Category Archives: Michelle Gagnon

Summer Movie Wrap-Up

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Business first: congrats to Lexi, who won a signed edition of THE TUNNELS last week! Afraid I’ve got nothing for you today, but stay tuned: next week, we here at The Kill Zone will be giving away a slew of freebies…

Obviously the summer blockbuster season has not yet drawn to a close, so this post is slightly premature. However, I just returned from a week’s stay at my parent’s house (read: free babysitting). My parents live in a town where everything closes around 8PM (seriously, there’s practically a curfew) and I was jet-lagged enough that a 10PM showtime was within the realm of possibility. So I’m proud to say that I broke my own record for most films seen in a single week (and mind you, this was around the same time all those Olympic records were being broken in Beijing. Coincidence?)

Since I wrote posts earlier this summer on worst blockbusters I’ve ever seen and films I’ve enjoyed so far, I thought I’d post a round-up of the latest offerings. So grab your popcorn and pull up a chair for…

MICHELLE’S EXTREMELY BIASED AND JUDGEMENTAL MOVIE REVIEWS

With any luck, this will become a regular thing (but no promises—do you have any idea what movie tickets cost in San Francisco?!)

WALL-E
Loved this one. Sweet story told with all the wry humor and killer cinematography that Pixar is known for. Nice little save-the-planet-and-beware-corporate-monoliths message tucked in between nods to classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I love it when G-rated films factor in adult audiences. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, the animation is phenomenal.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
I liked Rachel Weisz before, and my respect for her went up exponentially after seeing this film—brilliantly, she decided against participating in it. Smart career move. Brendan Fraser tends to be a lot of fun to watch, but even he couldn’t save this mess. Maria Bello stumbles along with a barely-passable accent and a bewildered expression on her face throughout, as if she’s not quite sure how she landed in this role (a question I harbored myself). And the son from the last film has morphed from a cute little British boy to a man that now (inexplicably) has a Southie accent and is way too old to be the child of Bello and Fraser. Who cast this dreck? Jet Li has the best part, and he barely speaks and spends most of the film as a CGI clay figurine. Even if you’re trapped on a plane and the choice is between watching this or staring at the seat in front of you, stare at the seat. Seriously, it’s that bad.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
I was leery of this one, but had foolishly allowed my husband to choose the night’s entertainment. I thought the first installment was just silly, despite Ron Perlman’s likeable performance as the main character. But I buckled down, gritted my teeth…and was pleasantly surprised. The story was much darker and more based on myth than traditional comic book tales, and director Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) brought just as many quirky characters to play here. I also liked that the CGI was involved but didn’t dominate, and even though the story was light on substance, the settings were incredible and visually astonishing. Much better than the first (although I still find Selma Blair annoying).

Hancock
I was also not that excited for this one, despite the fact that Will Smith is a reliable summer movie action star. But again, I’m happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised. This film presented an interesting twist on traditional superhero fare, which gave it more depth than you generally see in these films. Though it was short (about 90 minutes, by my reckoning) it felt like the perfect length for the story it had to tell. Not a must-see, but definitely worth renting.

The Dark Knight
I snuck into a matinee of this a few weeks ago when I should have been working—and man, am I happy I did. I loved this movie—for me it’s neck and neck with Ironman for my favorite of the summer (although with Tropic Thunder on the horizon, all bets are off). Christian Bales was great, poor Heath Ledger did an incredible job with his incarnation of The Joker, and it was such a relief to see Maggie Gyllenhaal in the role that Katie Holmes almost ruined in Batman Begins. Critics have complained that it was dark for a blockbuster, but that was precisely what I liked, that it didn’t shy away from that. Highly recommended.

So I’d love to hear what you’ve seen this summer, and whether you agree/disagree with my assessment. As always, questions/comments/unwavering support are welcome.

Stay tuned for Killer Sundays! Upcoming guest schedule for the Kill Zone

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We’re pleased to be hosting some great guest authors on Sundays in the near future, and we’ll be adding more to our guest list. So stay tuned for Sundays with the Killers!

Here’s our current guest schedule:

Sunday, August 24: Tim Maleeny http://www.timmaleeny.com/

Sunday, Sept. 7: Alafair Burke http://www.alafairburke.com/

Welcome to…THE KILL ZONE!!!

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By Michelle Gagnon

That sounds so ominous, doesn’t it?

So I drew the short straw for the inaugural Kill Zone posting. It’s a lot of pressure. I feel the need to write something weighty and momentous, a breathtaking post befitting the gravitas of a blog launch.

