obviously), irreverent humour (hopefully) and, most importantly, big guns and zombies. Who doesn’t like big guns and zombies? (Don’t answer that question, or you will be forever barred from this site.)

Columbus (Eisenberg) is a big wuss – but when you’re afraid of being eaten by zombies, fear can keep you alive.  Tallahassee (Harrelson) is an AK-totin’, zombie-slayin’ badass whose single determination is to get the last Twinkie on earth.  As they join forces with Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin), who have also found unique ways to survive the zombie mayhem, they will have to determine which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies.

The film is due for release October 9th, but if you just can’t wait that long, why not check out the Official Site where you can turn yourself into a zombie in a (relatively) pain-free and non-lasting fashion.

Zombieland is due in cinemas October 2nd 2009 in the USA and October 9th in the UK and Ireland.

In Search Of Home

Having already won Oscars and hearts with Revolutionary Road and his directorial debut American Beauty, Sam Mendes returns to the world of couples and relationships for Away We Go, being flown into cinemas by stork this weekend. Yes, this is a film about pregnancy, babies and families, but before you start worrying that things might get too mushy, you can relax.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph star as Burt and Verona, a couple who have been together since college and now, in their early 30s, are expecting their first child. When Burt’s parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) announce that they are moving to Belgium before the baby is born, Burt and Verona come to a realisation: there is nothing tying them to their Colorado home once Burt’s parents are gone, so they decide to move. Thus begins a cross-country journey as Burt and Verona search for a place to call home, assessing whether they really want to live with Verona’s former boss (Allison Janney) in Phoenix, or her sister (Carmen Ejogo) in Tucson. But the trip takes on a much more introspective tone when Burt and Verona start to wonder what kind of parents they will be their unborn child after they meet Burt’s cousin LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with her free-spirited ideals, college pals Tom and Munch with their own adopted family and a final visit to Burt’s brother, whose own family situation has undergone a sudden change.

Competition: Food For Thought

***The competition is now closed***

Thanks for all your entries, we’ll be in touch with the winners shortly.

It’s a film about food, how could we not talk about it?

Nora Ephron’s Julie and Julia opens in cinemas across the UK and Ireland today. Starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep (in a role that has her hotly tipped for an Oscar), the film is a light-hearted comedy-drama about Julie Powell (Adams) and her attempts to cook her way through the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s book, while also showing some of the life of Child herself (Streep) all presented with Ephron’s sparkling wit and timing…yes, even the most skeptical geeks amongst us still has to admit to having a soft spot for Sleepless in Seattle.

Have a look at the trailer for Julie and Julia below to see some snippets of Streep’s amazing performance and the beautiful food on offer.

To coincide with the film’s release, we’ve also got our first ever competition here at BurnAllZombies, and we’ve got two books to give away tying into the film:

First, we’ve got Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously from Penguin Books, the book that inspired the film and a heart-warming account of the effect of Childs’ recipes on the life of a twenty-something woman, looking for meaning in her life (available at Amazon.)

AND

we’ve got a copy of Julia Child’s own My Life In France, a memoir of an American life in post-war Europe, her early days as a cook and her experiences of French culture. The biography, written by Child and Alex Prud’homme, has been called ‘Exuberant, affectionate and boundlessly charming’ by the New York Times, and if Child’s personality is anywhere near Streep’s performance, it’s easy to see why.

(My Life In France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud-homme, ISBN 9780715639009, £7.99, pbk, Duckworth Overlook.)

Both books are fascinating looks at life, love and food (as well as our relationships with them) and you’ll be guaranteed that you’ll want to read them after seeing the film, and probably want to try your hand with cooking some fine French cuisine too.

To enter the competition, all you need to do is leave a comment below, letting us know which book you’d like to read and why. If you’re not the commenting type, you can also enter by sending an e-mail to ken@burnallzombies.com with “Julie & Julia competition” in the subject line. The winners will be picked next Wednesday, 16th September at 9pm GMT and notified by e-mail.

Julie & Julia is open in cinemas now; both books are also available for purchase, but why buy when you might win?

Comic Catch-Up: New Releases, 02.09.09

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something comic-related, and it’s mostly been because I’m just not sure how to go about it: review a few comics each week, or wait until story arcs have finished and then look back on them as a whole. For the time being, I’m going to go with the former, since it means I can cover one-shots as well, but you can expect some retrospectives on big storylines as well, all under the Comic Catch-Up category. Any ideas for changes, or any titles you’d like to see covered, drop me a comment below: it also gives me an excuse to add more titles to my pull list.

And yes, the date above might look weird, but it’s the European format for the US release date…go figure.

This week, I take a look at Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #2, Cable #18 and Strange Tales #1.