2021 REVIEW - RECORDS

I didn’t get enough ‘new’ records for a conventional Top Ten this year, so I’ve broken my favourite records of 2021 into three sections. With WitTR’s newest commune-with-mother-nature ambient black metal opus really scratching an itch in the top spot. UN and Bongzilla channelled some big, miserable 2021 doom energy, while Darkthrone’s Eternal Hails was comfortably horrible and a return to form after their kind-of-forgettable last effort. On the synth-y end of things Chvrches continue to be one of my favourite bands and John Carpenter’s third volume of Lost Themes was no disappointment.

On the reissue front, Plazma X’s post-Chicken Bowels metal was spinning constantly for a good while, My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything lodged in my cranium for months and would not budge and the United Mutation lp on Radio Raheem was a thing of extreme beauty. Singaporean black metallers Xasthur proved to be a pleasantly evil surprise and they get bonus points for featuring their dog in their spooky forest pictures in the insert.

Due to either the pandemic, or the fact I live in my own little world, I was two years late to the party on a bunch of killer records. Blood Incantation and Tomb Mold really knocked my socks off with their cosmic death metal and illegibly green band logos. Could not stop playing either for ages and they helped me through the dull times.

Some honourable mentions must go to a couple of records that I really like, but do not yet own, so can’t really qualify for my list at the moment. Spectral Wound’s A Diabolical Thirst is a nasty, feral slice of raw black metal and I need the lp quite badly (thanks for the tip Flo!) the new Gauze release is a CD only and I don’t have it but it sounds great, if a little more methodical than we’ve come to expect. I’ve yet to pick up the new Rata Negra lp and I really dig Colombian punks Unidad Idealogica, both on La Vida Es Un Mus.

Top new records released in 2021

1. Wolves In The Throne Room - Primordial Arcana

2. Bongzilla - Weedsconsin

3. UN / Coltsblood split 12”

4. Chvrches - Screen Violence

5. Darkthrone - Eternal Hails

6. John Carpenter - Lost Themes III

7. Rudimentary Peni - Great War

8. Night Marchers - Live At Bar Pink

Top reissues / old stuff

1. UN - The Tomb Of All Things

2. Plazma X - White Shadow 1986-1989

3. MNK Project

4. Xasthur - Hidden Lore demo

5. My Bloody Valentine - Isn’t Anything

6. My Bloody Valentine - m b v

7. Lost Years - Black Waves

8. United Mutation - Dark Self Image

Great records from 2019 that I somehow only heard this year

1. Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance

2. Blood Incantation - Hidden History Of The Human Race

3. Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations

4. Best Coast - Always Tomorrow

FIREBITE (full review at Screen Realm)

Firebite is an Australian vampire series created by Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher  which is streaming in Australia on AMC (via Amazon) from 16 December. It’s a unique spin on the vampire myth which takes the creatures out of their traditionally cold, dark environs and places them in the hot, bright outback sunshine.

Vampires were transported to Australia in the hold of colonial ships, brought over by the British to deal with the Indigenous population. But in the two centuries since, they have been kept at bay by a solitary band of fierce Aboriginal vampire hunters known as Blood Hunters. Tyson (Rob Collins) fights the local vampire population in the small mining town of Opal City. He trained to be a Blood Hunter but was forced to stop before his training was complete. With the help of his adoptive daughter Shanika (Shantae Barnes-Cowan) they keep the numbers under control.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/firebite-series-review-amazon-prime-australia/

IMDB: Firebite

DUNE (full review at Screen Realm)

Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune is a science fiction classic, whose influence is felt throughout the genre and beyond. Fresh off the back of his own sci-fi masterpiece, the sublime Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve has proved to be the perfect choice to adapt it.

House Atreides, a powerful ruling house in the Imperium, is ordered by Emperor Shaddam IV to leave their homeworld, Caladan, and relocate to the desert planet Arrakis, otherwise known as Dune. The Atreides are to oversee the production of spice, the most valuable substance in the universe. The spice enables Guild Navigators to find a path through the stars and is thus, the key to space travel.

