rec160

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rec160: All of Us Strangers

MOVIE

Title: All of Us Strangers

Director: Andrew Haigh

Starring: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, Claire Foy

Release: 2023 / 2024

Wouldn’t it be grand to be able to go back and have those conversations with the ones we’ve lost, while also filling them in on the meantime – that aching desire to know that we’ve done them proud. Not to give too much away, but this film, written* and directed by Haigh, is a thing of absolute beauty, enigmatic and engaging, with the major cast members bringing their characters alive with subtlety and honesty. Scott as the protagonist Adam shows amazing shades of vulnerability and earnestness. The soundtrack, big on the Pet Shop Boys (no complaint), is spot on as Adam meets his neighbour Harry while working on a screenplay about his own childhood, finding in him something of a kindred soul seemingly trapped on the outside looking in. The conceit will reward repeat viewing and spark conversation; the movie is beautifully shot, cleverly edited and craftily scripted to tease expectations as it draws the viewer in. Tissues may be handy.

* from the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, who sadly died last year

https://youtube.com/watch?v=O97iSjvqBlY%3Fsi%3D1UuFlk-V_EDwu_fa
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rec160: Lotus Blue, by Cat Sparks

NOVEL

Title: Lotus Blue

Author: Cat Sparks

Publisher: Talos, 2017

In this debut novel from Canberra-based Sparks, Australia is a wasteland dotted by the fortress cities of the elite and the struggling outposts of the poor exposed to brigands, storms and the encroaching toxic sands of the Dead Red Heart. Star rides in one of the Vans that ferry goods and travellers across this blighted landscape. She is, not, however, like her compatriots, and when fate intervenes, the secret of her origin places her in the most dangerous of positions: a potential weapon both for and against a new menace. For buried in a sand-covered bunker, the titular AI has awakened, bringing with it cyborg soldiers and intelligent machines to further its designs. Former Templar soldiers caught between human and machine, the charming shyster Grieve, and wealthy fortune hunters are all swept into the search for the fearsome weapon. The result is a striking adventure story set in an intriguing world of wheeled boats, killer hi-tech storms and cybernetic wizardry.

>> Read an interview with Sparks about Lotus Blue @ the Australian Women Writers Challenge

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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: The Fall of the House of Usher

TV MINISERIES

Title: The Fall of the House of Usher

Year: 2023

Stars: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Mary McDonnell

This miniseries follows on from creator Mike Flanagan‘s impressive efforts in The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, among others and a bunch of movies to boot. This outing mines the works of Edgar Allan Poe, with episodes tapping particular works and featuring plenty of nods; The Raven is influential throughout. Among the new faces joining Flanagan returnees is a delightfully menacing Mark Hamill. The Usher family has built its wealth on painkillers (the semifictionalised docuseries Painkiller, also out this year, makes compelling complementary viewing) but now the, ahem, ravens are coming home to roost, with gruesome murders culling the family tree as a landmark court case unfolds. Flanagan knows how to set up his mood pieces and mix tension and gore, and Usher hits just the right mix of horror and camp as two old adversaries provide a narration of events leading up to the unfolding tragedies. Takeaway: I need to refresh my Poe.

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rec160: The Trespassers

The Trespassers, by Meg Mundell (UQP, 2019)

A murder on the high seas sets the scene for the second novel by Melbourne-based Meg Mundell, but this is no whodunnit.

Rather, the near-future setting serves as a mirror for the tensions of our turbulent times as, once again, Europeans flee their homes for the promise of a better life in Australia.

In this case, a plague is driving Irish and British residents to board sailing ships bound for Down Under in an employment scheme, but their vessel, The Steadfast, becomes a political hot potato when the voyage goes awry.

Told through the viewpoints of three beautifully drawn passengers, the story is dark and unremitting as friendships form and secrets surface under the most trying of circumstances.

Tighter than Mundell’s dystopian debut, Black Glass (2011), The Trespassers targets corporate accountability, the treatment of asylum seekers, and our moral compass in the Anthropocene as the stories of hearing-impaired boy Cleary, nurse Billie and teacher Tom intersect in a thoroughly engaging tale.

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rec160: Traitor’s Run

NOVEL

Title: Traitor’s Run: The Lenticular, Book 1

Author: Keith Stevenson

Publisher: Coeur de Lion, 2023

It’s been a few years since I first spied an early draft of this space opera, and my, isn’t it taller! The story is an accomplished presentation of interstellar empire building, pictured through the eyes of Udun and Rhees. Udun is regarded as a misfit among the empathic Kresz due to his adventurous spirit. He is presented in first person, our entry into the physiology, culture and planet of his insular people, who face world-changing rivalries among their Houses. As Earth’s Hegemony seeks to spread its influence into the Kresz’s chunk of space, known as the Lenticular, Rhees, a disgraced human fighter pilot, is thrust into a conspiracy of epic proportions. Their points of view sufficiently described the setting that a data file on the Kresz and glossary felt almost superfluous. Rather, I was on board for the ride as events pile pressure on both characters, leaving the story poised for the middle book of the trilogy. Sign me up.   

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rec160: Billy Summers

NOVEL

Title: Billy Summers

Author: Stephen King

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton, 2021

We’ve heard this one before. Maestro Stephen King knows it. His titular character knows it. And that’s just the start of this clever, assured tale of an assassin seeking to plump up his retirement fund on a last dicey job. King rounds the edges off his hired gun by giving him a conscience – he only hits bad men, while acknowledging the reality that he, too, is, if not a bad man, not a good man – and making him a reader and also, potentially, a writer. So we find a story within a story, the hitman telling his past as he navigates the perils of his last job. There is a nod to one of King’s early, most successful successes, and tips of the hat to the writer’s craft. There is the humanity that King does so well in creating his characters, the eye for the detail that brings locations alive.  And there’s a fittingly killer ending for an adroit thriller.

>> Read an extract

A version of this reviewed has previously appeared in the Herald Sun