Distractions

12 September 09

Ed Chamberlin brings you the latest fi lms, books and cool stuff

4 HOT PICKS

The Booze Book
World’s Best Beers
As we drink in the final dregs of summer sunshine this September, most of us will no doubt be knocking back a few blissful glasses of ice cold beer alfresco while we still can. But have you chosen the right one? Beer enthusiasts consider their drink to be as nuanced and varied in quality as wine. Drinker and writer Ben McFarland is one of those “beernoisseurs”, and has compiled this round-the-world bar crawl of a book, listing the best brews from anywhere you care to mention, and some that you don’t. Never get caught picking the wrong bottle again.
Out 17 September, €29

The Zombie Film
Colin
The budget for Britain’s latest zombie film was just £45, most of which went on tea and biscuits – how very British! Our eponymous anti-hero is bitten by a zombie, promptly becomes one himself and we then follow his trials as he stumbles through a broken urban landscape looking for food. This is the first such film to tell the story from the point of view of the zombie, and darn it if you don’t feel sorry for the guy by the end!
In UK Cinemas 23 October

The Revolutionary Czech Record
Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned
It’s a bit of a mouthful, but if any band has earned the right to long names, it’s The Plastic People of the Universe. These guys suffered for their art in Communist Czechoslovakia and were imprisoned for making avant-garde jazz illegally and for the non-conformist lyrics of Czech poet Egon Bondy. Eventually their plight was a factor that inspired the Velvet Revolution in 1989.
www.plasticpeople.cz

The Mad Game
Duck Hunter
Forget the Nintendo Wii – if you feel nostalgia for the old-fashioned, proper computer games, like Duck Hunt with its lovely orange gun, Duck Hunter will bring those memories flooding back. This is the real-life version, with a battery-powered flying duck that randomly flails around the room for about 40 seconds as you try to shoot it down with an infrared gun. It’s good, clean fun, plus you can’t cheat by sitting right up close to the screen.
£29.99 (€35), www.iwoot.com