Arrakis’ population centres cover only a small portion of the surface, with the majority of the planet a deep, inhospitable desert occupied only by the indigenous Fremen and the mighty, leviathan sandworms. 

House Atreides inherits the stewardship of Arrakis from their sworn enemies, the brutal and merciless House Harkonnen. Led by the megalomaniacal Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), they have overseen spice production with an iron fist, brutalizing the local population. The Atreides, led by Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and their son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) travel to the desert world seeking an alliance with the Fremen, and to avoid the multitude of Harkonnen traps they expect to encounter.  

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/dune-movie-review-2021-denis-villeneuve/

IMDB: Dune

THE PROPOSITION (full article at The Guardian Australia)

The second feature film written by the musician Nick Cave is a grisly, sweat-stained tale of outback violence and colonial oppression that has lost none of its power in the 16 years since its release. Directed by John Hillcoat, The Proposition is awash with striking scenery and ugly truths about Australia.

After a fierce gunfight, outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his brother Mike (Richard Wilson) are captured by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone). Although both brothers are former members of the notorious Burns gang, Stanley’s real target is their sadistic older sibling Arthur (Danny Huston), who is wanted for the brutal murder of a local family.

With no lead on Arthur, Stanley turns to more “inventive” methods, offering Charlie a proposition. He will release Charlie, while Mike will hang in nine days for the crimes of the Burns gang. But both will be pardoned if Charlie can locate and kill Arthur. Mike is naive and not able to mentally comprehend their situation, so Charlie feels he has no choice but to protect his younger brother and accept Stanley’s deal.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/08/the-proposition-nick-caves-savage-outback-western-reveals-ugly-truths-about-australia

IMDB: The Proposition

MAD GOD (full review at Screen Realm)

Phil Tippett has been an integral part all your favourite movies. Contributing his unique visual effects talents to everything from Return of the Jedi, to Robocop, to Jurassic Park. With Mad God, a passion project thirty years in the making, Tippett reached into your brain when you were sick with the flu that time, and animated all those terrifying nightmares you had.

Mad God is a gobsmacking display of talent and brain fever that left me almost speechless. Dialogue and plot be damned! Mad God has neither! Instead, it is a collection of grotesque images and ugly nihilism. Characters hack lumps off each other and descend ever deeper into a horrific and unexplained netherworld.

Blending animated sequences with deliberate, stuttering live action, it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s not hard to see why the head spinning intricacy of the set design and the crazed imagination in the creature’s forms took Tippett’s deranged genius three decades to compile.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/mad-god-movie-review-phil-tippett-stop-motion-animation/

IMDB: Mad God

Official Site

CONVENTIONAL BOREDOM - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - NOVEMBER 2021

This is my November entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre's Furious Fiction contest. Not much to comment this month, other than it's nice to put the story up here and give it a place a place to live. Steered away from my usual sci-fi / horror weirdness for a change and had a spot of bother coming up with a title, which I still don't love. Otherwise, I like this and I hope you do too.

In addition to the 500 word maximum and a three day window to write it, the rules for November:

• Your story must include someone PACKING A SUITCASE.
• Your story must include the phrase “ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM” (as dialogue or narrative).
• Your story must include the words CHARM, CRUSH and FAINT.

The presentation was a joke. ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Optimizing your Synergistic Business Agility,’ it was called. Which as far as I can tell, means absolutely nothing. I sat across a crowded room, where on stage an overconfident man with some fancy Powerpoint slides, but not nearly enough charm to be doing this for a living, packed and re-packed a suitcase in order to illustrate a crude metaphor for decision making at work. At least, I think that’s what it was. I’d kind of tuned out by that stage. I think his beach towel was supposed to be the workforce, and his sunglasses were the upper management. I forget what the point of the espadrilles were. All I really got out of it was that the man knows how to pack a bag. And ‘good luck to him’ is what I say. It’s a good skill to have. Nobody likes to pay extra to check luggage on a flight. 

