I am a sucker for man-against-nature movies. I pretty much see them all, and hope for just two things: a great story, and as much realism as possible. I’m not sure if The Grey has enough of either.

Liam Neeson stars as a “wolf sniper” for an oil refinery. He hides in the woods in his massive, puffy white Canada Goose jacket and picks off stalking wolves with his rifle as they ferociously charge groups of men working on the oil pipeline.

We’re three minutes in and this is the first completely unrealistic element of the film. No lone wolf in its right mind would ever attack five huge men working with tools on a pipeline. Nonetheless, that’s Liam’s gig.

The action really takes off when the refinery crew board a plane in a snowstorm, bound for Anchorage. The plane horrifically crashes in the middle of a horrendous blizzard, and suddenly it’s the survivors versus the nastiest pack of wolves this side of Hades, which is possibly the metaphor the filmmakers were going for.

All of the crew and most of the passengers are killed in the outrageous crash, but Wolfsniper Liam Neeson survives and quickly takes charge of the rest of the rag-tag, shell-shocked survivors.

Almost immediately they are set upon by a bloodthirsty pack wolves from all angles, and yes, Liam Neeson fights a wolf with his fists when he discovers it munching ravenously on a human. Liam explains to the panicked survivors that the wolves don’t want to eat them; they simply want to kill them.

Neeson’s character then inexplicably convinces the survivors to leave the plane, trudging them through white-out conditions to reach the tree line where “they’ll be safe”.

Wha… why? Why leave the fuselage of the plane? The number one rule of survival in the elements is seek shelter. They had that with the plane and left it far behind, and with it seemingly any chance of rescue. That plan bites them in the ass… literally.

And here’s when the movie turns into a cross between Cujo, The Blair Witch Project, and Ten Little Indians. Characters are predictably picked off one by one from various gruesome deaths, though none perish or even suffer from frostbite, starvation, hypothermia, or exposure,  the most common causes of death in frozen wildness situations.

Wait — am I being too nit-picky? Should I have suspended my disbelief and simply enjoyed the fright fest of the men at their campfire, sleeping on the snow, surrounded by what sounds like a gutteral Orc army from Lord of the Rings?

The filmmakers know that being attacked by wild animals is at the top of most peoples’ greatest fears, and for that reason we can’t look away from the screen (besides the guy in front of me who scrolled Twitter on his iPhone during any scenes with dialogue).

For anyone who has spent any time in the wilderness in the winter in BC, the mountainous backdrops are at once beautiful, familiar, and foreboding.

I really, really wanted to like The Grey, but wound up disillusioned and bemused by its premise. In its place, I would strongly recommend alternate, true-life man-against nature films, such as Sean Penn‘s Into The Wild or Werner Herzog‘s Rescue Dawn. And if you want to see what timber wolves are really like in the wild, check out Never Cry Wolf.

Have you seen The Grey? What did you think?

In the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, on Saturdays, I would take the bus into downtown Vancouver to shop for records, on a weekly journey of musical discovery.

Back then, there were plenty of new bands that I simply had to take a chance on to find out if I liked them or not, which was an expensive gamble for a teenager. I developed a system of trust that was based on what indie label the record was on, and it worked like a charm for years.

I had my favourites, like Sub-Pop from Seattle, K Records from Olympia, Og Records from Montreal, Dischord from Washington DC, Norton from New York, Hangman from Chatham England, and Sympathy for the Records Industry from Los Angeles. But my very favourite record label, the one I would get the most excited about when I flipped over the record and saw that logo (above), was Lookout! Records from Berkeley, California.

I LOVED the punk rock energy of the records that came from that label, from bands like Screeching Weasel, the Queers, the Ne’er Do Wells, Green Day, Pansy Division, Operation Ivy, and the Mr. T Experience. It was pop-punk, mostly based in what the Ramones had blueprinted, but sonically advanced through much more audible singing; sometimes angry, sometimes funny, but always stressing melody, melody, melody, with more hooks than a Desolation Sound tackle box.

In 1995, my dreams came true when my very own band The Smugglers “got signed” to Lookout! Records. Suddenly, we had that logo on the back of our records!!! Lookout’s logo had changed by then, but I insisted that the classic, original logo appear on the back of our records.

We were thrust into an incredible community of bands who welcomed us with open arms (mostly because we always brought the party) as we joined an independent record label at its very height, run by a creative nucleus that included Larry Livermore, (one of the most influential figures in the American indie underground), Chris Appelgren (the artist who created many of the most iconic Lookout logos, covers, and artwork), and Molly Neuman (the woman who co-founded the riot grrrl movement a few years earlier in Olympia).

