Things I've Noticed: The New Up Documentary is coming soon!

All right, I'll be the first to admit it, although I am usually interested in Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction, I am a huge fan of documentaries.

Hello?  Is anyone still there?

Cool - so about eight and a half years ago I read an article in my local paper about an upcoming documentary called 49 Up, which followed the lives of a bunch of 49-year-olds in Britain and basically asked them about their lives, life in general and anything else that came up.  The interesting thing to me was that this was in fact the seventh film featuring this group of people, that in fact they had been interviewed at the age of seven asking them the same questions and then had been followed up with every seven years since then.

This I had to see, but being the kind of guy who hates starting in the middle, I bought a boxed set of the first six films, sat down with my wife and over the course of six Saturdays watched them all.

Directed by Michael Apted (who directed all but the first, which he did work on) these movies are amazing.  Honestly there are some things film is best for as a medium and longitudinal studies (where a subject is followed for a long period of time) is definitely one of them.

The films have no flying cars, no horrible monsters and very little technology, but despite my love of all those things I just got sucked into this series of films and have been waiting for seven years to see the newest one, 56 Up.

Check out the trailer here - honestly, it is quite different than a lot of what I watch/read/play, but I would honestly put this series of films in my top ten list of favourite movies - no question.

Genre Character of the Week: John, the savage

Every once in a while I take the time to read a book off of my “I should really read that” list, which includes a lot of classics, a number of books my wife enjoys and a varied selection from friends and family.  This week I read the 1931 novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and was swept up in the section of the story involving a savage named John who travels to a civilized world.

 

The story (sorry for any mild eighty-year-old spoilers) focuses on the horror of a utopian future, being an ideal place without strife, pain, hunger or fear. It’s interesting because although all of these things are absent in this world, it comes across as unbearably horrible – think of something like The Matrix,wherein everyone is happily living their lives, and they also just happen to be living batteries for (oh wait – mild twelve-year-old spoilers) for a giant computer.

 

In this Brave New World, there are reservations where people live in traditional ways, called savages by the people living in civilization, and one of these savages is a man named John.

 

Here’s what I like about John, he is incredibly well read (or as well read as a man in his situation can be), and he has an incredibly strong moral code. Unfortunately, morals aren’t really needed in a utopian society, so John’s journey is destined to be a hard one.

 

Overall I found the book to be quite readable, and aspects of it reminded me an awful lot of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan.  Honesty, it is worth the read and it was a pretty fast read as well.

Movie Review: The Cabin in the Woods

Seven months after it was released in theatres, my wife I and finally got a copy of the 2012 horror film The Cabin in the Woods, and wow, was this movie right up my alley.

About fifteen minutes into the film, my wife turns to me and say, "So, obviously you're going to be buying this" and she was absolutely right.  The movie is a bizarre twist/homage to the classic slasher film that I grew up on (Roger Ebert uses the phrase Dead Teenager Movies which I love, but didn't hear until I was an adult) and unfortunately there isn't much I can say about it without giving away major plot points.

Lets say that on the simplest level it is about five friends who go on a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods and end up involved in something pretty terrifying.

The movie is a lot of fun, made me think of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and Night of the Creeps a lot in how it plays with the standard concepts and plots of slasher films and director Drew Goddard has come up with something truly unique in the horror genre.

Things I've Noticed: Choosing a Calendar can be Tricky

I know, I know - It seems silly, but seriously, sometimes this is the stuff I think about.  As November is nearing the end, and as I'm one of those people who tends to get their Christmas shopping done before December 1st, I'm actually on to the next big holiday decision I have to make every year.

Calendar choice

In my life there are four calendars I deal with on a regular basis - my desk calendar at work, the wall calendar in my home, and the calendars my kids put up in their rooms.

First, calendars for the kids - in the past they've had everything from cute puppies and landscapes to TV-show and movie calendars.  As the person who purchases their calendars for them each year, this can be a lot of fun or pretty uncomfortable.  Honestly, the kids let us know what kind of calendars they want, so in terms of choice, the first two calendars are not a big deal for me.

