Bookmonkey's Top 5 Canadian Genre Films

Since I started posting blogs in August and began getting comments from around the world to my posts, I've found that more and more often I've become a defender of my nations character (as far as Genre films, TV, and Books goes). So this week, I'm going to look at some of my favourite Canadian films.

So here we go, my top five Canadian Genre Films

5. Videodrome

This 1983 film starring James Woods is one of the big reasons we have a "NO TV HOUR" in our home from 6-7 at night, as the film gives you the message that TV kills, literally. The movie follows James Woods, who plays a television producer in Toronto, as he attempts to find the new best thing for television. What he finds is a channel called Videodrome, which is basically snuff TV. The problem occurs when he begins to find out exactly what Videodrome is actually trying to do. The film does have some pretty gruesome bits, but it is definitely a Canadian classic.

4. Ginger Snaps

For those of you who haven't seen it, Ginger Snaps uses the idea of Werewolves as a metaphor for puberty. Basically you have two teenaged sisters (Ginger and Brigitte) who seem pretty preoccupied with death at the beginning of the film. Ginger gets her first period and is attacked by a werewolf on the same night and then everything starts to get very weird, and very freaky. Watching this film as a guy, I have to say that it definitely plays to all of the fears we have about girls at that age.

3. The Changeling

I actually found this movie as I began watching the films that had won Genie awards (Basically our Oscars here in Canada). George C. Scott plays a man who after a devastating family tragedy, buys a suspiciously perfect house in a new town. The tone of this film is pretty quiet, but once you realize the house is haunted the tension builds to an unbelievable level.

2. Cube

Alright, you know the scene in Resident Evil where Alice and the Umbrella agents enter a corridor and one of them is "cubed" by a laser? Totally stolen from my favourite Canadian horror film, Cube. Basically a small group of people wake up inside a giant cube shaped room, there are doors leading out from the middle of each side and as they move through these doors into other rooms, they are either attacked by some random killing device or left alive. Together, they have the skills to survive and escape, but that's only if they don't kill each other first. Simply an amazing film.

1. Last Night

This movie asks a pretty simple question. If you knew, for certain that the world would end tomorrow, what would you do with your last night? The characters in this film do all sorts of things, some funny, some terrible, some heartbreaking, with their last hours on Earth. For a film with such a grim concept, there is a lot of light here. This film should top anyone's list of must see Canadian Genre films.

Things I've Noticed: There is a process to having a good read

I read a lot - maybe 10 books a month, not including manga, comics or magazines, so over time I've noticed that I can dramatically increase my reading enjoyment if I do a little prep work. My logic is pretty simple - if you like reading, give yourself a couple minutes of prep time to make sure that you can really enjoy a good read.

Bookmonkey's recipe for a good read

1. Find a good book

I really can't stress this enough, although I suppose I could spend an afternoon reading the ingredient lists on the food in my kitchen, I will probably have a better time if I've found a good book to read.

2. Get rid of distractions

Take a minute to look around the room you will be reading in and get rid of distractions, a quick tidy might help and make sure you've got good light - no need to damage your eyes. Also a big one for me - don't read while the television is on - you might feel like you are incredibly intelligent doing both at the same time, but in the end you are just doing both half as well as you should be.

3. Find a good time

Basically you are looking for a time to read where you can actually sit down and put your focus on the book. For some people this is on the bus during the commute to work or school, for others it's a comfortable late night read. Lately, I've been doing morning and lunch-time reading.

4. Get a reading theme song

Yes I know this sounds ridiculously corny, but if you play the same tune before you start reading, you will teach your brain to realize that when that song is played, you are about to do some reading. Right now my reading song is "It's a good day" by Peggy Lee, but my song changes every couple weeks. (and yes, the theme song to "Reading Rainbow" has been my reading song from time to time) The importance is to have a musical cue which says to your sub conscience "SHADUP, I'm reading now."