After a week of pondering, I’ve still got nothing. So in lieu of providing an illuminating perspective on an important issue, I’m going to do a whiny wrap-up of my recent book tour instead. With any luck, John and Clare have come up with something more impressive for their turn. A person can always hope, right?

And away we go…

My Book Tour, aka “Death March with Signing Pen”

Just to clarify, I’m not really complaining. I’m know that I’m lucky to have books published, luckier still that people appear to be reading them, and that foolish booksellers allow me into their stores armed with my bookmarks and refrigerator magnets. I love bookstores in general, and I’m a shameless performer, so the opportunity to get up in front of people and pontificate is something you’ll have to pry from my cold dead hands. That said, as I enter week four of my book tour (which I’ve officially dubbed “death march with signing pen”), I have come to notice the downside. I’m truly a homebody at heart; I love spending ninety percent of my time locked indoors with little but a keyboard for company. So being gone for extended periods of time is not only wearing, it makes me start missing things…

1. Food: I have no idea how a person manages to eat dinner during these tours. I leave my house around 5PM to get to most of these events, and then I generally get home around 10 or 11PM. Most local restaurants have closed by the time I’ve finished reading, and when I get home I don’t have the energy to assemble a bowl of cereal. Seriously, I haven’t had a hot meal in weeks. I’m wasting away. I’ve developed a theory that this is how Lee Child remains so svelte.

2. Television: I’m way behind on my programming. I’ve actually had to delete things from my Tivo UNWATCHED to make space for more critical shows. Which presents a horrible conundrum for me: though I have yet to watch the HD version of “The Science of Sleep,” I had intended to watch it someday. Will it be on again in the future? Can I really risk deleting it in favor of an episode of Project Runway?
Which leads to my next concern: as far behind as I am on my regular series, I’m completely in the dark when it comes to reality shows. This might not seem grave to some of you, but when my husband has a better idea of who might win “So You Think You Can Dance” than I do, things have gone horribly awry.

3. Company: I can pretty much guarantee that if you do more than a few tour stops with the same author, the two of you will quickly adopt the worst attributes of an old married couple. So it was with Simon Wood and I. Early on, we found each other charming. He chuckled at my “accidentally killed off my main character” story, I gasped during his “trapped at an underground fight club in Tulsa” anecdote. But the bloom quickly faded, and by week three we were sniping at each other, rolling our eyes, and generally behaving like the main characters in “The War of the Roses.”

4. Family: Granted, this should have come first. You know things are getting bad when your kid stops recognizing you. All right, I’m exaggerating (I am a writer, after all) but after being gone for five days, then heading out for a different corner of the Bay Area every night, it does become a little surreal. Plus, I reflexively tried to sign my name on my toddler the other day. Not good.

5. Beds: Of course, at times the beds have been the least of my problems. There was, for example, the Days Inn behind the strip club in San Diego, with all sorts of sketchy characters lurking in the corridor outside my room. But a month of sleeping on strange beds does tend to wreak havoc on my spine.

6. Flights: I’m not a nervous flyer; in fact I used to look forward to getting on a plane and going somewhere exotic. Now that I’ve spent the past four weekends getting on and off planes, I have a few…let’s call them helpful suggestions…for the airlines. For instance, why not take off on time? I swear, I haven’t been on a trip in over six months that didn’t experience a two-to-five hour delay at the airport (or better yet, on the tarmac). And hey, is it really so difficult to have some form of nourishment available? I’ll pay for it; I would just love to be able to purchase that twenty-dollar mealy sandwich on the plane if I didn’t have the opportunity to grab one during my two mile-long sprint from gate 1 to gate 50 as I changed flights. And while we’re on the subject, consider turning off the seatbelt sign from time to time (an especially good idea during that three hour-long stint on the tarmac). When the person next to you maintains a running monologue on the size of their bladder, as the flight crew flips through celebrity rags and growls at anyone attempting to get out of their seats, it becomes abundantly clear that the glory days of civilian jetsetting have drawn to a tragic close.

So, anyone else have war stories to share? Best comment receives a signed edition of my first thriller THE TUNNELS. If you don’t win, console yourself by signing up for my newsletter at www.michellegagnon.com and I’ll toss your name in the hat for an Amazon Kindle, iPod Shuffle, Starbucks gift certificates, and other fabulous prizes.

Michelle Gagnon is a former modern dancer, bartender, dog walker, model, personal trainer, and Russian supper club performer. Her debut thriller The Tunnels was an IMBA bestseller. Her latest book, Boneyard, depicts a cat and mouse game between dueling serial killers. In her spare time she frantically watches television in an attempt to make room on her tivo drive.