I wasn’t even supposed to be there. But my colleague, Margaret, was blowing up balloons for her dog’s birthday (also called Margaret… don’t ask), got lightheaded, fainted and sailed down a flight of stairs, where she selfishly broke her coccyx. My boss, Mr Donaldson, informed me I was taking her place at the boredom conference.

But I’m trying to be more of a ‘glass half full’ type person. Find the best in a situation. That type of outlook. So as the speaker continued to drive his metaphor into the ground, I stole a glance around the room and you know what I saw? I saw a lot of opportunity. Oh yeah, I probably should’ve lead with this: I’m a thief.

It’s not like I’m some common criminal.  I’m just really, really good at it. If any kids are out there right now, hoping to get into thievery, let me give you one word of advice. Practice. A concert pianist plays every day. An Olympic athlete trains every day. I steal every day. You have to hone it to perfection if you want to crush it and be the best.

So as the presentation came to a close and the assembled, bleary eyed throng rose to its feet, as if roused from a comforting nap. I used the moment to slip on stage. While the presenter was disentangling himself from his microphone wires, I lifted the suitcase in my left hand and walked out the door like I owned the place.

I took a bottle of wine from behind the bar as I left and not one person tried to stop me. I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon on this beach, lying on the ‘workforce’ and shielding my eyes with the ‘upper management’. Still not sure what those espadrilles are meant to be though.

 

 

TITANE (full review at Screen Realm)

Titane is the second film from Julia Ducournau and the follow up to the acclaimed 2016 cannibal movie Raw.

As a child, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) is in a serious car crash and has a metal plate fitted inside her head. Bearing a striking scar from the incident we meet her again as an adult, working as a dancer and living at home with her parents. She has an uncomfortably terse relationship with her father, who was driving the car at the time of the accident. 

Events take a turn when Alexia murders a fan who is harassing her. It’s not her first homicide, it transpires, and Titane takes a step into some truly wild territory when, having had sex with a car (!), Alexia discovers she is pregnant and her body is producing a jet black motor oil. If all this sounds a little weird, rest assured… it is! But Ducournau skilfully offsets the oddity with some ferocious and bloody violence, so the film remains resolutely a horror movie and never laughable, despite how it might sound on paper.

As the police close in, Alexia goes on the run, assuming the identity of a missing person, Adrien. She goes to live with the boy’s father Vincent (Vincent Lindon), at a fire station, pretending to be his son and hiding her pregnancy from everyone.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/you-cannot-kill-david-arquette-movie-documentary-review/

IMDB: Titane

FROM OZPLOITATION TO ICE-T, SQUID GAME IS JUST THE LATEST SPLATTER OF CLASS WARFARE ON SCREEN (full article at The Guardian Australia)

South Korean horror drama Squid Game has quickly become Netflix’s most watched show. For the few who haven’t seen it, the premise is simple: a group of contestants on the poverty line are pitted against each other in a series of deadly games, all for the entertainment of the super-rich.  At its core - and part of why it’s so compelling - is the class struggle. We’re living in a time where the gap between extreme wealth and extreme poverty has never been wider, so the concept of the rich exploiting the poor for sport, or simply to alleviate boredom, feels particularly deranged.

But this concept isn’t a new one, and there are a couple of stand-outs – an underrated action film and a cult Australian horror movie – waiting patiently for rediscovery. 

Read the full review at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/nov/10/from-ozploitation-to-ice-t-squid-game-is-just-the-latest-splatter-of-class-warfare-on-screen

BAKED - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - SEPTEMBER 2021

This is my September entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre's Furious Fiction contest. Posting on my blog again so it can live forever. I've always found it hard to get my head around the idea of contests and awards for creative pursuits. So although it would be a lie to say I don't want to win (because who doesn't like to win things?), the honest goal is only ever to write something that I like. And I like this.

For the contest there is a three day window in which to write a 500 word story, in addition to which the following rules must be observed:

• Your story must include EITHER an attic OR a basement.
• Your story must include some kind of insect.
• Your story must include the words EARTH, WIND, FIRE and WATER.

