Category Archives: the tunnels

Namesakes

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by Michelle Gagnon

Like many other writers, I’ve set up a Google alert based on my name. Generally this lets me know when a review of one of my books has posted, or when they’re being sold on ebay (the latter more than the former, sadly). However, due to an error on my part when I was establishing the account, it turns out that I receive news pertaining not just to me, but to pretty much every Gagnon in the English- and French-speaking world.

I was going to adjust it, but some of the tidbits trickling in were so interesting I decided to stick with the original search parameters. After all, I’m probably related to all of these people somewhere down the line. One of my aunts did a full family tree awhile back, and apparently nearly every Gagnon in North America is descended from one of three brothers who immigrated from Normandy to Canada back in the 1600’s. I even have a list of what they brought over on the boat with them- the most interesting item being a jar of worms, since they weren’t certain there would be any in the New World and, as farmers, this was a matter of great concern to them.

What I’ve learned: Gagnons tend to do well in school. Nearly every day I get a post about someone making the honor roll. Sadly, they also have an unfortunate predilection for a life in crime, although apparently they’re not very good at it, since according to local crime blotters the overwhelming majority of them get caught. I wonder what kind of trajectory that indicates. How does Matt Gagnon go from the Dean’s list to knocking over pharmacies? It’s a conundrum.

One name tends to pop up more than the others, however, especially this week. Marie-Michele Gagnon is an alpine skiier from Quebec (where those farmers initially set up homesteads-apparently in some parts of Quebec, “Gagnon” is as common a name as “Smith” in the US.) This year, the twenty year-old made the Canadian Olympic team, and will be representing them (and us) in Vancouver.

I confess to experiencing a swell of pride when that news came over the wire. I’ve been inadvertently tracking Marie-Michele’s career for some time now. She started popping up regularly as a finalist (and occasional winner) of downhill events. Since our names are so similar, it piqued my interest even though I’ve never been much of a skiing fan in the past (this is largely thanks to an unfortunate experience the first time I hit the slopes, when my best friend at the time took me down a black diamond as a joke. It turned out that it wasn’t very funny, and I haven’t been on skis since).

I was beyond thrilled to learn that Marie-Michele won the Nor-Am overall title for 2008-09 season–although I ‘m not entirely certain what that means, it certainly sounds like she’s doing well. And it’s reassuring to know that although I clearly didn’t get the skiing gene, at least one of my distant relatives did. Maybe I’m descended from the wrong brother.

Marie-Michele will be participating in the Ladies’ Slalom and the Ladies’ Giant Slalom next week. I’m feeling quite nervous for her. Come prime time, I’ll be sitting in front of the television, clutching my honorary jar of worms, fervently hoping that she doesn’t experience one of those terrible wipeouts that seem to occur regularly in these events. I hope you’ll join me in wishing Marie-Michele the best–after all, she’s a tribute to Gagnons everywhere. And if this doesn’t work out for her, I sincerely hope she resists the temptation to turn to the dark side.

I’m tagging her in this post, because who knows- maybe she’s been inadvertently tracking me as well.


My Officemate is a Deity

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by Michelle Gagnon

File this under my personal favorite category: truth is stranger than fiction.

I’m lucky to be part of a writing coop called the Sanchez Grotto. A former crack den has been subdivided into small offices, each rented by a different writer. I’m in the “Secret Garden room” in the back, in my personal opinion the best space because it’s right off the kitchen (easy access to food) and has a view of the backyard.

We’re an unusual mix, everything from a travel writer to a screenwriter to an ER psychiatrist. Recently, a member of our motley crew vaulted from relative obscurity to the big time (in Bull Durham terms, he went to “The Show.”)

Raj Patel is a brilliant economist and social activist. His latest nonfiction book, THE VALUE OF NOTHING, is a look at how free market economies have at times done more harm than good. The week of the book’s release, he was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report. It’s a great interview, which kicks off with Colbert digging his interview questions out of the slot in his desk where they’d fallen with his tongue. See it here for a good laugh.

Raj’s book subsequently made it to the New York Times bestsellers list, and everything was going along nicely.That’s when things started to get weird.

He began receiving emails- first a few a day, then hundreds, then a massive flood. Not from Nigerian princes, either- these were from folks asking if he was indeed the Maitreya, and if so how he planned to save the world.