5. Get a beverage

For me, this is a coffee (pictured right), but anything will do, just have it at hand so you don't have to stop reading to go get a drink. I don't know why, but often my brain will start coming up with excuses to stop reading for a moment and "You need a coffee" is a pretty common excuse for me.

6. READ!

Sit back, relax and enjoy your book. You've earned it.

So there you have it. I'm sure a similar process could be used to watch Television, or whatever else you like to do. The big thing for me is to remember, I'm doing this for fun, and I deserve to make my fun stuff a little special.

Genre Character of the Week: Anton Gorodetsky

As a guy who grew up on Role Playing Games (RPGs) I am a big fan of spending experience points. Basically, for all of you who had better things to do in your teen years, a character in a RPG would get experience points for doing stuff and then you, the player, could spend those points to make your character faster, stronger, or able to speak French. I honestly believe that it was the hard work that went into gaining experience for my character that gave me serious respect for a good character arc in a story. One of my favourite characters which show this phenomenon in genre fiction is Anton Gorodetsky.

Anton is the protagonist in Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch, series of books. Basically he is a lower level wizard (tech support, really) in Moscow's Night Watch, an organization which guards the city from the members of the Day Watch, who claim they do the same thing - the series has a real Russian Cold War feel to it. Anyway, in the first novel Anton is given his first field assignment, to track down a vampire and of course it all goes horribly wrong - otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story.

Throughout the four novels that comprise the series, Anton grows in his abilities, meets a girl, marries her, is promoted, becomes a dad and eventually goes much farther both professionally and personally than he ever imagined. I love when this happens to characters in genre fiction. Rather than simply solve the problem, move on and repeat, Anton learns from each major event in his life, which causes him to grow as a person. I find that far too often, the characters in genre fiction simply don't change from one book to the other, the same awesome guy shows up, kicks ass, and leaves. Character growth is good - it is what keeps me coming back for more.

*One quick note about the movies - I had already read the books when I saw Night Watch, and I really liked the movie. I have been told that if you haven't read the books, the movies don't make much sense. I will say this though, Konstantin Khabenskiy (pictured above), who plays Anton in the films is really, really good. I totally bought him as the character and that's pretty tricky when the character in the novels is such a favourite.

Book Review: The Wolf's Hour

I've been reading Robert R. McCammon for years now and he's delivered some of the creepiest horror and most wonderful fantasy I've ever read. Right now I'm working my way through his complete works in publishing order and after reading his 1989 novel The Wolf's Hour, I knew that I had to share this book with as many people as I could.

The novel, at it's core, is a World War II espionage story wherein an Allied agent must travel across Germany to discover what the Axis has planned to counter D Day. The agent is clever, passionate, dangerous, and a werewolf. The novel works a lot like Richard Mathesons "The Incredible Shrinking Man" in that it switches back and forth from the current conflict to the characters history, showing us how he got in this predicament in the first place.

The hero of the novel, Michael Gallatin, is a British citizen who originally emigrated from Russia. The story of how he became a werewolf fills about half of the novel and the mission to figure out and prevent the German plan code-named "Iron Fist" fills the rest. The book is filled with action, almost to an Indiana Jones level, although I will say that the violence and sex is described explicitly enough that I might not recommond it for kids. The pacing of the book is incredible. Although the book is a thicker one, it was a quick and action-paced read.

The novel feels a lot like some of the bigger Hellboy stories, in that villains are doing some sort of giant plan and our hero has to do everything he can to stop it, after all, the world is depending on him. Some of the violence is extreme, but usually the more gruesome things happen to the more terrible people in the novel, so it feels justified.

I started reading Robert McCammon (pictured right) ages ago with his novel "Swan Song," an end-of-the-world book that rates as one of my favourites to this day. A lot of his earlier fiction is horror, but this book comes across more as adventure, and I loved that fact that although the hero is a literal monster, the villains (Nazis) are shown to be so monstrous that they definitely deserve what's coming to them.

