“And . . .”
“And thank you all for work well done.” Jake’s mechanical tone undermined the sentiment, a sentence read from a cue card.
A round of claps closed the evening.
4.
“Catch you on set for the sequel, Professor?” Jake asked. Marta was buttoning her coat.
“Yes, certainly.”
“We’ll be in touch if the deal goes down.”
“Thanks again. It was a valuable opportunity.” She sensed the ridiculousness of the words and their stiff, empty formality, but even at this late date Jake’s reserve made her tense.
5.
“You ready to head out?” Jake had MC’d countless screenings, attendance a cemented line in the job description. “I need to check with the guy locking this place up, so five minutes.”
“Sure,” Antony said. “Where’s the men’s? My bladder’s about ready to burst.”
“Out the door, down the hall, and hang a left.” He watched Antony wind through the talkative stragglers of the audience; at the sure tug of lust, he felt glad about reading body language correctly that first night. The moment had been wrong, that’s all.
Timing’s everything, he’d learned.
At the location shoot in the valley, Jake had tumbled off the chastity express wagon less than twenty-four hours after he’d climbed aboard—a sequestered failing and remaining so. Sharing had grown into a plague of the times, anyhow; silence helped stamp it out.
Jake frowned with puzzlement when he later burped up pieces of the scene at unpredictable intervals as though expelling a build-up of guilt, like the murderer in that Edgar Allan Poe story he’d worked on for Masters of Horror. He’d question the eruption each time a chunk surfaced. Eventually, he dismissed the possibility of guilt, and decided the process reflected his brain’s processing of disgust, as though he’d been forced—or, far worse, chosen of free will—to eat a bowl of vomit, or swim in a sewer.
Like those woeful self-loathing drunks confessing the exhaustive details of their latest disaster to empathetic peers at the rebound AA meeting, Jake suffered as much disdain for the failure of resolve as machine gun pangs of humiliation about the seedy choice of venue. After all, the failure wasn’t just a sleeve of lager that he’d ordered with lunch, but a trashy bender in which any liquid containing alcohol served his needs.
The episode right after the casino wrap party represented a serious misstep, the sexual version of a Lysol and hairspray cocktail chugged while sprawled under an overpass. And while the bush geezers no doubt congratulated themselves afterwards for talking him into lowering his pants and letting them go to town, Jake alone comprehended the reality: he’d gone there with resigned conviction about the eventual outcome. Slumming had never been part of his repertoire; and after trying it on for size, he wanted only to have the memory dead and buried. With that, he suspected, the remorse would scatter too.
Still blue and repelled a week later, Jake walked into the trendy place decked out in the style of an old Chinatown apothecary. Nursing a scotch in the dim light while waiting for face time with Jeremy—running late, as always—he became conscious of a figure approaching.
“Hey,” the man said. Jake recognized him easily.
Jake nodded.
“It’s Antony. We, er, met at The Recovery Room.”
“Oh right, how could I forget? Where’s the other half?”
“Krysta. Not really sure where she’s at. Long story.”
“Gotcha.” Antony wanted to unload, but Jake wasn’t interested in a sob story.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say Hey.”
“Cool.” Jake checked the door for his delayed buddy. “See you around maybe.” Jeremy would snap him out of his sulk with tales of midnight exploits, dedicated internet trolling, and crazy medical histories, casually bending the rules of doctor-patient confidentiality—names withheld, of course.
“Sure thing, man. Here’s my card. If you’re ever, I dunno, in the area or something.”
Jake read it as Antony disappeared into the fashionable murk: ANTONY THAQI - CONSULTANT, FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS. He pocketed the card.
6.
Feet crunching on the diamantine litter of smash-and-grabs, Marta surveyed the few remaining cars in the parking lot—intact but slick from an early winter downpour that had passed through during the screening. A sense of misconduct assailed Marta when she caught sight of the shiny, newly leased black German coupe. Hearing of it, her father had shaken his head and muttered “money down the drain,” hurt that his only daughter hadn’t called for advice.
Chaz huffed. “Snow soon?”
“I doubt it. None tonight, definitely.”
“I thought with La Niña or El Niño or whatever we’re in for. . . .” Chaz kicked a beer bottle cap. “Never mind. So, what did you think of the ambiguously gay duo?”
“Sorry?”
“Jake and Antony.”
“Really? I thought Antony was a colleague.”
“An ass colleague maybe. He’s a stock trader or something financial like that.” Chaz stopped. Running late, he’d wound up parked at an adjacent lot. “They’re ‘friends,’” the quote from an unnamed source. “But Lora says they’re really tight, like a couple doing the nasty, not a couple of dudes bromancing over beer while watching the Canucks lose.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“Yeah, Jake’s a total skank; he’ll get with nearly anybody. And a Kinsey three.”
“He didn’t pursue me.” Marta enjoyed the novelty of an incidental conversation at night in a darkened parking lot in an iffy part of town. “You?”
“Nope. He doesn’t do industry, that’s what Lora told me.”
“That Lora’s a fount of information. I’m loath to think what she’d say about me.”