Apparently there’s a New Age guru called Benjamin Creme who has assigned himself the task of alerting the world when the “Maitreya” shows up. For those of you (like me) who have never heard of this before, the Maitreya is supposed to be a great teacher who unites all the religions- sort of a Messiah for everyone.

As it happens, at a public lecture at Friends House, Euston Road, London, on 14 January 2010, Benjamin Creme announced that, “Maitreya, the World Teacher, has given His first interview on American television. Millions have heard Him speak both on TV and the internet. His open mission has begun.”

Guess who appeared on television on January 12th?

So Creme’s followers, not dissuaded by the fact that he’s been wrong before, scoured the airwaves and stumbled across Raj’s interview. What really convinced them was that not only is he a social activist, he’s also of Indian descent, was born in 1972, and has a slight stammer. All of which match the Maitreya checklist.

So believers started flying in to attend his events, some spending thousands on plane tickets.

Raj, understandably perplexed by being thrust into a surreal, “Life of Brian” existence, has vehemently denied all attempts to deify him.

The problem is, apparently if the Maitreya appears, that’s exactly what he’ll do- deny that he is in fact the savior. So the more Raj insists that he’s not what they’re looking for, the more followers believe. Their forums have gone ballistic. They’ve spliced his Amazon author interview together with a Maitreya montage to show the parallels in their philosophies.

Now, I suspect we’ve all known writers who thought they were God. But do we know any who were mistaken for one?

Our other office mate Scott James wrote a piece on this for the NY Times, if you’re curious to hear more details click here.

Just think- if I made this up, chances are no one would believe it.

The Chicken Guy

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by Michelle Gagnon

Excerpt from THE TUNNELS:

“So what do you think?”

Kelly looked up from her notes to find Morrow watching her, rocking back and forth on his heels with a half-smile.

“Not our guy.” She rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger and suppressed a yawn.

“Told you. Long day, huh? Where’d they pull you in from?”

“Jersey.”

“Oh, right, the chicken guy. Nice work on that one.”

“Thanks…”

In my debut thriller THE TUNNELS, I made this oblique reference to FBI Special Agent Kelly Jones’s previous case. Over the years I’ve received several emails from readers curious to hear more about “The Chicken Guy” (although as we here at The Kill Zone know, by all rights that title belongs to Mr. John Ramsey Miller, who is currently breeding a chicken army for world conquest).

So when it came time to submit a story for our anthology, I thought this would be great material to mine.

I’ve probably only composed a few dozen short stories total over the course of my writing career. With this one, I decided to focus on a single setting, the scene that would mark the climax if it were a full novel. I wanted to write something that was almost pure action, where you really got to see Kelly do what she does best.

I enjoyed exploring my heroine through a prequel. Part of the story laid the groundwork for crises she’d face down the line, tests of her moral code that over the course of my series have become increasingly challenge for her to pass. Hints of that popped up as I was writing The Chicken Guy. Knowing where she ends up made it much easier to figure out where she started.

As I was editing, I caught myself wondering if I would have written the story the same way if I’d tackled it immediately before writing THE TUNNELS. And as I’m putting the finishing touches on my fourth novel featuring the same characters, I was struck by how much Kelly in particular had been forced to change. What I love about writing a series (and about watching a well-made TV series, as opposed to a film) is that it enables a much greater story arc. A character grapples with different challenges in each book, challenges that shape how they’ll act when faced with new situations down the line. I’ve put Kelly through the wringer over the course of these four books. She’s emerged far more damaged than when she started, but in a way stronger than she was at the outset. It was interesting for me to look back on her through this lens, to see how far she’s come in so many ways.

We’re discussing assembling another anthology later in the year. For that one, I’m toying with the idea of delving further into the life of a more minor character from the series, one I haven’t had the opportunity to really explore. What I’ve discovered through this process is that short stories can be a great tool for character development, a chance to see how a tangential story line can have an impact. As Joe said, this is a great format to do that kind of exploration.

The anthology is available on Amazon and at Smashwords for the bargain price of $2.99.