Things I've Noticed: I'm starting to by less new genre films on DVD

Looking over my DVD collection this morning, I realized that I'm not buying a lot of the new stuff in genre films lately. I mean sure, I've got The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Trilogy boxed set, but that came out back in 2001, 2002, and 2003. If you only go back 5 years, to 2004, and you take into account that a number of DVD's I get are for my kids (Harry Potter and Narnia), my genre films on DVD are pretty slim.

I do love genre movies, and have seen lots of them in theatres, rented lots more and even waited for the public library to get some because they don't deserve my rental dollars (Transformers). But looking over my stuff, I've be surprised if I have more than ten genre flicks from the last 5 years.

Taking into account that I'm only talking about films, not Television series, here's what I've got.

In Fantasy since 2004, I own Pan's Labyrinth, Mirrormask, Lady in the Water, and Stardust, all of which I've watched on DVD at least twice, most of which I've checked out the special features on. When I think of spending money on Fantasy films, I just find that a lot of it ends up going to stuff that would be perfect Christmas or Birthday gifts for my daughters.

In SF since 2004, I own Children of Men and Sunshine. I know that you can consider most Super Hero flicks to be SF, but as I buy most of them for my kids, they aren't really my collection. To be fair, since my BFF Mike is a huge SF and Super Hero fan, I can borrow these titles from him so there isn't as much of a need for me to purchase these.

In Horror since 2004, I've got Shawn of the Dead, Planet Terror and Slither. I am a pretty big horror fan, but even taking into account the 2009 horror films I'd like to own (Drag Me To Hell and Zombieland), I'm just not finding a big need to re-watch a lot of newer horror movies.

When I think about a movie that I might like to own, I have three filters that make sure I don't end up broke (pictured right).

1) Do I have somethings I'd rather do with this $20 bill?

2) As much as I liked it in theatres, will I ever re-watch this film?

3) Would I be embarrased if someone saw this on my DVD shelf?

I still by a lot of DVDs, but these days more of them tend to be hard-to-find classics and hidden gems of genre films. I hope that means I'm getting more discerning in my selections, rather than just being picky.

Genre Character of the Week: Hellboy

When it comes to demon-fighting characters in genre fiction, film and television, you have your priests (Father Callahan in the novel Salem's Lot), your teens (Buffy Summers in the film and television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and your various Vampires hunting down their own kind and hoping, one day, to become human again (Nick Knight in the Canadian Television series Forever Knight), and then you have Hellboy.

Mixing together the best parts of pulp, horror, fantasy and action, you need one heck of main character for the reader to connect with, and creator Mike Mignola definitely delivered.

For the purposes of this post I'm going to stick with the character as portrayed in the comic series - I love the movies, but the comics are my personal favourite. Most of the stories in the Hellboy series involving him solving a problem created by some creepy creature from folklore either with a clever bit of thought, or failing that, by beating the everlasting crap out of the thing.

As a character, Hellboy is just about the perfect mix of horror (he is a demon), and a blue-collar mind-set, he might not love his job, but he is the best at it there is and the job needs to get done. Unlike the first film, the entire world in the comics already knows about him (the United Nations granted him honourary human status in 1952).

What I love the most about Hellboy is pretty simple, for a guy who is red, horned, mistaken for some kind of ape, and has a stone hand/key to the destruction of the world, he is one of the more human characters I've ever had the pleasure read, he just resonates with me, and as you read further and further into the comics, you start to understand just how decent a guy he is.

Holy Cats! My blog was mentioned on a podcast!

Hi everyone,

I received an email yesterday that one of my posts (Thing's I've Noticed: Documentaries are starting to freak me out) was mentioned on the "Awesome Blog of the Week" segment of the Transmission Awesome podcast over at That Guy With The Glasses! You can find it at about 38 minutes into the podcast.

Yay!