review

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rec160: Saltburn

MOVIE

Title: Saltburn

Director: Emerald Fennell

Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike

Studio: LuckyChap, 2023

There is a scene in Saltburn that had one cinema patron laughing out loud, but the rest of us were quiet, possibly trying to work out whether this faintly absurdist act was one of deep unrequited love and grief, a literal ‘fuck you’, or maybe both. The film plays with contradictions and misdirections, as a privileged university student takes one less so under his wing, the consequences playing out during a holiday break at the family mansion where the dysfunctional outfit is on full display. It’s a film that speaks to those who believe that wealth is wasted on the rich, wonderfully portrayed by Richard E Grant and Pike as the parents whose echo chamber is devoid of self awareness and moral conscience. The characters generally aren’t likeable, not even our narrator and protagonist, Oliver (Keoghan), so keen to enter this rarefied milieu, and we are left to enjoy the revelations without minding who comes out on top. Wicked fun.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lALMdJf6UUE%3Fsi%3DsOj2OxXbIRuF32wM
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rec160: Dream Scenario

MOVIE

Title: Dream Scenario

Director: Kristoffer Borgli

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson

Studio: A24, 2023

This is being pegged as a comedy, but a laugh fest it ain’t. It serves its chuckles with a strong side of pathos, physical violence and creepiness; a seduction scene is one of the most uncomfortable in recent memory. Zebras, Jung, social media, and marketing are all in the mix as a dull, moribund college professor, played convincingly by Nicolas Cage amidst a superb cast, finds his sense of ineffectiveness manifesting in the dreams of many around the world. Empathy for Paul will vary, as he has been coasting along with his ambition of writing an academic book based on a decades-old theory still trailing behind him. When the dreams burst into viral celebrity, he eagerly snatches the sudden popularity, but the two-edged sword bites hard when his dream self goes Freddy Krueger. Moments of genuine discomfort take a science fictional turn as the ramifications of the bizarre outbreak play out, a truly horrifying concept worthy of early Black Mirror.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q3x9iUL-74w%3Fsi%3DKWtMJoO4E41aEDHV
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rec160: Godzilla Minus One

MOVIE

Title: Godzilla Minus One

Studio: Toho Studios, Robot Communication, 2023

Director: Takashi Yamazaki

Starring: Kamiki Ryunosuke, Minami Hamabe

Japanese with English subtitles

If you want to know how to invest a creature feature with heart, you could do worse than turn your attention to this Japanese kaiju film. While it taps the lore of the long-running Godzilla movies and rewards the big screen with sound and visual effects, it invests its story with a surprising degree of emotion for the genre. Pilot Shikishima is struggling with the aftermath of World War II, during which he encountered the yet-to-be mighty monster in a prelude to the core story. For Shikishima and his fellow veterans, especially being on the losing side, the war is hard to shake. Add the bold Noriko and an orphan baby to Shikishima’s world, and the three make an unconventional unit of survivors. Then, of course, there’s the monster and its offer of redemption amid the destruction. The anti-war theme is pointed but not overblown, the final salute to a vanquished foe speaking volumes. A fabulous addition to the canon.

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rev160: Zombicide (2nd ed)

BOARDGAME

Title: Zombicide, 2nd edition

Company: Guillotine Games/CMON

Year of release: 2021

We were introduced to this board game recently, albeit a different version in which the action took place in the Wild West, and it was a hoot. Zombicide is collaborative, which is what we’re looking for in games these days, pitting the players as a team against the game itself. Here, up to six players run characters through a variety of maps that are plagued by different kinds of zombies. Each scenario has its own goal, and failure is as easy as a dead character away. The mechanics were easily picked up, with teamwork and tactics the key as the characters negotiate the board while dealing destruction with a broad array of weaponry. This one even has a car! The pieces are also very cool. While the price tag is towards the hefty side (~150AUD), the amount of material and quality build, plus extra scenarios and expansions available, mean there should be enough variety to provide plenty of bang for the buck.

Addendum: Having played the game for two days in a row, it is utterly enthralling fun. Note that the times given to complete missions is likely to be a bare and unlikely minimum, and many of the missions use all 9 map tiles, so you need some real estate. Mount up!