“Nothing but good things.” He smiled. “Scout’s honour.”
“I see.”
“I could handle a bite before we turn in. Light on the fat, though, I’m cutting back.”
“I’ve noticed.” Subtle hints about fitness, she’d discovered, a poorly received tactic. “There’s fruit and yogurt at my house.”
“I said cutting back, not in complete self-denial. I’m not the Gandhi type.”
“You choose then.”
“Pie somewhere.”
“Okay.” Intuition and experience told her to stamp down the ready lecture about pie as a diet item. “This is not the greatest city for pie, but how about that place we tried before, The Refinery?”
“Deal. I’ll get there way before you, Professor Ten and Two. Want me to text Lora and company to say where we’re heading?”
“Sure. Why not?”
REGIONAL MARKETS
1.
IMDB.com
User Reviews
*****
Low expectations exceeded!!
5 Sept. 2012 | by Amit-Chanakyapuri (India) – See all my reviews
The plot=weird, the acting=so-so, the science=huh?!? You could drive a bus thru the plot holes!
The special effects are convincing here, not convincing there. Same with dramatic scenes.
The end is disappointing (a sequel set up, totally) and there is zero suspense.
The only reason not to give this a lower vote is because it is a TV movie and I believe the budget was pennies to start off with.
If you can overlook the badness, overall it’s fun to sit down with and watch if you can deal with mid grade B films. Has some gore here and there, some nice scenery, some decent sets, and some interesting characters. But you have to be into these kind of stories, time period, etc, to begin with. It’s worth watching to see Tracy Scoggins, who is better here than she ever was in Dante’s Cove. Good effort overall for what it is.
Probably there could have been more gore and blood in the movie to
keep horror fans happy.
It wasn’t a tenth as scary as Aliens but it was still reasonably good, absolutely not a time waster.
Definitely worth a watch.
I have to give it a 5.
2.
Exxtreme Outer Limitz: The Online Fanzine of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Reviews
February 2012
The Wrap-Up: “Alien Assault”: Entertaining cheese, worth a look if it’s snowing and you have nothing better to do. And AA might inspire you to rent the way better movies it rips off.
Alien Assault is a typical package the Psy/Fi Channel churns out these days: the cookie-cutter monster movie. (Maybe Psy/Fi ordered an expensive computerized script-writing robot and needs to get its money’s worth?) Okay, a bit different than usual was the story shifting between centuries.
AA has been made without much effort beyond disguising the wooden formula’s unmissable thefts. The movie’s purpose is to set up scenes of makeup effects (meh) while members of the supporting cast—unknowns, with one exception—are dispatched by the CGI alien every few minutes. We did like the maid with ’tude, true, and the sight of her severed head landing in the sand was cable-level genius.
Three Words or Less: Hackwork, Occasionally Inspired.
2.5 stars.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Unbeknownst to me over a decade ago, ideas for this novel began to coalesce during a late-night visit to Stanley Park. I’d been invited there to catch the shooting of a scene from First Target, a TV movie starring Daryl Hannah. Readying ‘Washington State Park’ for camera took an eternity, so I eventually left without having seen Ms. Hannah’s Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor or heard the director’s “Action!” From that point, a brief exchange about Alice Munro’s reputed personality at a dinner with my ex and three of his American film industry colleagues and encounters with Lytton Strachey’s Books and Characters and Virginia Childs’ Lady Stanhope: Queen of the Desert (plus: non-encounters in the form of overheard bus and classroom conversations, postings on Craigslist, and so on) provided me with an abundance of source material. While invention is no doubt foundational to storytelling, This Location of Unknown Possibilities could be reasonably called an instance of repurposed found objects.
Emily Morse Symonds, Walter Pater, Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Edna St. Vincent Millay may be rolling in their graves at my borrowings throughout the novel. To them I apologize: no disrespect was intended. As for Lady Stanhope and Doctor Meryon’s alien stalking, that spectral twosome can blame Hollywood.
Pen in hand, redoubtable Carellin Brooks laboured over two cruder versions of the manuscript and handed me tart but invaluable reactions and suggestions over pleasantly combative lunches. Further gratitude: a small grant from the Canada Council arrived with perfect timing.
Chris Needham expressed immediate interest in my project and for that I’m all kinds of grateful. A few other publishing in dustry professionals set aside time to read the entire manuscript before rejecting it, and I’d like to thank them for pushing on after the first chapter and offering feedback.
Listed last but foremost in my heart, there’s Alex, whose initial enthusiasm for (and later tolerance of) my self-assigned, intrusive, and financially counter-intuitive part-time occupation of writing fiction ought to earn him the heights of prosperity and happiness in his next incarnation.
Brett Josef Grubisic’s first novel, The Age of Cities, was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Prize. He’s the author of Understanding Beryl Bainbridge and co-editor of National Plots: Historical Fiction and Changing Ideas of Canada. He lives in Vancouver and teaches at the University of British Columbia.
Author photo: Alexander Crouse
Cover design: HonkHonk Graphic Arts
Tomorrowland film set photo: Brett Josef Grubisic
This Location of Unknown Possibilities Page 33