    This used to be a nice street, you know? Mowed lawns, picket fences, the whole nine yards.  We used to joke it was like that neighbourhood in Edward Scissorhands - so close to perfect it was almost a parody.

     But then Jesse moved in. He devastated that street like a gale force wind. Where once there was tranquillity, there was now chaos. In one afternoon my quiet existence was shattered, like the garden gnome his moving truck broke. He was the Godzilla to my peaceful Tokyo.

    Over the next six months his terrible music at 3am, daily drum practice and the conversion of his front lawn into what I can only assume is a Thunderdome, shredded my every last nerve. I tried talking to him, hell, the whole neighbourhood did. He just smirked and claimed he had the right to do what he liked. But I’ve always prided myself on doing the right thing, leading by example. So in the spirit of rising above it, of being neighbourly, I decided to bake Jesse a cake.

    I closed the door behind me and descended the creaking, wooden staircase to the lower reaches of my house. The bakery itself was pretty nondescript. What do you want me to say? It’s got four walls and a concrete floor.  I installed the benches myself though, and the wall mounted terrariums. The hive’s myriad tunnels scratched through the earth like a central nervous system. As beautiful as a painting. The climate control system kept everything watered and the temperature regulated. See, when you’re baking a cake it’s important to use premium ingredients. And I wanted my ingredients to be large and agitated and swarming when I released them into Jesse’s house.

    The roaches were first. They bred quickly and in stunning numbers. I am a good baker. I rigged a delivery pipe to connect my basement to his. It was actually quite simple.  For one blissful week, the music stopped, the noise abated and my street returned to solitude while the house was fumigated. But as soon as Jesse returned, so too did the clamour of his existence. So the Fire Ants were next, and then the wasps.

    But Jesse kept returning. He has so far, I suppose, been the most unkillable pest of all.

RIDERS OF JUSTICE (RETFÆRDIGHEDENS RYTTERE) (full review at Screen Realm)

Riders of Justice is a Danish thriller from Academy Award-winning director Anders Thomas Jensen (Adam’s Apples, Men & Chicken). Part revenge movie, part primal scream, it tackles grief and revenge as both an action thriller and dark comedy.

Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) is a soldier, deployed to Afghanistan, when he receives the news that his wife and daughter were in a train accident. His wife did not survive. Returning home to Denmark, Markus struggles with his grief. He refuses advice, counselling and anything resembling any form of help. Markus struggles to relate to his daughter, Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), and is not a comforting presence. Their relationship was already distant and his grief-driven bouts of violence and unsympathetic advice drive a further wedge between them.

A few days after the crash, they are visited by Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his two friends, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro). Otto was on board the train with Mathilde and her mother, Emma (Anne Birgitte Lind). As a mathematician by trade, Otto is convinced that, statistically, the chances of the crash being an accident are almost impossible. He presents Markus with compelling evidence that the three friends have uncovered: The crash was intentional, and responsibility lies with a criminal biker gang called the Riders of Justice. The four new friends set out to make them pay.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://www.screenrealm.com/riders-of-justice-movie-review-mads-mikkelsen/

IMDB: Riders Of Justice

YOU CANNOT KILL DAVID ARQUETTE (full review at Screen Realm)

On 26 April 2000, the actor David Arquette won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Despite reservations from Arquette himself, the victory was devised as a publicity stunt to promote the wrestling movie Ready To Rumble in which he was starring.  

Somewhat predictably, the fans did not like the idea of an untrained Hollywood actor winning one of the most prestigious titles in wrestling, feeling that it cheapened the sport. As a result, Arquette has spent the best part of two decades being despised by fans of the sport he grew up loving.

A pariah in wrestling circles, Arquette also attributes his stint in the WCW as the reason his acting career stalled. Although in fairness, his filmography would suggest he has, in fact, worked quite regularly over the last twenty years. Highlights including the very underrated Eight Legged Freaks and a supporting role in the excellent horror western Bone Tomahawk. Nevertheless, between the WCW and his most famous role, as the lovably inept Deputy Dewey in the Scream franchise, Arquette has found it hard to be taken seriously in the intervening years.

