I alway forget what a masterpiece of social commentary is Taylor Hackford's The Devil's Advocate (1997) on top of everything else that makes it a first-tier Satanic thriller that deftly skewers the "me-first" greed and conspicuous consumption that defined the 1980s, and the fetishization of lawyers, in the same way that Wall Street levelled the cult of insider trading. There are some tour-de-force performances, most notably by Judith Ivey as Keanu Reeves' fundamentalist Christian mother (the only person who seems to understand what's going on) and a heartbreaking one by Charlize Theron as his unsuspecting wife, slowly being driven insane by the supernatural happenings targeting her. There is a chillingly prescient turn by Craig T. Nelson as a Donald Trump figure accused of murder (ever the egotist, Trump allowed the production to film inside his Trump Tower penthouse.) I am not universally a fan of Al Pacino, who's occasionally struck me as a bit of a scenery chewer, but aside from Robert De Niro in Angel Heart, it was difficult for me to imagine any other actor as Satan after The Devil's Advocate. The film is also judiciously—and elegantly—sprinkled with Biblical imagery ("Walk with me," Pacino's Milton invites Reeves' rawboned Florida lawyer, just before offering him Manhattan, literally laid out at his feet) but never in any proselytizing way. It never, ever forgets that it's a blue-chip horror film. In my mind, it's the natural successor to Rosemary's Baby as the perfect New York demonicum.
“At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.”
I flew to L.A. in 2001, a few weeks after 9/11, to meet Clive Barker and talk to him about his then-forthcoming sexy, creepy haunted Hollywood novel, Coldheart Canyon, for The Advocate. The airports in Toronto and L.A. were like ghost towns, with everyone vigilant and on their best behaviour. I read the galleys on the plane. The next day was warm and soft, a Southern California fall day like something out of a movie about Southern California in the fall. I met Barker at his house that afternoon, and we spoke for two and a half hours, about books, films, life, and Coldheart Canyon. Throughout, he couldn't have been more generous and forthcoming—a true gentleman, on and off tape, then and now.
My 1985 interview with Michael Damian, the Y&R star who had just then released his first album, in Close-Up magazine. This may have been my third, or fourth professional interview ever. Editors Angie Colgoni and Libby Starke of Close-Up did more to kick start my magazine writing career in those days than anyone else, and I'm grateful to this day for the kindness and patience they showed a 23-year old keener with more ambition than restraint.
As for Mr. Damian himself—he was fun and unpretentious, and had the best 1985 hair of anyone I'd ever met.
On Sunday October 11th, 2015, my essay "Giving Thanks For New-Stock Canadians"—a reply to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dogwhistle appeal for unity and primacy among "old-stock" Canadians (read: white; Protestant/Catholic; English/Scottish/Irish), in an attempt to pit them against immigrants, at the ballot box—made the front page of Huffington Post Canada.
It ran on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and was an exceptionally proud moment for me as a culture critc.
Plus, we got Justin Trudeau, who ran on a pro-diversity platform, on top of everything, else as Prime Minister that year, so the whole thing was a win-win.
"Both boys have safari chairs, presents from Aunt Nuzah and Uncle Fouad Hamzeh. Mike can use his easily, but we still have to help E. get out of his. He climbs up just fine, but goes head-first when climbing down."
—Mum writing to Great-Aunt Treva Quinn, Beirut, October, 1964
My parents took me to The Sound of Music in 1966. It was showing at a grand, gilded cinema in Beirut—the kind we used to have, with stills from the film posted throughout the lobby. Although I must have been four at the time, I was spellbound. The scene at the start of the film before the credits, with the alps, meadows, and, finally, Salzburg coming in out of the clouds, still fills me with a nostalgia that borders on vertigo.
Mum and Dad were at first amused, then baffled, the finally annoyed when I insisted on seeing it a dozen times before it left the theatre. Needless to say there was some delight on my part when, decades later, they read in some respectable magazine or other that an obsession with The Sound of Music in childhood was very common among gay men of a certain age.
That said, my favourite memory of that first viewing wasn't even the film itself. It was my father taking me across the street to a record shop an purchasing the soundtrack album—maybe my first record shop, and certainly my first soundtrack album. It's difficult to explain in this age of digital streaming and iTunes how magical it might have seemed to a four-year old boy that the transformative experience of watching The Sound of Music could be extended by crossing the street and taking an LP off the rack.
