Absurd Wolves

I bought a 100 blank CD's spindle about two weeks ago at Neulogik, this "alternative" electronic equipment store located just next door to Future Shop, on Ste-Catherine.  The brand's "Miss Nova" - never heard about that either.



When I got home, I tried to burn a CD and my computer crashed.  The second one failed as well as the third one.  By then I realised I've been had.  The receipt specified I had 30 days for any return.  So I sat on my laurels and waited.  Until yesterday.  I saw the spindle in a corner of my living room and decided it was high time I got myself some new CD's.

So I left earlier for work - the store's next door - and I walked a bit since the weather was so nice.  When I arrived in front of Neulogic my subconscious told me that it was pretty dark inside but I still reached for the door.  Locked.  A sheet on the glass read like this : "The store will be closed May 1st.  Thank you for doing business with us."

Shit happens, I guess.

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You know I like music.  I'm into bands like We Are Wolves, Wolfmother, Wolf Parade, AIDS Wolf & Wolf Eyes.  I also like cinema a lot, and my favorite movies include Wolfen, Company of Wolves, Teen Wolf, An American Werewolf in Paris / London, Wolf, Time of the Wolf, I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Dancing With Wolves.

So I was pretty excited when I rented WOLF CREEK at the beginning of the week.  This has been a much talked about flick, part of the wave of "serious" horror movies influenced by the seventies classics.  It was launched around the same time as THE DARK HOURS & HOSTEL (which I haven't seen, but soon will) and it carried a perfume of sheer terror.  Since I also appreciate terror, I decided to give it a try.



Well, for once, the characters are well established before the butchery begins.  The shots are almost Dogma-like, with a handheld camera, and Australia's wild countryside is shown to its maximum potential.  The desert sky has never looked so good.  Once the "action" kicks in, however, things get darker, and disconcerting.  We have learned to care about these characters and we are surprised by what might, and what does, happen to them.  With no depth, these senseless killings would have been just another campy thrill.

The killer is realistic, but once again, towards the end of the movie, he turns into a caricature of himself.  And I think the movie would have worked better if he didn't.  But that's just my opinion.

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I've heard about Montrealer's "savage" manners for a long time without ever realising that I couldn't "get" it since I was buried knee deep in its street culture.  My week-end in Toronto made me realise how easy going and friendly people are over there.  Considering this is a city with a rather high crime rate, I can't even begin to try to imagine how friendly other canadians, in other cities, can be.

The coldness of many people in town is often attributed to the fact that you do not know right away in which language you have to talk to somebody you don't know.  That's the con of living in a bilingual & multicultural city such as ours.

Personally, I think it's rather an overload of attitude & snobbiness that's responsible for all of this, because frankly, I don't know many people who aren't fluent in both languages.  I have decided to write my blog mainly in english to reach the wider audience possible, and have never been told by anybody that it kept them from reading.

But then again, it may be just because I don't have any readers.