Devolution by Max Brooks; Cocaine Bear; and The Scratch live in Vancouver - a report from my weekend

So a few entertainments OTHER than the Residents have crossed my path of late that I want to note. 

Fans of survival horror will definitely want to check out Max Brooks' Devolution, which is a Pacific Northwest Sasquatch tale that I had previously somehow missed until I saw it in a remainder bin last week: "Ooh, what's this?" It's being adapted for film now, but Brooks' previous high-profile novel-to-film transition, World War Z, while not bad, seemed to lose many of its more interesting aspects in favour of things like a linear narrative involving a single unifying group of characters... to say nothing of the film's striking absence of significant zombie gore, which is kinda like a Fred Astaire movie without tap dancing. I mean, who knows - if they do it well, Devolution-the-movie could be up there with Rituals and Clearcut as a classic of the survival-horror genre. We'll see. Reading the book, and thinking of other books of its ilk that I have read in recent years, I'm more reminded of Jack Ketchum's Off Season, which I think may have been the last novel I made it through, cover to cover (I wrote some notes about the Ketchum book here; it is a more unpleasant read than Devolution, but also very gripping and even more visceral, especially when the feral humans in the novel get to, uh, cooking. There are some memorable "recipes," as Ketchum calls them, though only in the unexpurgated edition...).

I suppose there's a bit of The Hills Have Eyes to Devolution, too - there's a waving severed arm that brings that film to mind, in particular; but Brooks is actually a bit more optimistic about people than Craven (or Ketchum), and also a bit more invested in cryptozoology (as much, at least, as Bobcat, say).  The most striking character, Mostar, is an older, female Eastern European refugee - a Bosnian? - turned artist, who commands a very large presence and takes the lead in sequences of crisis; it's kinda great to have an old immigrant lady yelling in some unidentified Slavic language that the Sasquatches should "get back in their mother's cunt" as she brandishes a torch at them. Haven't quite encountered a character like her in fiction before, loving her, and keen to see who gets the role in the film. There aren't enough cranky European female refugees turned artists in American horror literature, at least not in the slow trickle of books I've read in the last few years. 

...And nevermind how much I am enjoying THIS book, which, incidentally, is about a small group of high-tech/ low impact people in an elite, remote, planned community who find themselves cut off from the rest of the world by the eruption of Mt. Rainier, which is followed by a siege of hungry Sasquatches escaping the explosion (and looking for food),... perfect as it may be for me right now, I'm really loving just reading a book of any sort, for a change, this week. Wife's been away so I've had some time and space to myself and for once I've spent more time reading than writing (or doing housework or watching movies!). I haven't finished a novel in a loooong time (started a few), and it's just a great experience; I wish I had more time and energy for it, in general. 

Anyhow, assuming I'd be consuming something along the lines of the survival horror genre, while killing time between my job and tonight's show at the Rickshaw, I checked out Elizabeth Banks' new film Cocaine Bear. I wasn't expecting much, but it would be hard to entirely wreck a premise so obviously fun - cocaine-fueled black bear on the rampage! Still, I had my moments of doubt, as they played the story a lot less straight than I thought they would, with a lot of winking, lowbrow, broad-as-a-barn-side humour, even during some of the gory kills. I was wanting and expecting more horror than comedy, or at least something along the lines of William Girdler's Grizzly - available in a fine, fine blu-ray from Severin - which is positively staid compared to Cocaine Bear, which is tonally more similar to something like The Scouts' Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, say (another film I was a bit embarrassed to thoroughly enjoy). 

Cocaine Bear also surprised me by having entirely CGI bears, which is shocking considering a low-budget shlockmeister like Girdler actually splashed out for a real grizzly, in his film. Have bears gone up in price, or is it really and truly cheaper to hire a team of animators...? (I should imagine it is cheaper to get insurance if you have no real bears on set). On the other hand, they do make the bear pretty expressive. I mean, it would be hard to get a real bear to act as totally WRECKED as this bear is. It staggers, gets confused, rolls around, bonks its head into a tree, passes out... this bear is fucked up, which I think characters actually say in the film now and then. I didn't complain that there were no gorillas on set for King Kong, so...

"Is there more?"

 

Anyhow, it's definitely a b-movie, and the fact that I rank a William Girdler film above it should give you pause, but still, I laughed aloud more than once; I think this is what people call a "good popcorn movie." (Call me a sourpuss, but I do not like to think of movies in terms of how well they facilitate the function of eating popcorn).

Oh, and Margo Martindale is in it. You've seen her in tons of stuff - she's sort of the female equivalent of M. Emmett Walsh, I guess, which I hope she would realize I mean as a compliment. She has said she loves looking "fat and crazy" in the film, expressed her surprise to be in it at all, and other people have identified her raging about having a bear bite her in the ass as the high point of the film. 

If he's lacking in projects, Seth Rogen is now well placed to do a part two to Cocaine Bear where mebbe the same bear (...because, spoiler alert, the bear lives!) eats a giant truckload of gummies and has a very different sort of adventure. There is at least potential for a very good title, there (tho' Rogen probably has a "gummy bear" joke about a different kind of bear, already, I'm guessing). 

As for my first post-Residents live music experience, nothing can make a man feel old and unhip to discover a band he has never heard of before this week, go to a show almost on a whim, thinking there will be, what, a couple dozen people there at best - like thinkin' he's practically doin' the band a favour by showing up - to discover that the venue is packed to the rafters with people twenty years younger, much better-looking, and all apparently more hip to what's new and cool than he is. But when I finally arrived (rushing from Cocaine Bear) at the Rickshaw to catch The Scratch, already well into their set, I was like... gee, the venue is packed, it's hot, I'm tired and uncomfortable, it's way louder than I thought it was gonna be, and the bar guy is trying to make me go upstairs to check my bag, which I don't want to have to pay to do. So I left after about four songs. The good news is I got video of three (?) of them, which at least one fan will be very happy to see. Lindsay? Lindsey? Linsey? Anyone know how she spells her name? Tell her this exists, okay? Does anyone know who this is?

I mean, they were in good hands with the audience and the audience was in good hands with them - they did not need me. And, like, I sang along to "Dirty Old Town" from the floor at the Commodore (along with everyone else) when Joe Strummer and the Shane MacGowan were co-fronting the Pogues there, so I got nothin' to prove. In the end, I decided that I would rather come home and read Max Brooks (next Rickshaw show I am keen to see is Screaming Females: Mo is apparently a big fan. I might do something here, but I hafta catch up on their music a bit, first, and clear some long-delayed stuff).

Not a bad week, really, somewhat lonely tho' it has been (Erika's friend invited her to go travelling so it is my first week without my wife - I wasn't even separated from her this long when I was in the hospital). I actually moved into the centre of the bed for one night, but it was too weird, so I moved back to my side. But I have a kitten to play with, a Sasquatch novel, and the Residents have stoked my fire to listen to Hank Williams again (which I've been alternating with Mark of the Mole). So I'm getting by. I think I will be missing Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at the WISE Hall this Sunday, since that's the night Erika gets back, but go in my place and have a fun time, okay...? Bev sez they're great. 

Plus I have a kitten to tend to. Lookit'im go!