Category: Movies

I am an extraordinary thief

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The new TV On The Radio starts out strong but then fizzles. The new HBO show True Blood is okay but not great, and a far cry from the likes of The Wire, Deadwood or The Sopranos. Federal elections on both sides of the border leave me cold as candidate after candidate spew the safest tripe and make a supreme effort to not say or do anything that might get notices. I adore how Christopher Hitchens explains why God Is Not Great but it ultimately feels hollow because I know only other atheists will read the book. The new Kings of Leon is like a jelly doughnut: tasty around the edges but squishy in the middle. The first episode of Heroes was rubbish, not that I expected otherwise. Fall is setting in and the sky is already turning that shade of gray that sticks around all winter.

Dear world…excitement: please give me it. Or at least inspire me to manufacture some of my own. Maybe have a radioactive spider bite me or have my condo building taken over by Hans Gruber.

[tags]tv on the radio, true blood, christopher hitchens, kings of leon, heroes[/tags]

The great migration

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I took a break from setting up the new computer, during the only few hours of the day it didn’t seem to be raining, to see our last Toronto FC game of the season. Things didn’t look good for a long time…an FC defender headed the ball into his own net in the first half, but with just 15 minutes left in the name Marvel Wynne made an amazing run to the middle and blasted it over the Houston keeper to gain a 1-1 tie.

Back home and back to setting up the new hotness, with another long break to order pizza and watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I really liked) and how here I sit, surrounded by boxes, watching an amazingly clear TV picture in one corner of my screen while I blog on another and watch my Samurize stats in yet another.

[tags]new computer, toronto fc, houston dynamo, the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford[/tags]

So this is what regular life feels like

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Long weekends used to mean an extra day to get schoolwork done before going back to the office. This long weekend, on the other hand, has meant an aggressive regime of nothing topped off with some lazy-sprints. True, we’ve cleaned up and organized and bought some things for the condo, and done the usual mundane housekeeping things like groceries, laundry and, well, housekeeping, but it’s felt like a very nice, relaxing weekend indeed. I had no intention of going away or doing anything for the long weekend (TIFF all but prohibits that anyway), just enjoying the city. And the weather…my god, the weather. Sunny & warm, but not muggy or smoggy. Just perfect. The barbeque’s gotten a workout.

Speaking of TIFF, Nellie got all 20 of her #1 picks too. She never did get her email, but we checked online et voila. We have 17 together, which is nice; always better to have someone with you in the line.

We’ve watched a couple of movies this weekend too, in an attempt to clear off the PVR in advance of next week when some things will pile up. Dan In Real Life (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was ok…cute, if a little boring. Steve Carell proved once again that he can do subtle as well as over-the-top. 30 Days Of Night (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t bad, as far as violent vampire thrillers go, but when your two leads are as bland and expressionless as Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, you’re in trouble. Timothy Hutton almost saved the film, but not quite.

[tags]tiff, toronto weather, dan in real life, 30 days of night[/tags]

TIFF: the most wonderful time of the year

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I have now read through the film festival guide book and marked off the films I would like to see. This is my first year seeing 30, and I think I may not have been sufficiently adventurous. Seeing 30 films means picking 60 (you pick a 1st and 2nd choice for each ticket) and I don’t think I’ve marked 60 films that aren’t off-limits because of venue.

Nellie’s going through hers right now. We have to have them all selected by the end of the night since I’m leaving town tomorrow. Speaking of which…must pack.

.:.

More film news: they’re making not one, but two sequels (probably) to Hard Core Logo (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Time to grow hair again, Hugh Dillon.

[tags]tiff, tiff08, hard core logo[/tags]

"It makes me aerodynamic, for fighting."

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We saw Pineapple Express (imdb | rotten tomatoes) yesterday. I guess I liked it…I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie by any means, but it was very funny at times. I probably would’ve been confused by the movie’s style had I not known David Gordon Green was the director. He injected some of his style into an otherwise typically Rogen/Goldberg script, which worked for some scenes and made others feel odd. It gave the movie a pretty uneven feel, but the funny moments were good enough to make up for it. Some surprisingly prolonged fight scenes too.

After that we met up with CBGBLB and some of CB’s family for dinner at beerbistro. Much tastiness ensued…for the second straight night. I watched a little Olympic action and then slept like the dead, fortunately nowhere near all the explosions. Check out the pictures and video of that at Photojunkie.

[tags]pineapple express, beerbistro, toronto propane explosions[/tags]

It is with mixed emotions…

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Earlier in the week Torontoist reported that Yorkville’s Cumberland Cinema will soon be demolished.

The Cumberland Cinema is being demolished to make room for another towering condo development. We don’t know yet when it is going to happen, but we do know that this is a terrible shame: while the loss of the theatre isn’t significant from an architectural or stylistic standpoint, it’s a saddening blow to independent movie fare in the downtown core.

I’m torn about this news. On one hand, as Torontoist points out, the Cumberland shows a lot of first-run indie films that tend to start there, move to the Carlton and then disappear. It serves the niche of films that are a little too indie for the Varsity, and much to indie for the Scotiabank or Yonge-Dundas 24, but not so indie that they go straight to the Bloor. Put another way: I’m pretty sure every Wes Anderson movie had its Toronto debut at the Cumberland.

On the other hand, the Cumberland is a shite theatre. The screens are small, the sound is awful, the sight lines are bad (especially for my vertically challenged wife), and it’s always cold enough in there to chill white wine while you watch a film. I suspect I’ll miss the niche the Cumberland filled more than I’ll miss the Cumberland itself; my hope is that the Varsity picks up a little of the slack. It is, in my opinion, still the best theatre in Toronto.

