More vampires, magic atop bestseller lists & C.R.A.Z.Y.

Apropo of my last post about movies usurping literature as the standard for the arts here is an article which appeared in the papers about the latest phenomenon atop the bestseller lists. To quote myself (Oh I love doing this): And here's another prediction: the fiction bestseller lists will increasingly feature books that have filmic qualities, magic, fantasy, adventure etc.

Now, to completely contradict myself, I watched C.R.A.Z.Y. this weekend. If you grew up in the seventies, do yourself a favour, go out and rent (or borrow, as we did from the library) this movie. It's the best evocation of growing up during that period I've seen on film. It brought back a flood of disturbing memories. It was also an extremely moving (yes, it got under my skin) portrait of teenage angst and alienation, with powerful individual performances, and the added dimension of one young man's struggle with being gay in a homophobic family. This may sound odd, but one aspect that surprised me was how similar the mill-town, middle-class, strictly Roman Catholic upbringing of Quebecois portrayed in the film felt to my own, which was Montreal, Jewish, more upper-middle-class. I guess the seventies were the seventies - blond Lebanese, Pink Floyd and Ziggy Stardust - in Hampstead and Trois Riviere. The film is stylishly shot, and richly layered, once again showing that Quebec films leave Canadian films wanting.