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Bird Box
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1204
Along the lines of "A Quiet Place", - same silliness, only a little more - plausible? Nah, that's not right. Nothing great, but what you'd expect, better than your average NetFlix Fare, and I enjoyed it more than "A Quiet Place". But nowhere in the league of "Get Out" or "Don't Breathe".
The Favorite (2)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1238
Saw this with the boy over the holiday season - posted the trailer earlier. It was every bit as good - and savage - as I expected. A perfect metaphor for the current political climate (a different style of telling than "Sorry to Bother You").
What's funny, despite almost universally stellar reviews - check out CalgaryMovies.com and read the reviews local Calgarians left. Clearly they didn't "get" it, but you have to laugh, elderly people walking into a movie expecting a sort of Merchant-Ivory styled period piece, and getting - well, - definitely not that.
By director Yorgos Lanthimos, who's previous films included "The Lobster" and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer".
Xmas Shooting
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 984
Of course, of course, another Xmas shooting, police involved, on Xmas day. Details are scant and I refrain from judging, but follow it - it wasn't the only one, Edmonton, Saskatoon each had their own.
But the story comes out, a picture of the victim - an attractive young woman, all over the papers - not a criminal, merely someone responding badly to the polices predatory chase tactics, a series of poor decisions by the police led to her being shot and the police being acquitted. Of all the people that have been shot by the police in the last 20 odd years, how many have had a gun? Very few. Offering violence with a penknife or ball-point pen is enough to get you shot.
So, try not to dwell on it, but there's someone ahead of me in line, a bit older, and he's looking at the front page of the newspaper in disgust: "They had to shoot HER?". He's in disbelief. And then he starts to tell me...
His daughter was killed a few years ago here. Drive by shooting, random, gang related, wrong-place at the wrong-time. No one's ever been arrested or charged. They don't look for them, these people, they have guns, they're dangerous. He knew the last girl to get shot as well, she was crazy, for sure, but she had only a small penknife, no threat at all, just back away, talk her down, but - ever the heroes, they shot her to death. And I'm feeling his pain, frustration, he seems ok with it but the knowing that your daughter was killed, the police will do nothing to catch the killers, we talk about the increase in homelessness, people in the alleys, breaking into cars, ... we're of the same mind, the police aren't here for us, ...
We say our goodbyes, he's local, I'll see him again.
Disarm the police. Remove the black and white uniforms, cars, armored hummers. We don't need them anymore. For a long time now they've been doing more damage than good.
The Children at Xmas
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 975
The children are over, it's great to have them, it's Xmas after all...
No presents this year, sorry kids...
They're used to it. But they're over and of course I've got to feed them, from an ever diminishing stash of groceries, - enough, as it were, to last me a week if I ate lean, now enough to last me until tomorrow morning. And no budget to replace them.
The son, sleeping on the living room floor surrounded by unpacked boxes, the daughter just swinging by to check up, games of Scrabble, Chess, conversation...
The conversation, it only ever goes so far. There is the Great Wall: Between parents and children, I am, I fancy, more liberal than most, more truthful, less bullshit, better advice, we can talk about women, men, drugs, still there is that wall, we each draw it around ourselves, me, you, the places we don't share, we need this, but we isolate ourselves...
Breakfast for the boy, bacon, eggs, waffles, I've found the old waffle iron in the locker, the apartment fills with childhood smells, we laugh and reminisce about when I'd make chocolate chip waffles for the kids, only, maybe, they weren't chocolate chips, they were little mouse turds from an old roommate of ours...
An old plate, found in the locker, the boys childhood plate, for me, only 10 years ago, for him, half his life:
8-13, his plate, by assignment, he recognizes it, goes through a few brief moments of remembering...
It's not important, this lack of food thing, I've been here so fucking often before, I need to sort through some of these boxes, find some shit to sell, start the big downsizing, how can I have this much crap? Really? And a 1/4 of it isn't mine, it's the kids, their childhoods I'm hanging on to, even if I manage to empty the locker there will still that stuff that needs to be saved, future heirlooms, I am cautious about throwing their stuff away, because - a mobile childhood saw that mine was discarded, and I'd be curious to see some of my old favorite toys.
The boy and I make a trip to the locker, fill the LadyJeep, a few discoveries, I'll share when I unpack, repack, there are more boxes of photos (sorry Breony, not that box but I'm getting closer), the living room now full, maybe 30 boxes, books, knick-knacks, objects of inspiration, art supplies, time now to sort, sell, donate, repack, repeat.
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