Just a note: I was going to list the four movies currently playing at the Cumberland to demonstrate the quality of movies they usually show, but the lineup this week is Man on Wire, Closing the Ring, Step Brothers and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. That’s one well-reviewed documentary along with three pieces of crap. Maybe I’m not so torn after all…

[tags]cumberland cinema, torontoist[/tags]

"Sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip"

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Ken Jennings freaked me out today. It’s kind of a long story, so stay with me.

Last night I was reading a chapter on business ethics in my textbook (no, really!) and it briefly touched on a bunch of the biggies…Rawls, Kant, Mill, and so on. I guess it must’ve lingered in my head, because this morning in the shower I started thinking about Kant. That immediately got me singing the Bruce’s Philosopher Song from Monty Python, and then I started thinking about the excellent movie Quiz Show (imdb). If you haven’t seen it, it’s about how Charles Van Doren went along with the cheating on the quiz show 21, deceiving the public. There was one particularly funny scene:

Van Doren, contemplating the moral implications of being given the answers: “I just wonder what Kant would think of this.”

Freedman, trying to get him to do it, and not having a clue who Kant is: “Uh…I think he’d be ok with it.”

So I laughed about that in the shower this morning, and then today I saw this post on Ken Jennings’ blog about Charles Van Doren. Now, Charles Van Doren isn’t a topic that comes up in my regular everyday routine, so to think about him so clearly twice in a few hours…weird. I got a little freaked out…started checking over my shoulder. Kind of a Truman Show moment.

[tags]ken jennings, rawls, kant, mill, monty python, charles van doren, quiz show[/tags]

Hey look, pictures that move!

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I haven’t had time to watch many movies lately; this weekend’s combination of lighter work load and sickness has provoked a furious spree of not one, not two, but three films.

I’d already seen the documentary, so the film version of Shake Hands With The Devil (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a bit disappointing. It was a decent companion piece to the documentary, to help give more detail on the timeline of what actually happened, but ultimately — and surprisingly — didn’t help you understand the complexity of the situation nor of Romeo Dallaire himself.

The Quiet (imdb | rotten tomatoes) had a lot of promise — lots of ambiance and tension — but ended up wasting it on a weird conclusion and, though I can scarcely believe I’m complaining about this, too much focus on Elisha Cuthbert’s hotness. Big waste of Edie Falco too.

The War Within (imdb | rotten tomatoes) may have saved the weekend. Certainly one of the best films I’ve seen about terrorism, the so-called war on terror, Muslim life in America…all these interconnected complexities, but none of them were dealt with in a pat or easy way. Too bad it was never picked up for major distribution, though not surprising. You shouldn’t let that stop you, though. Go rent it.

I also half-watched two others over the past few weeks only because they were on TMN and I was procrastinating: Turistas and Resident Evil: Extinction (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Both were shite; Turistas at least had a semi-cool chase scene in a cave. Ignore them. Trust me.

[tags]shake hands with the devil, the quiet, the war within, turistas, resident evil extinction[/tags]

Hoteliers: fear my web 2.0 wrath

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Random catch-up from the last week, including some highlights of the thousands of feed items I just blazed through:

.:.

George Carlin died last Sunday. I had no idea. That’s what happens when you’re out of tv/internet/newspaper range for 4 days. Carlin was an important entertainer, a rare animal indeed. Jessica Hagy from Indexed puts it nicely:

.:.

I watched three movies on our trip, mainly on the flights from and to Toronto: Charlie Wilson’s War (which I never did finish…our descent began before I caught the end, but I don’t feel like I missed that much), Ocean’s 13 (yawn…the last two have just been issues of GQ magazine put to celluloid) and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (and you shall know it by its bleak, bleak trail of dead…yeesh). Philip Seymour Hoffman was the best thing about the last, and the only good thing about the first. If that guy had “leading man good looks” he’d be a superstar. I suspect in about ten years he’ll be regarded as one of the finest actors of our generation, if not the finest.

.:.

Richard Florida pointed to the chart below, by Dave Lakeland, showing the cost of gas vs. the GDP per capita (all in the US) for the past twenty years. Very interesting.

.:.

I actually quite look forward to this phase of a trip, where we can finally see how all the pictures look (Nellie’s 22″ iMac gives a much clearer idea than my tiny little sub-laptop) and I can write reviews of the hotels in TripAdvisor. Three of the hotels will be getting rave reviews; one will get faint praise and one mild scorn. Mmmmmm, feedback.

[tags]george carlin, indexed, richard florida, cost of commuting, tripadvisor[/tags]

62.5%

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My free DVDs from the special Blu-Ray savings offer (free DVDs when you bought a Blu-Ray player back around Christmas) finally arrived…and they got one wrong. I know, I know, they’re free, but…six months later and they don’t even deliver the one I really wanted? Not great.

It was the kind of offer where you had to pick one film from each of five groupings, and some of those groupings contained naught but rubbish. Here’s what arrived, in order of me giving a shit:

  • Full Metal Jacket
  • American Psycho
  • S.W.A.T.
  • Pirates Of The Caribbean
  • Hart’s War

Full Metal Jacket: yay. No question, I wanted that one. American Psycho…sure. Whatever. S.W.A.T. I’m only keeping because Nellie wanted the eye candy. Pirates of the Caribbean…bleh. Hart’s War? Hell no. I ordered The Prestige, but I guess they ran out. I’ll probably sell or trade those last two. Anybody want?

As it happened, these arrived on the same day as my most recent order from Indigo: No Country For Old Men and Juno (both on Blu-Ray), and Once (which, unfortunately, is only in lo-fi). Even if I don’t keep Pirates and Hart, my Blu-Ray stock just went up by more than half.

[tags]blu-ray, free blu-ray movies, full metal jacket, american psycho, s.w.a.t., pirates of the caribbean, hart’s war, the prestige, no country for old men, juno, once[/tags]