L-R: Larry Livermore (Lookout co-founder), Jess Hilliard, Evan, Chris Imlay, John Denery (the Hi-Fives), Grant Lawrence, Nick Thomas (The Smugglers)

We’d take part in star-studded Lookout! Records showcases at music events like the CMJ Music Marathon in New York and South By Southwest in Austin. The Lookout showcase would be the hottest at the festival, always selling out with a line around the block.

The stack of bands would include The Queers, the Mr. T Experience, cub, Pansy Division, the Hi-Fives, and the Smugglers, and a full-on raging rock ‘n’ roll party would erupt for five hours on stage to a riotous crowd. In later years, we’d be joined by the Groovie Ghoulies, the Criminals, the Donnas, and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.

Lookout Records showcases in New York would always attract all sorts of luminaries, such as Joey and Johnny Ramone, Joan Jett, Bob Mould, Kim Fowley, Lemmy from Motorhead, William Shatner, and various Saturday Night Live stars, making us performers on stage pretty much just as starstruck as those in the audience.

Having Lookout’s trademark of quality on the back of our records was the turning point in our “career”, launching us way beyond Canada for successful tours across the USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Just like the “Mint Records Effect” in Canada, all international promoters needed to hear was “Lookout Records” and we’d get the show/the tour/the guarantee.

We eventually released three full length records (Selling The Sizzle, Rosie, Mutiny in Stereo), one live album (Growing Up Smuggler), one EP (Buddy Holly Convention) and one split EP (Summer Games, with the Hi-Fives) in our ten year span on Lookout.

Today, while working on my new book in France, I found out through Ted Leo’s blog, that after 24 years, Lookout Records has officially called it quits.The label hasn’t released a new record since the late 2000s and was existing only on back catalogue, but apparently that has also ceased as of the end of 2011.

So… thank you Lookout Records for making a teenager’s dream come true. It was one of the most exciting, visceral periods of my life so far, and whenever I see that classic logo I’ll always remember the good times.

Lookout Records 15th Anniversary Party, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco CA.

What’s your favourite Lookout Records memory/release/band/show?

* The Mr. T Experience 2004 album title.

Bonjour from France, the land of romance, cheese, wine, champagne, berets, bread, bottled water, Asterix and Obelix, and hopefully literally inspiration! I’m currently sequestered over here in the lovely southern part of the country, with one goal in mind: write as much of my next book as I possibly can.

My wife is here as well, attending an intensive French language course every week day from 9am to 5pm, so I thought what better place for a loudmouth like me to write my next book than a place where I can’t speak the language?

The fact that my French ain’t so great isn’t going over very well with certain French citizens. As soon as they find out I’m from Canada, they shout in my face “MON DIEU! Canada! Francais!!” Then I yell back “Non, non! Moi du OUEST CANADA! OUEST COTE MOI!” They look unimpressed with this answer.

I CAN understand many words, read most things, and get along just fine on my own, strolling around our village wearing a black beret my wife bought me to wear at all times… I just sound like a monosyllabic caveman when I actually speak:

“QUELLE TEMPS FERME?” That means “Excuse me madame, would you be so kind as to inform me what time your lovely boutique closes for the day, hmmm?” My wife, in the advanced French course at her school, is concerned I will sully her reputation in the village with my barbarian linguistics.

On weekends, my wife and I have had lots of stressful fun navigating the back roads of the French Riviera in a little three wheeled rental car, visiting ancient villages in the foothills of the French Alps like St. Paul de Vence, Grasse, Vallebonne, and Chateauneuf, as well as the sunny beach resorts of Cannes, Antibes, and Nice.

The stress comes when I have on more than one occasion burned rubber into a roundabout without yielding. This is a NON NON in France.

In the fragrant town of Grasse, where perfume was invented, I came very close to almost running down a motorcycle policeman in a roundabout. He skidded to stop and yelled at me. I waved, gave the thumbs up, and said “TOUTE LE MONDE!” He then made a half-hearted attempt to pull us over, looked at us again, and simply didn’t bother. Maybe it was my black beret?

We stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast in the hills over Cannes for a few nights. The owner, Wayne Brown, an Englishman, was kind enough to take us out in his speed boat on the crystal clear and azure Mediterranean Sea to see the palatial hotels and palm trees of Cannes framed by the snowcapped mountains of the Alps beyond. Stunning.

On my next wander, I hope to track down the villa where the Rolling Stones made one of their greatest albums: Exile On Mainstreet. It’s around here somewhere.

It’s been a wonderful retreat so far, the French are fantastic and welcoming people despite the rumours, and its all bringing back a rush of memories of many Smugglers European tours… now back to my primary goal.

And hey, let me know if you have any travel tips for the south of France!