So David Arquette sets out to put things right...

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/you-cannot-kill-david-arquette-movie-documentary-review/

IMDB: You Cannot Kill David Arquette

HALT AND CATCH FIRE (full article at The Guardian Australia)

Halt and Catch Fire was a series that went majorly unnoticed. It flew well under the radar and this is a pity, because its decades-spanning story about technological innovators, their successes, failures, and the friendships that pin it all together, is as compelling and addictive as any of the better known ‘prestige’ shows that captured awards and imaginations at the time.  

Created by Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C Rogers, Halt and Catch Fire begins in Texas in the 1980s at small electronics company, Cardiff Electric. Under the guidance of ex-IBM whizkid Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), and company exec John ‘Bos’ Bosworth (Toby Huss), a group of engineers led by Gordon Clarke (Scoot McNairy) attempt to create a home computer to compete with the industry giants.

Read the full review at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/aug/30/halt-and-catch-fire-hugely-underrated-tech-drama-about-dreaming-big-and-failing-bigger

IMDB: Halt And Catch Fire

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - AUGUST 2021

This is the short story I wrote for the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction contest in August. As always, I like to post these up here to give them some form of existence. 

I hadn’t written fiction in a little while, due a combination of focussing on other writing projects and Melbourne lockdown malaise. The last couple of stories I wrote ended up being a bit of a chore, and inevitably, I wasn’t happy with them. But I’m very happy with this one. It was fun to write and it fell into place easily. And that’s the feeling I’m chasing when I write anything.

The rules:

• Your story’s first sentence must contain only four words.
• Your story must include something being shared.
• Your story must include the words PAINT, SHIFT, WAVE and TOAST.

    You pull up outside. The car is a real rust bucket. Dented rear end, flaking paint, broken CD player.  But it’s nondescript, has four wheels and a full petrol tank. It will do a job. It’s 8pm. The last shift ended two hours ago and the place will be empty.

    Three people exit the backseat and approach the building. They wear boiler suits and woollen balaclavas. It’s thirty degrees and ninety percent humidity. The car smells like a locker room. The two in front crowd around the third as he futzes with the lock. If the alarm gets tripped you have ten minutes, easy, until the cops arrive. Private security is another matter. They’ll be here in three, but rent-a-cops don’t have the resources. Any half competent driver can evade them. The head figure nods at you before they move inside. You wave back in acknowledgement. You’re all on the clock now.

    Getaway driving isn’t easy. The movies glamourise the profession. Every hot shot with a fast car and a faster attitude thinks he can do it. Walking around with a hammer in his back pocket and toothpick poking out the corner of his mouth, like a right dickhead. Or blasting a mix tape so loud he doesn’t even hear the cops until he’s got a boot on the back of his neck and a face full of asphalt.

    There’s a skill set - inherent to doing it well - that involves much more than driving. You need patience, observational skill and good planning. There’s a lot of spontaneous decision making, but also a lot of sitting around. A lot of musty, hot, stinky cars. A lot of close environments, shared with the sort of terminal loser who thinks the world owes him.  Every one of ‘em a degenerate gambler, betting everything on their own deluded ego.  No sense to get out while they’re ahead, so the longer they keep coming back for more, the smaller their options get. Every one of ‘em headed for a box in the ground or a prison cell.

    The other thing the movies always get wrong is the dramatic escape. People getting shot on their way out, cops lying in wait, and so forth. But if events go off book, the drama happens inside. Always. You hear a dull thud. Might be a gunshot. Might be a cabinet tipping over. All you know is, they’ve been inside nine minutes and thirty seconds, which means they’re toast.

    So you drive to a deserted car park underneath the river bridge and set fire to the rust bucket. You walk half an hour to a train station on a different line and go home. You broke your only rule. You agreed to a share this time. Always get paid up front because, as the 11 o’clock news informs you, your share is sitting in that building in a pool of blood, among the bullet ridden remains of three gamblers who forgot to check for a security guard.