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rec160: Talk To Me

FILM

Talk to Me, 2022

Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou

Starring: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Miranda Otto

Has there been a better Australian horror film since the Babadook? This debut feature from the Philippous is intelligent filmmaking, twisting the notion of a séance or Ouija board into a gripping teen drama that manages to balance gore and suspense with nary a jump scare in sight. Mia is something of a loner, having lost her mother under tragic circumstances and relying on the company of Jade and her younger brother Riley. Enter the party trick of using a supernatural hand to invite spirits to possess bodies while the gang films the excitement on their mobile phones. Of course things get, ahem, out of hand. It’s a wonderfully contained story, ramping up the stakes without going overboard; well filmed, well acted, with enough backstory to help us care for the characters and understand their relationships. It’s worth seeing on the big screen because the sound direction absolutely nails it, whether it’s creaking, moaning or a haunting lullaby. Highly recommended.

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Collide & Android Lust – new albums to take you away

Collide album Color of NothingCollide is one of those artists I turn to for background music — which isn’t to say that the duo’s music is without its edges, just that usually it’s the kind of cruisy, atmospheric electronica that makes the rest of the world fade away.

Not so with their new album, Color of Nothing.

Statik and kaRIN have come out fighting, with guitars leading the attack.

Opener “Wake Up” announces this urgency, the swell and subside of electronica topped by explosions of buzzing guitar as the song unfurls. The energy runs through the entire album, taking on a dance-floor groove in “Soul Crush,” an infectious swagger in “Side to Side”, a slow burn in love song “Fix”.

It’s still distinctively a Collide album, with Statik commander-in-chief in the studio and kaRIN’s bringing the evocative vocals (indeed, here there’s more of a consistent collision of those smooth vocals with spiky instrumentation than before). She touches on themes ranging from the global (“Blurring the Edges,” “Pale Blue”) to the intensely personal (“Intruder,” “Freaks Me Out”); from comfort, to resignation, to defiance.

A fitting soundtrack for 2017.

Android Lust album BerlinSpeaking of soundtracks, fresh on the download is Berlin: Crater Vol.2, from Android Lust. Oh my!

Funded through Kickstarter, the album was developed in part from Shikhee’s found-sound adventures in Berlin. On early listens, I’m not sure I’m getting much impression of that particular place, nor a sense of an unfolding narrative such as drove the (predominately) soundscapes of the water-themed Crater Vol.1, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the outing – one of sonic postcards, perhaps, possibly as much in time as space.

Which is not to say this album isn’t transportative – far from it. There’s an air of the urban – a subway feel on the analogue styling of “Daughters of Dawn” (think Glass Candy), a rain-washed city scape perhaps seen from the cab or bus window in the fetching “Heart Tunnel”, and the familiar touch of AL-style industrial (“In Memory”, “Insects”). And is that a ghostly callout to AL’s “Stained” on “Plaza Steps”? Elsewhere, muted conversation and bird chirps, the beeping of an alarm clock and patter of rain, offer a feeling of melancholy enlivened by digital rays of sunshine.

As always, the Android Lust journey rewards multiple, close listens, the layers revealing – suggesting – more the deeper one submerges. Down here in the depths of winter, it’s the perfect weather for it.

And while I’m getting excited about new music, on the near horizon is a new EP from Nine Inch Nails, Add Violence, in which it appears we’re getting songs of resistance and defiance. First taster “Less Than” shows some retro-style frustration, while second release “This Isn’t the Place” feels like a bridge at song No.3 on the five-song EP. Bring it on!



 

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Good things come in threes

Herewith, three groovy recent outings that put a smile on my dial:

totes80s21. Totally 80s. Sure, the tour is well over now, but I enjoyed this greatest hits parade far more than I thought I would. Great to see Real Life’s David Sterry, for starters; Wa Wa Nee brought the keytar; Katrina of the Waves rocked out. The main draw, though, was ticking off a bucket list item to finally see Berlin‘s Terri Nunn in action. The set list for Berlin: No More Words, Metro, Masquerade, Animal (yes, still making vibrant music!), Dancing in Berlin, Take My Breath Away, Sex (I’m a). Such a happy vibe, I was smiling from the moment the second song of the night, Safety Dance, got the crowd grooving.

