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