Monday 30 August 2021

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




Sunday 29 August 2021

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.

Tuesday 10 August 2021

JAKOB'S WIFE (full review at Screen Realm)

Anne (Barbara Crampton) is married to small town minister Jakob (Larry Fessenden), although their marriage is in trouble. Jakob doesn’t listen to Anne. He speaks over her and on her behalf and his overbearing behaviour has Anne questioning whether she wants to stay.

So Anne reconnects with an old flame, Tom (Robert Rusler), but while out together they are attacked by a supernatural creature, turning Anne into vampire. As luck would have it, vampirism turns out to be just the boost she needs. Anne’s new found blood lust and aversion to sunlight come hand-in-hand with assertiveness and self-confidence.

Unfortunately you can’t be a vampire in a small town for long before somebody starts to notice. Local police begin to snoop around the various disappearances in town, and when Jakob discovers the truth, he and Anne set out to find and destroy the head vampire.
 
Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/jakobs-wife-movie-review-vampire-horror/

IMDB: Jakob's Wife