If You Can't Say Anything Nice...

It's interesting to go back and look at my top ten lists for the past decade, and see where I would have changed things, shifted the order, even had a film drop out and another take its place. I've looked at the movies I've watched over the past decade and chosen the ones that stick with me the most after they've come and gone, and just like my yearly top tens, I suspect this is a fluid list, subject to change depending on my mood and the time of day.

1. A Separation

I remember walking out of the theatre wondering how this Iranian film would be topped. Clearly, the answer was it wouldn't. The dissolution of a family was portrayed with great intensity and intelligence in Baumbach's Marriage Story, but as good as that film was, this was the movie that set that bar at an unreachable height.

2. The Florida Project

In a lesser filmmaker's hands this would have been the cinematic version of poverty porn, but instead we are treated to moments of joy and love to very much equal the heartache and pain of the lives of the characters. And the ending, filmed surreptitiously with an iPhone, is a moment of transcendence.

3. Moonlight

A heartbreaking and heartfelt tale of a love and growth, this is the sort of film to make you realize you can understand and empathize with someone else, even if almost every aspect of that person's life is foreign to your own.

4. Roma

Gorgeous, a deliberate pace, offering up its revelations and answers bit by bit, and with some of the most glorious long shots I've seen in many years.

5. Shoplifters

A story of loveable and loving petty thieves, who know family is what you make it, and even more important, know when family is not working for others who need it.

6. Parasite

It strikes me as I see this side by side with my 5th choice that this and Shoplifters are of a piece, about family and doing whatever you can to survive. There is a different sort of tragedy here than in the Japanese film, permanent of a different nature and more shocking, accompanied by great humour.

7. Spotlight

One of those movies that, as my wife noted when it ended, feels like old times. A serious film about a serious subject, great tension even as we know how things in this true story pan out.

8. Mad Max: Fury Road

There was some good science fiction these past ten years and, speaking as a science fiction and fantasy author, some mediocre and shitty SF as well. This one stood head and shoulders and maybe even elbows above them all. Audacious and witty and thrilling and imaginative, a movie where the title character isn't even close to the main character.

9. Paterson

Almost nothing happens, the one time a gun fires it proves to be something else, Adam Driver's wife is a special kind of strange and you can see he adores her and wants her to be whoever she wants to be, even as he continues to drive a bus in order to write his poetry. Delightful.

10. You Were Never Really Here

Watching moments of violence play out via black and white security cameras in silence in the corner of the screen, seeing Joaquin Phoenix as a somewhat-overweight schlub who cares so very deeply,  and now we sit and wait and wonder when Lynne Ramsay will be allowed to make her next movie.

Also-rans: Boyhood, Arrival, The Irishman, Little Women, Tree of Life, The Way Way Back, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Get Out.

Labels: movies

I had more trouble narrowing the list down to a top ten for the year, at least after the first three. But here goes:

1. Parasite
2. The Irishman
3. Little Women
4. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
5. Knives Out
6. Us
7. Jojo Rabbit
8. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
9. Atlantique
10. (Tie) Dolemite is My Name/Marriage Story

Movies that on another day might have forced their way onto this list are Border, Blinded By the Light, The Peanut Butter Falcon, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Monos, Official Secrets, Booksmart, A Vigilante, The Vast of Night, Dark Waters, I Lost My Body, The Report, Paddington 2, The Favourite, They Shall Not Grow Old, Shoplifters, If Beale Street Could Talk, Minding the Gap, Free Solo, Apollo 11, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, Leave No Trace, Cold War, Burning, The Biggest Little Farm, Arctic, Toy Story 4, Wild Rose, The King, Extra Ordinary, and Capernaum. Several of these were 2018 films, which is why I kept them off the top ten.

Labels: movies

My novel Napier's Bones was published a number of years ago by ChiZine. It sold well, and I saw a decent amount of money from it, for a small press. Like lots of other authors, apparently, I often had to go digging for that money, and I did bring it up with two other authors over time. Once in person at a convention, and that was greeted with a shrug, a "Whaddaya gonna do?" The second time was via email, and I was told they were having the same problem.

But I would push, and get a response, and eventually see the money. Or at least some of the money. But every time a promise was made, that promise was broken, and I would have to push again.