2. Ghostbusters. The remake. Seen it twice now and it’s very cool. The climax feels a little pedestrian (maybe that was just the echo of the original) but to see these four women work together so capably — not an arse shot in the whole movie — is such a delight. Sign me up to the Holtzman fan club. I like what the flick said and how it said it and I had a lot of fun at the same time. Neat cameos, too.


 
3. Pokemon Go. I blame/thank my wife. She loaded it on my phone. And then I went to the city and saw the augmented reality overlay the game provides and it was, like, wow. And then last night we’re parking (because Ballarat turned on the wind machine) and we’re surrounded by other people parking because there are three PokeStops with lures and the critters are spawning like crazy and it’s fun and it’s kind of communal fun — I haven’t seen that much life in that street on a Monday night ever. I also like that public art and graffiti and historic sites are PokeStops so these sites are drawn to your attention. How much attention you pay as they spin and disgorge goodies and critters is up to you.

Anyway. Today is a day to consider some good things and share the word. May you too count good things.

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In which Lady Helen leads us on a merry dance

Lady Helen and the Dark Days ClubLady Helen and the Dark Days Club (Angus & Robertson, 2016), the first volume in a new series by Alison Goodman, is due for publication next year*, but the author kindly threw a launch party in time for Christmas. For those eager for her next work following the New York Times best-sellers Eon and Eona, it was a fine present indeed.

Having covered science fiction, crime (with a slight SFnal twist) and fantasy with equal aplomb in previous works, Goodman now turns to the paranormal with her Dark Days Club.

There is perhaps slightly more explanatory text here – summaries of events, an almost telepathy to show the meaning behind the body language – than I remember from previous outings, but the story, more than 400 pages of it, speeds by at an easy pace, driven by the spark of quick-witted Lady Heroine and the deepening dilemmas in which she finds herself.

How clever to set it in the Regency, for this story is all about veneer and the monsters behind the facade, duty and passion, control and denial. The painting of this period of English history is sensationally wrought, the minutiae of daily life for the Quality (and their window on the lesser classes) effectively grounding the world without dominating it, referencing historical events, people and places, then braiding in the supernatural story.

Australian women writers challenge 2015Lady Helen, our titular heroine, is 18, her parents lost under despairing circumstances, the ward of her uncle and aunt who are devoted to her social climb, that is, marriage. She has some of her mother’s infamous adventurous streak, however, sneaking into the library to read books, so very unladylike. Of course, she has more than that in common with her mother, and soon her fabulous nature as a potential member of the mysterious Dark Days Club is uncovered.

The tension between her attraction to adventure, both romantic and physical, and the pressure to conform to social propriety is deft, perhaps best mirrored in the two suitors for her attention, if not affection, in a socially respectable duke and a lord of some infamy.

This presents the most obvious theme of the story, that “sometimes there is no good choice”. And Lady Helen has some serious choices to make as a demonic world is revealed to her, that and her special place in the fight to contain it. Dark days indeed!

I’m particularly taken with the humour of sidekick and maid Darby, who had me chuckling with an almost Pink Panther scene in which she tests her mistress’s reflexes with thrown objects.

Another element I especially appreciate is the slow reveal, allowing us to know Helen and her Regency world, the privilege and the constraints, as mysteries are bled into the opening chapters and then revealed in line with her growing understanding of the secret war of the Dark Days Club.

This is a world where every choice, every benefit, comes at a cost, and it is this grim reality that helps makes Lady Helen’s story such an enjoyable read.

* addendum: December 14 in Australia, January 16 UK and January 26 US.

  • This review completes my four-book commitment to the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. Others were Cherry Crow Children by Deborah Kalin, The Dagger’s Path by Glenda Larke, and The Dangerous Bride by Lee Kofman.
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    Moira Finucane, does it again

    glory box la revolucion


    The milk was good, but it was the tomato sauce that took the prize.