The Book Price Wars

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by Michelle Gagnon

I stumbled across this article yesterday:

“The cost of John Grisham’s “Ford County,” officially released Tuesday, moved up and down like stock market shares as rivals Amazon.com and Walmart.com extended, then rescinded, their high discounts for top-selling pre-orders. Early in the day, Amazon was selling Grisham’s book of short stories for $9, the same price it had offered for “Ford County” before publication and a sign that Amazon was ready to continue the cost competition beyond the release date. Walmart.com was selling “Ford County” for $12 early Tuesday, then cut the price to the pre-order discount of $8.98.”

The larger booksellers like Amazon did something similar for Dan Brown’s last release. While most hardcovers retail for $24.95, chances were you could find The Lost Symbol on Amazon for $16, or even less.

But cheap books are a good thing, right?
Wrong, and here’s why.

BYE BYE INDIES:
This type of price fixing devastates independent booksellers, who can’t possibly compete with those discounts. Already under pressure from the big box stores, this trend of offering the most popular releases at huge discounts almost guarantees their demise. I spoke with one independent bookseller the other day who confessed that for some books, she sends her staff to Costco or Wal-mart, because the discount there is far greater than what they receive from their regular distributors. Wal-mart and Amazon are slowly but surely tightening their grip around the throats of the indies with this practice. Although there will always be some consumers who are willing to spend a bit more to support their local bookstore, in a tight economy, it’s unrealistic to expect people to spend two or three times as much for the same product they can order from the comfort of their home.

THE AUTHORS
Right now, the publishing industry has quite literally put all their eggs in one proverbial basket. Fewer than fifty authors are currently propping the industry up. Their books already receive the lion’s share of the marketing budget, and now those books are being offered at previously unheard of discounts. So a typical consumer wanders into a bookstore. What’s the likelihood that they’ll purchase a hardcover by an author they’ve never heard of, when the latest James Patterson opus at the front of the store is selling for half the price? The top of the pyramid will continue to shrink, as the publishers place all their bets on a few proven writers. The likelihood of breaking out, or building an audience, in the face of that is daunting to say the least.

In addition to that, here’s another excerpt from the article, “Authors, publishers and rival booksellers worry that cutting the price so low will harm competition and force down the cost of books overall, leading to a reduction in author advances.” Advances have already shrunk by up to a third this year for many authors. While the writers who are considered “bankable” will still receive six and seven figure advances, most authors will end up working for less than minimum wage. Which means that fewer people will be able to afford pursuing a publishing career, shrinking the talent pool even further.

THE PUBLISHERS
I’ll confess to not knowing exactly how much it costs to produce a hardcover once editing, marketing, typesetting, printing, and distribution costs are factored into the equation. However, now that Amazon, Walmart, and Target are conditioning consumers to expect lower prices, the margins for publishers will shrink. They simply won’t be able to afford to publish as many books each year. Titles that might be viewed as riskier will be avoided entirely. So there will be fewer options out there for readers. Grisham himself acknowledged as much in a recent interview with Matt Lauer, in which he criticized predatory pricing and said it was going to make it much more difficult for aspiring writers to be published, and for publishers and booksellers to survive.

Last week, the ABA sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting that they investigate the predatory pricing practices of vendors like Amazon, Wal-mart, and Target.
Price fixing is never a good thing. The bookselling industry is facing an impending monopoly, with a few retailers gradually eliminating the competition. And if they succeed, it’s bad news for everyone.

The Truth Behind THE GATEKEEPER

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by Michelle Gagnon

This week marked the release of the third book in my series, THE GATEKEEPER. I thought that today I’d share the genesis of the idea for the book along with some fun facts I found out during my research. Brace yourselves- what you’re about to read is even more frightening than a special edition of “Wife Swap” featuring the balloon people.

So a little over a year ago, I was having dinner with a friend who is a veteran FBI agent. We were discussing how his job has changed in the aftermath of 9/11. Somehow the conversation turned to domestic terror groups, like the one that spawned Timothy McVeigh.

Through mouthfuls of pasta, he said, “You know what’s scary? Those groups have doubled in size in the past decade, but after 9-11 all the resources allocated to monitoring them were diverted to foreign terrorism. So there are twice as many of these guys out there, and no one is watching them. And now all these groups share the same agenda: they’re all anti-immigration. My biggest fear is that someone will manage to galvanize them.”

Boom- that was the seed of the idea for THE GATEKEEPER. (I’ve posted a “hate group map” detailing how many of these groups are currently active in America).