I realize now I should have yanked the book. I had considered doing so a couple of times, but in both instances money arrived and I let the thought fade away.

I live a different life than a lot of other authors. I work a full-time blue collar job, my wife has an excellent academic career, and we have two adult sons, one we just finished putting through university, the other in his 3rd year. We are not wealthy, but we do just fine, thank you. Starving artist I ain't.

I also spent two or three years seriously considering giving up on this writing biz altogether. Frustration, not just with ChiZine but also with certain other people and groups had conspired to leave me exhausted and disinterested. Time spent as the Canadian Regional Director and then publicity director for SFWA and newsletter editor and then president of SF Canada soured me on groups and groupthink, I stopped attending conventions, dropped a whole shitload of Facebook friends and contacts (many of them have sought me out afterward, and that's just fine).

All this is to explain I had no contact with the "whisper network," did not even know such a network existed.

I need to tell you something else. Before we each got married to our respective spouses, many years ago, Sandra from ChiZine and I had a brief romantic relationship, although mostly long distance. It didn't end badly, it just... ended. My view of this may therefore be considered by some to be skewed, and that's fair.

So I'm not going to badmouth people for things I did not witness, and I'm not going to share stories about anything I did experience, because I don't think they are important to this situation. I will note however that there are many editors and publishers and authors who fall into the category of asshole, and if that was all this was there really wouldn't be anything there.

But it isn't, and aside from my own issues, I believe the people who have come forward. And it breaks my damn heart to see people I knew and liked back in the day having been put through so much.

I also frustrates me - not, I should note, to the level of being pissed off, since we all deal with these traumas in our own way - that I didn't know. That none of these people ever thought to mention any of this to me, or that they were afraid if they did so I would sell them out.

As if the years I spent working hard for them and their rights meant nothing.

But those days were long years ago, and maybe everyone forgot what I once did. Hell, sometimes I forget, it's been so long. And if I knew it was happening to me, then probably I should have opened my eyes and assumed it was happening to others.

What's done is done, though. I've asked for and received an accounting of the year's royalties, but the immediate response I got was followed by silence when I pointed out a possible discrepancy. I will give it a few more days before deciding what the next step will be.

One more thing: A certain review site came on Twitter and blasted CZP and the complicit authors (and really, I have no idea how many there might be, because I really still am out of touch) but worded it thus: "Chizine seems to be rife with shady practices, and vile authors..."

I called them out on this, suggesting this sounded like they were happy to lump all CZP authors in with this group, and was told I was "nit picking a badly worded phrase" and I should "excuse the phrasing."

Oh, and that they had "never even heard of" me.

Here's the thing. I had never heard of them, either, but that wasn't important. This is a big tent, unruly and bursting at the seams but always growing larger nonetheless, and we're not going to know everybody. But unless someone has done wrong by you or your compatriots, there is no need to shit on them.

So for those few people who lived the tweets this review site wrote in response to me, I will remember. It's not a threat, nothing with meat on it, just self-preservation. If I ever do attend a con again and we find ourselves in the same space I will just walk away, cause no scene, just ghost. Because life is too short, you know?

Late addendum: Here's a link that helps explain much of what has gone on.

I am weeding books in preparation for downsizing and am therefore tossing them up here first for sale (such as it is). I've divided them in science fiction/fantasy/horror (SF/F), regular fiction (F), non-fiction (NF), comic-related (C), and advance reader's copies (ARC).

They're listed by category and then title, with the author name following, because I started that way and don't feel like backing up to fix it.

I don't list condition. If that's an issue for you, let me know. If someone contacts me about a book and I notice something, I will let them know. A few books will be remainders, and I will note that when asked about the title.

Hardcovers, $2 each, trade paperbacks $1 each, mass market 25 cents. Oversized books will depend on what it is, but some will be in that range. Buy 6 for the price of 5. If you don't live in Saskatoon we will discuss mailing costs, depending on how many you want and how you want them sent.

Contact me at derrylm@gmail.com

Also, the types of books are:

HC - hardcover
TP - trade paperback
MM - mass market paperback
OS - oversized

SF

France

Labels: movies