    There on Collingwood’s Melba Spiegeltent catwalk, Moira Finucane in a white gown, tearing out her heart — only her heart was a family-size bottle of tomato sauce, dribbling and spurting in time with her anguish. Exit to Hollywood blonde Clare St Clare taking that dripping container while singing Blue Velvet.

    Yes, it’s Finucane & Smith, strutting their art — some new, some old — in Glory Box La Revolucion (until 13 September 2015).

    The troupe provide about 90 minutes of entertainment: another highlight, one of the best covers of Bowie’s Wild is the Wind you’ll ever hear, by Mama Alto accompanied by piano.

    That same piano that keeps our table, only a row back from the catwalk, safe from flying milk as Finucane empties two 2l bottles over plastic-wrapped audience, self and stage in wild abandon.

    Elsewhere, she’s nude under witchy fingernails and black diaphanous cape, and rockin’ it out to Garbage (if memory serves) in jeans and leather jacket with St Clare.

    There’s acrobatics involving chairs, rope, trapeze, cork screw … this is 18+ wine drinking. A bewigged industrial thrash dance. A song about more than coffee in Paris, an ooh la la to equality and respect.

    Boobs, chuckles, politics, art: always entertaining. All in the luscious surrounds of the Spiegeltent with its Innocent Bystander pinot noir at the bar.

    The card on the table tells us that Finucane & Smith are heading off to Cuba and may be some time. NO, we say. For all that we’ve seen of Moira Finucane, we still haven’t seen enough.
    Melba Spiegeltent at Collingwood

    SIDE DISH

    lamp at savanna ethiopian eritrean restaurantBefore the gig, we had dinner at Savanna, an Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurant. Check out this funky ceiling lamp! Check out the delicious menu — we shared a platter of various veg and meat with injera for $45, washed down with organic Ethiopian shiraz at $6 a glass, and walked out pleasantly stuffed. Highly recommended.

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    Aurora: Earth is a spaceship too

    aurora by kim stanley robinsonAurora (Orbit, 2015) by Kim Stanley Robinson is named after a planet on which humanity hopes to found a colony; it’s a long way away, so far it’s a multi-generational voyage in a time without fancy stasis chambers. Instead, the spaceship, simply called ship, is composed of biomes representing different terrain types on Earth, big enough for lakes, glaciers, forests, critters of all kinds. Maintaining the balance of inputs and outputs necessary for agriculture — for life — occupies much of the humans’ time, in cooperation with a quantum computer. Starvation is never far from the horizon. It’s a delicate see-sawing balance, both scientifically and socially.

    Things don’t go to plan, of course. And while I can’t reveal too much, it’s not spoiling things to say the colonists have decisions to make about the best way forward — or backward, even.

    The first section, detailing the trip and the travails to Tau Ceti, is told in the third person centred on a young girl, Freya. The central story is narrated by the computer, allowing a great deal of info dumping — mostly painless — leavened with humour as the AI grows. It also allows scope for commentary on human foibles, one of the delights of the story. The final scenes are again in our protagonist’s viewpoint, reflecting on Freya’s experience, on the space program, on humanity.

    There is a singular moment, a single line of description relating to ship, that defines the power of KSR’s prose, but I can’t repeat it here, because spoiler. It is beautiful, poignant, pragmatic, elegant. It made me love this book.

    This is the first KSR book I’ve read — I know, I know — but based on this, it won’t be the last. Note even dubious amounts of repetition in the text can overshadow the deft handling of technical terms and processes; the sheer imagination that manages, mostly, to keep humanity at its centre, even when ship is narrating at some emotional distance.

    KSR has something to say, and for the most part he says it well.

    For me, Aurora is not just a superbly unromantic story of space colonisation, but also an allegory — would ship agree, I wonder, given its interest in metaphor and the like? Hell, maybe it’s not even — best summed up by this translation of a poem that captures the attention of two characters, talking to how we need to look after this world as man-made climate change threatens to radically change our biome, how we are ‘kleptoparasites’, stealing from our descendants:

    ‘There’s no new world, my friend, no
    New seas, no other planets, nowhere to flee–
    You’re tied in a knot you can never undo
    When you realise Earth is a starship too.’

  • A review copy of Aurora was provided by the publisher. You can read an excerpt here.