So my plot revolves around someone galvanizing them, kind of an American version of Osama bin Laden, who intends to commit the worst terrorist attack on American soil to serve his own ends.

And what would constitute the worst sort of attack? A nuclear one, obviously. But when I started researching, I discovered that in the United States, we’re actually quite adept at managing high level nuclear waste. Spent fuel rods and their ilk are carefully monitored within the country, consolidated at sites like Yucca mountain. And according to ICE, every single shipping container that enters this country undergoes a radiation check, which eliminated the possibility of having uranium smuggled in (although that has become a terrorist mainstay in films and TV series).

However, I also stumbled across this fun fact. While the high level radioactive waste is carefully monitored, the low level stuff that might be used in a dirty bomb is actually loosely tracked. In fact, much of it isn’t monitored at all. Here’s a picture of one such storage site; note how drastically it differs from Yucca Mountain.

In fact, several sources of radiation, mainly from defunct medical and oil drilling equipment, are lost or stolen every year. As of 2008, U.S. companies reported losing track of almost 1,700 radioactive sources, an average of 430 a year. In Texas alone, between 1995 and 2001 more than one hundred and twenty-three items fell off the grid. Most were never recovered.

That’s an average of eight sources a week that no one can account for. And if just one of those fell into the wrong hands, it could be used to create a pretty nasty dirty bomb. Here’s a chart of how many cancer deaths would be caused by one such bomb, if it were set off in Manhattan.

The one fallacy in the book (as far as I know- hey, no book is perfect) is the job that one of my characters holds. He works as a DOD contractor, working on a project to consolidate those types of low level waste. And according to my research, no such safeguards actually exist. Scary, and worth sending a letter to your Congressperson.

I live in California, where border issues are in the paper almost daily, even here in liberal San Francisco. It’s a complex issue, which I tried to show as many sides of as possible in the book. There are no easy answers, so I didn’t try to pitch one side or the other. What I tried to show was how effective hate can be at uniting people, and that’s never a good thing.

As part of my book release, I’m holding a drawing for a MacBook laptop computer. Entry is free, all you have to do is sign up for my newsletter (which comes out rarely, maybe a half-dozen times a year). For ten more entries, answer this question: “Which two characters (aside from Kelly Jones and Jake Riley) appear in both THE TUNNELS and THE GATEKEEPER?”

Beware the Clunky Plot Device

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by Michelle Gagnon

So I’m reading a fairly well-known book right now, and hit a passage that almost caused me to stop reading.

The heroine is fleeing a pursuer barefoot. She narrowly escapes, making it to her car. Just when I was starting to worry for her pedicure, the author explains that, thankfully, she keeps an extra pair of shoes on hand for just this sort of situation (since, apparently, barefoot pursuits happen regularly in her day-to-day life). So she will be spared the embarassment of running unshod throughout the remainder of the storyline a la John McClane in Die Hard.

Really?!

This is something that happens all too frequently: the clunky plot device. I understand that there are times when as a writer you need a cell phone to go dead, or to drop a call. And now that I’m a proud AT&T customer, I’ll admit that it actually does happen with alarming frequency- I experience more dropped calls now then in 1997, frankly. (Love the iPhone. Hate the network).

But must it always happen at a critical juncture?

Okay, I get it: particularly in our genre, plot devices are a bit of a necessary evil. Heck, I’ll confess to utilizing some of these zingers myself: dropped calls, failed radio transmissions, the works. Sometimes you need your hero/heroine to be unable to call for help. Sometimes you need them to be shod in suitable footwear. I actually don’t always mind these devices, but for God’s sake, please give me something. Say that the heroine remembered that her gym bag was in the backseat, with a pair of sneakers inside. There, now you’ve given me a reason to buy into what you’re selling. But just an extra pair of shoes? That’s laziness, plain and simple.

Other irritating devices:

* An object that the hero just happens to have in their possession, which ends up saving his/her life. A Bible in the shirt pocket that stops a bullet, for example.

* The hero escapes imminent danger, but then stops to hang out somewhere absurdly close to where he/she was just in peril. This usually results in the hero narrowly escaping death…again…only to have the exact same thing occur pages later. I call this the, “Will they never learn/for God’s sake, keep moving!” plot device.

* “It was all just a dream!” ‘Nuff said.

* Along with the inconveniently dropped call/ dead cell phone, I submit its benevolent twin, the perfectly-timed call that either saves the hero’s life, or provides him/her with a critical piece of information that advances the story.

