LET’S GET QUIZZICAL #3

Congratulations to the winner of the last quiz, Amy, who was one of four people who got all ten answers correct.

Here are this week’s questions. Email answers to theworldwontlisten at hotmail.co.uk by next Wednesday. Good luck!

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1) Jimmy Kimmel was the focus of which rapper’s wrath on Twitter earlier this week?

LET’S GET QUIZZICAL #2

Thanks to everyone who entered last week – the first installment had a good response and you proved yourselves a generally honest bunch, as only one person actually answered all ten questions correctly: congratulations, Ciarán! (correct answers are at the end of this post)

Here’s a new batch for this week. Email answers to theworldwontlisten AT hotmail.co.uk by next Wednesday and I’ll post the winner a bunch of CDs.

Good luck…

FILM REVIEW: INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2

Let’s face it: decent modern horror films are hard to come by. Striking the balance between tension, genuine scares and an original storyline is something that has largely eluded mainstream cinema in recent years, which explains why a lot of horror films fail to make it to the big screen and are fast-tracked to DVD before you can say ‘I’ll just go and check the basement out’.

James Wan has had mixed form up to this point. The Australian is best known for his role as co-creator of the dreadful Saw franchise (and director of its first installment); movies that were huge money-spinners, movies that caught the imagination of the multiplex masses, but not exactly the sort of art that a filmmaker would want to have quoted on their epitaph.

And then along came Insidious. A film that impudently borrowed from the golden age of horror – from the Hammer-style title to the superb Bernard Herrmann-esque score and sound effects – it was a revelation of the modern genre. Not without its flaws, certainly (the last third in particular saw the story majorly lose its way), but it was nevertheless a compelling narrative about a young family whose son’s talent for ‘astral projection’ leaves his body exposed to a host of malevolent ghosts and a scary red-faced demon, all of which want to possess him. Far-fetched? I’ll say, and that’s without going into ‘The Further’, the purgatory-style no-man’s-land where the dead supposedly wander around waiting for an ‘in’ back to the world of the living. Still, the film’s slow-building, creepy nature and multitude of clever jumps made for a hugely entertaining mainstream horror and Wan’s promising work on The Conjuring earlier this year only served to heighten the anticipation for this sequel.

WHO’LL GET THE MERCURY NOD?

The Mercury Prize shortlist will be revealed tomorrow at 5.30pm. Whether you’re a fan of awards ceremonies or not, events like this are usually (usually!) a decent barometer of the year’s mainstream music releases to date (in this case, from September 11th 2012 – September 9th 2013). There’ll undoubtedly be fist-shaking and foot-stomping at the omissions come 5.35pm, but here’s who I think could be nominated…. in many cases, not should, I might add.

Is one of these acts destined to be asked ‘So, how much of an impact did your Mercury Prize win really have on you?’ by every music journalist they speak to for the duration of their careers?

LET’S GET QUIZZICAL #1: THE PICNIC EDITION

I wrote the questions for this quiz for last week’s Daily Ticket at the Electric Picnic, but it ended up not being used – so I thought I’d stick it up here. Everyone likes a good quiz, right? I certainly enjoy Donald Clarke’s Weekly Movie Quiz in The Ticket and I used to love the music quizzes hosted by Phantom FM in The Sugar Club (bring them back!), so I had the idea of hosting a regular quiz here on the blog.

I’ll try to make it a weekly feature (don’t hold me to that) and I’ll cobble together a prize – probably a few CDs – for the winner. By next Wednesday, I’ll put every person (if there’s more than one) who emails theworldwontlisten AT hotmail.co.uk with all ten correct answers into a hat and draw a winner. And remember, if you’re going to Google cheat, that’s between you and your god…

[Disclaimer: These questions are a week out of date and designed for people reading a newsletter on site, but all relate to EP. Future editions will be general music questions.] Go!