I’ve been writing (more details when I can) but always find time to fill my head with other creative gold. So, what’s been pushing my buttons in good ways?
MOVIES:
Spear – the first feature film by directed by Bangarra’s Stephen Page. It’s truly amazing, even if I have to add the disclaimer that it was produced by ArenaMedia, employer of my wife. A low budget film that looks amazing, and a non-linear narrative, reflecting on what it means to be a young Indigenous man facing the modern and ancient worlds, and almost entirely through dance. It’s a film to sit back and let it wash over you. I loved it.
Deadpool – could that be more the polar opposite of Spear but if you’re over 18 and like super heroes, Deadpool is bloody funny and well done. It’s going to spark all sorts of possibly pale imitations as Hollywood madly chases the ‘niche superhero’ market. Hmmm, maybe The OK Team might fly on film after all?
BOOKS:
‘All the light we cannot see‘, by Anthony Doerr.
Look, this novel won the Pulitzer Prize so I’m late to the party, as usual, but it’s amazeballs. A grueling war story set in Germany and France and largely set in the Bretagne coastal fort town of Saint Malo, which resonates for me because this is my wife’s home country and I went there a couple of years ago and decided Saint Malo moved straight into the top three of ‘Towns I Could Live In When I’m Old’ (which is any day now). Saint Malo actually has a street called ‘Rue du Chat qui Danse‘. The street of the dancing cats.
But I like it a lot more now than during the war, going by Doerr’s book. It’s a beautiful novel, though, and damn, that guy can write.
TELEVISION:
The second series of ‘Les Revenants (The Returned)’, a fantastically creepy and addictive French series about what happens a bunch of dead former townspeople unexpectedly show up. It’s on AppleTV, and maybe Netflix, among other options, but definitely watch the first series if you haven’t, before attempting the second.
An American remake of the first series was screened last year but I don’t know if it was any good.
Also lots of Red Wings hockey, although the NHL’s move to NHL.TV instead of the old Gamecenter has seen the quality of streaming drop alarmingly. Pretty rude to put out such a dodgy product while charging 100 bucks a year … LGRW!
MUSIC
So many different things. Death cab for Cutie (try: ‘I will possess your heart‘), The Decemberists, Horse Feathers, Eddie Vedder’s cover of ‘You’ve got to hide your love away‘, Brigitte (try ‘A bouche que veux-tu‘), Kurt Vile’s Pretty Pimpin‘ and New Politics’ ‘50 feet tall‘. I even went through a crazy patch of listening to the early Bee Gees. You know the pre disco stuff? Neither did I, really.
Nick Place: creative 