The Descent Into Summer

Was I surprised to see the rain, on Saturday ?  Not really.  Was I pissed ?  A little.  You might say I'm slowly getting used to not being able to exercice my right to parade in the sunlight, or to attend Piknic because it takes place at goddamn Fonderie Darling.

Shit happens, as we say.  And that liquid shit makes me wonder why I didn't get my CAM this month.  I'd like to bike all I can to get to work every day, but if it rains like this all goddamn month, my strong will might fail.



So after waking up real late with Miss Bijoux - my 13 hours shift on Friday didn't help my energy level - and ingesting a big-ass omelette for breakfast,  we just hung around the living room, the window opened to hear the rain, and we read the papers.  It was a greasy, easy morning, the type of matinée we should experience more often, if only we weren't so damn busy.

When the evening came, quite suddenly, we had to chose between going to the Stainless in Villeray to say goodbye to a friend of Miss Bijoux who's going to Europe, going to see Gatineau + Omnikrom live at the Main Hall, or going to this loft party on Queen St, in the old port, where Diplo was making a special unannounced appearance.  Must have been madness - but we opted out of all this and stayed home to watch Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT, a movie that was actually quite brutal - like MC Brutalll, minus the brown briefs.

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Extreme sports are quite popular among americans, and some people seem to live just to practice them.  In Neil Marshall's undistributed 2005 flick THE DESCENT, three friends who used to do extreme rafting together decide, a year after the husband of one of the girls died in a car accident, to explore a cave together - along with a couple of other extreme chicks.

It's pretty dark in there, and some of the passages are pretty narrow, and eventually one of them crumbles, leaving no other choice for them but to go forward, in search of another way out.  One of the girls breaks her leg when she falls in a hole, another complication in an already very complicated chain of events.  When the girl who organised the descent admits that the cave has never been explored and that they might be the first ones to ever walk in there, we know something's up.



Marshall is the guy who directed DOG SOLDIERS and he serves us a bleak and uncompromising little flick, and if you're like me and you're a bit of a claustrophobe, you'll feel a bit of panic if you ever see it.  Because at first, it looks as if the movie is going to be centered around the girls' survival, some kind of sports adventure gone wrong.  And then the movie gets turned around, slapped on the ass, and it takes a whole different, HORRIFYING spin.  Which, of course, I am not going to reveal here.  Let's just hope that your heart is strong and your nerves not too wrecked.

So we get overall strong acting performances, a visual technique that focuses on the essential (here, getting the action rolling without ever letting go) and a conclusion that frightens and leaves you beat up, which prompted an IMDb user to ask : "Was this based on a true story ?"

Probably not, junior.  Or rather : I hope not, for fuck's sake !

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The Suicide Gang are a bunch of crazies (actually, two of them) who used to dress as beat-ups about two years and a half ago, going out mainly to Saphir's Panic Fridays and sometimes at Parking on Thursdays.  Shredded t-shirts, white bandages, fake blood & wounds everywhere - nothing kept them from looking like somebody beat the shit out if them.



I don't know what inspired them most - PARTY MONSTER or the Japanese flick THE SUICIDE CLUB - but they sure made an impression on a dancefloor.  Those of you who have seen them around might remember.

You know what ?  They're back.  I caught a glimpse of blood & madness somewhere on Champlain street, earlier in the week, and I am under the strong impression that you might see them next Sunday if you go to Piknic.  Can't confirm it - who are these guys anyway ?  But... what do you have to lose after all ?