* An adjunct to the perfectly-timed call is the extraordinarily convenient event that no one could ever predict, which ends up saving the hero ie: a flock of birds suddenly distracting the killer. Or a car passing by at just the right moment. Or a gun materializing within hand’s reach for no good reason.

* The hero ignoring a perfectly good escape route, only to choose a far more difficult path that is fraught with bad guys/demons/molten lava.

Do plot devices bother you? And which do you hold particular esteem or contempt for?

Hello, my name is…

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by Michelle Gagnon

A confession:
You know those people who claim they never forget a face?
I’m not one of them.
In fact, I’m terrible with faces. Which wouldn’t pose that much of a problem, but I also happen to be awful with names.
My current line of work has only exacerbated the problem. As a writer, I probably meet a few hundred new people a year. Dozens of other writers, readers, and booksellers introduce themselves to me at conferences, readings, events. I make a valiant effort to to commit their faces to memory, even use mnemonics to try to remember their names. And all I end up with is a nearly overpowering desire to shout out, “Mayonnaise!” whenever anyone looks vaguely familiar.

I have a private theory that if my brain wasn’t completely clogged up with early eightie’s song lyrics, I’d be better at this. You should be able to erase files from your mind as easily as you do from your computer (heck, my computer erases files all the time, on its own, without any help from me whatsoever). Gone would be Duran Duran, and the next time I sat at the bar at Left Coast Crime, the name “Anne” would pop into my head when a woman approached.

Alas, despite my best efforts, that hasn’t happened.

Context is also problematic. Say I run into a former classmate at the grocery store. It doesn’t matter how many fourth periods we suffered through together. Without a blackboard and erasers handy, my best guess will be that she goes to the same gym. (I run into people who claim they go to the same gym as I do on a regular basis. It’s all the more puzzling since I rarely set foot in the place).

When I first dove into social networking sites, I was hoping they would prove the answer to my prayers. All those faces and names matched up to each other–perfect! I’d finally have a handy reference to skim before any major event.
And then what do people do? They post a picture of Bruce Lee next to their name. Or a photo of themselves taken in 1972. Or of their dog. Not helpful, people.

In two weeks I head to Bouchercon in Indianapolis. For those who don’t know, it’s one of the largest crime fiction conferences. Thousands of new faces and names to remember.
Some of the people I encounter I will have met before. Chances are I shared a drink with them at some point as well (I find that sadly, alcohol doesn’t help my faculties. Shocking, I know.)

I’ll arrive armed with a welcoming smile and jars full of gingko biloba, and will rummage frantically through my dusty memory files as they remind me that we sat next to each other at a banquet for two interminable hours a few years ago. I’ll pretend to remember, when the truth is I probably don’t (I’ve been to more than my fair share of interminable banquets). The name badges can be helpful, but at conferences they tend to function as de facto wallets/PR material holders, which means that nine times out of ten the person’s name is obscured. I also have yet to master the art of reading the badge without being painfully obvious about it.

I have a friend who has a trick to compensate for this. He always exclaims, “How long has it been!” as soon as anyone approaches him. Generally, this induces said person to provide some helpful tips that narrow the field. He also has a charming Irish accent, which glosses over the discomfort when it turns out they actually have never met. I could try to fake an accent, but I’m not very good at those either.

So, I’m asking a favor. If we have met before, please don’t take offense at the blank expression on my face. I really am doing my best to remember, but all I’m hearing is “Hungry Like a Wolf” on a steady loop.

Circumstances Beyond Our Control

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by Michelle Gagnon

I just handed in the final page proofs for my next thriller, which is always an exhilarating/terrifying moment for me. Exhilarating because I’m finally completely done with the book. And terrifying because from here on out, it’s beyond my control. I have to keep my fingers crossed that the myriad small changes I made are inserted into the final manuscript (since the final few drafts are actual paper copies that get mailed back and forth, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Sad but true, and the best argument I can see for switching to electronic editing across the board).