Next is my work Calendar, over the last few years I've either used the Life's Little Instruction Book Day-To-Day Calendar or a horror-themed calendar.  But since my old job was in a cubicle by myself, not many people got a look at my calendar, and at my new place, calendars are noticed (and commented on) - so I've got to pick a good one.  Do I want to spend the year being known as Sudoku-guy?  or Word-of-the-day-guy?  maybe I'll be Island-view guy?  I'm really not sure - perhaps there is a library-themed calendar I can use to self-identify with.

Finally there is our home calendar, which is usually either a landscape calendar or cute primate calendar (my wife likes monkeys and great apes), but due to a sad lack of good primate calendars this year, I may have to put in a vote, and this time it will end up being something she sees more often than me so I'd better make it count.  Right now I'm leading towards The Hobbit but perhaps we'll try Modern Family or something related to books - you know I really don't know.

Anyway, here are my key tips for calendar selection:

1) No Girly/Guy Calendars - seriously, at some point your mom/dad/son/daughter is going to come over, look at your calendar and judge you.

2) Realize you will be judged on your calendar selection (I'm judging you right now)

3) Make sure you really like whatever the subject of your calendar is - your going to be looking at it for the next year and that "Knock Knock-Joke-A-Day Calendar" you are looking at will get pretty old pretty fast

4) Make sure you go calendar shopping early as the good ones get snapped up quick (unless you're ordering online)

5) You have my full permission to smack anyone who tells you that you are putting far too much thought into your calendar purchase - don't these people know how important this is!?!

Genre Character of the Week: Kyle Reese

Ask most people who said the phrase “Come with me if you want to live” and they’ll point straight to The Terminator Franchise – totally correct.  Then they’ll likely say it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who said it in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and if you’re like me, the answer will make you a little sad, because it was actually said in the first Terminator film by this week’s genre character, Kyle Reese.

To be fair to the folks who answered with Arnold Schwarzenegger, yes, he did say that phrase in the second film, but it was meant to remind the viewer of what Reese says in the first, not to stand alone on its own.

Kyle Reese, (Sergeant Tech-Com, DN38416) is a man out of time, sent on a mission to do the impossible, to save the life of his best friend’s mother from an unstoppable killing machine.  He has no weapons (or clothes, at first), and as he comes from an era after ours has been destroyed, he hits massive culture shock almost immediately.  Although he possesses the skill set of a guerrilla soldier (irregular tactics, the element of surprise, extraordinary mobility), the machine he is trying to beat is pretty much unstoppable.

What I love best about Kyle (played by Michael Biehn) was his humanity, his everyman quality, and the fact that he had fallen in love with a woman across time (a story concept I’m totally a sucker for) which altogether makes him not just one of my favourite characters of the franchise, but of Science Fiction in general.

Book Review: The Twelve

Last month I re-read Justin Cronin's novel The Passage, which is both an apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novel featuring an outbreak of vampire-like creatures which overrun North (and probably South) America killing virtually everyone who lives there and the girl who ends up saving the world.

I loved The Passage - it was great, the pacing was wonderful and I loved how the first third of the book happens before the end of the world as we know it.

The Twelve was an obvious read for me - loved the first book, excited for the next, and after reading it I can say it was a lot of fun, but it didn't really impress me as much as the first.  For starters rather than move the story forward from the end of the first book a massive amount of time is spent returning to the vampire apocalypse and re-telling it from the point of view of other survivors whose lives will (mild spoiler) have an affect on those of our main characters almost a century later.

Now, I don't mind backstory, but honestly, the thing I loved most about the original book was it's pacing and this just felt backwards to me.

In the end I enjoyed it, but wished the story has moved forward rather than back and forward as it did.

Things I’ve Noticed: I won Bookmonkey Saw!

So I just got my mark back for my class project focusing on the Saw franchise and I got 87% - my conclusion wasn’t as strong as it could be, but my review of the videogame stood out nicely and overall I’m pretty proud of my work.

 

Next year I’m not sure which aspect of horror I’ll be looking into – perhaps a style of horror like “found footage”, exorcisms or zombies,  or maybe I’ll spend more time looking into a format, like horror in videogames or the like.

 

Anyway, it was a lot of work, it’s something I’m glad to say I’ve finished and I’m quite happy to finally put the Saw franchise behind me.

 

Thanks everyone!