The film iteration of the von Trapp family became people I felt I knew—the children notwithstanding, as I could never keep them straight, except Liesl—and Plummer's Captain von Trapp almost as much as Julie Andrews' Maria.
It seemed therefore unremarkable, though truly lovely, when my best friend Ron Oliver came to direct Mr. Plummer in his third film, Liar's Edge, in 1992, more like a family occurrence than excellent casting.
As to his passing today, I've been relieved not to see the usual level of ostentatious boo-hooing on Facebook that so often accompanies the death of a film legend, even one in his 90s.
Speaking for myself, and, I suspect, a few others, it's likely because Mr. Plummer felt like a beloved member of our families, someone we grew up with, someone we loved, and someone who never failed to delight us, impress us, and inspire us. If he'd really been a member of our family, he might have been the uncle who taught us to tie a bow tie properly.
And now, at the lofty, leonine age of 91, and in all his power, he finally has left us. Fortunately we can all mean it this time when we utter the platitudinous phrases Thanks for the memories and Rest in peace. This time, we get to be dignified, the way he always was. The passing of a giant always leaves a shadow on the sun, even briefly.
This is Mario Geo's 1967 Toronto Star photograph of American Olympic gold medalist and ex-pro football Milt Campbell and his family, residents of Cooksville, Ontario, moving back to New Jersey to join in the Civil Rights movement following the Newark Riots that year.
Campbell was the first Black decathlete ever to win the gold medal, in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Campbell played one season of football for the Cleveland Browns before being fired by the team's coach Paul Brown, according to Campbell because of his marriage to a white woman. Determined to continue to play football, Campbell found himself welcomed by Canada and the CFL, playing for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts until his retirement from football in 1964. Upon his return to the United States, he started a community centre and co-founded the Chad School in Newark, which had a specific focus on Black history and culture.
Campbell was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1992, and he died in 2012, in Georgia, from complications related to prostate cancer.
Campbell's life and career were extraordinary, and should, in all fairness, have been the subject of a major biopic by now. Perhaps one of the brilliant young screenwriters and directors making films today—in either of our two countries—will rediscover this story, and start writing. Check out this excellent video here.
A detail from John Singleton Copley's "The Death of Major Pierson, 6 January 1781" (1783) features a Black Loyalist soldier fighting on the British side. During Black History Month in Canada, it's worth remembering that the Black Loyalists—former American slaves who joined the British side in the War of Independence—were among the original non-Native Canadians, and should be counted among Canada's founders and settlers, in spite of the terrible struggles they endured, against everything from the violent weather to various forms of institutionalized racism, in a new country that promised them acceptance and land, and frequently shirked on both counts. Many of the Loyalists eventually left Canada, travelling to Africa and settling in Freetown, in Sierra Leone. Those who remained, and established themselves in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada, contributed to the evolving fabric of the new nation. Until relatively recently, their achievements and histories have been downplayed in favour of Canada's (predominantly white European colonial) history.
Does anyone else map out the writing of their books with mnemonic devices? Each of my novels has had an associated fragrance, usually via a scented candle, that acts as a device to immerse me me in my story as soon as the candle is lit. For October, I used a Yankee Candle Company candle in "Spiced Pumpkin," which deftly caught the Halloween season in my mind. For Wild Fell, my friend Elliot gifted me a French candle that called to mind the vast, dim interior of a cathedral during candlelit mass. In the case of Enter, Night I used sealed, unopened 70s-era vintage perfumes that recalled the era, and dabbed them on the lightbulbs in my office, including the obvious teenage fragrances, like Love's Baby Soft and vintage Chantilly by Houbigant (thanks, Ebay) partially when it came to writing the characters of Christina and her daughter, Morgan. The candle for the new novel is Voluspa's "Sake Lemon Flower." I purchased three of them, which will hopefully see me through the entire writing. The novel is set in the early 80s and the present day, so the scent is clean and modern, and sensuous without being overpowering. Next to music (each of the novels have their own writing soundtracks, too) nothing links me more tightly to memory, and narrative, than scent.