In line at FedEx, I started thinking about all of the things that are beyond our control as authors (many of which people assume we do control). Here’s my list:

Covers: I always fill out a lengthy form detailing characters, scenes, and plot points. I attach images that I think would look great on the cover, forward jpgs of covers that I loved from other people’s books, and pitch a few concepts. Now, so far I’ve been fortunate enough to receive covers that were vastly superior to anything I could have conceived. But still, there are always a few little things I’d prefer to change. This time, after some back and forth my publisher incorporated a few of the changes I requested into the final design. Here’s the original:

gatekeeper one

I felt the background color was too drab, and all of the text was at the bottom, so you barely noticed anything above the center of the page.

Now here’s the final version:

gatekeeper cover3

Better, right?

Typos: I’m not saying I’m perfect, but occasionally glaring typos appear in the text that were in no draft of the manuscript I submitted. My book club read The Tunnels, and when I walked in for our meeting three people shouted out, “Page 67! What happened there?” Half of the night was consumed by a discussion of some of the typos in the book. Somewhere between my final edits and the typesetting process, new typos appeared. Again, beyond my control (also the reason why I never crack the spine to read the final product. I have never once read one of my books after mailing off the line edits, because if I spot a typo it drives me nuts).

  • Missing Pages: I received emails from a few people who purchased Boneyard, only to discover that fifty pages were missing from the middle of the book. After talking to other authors, I learned that this is not that unusual. A glitch at the printing plant can ruin a whole batch of books. Fortunately, publishers are wonderful about shipping out a replacement copy, if it ever happens to you.

  • Print Runs: This can be make or break for an author. Say your initial print run was 20,000 books. Sell 15,000, and your book is a success story. But if the publisher printed 100,000 copies, and you sold 15,000, your book would be considered a dismal failure and you would be facing an uphill battle to get the next one published. Not fair, right? But as an author, you have no say in whether your print run is five thousand books or five million. You have to just keep your fingers crossed that your publisher’s sales projections are right.

I will say that in book publishing, I still have far more control than I ever did as a magazine writer. Back then, I’d hand in an article and six months later, something came out with my name on it that was virtually unrecognizable.Not always, but frequently enough to be depressing. In book publishing you are definitely allowed a firmer hold on the reins.

Off the top of my head, this is what I came up with (my brain is officially mush after spending the past week muttering sentences aloud over and over again). But I’d love to hear of more circumstances beyond our control, if they occur to you.

Gender Bias

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There was an interesting article in the Guardian this week asking whether or not young female writers are operating at a deficit when itmorrison comes to major literary awards. Not due to any shortcomings on their part, but because (as the author posits) "the literary industry as a whole – agents, editors, booksellers and critics – currently offer disproportionate encouragement to aspiring male writers to produce the kind of serious-minded, bookish work that gets on shortlists, compared to young female writers." The argument being that for whatever reason, publishers prefer discovering the next Norman Mailer to finding another Toni Morrison.

I’m not entirely certain I agree with this, but it’s an interesting piece, particularly since it was written by a young male author. I also did a quick head count, and during the past two decades only five women have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Five mailerwomen won the Man Booker Prize. Only with the Pulitzer did women even approach parity, with eight out of twenty taking home the prize.

This got me thinking about gender bias in our own  neck of the woods. When my agent first called to sign me, she was noticeably taken aback. Toward the middle of our conversation she confessed that after reading THE TUNNELS, she’d thought I was a man (though the name "Michelle" was pretty straightforward, in my opinion). Since the subject matter was so dark, she felt it might appeal to more male readers than female ones. She recommended that I consider adopting a pseudonym, or shortening my name to just the initials (sadly, that would leave me "M.A.Gagnon," which doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, and sounds like something the Mayo Clinic might have a specialized treatment for).

In the end, I opted to stick with my full name. Partly because I didn’t entirely believe that gender bias exists, partly because I’m just obstinate that way. But I do wonder. When I meet people at conferences who have read my books, the universal exclamation is, "but you seem like such a sweet girl." I suspect that very few male authors are referred to as "sweet" when they meet their fans, or hear that they seem "too happy to write these sorts of books."nobel

Impossible to say whether or not it affects my sales. Occasionally this question rears its head on one of the mystery discussion groups, and everyone gets up in arms. Most people declare that they will happily read any book regardless of who wrote it. But does that apply to the world at large? Especially since I don’t write cozies (which are marketed more toward women), but thrillers, is my name working against me?

Where do you stand? Will you read anything by anyone? Or does gender bias sneak into your decision-making process, subconsciously or otherwise?

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.