Category: Movies

Hollywood loves him and so should you.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I want to see A Mighty Heart. It’s compelling subject matter. It stars Angelina Jolie. It’s about terrorism and geopolitics and the importance of journalism.

But here’s why I won’t go see it: the name. A Mighty Heart? C’mon. Show me that someone has a mighty heart, don’t try to convince me before I even get to the theatre. You’re supposed to be telling a story, not selling me a hero.

.:.

Even in re-runs Friday Night Lights is better than most things on TV. Within five minutes Jason Street rattles off two classic lines:

“Because I’m crippled and I want to listen to Nirvana. Is that so hard to understand?!?”

-and-

Jason: “If you’re looking for Clay Aiken you’ll find him under A.”

Lyla: “You should know, he’s your boyfriend.”

Jason: “Hey…what Clay and I have is special. America loves him and so do I.”

But it’s the way they all deliver their lines on that show. You just have to watch it, if you’re not already.

[tags]a mighty heart, friday night lights[/tags]

Experts agree: The Strokes suck

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Our bbq has gas. Not flatulence gas, natural gas. Not natural flatulent gas, just natural gas. We can now cook food. In fact, Nellie is outside doing so now whilst I try to recover from the day that was.

.:.

Four interesting things that RSS’d their way to me today:

  1. There will be a Voltron movie. When it is released I shall re-live my childhood.
  2. Voting for the Golden Tap awards is now open. The awards honor the best microbreweries (and their beers) in the GTA, and in Ontario. My picks are as follows:
    • Best microbrewery in the GTA (Granite Brewery)
    • Best beer brewed in the GTA (Granite Brewery Dry Hop Special Bitter)
    • Best microbrewery in Ontario (Neustadt)
    • Best beer brewed in Ontario, outside the GTA (Neustadt 10W30)
    • Best pub in the GTA, in terms of draught selection (Bar Volo)
    • Best pub in the GTA, in terms of bottle selection (Smokeless Joe’s)
    • Best pub in Ontario, outside of the GTA (Manx, in Ottawa, though I should admit that it’s the only one I’ve been to)
    • Best brewpub or tied house in Ontario (Granite Brewery)
  3. Il Fornello, a Toronto restaurant, will be adding an Ontario-only menu.
  4. There are a lot of “classic” albums that I just can’t stand. A few of them are mentioned in this Guardian article, and some folks agree with me. In fact, the only ones I don’t agree with are the Arcade Fire (which seems out of place from the rest, and I think it’s just an easy and controversial target) and to some degree Nirvana and Pink Floyd. The rest I don’t care for at all.

[tags]natural gas bbq, voltron, golden tap awards, ontario microbrew, granite brewery, neustadt, il fornello, arcade fire, nirvana, pink floyd[/tags]

I wonder how her husband feels about that

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Today is my friend Marney’s birthday. Today is also Old Maid’s Day. I’m sure those two things are just coincidence.

.:.

Sad, Rebecca Eckler, sad. Only someone deep in the throes of hubris could think that someone stole the plot of Knocked Up from them. Quill & Quire offers their own take on the [ahem] story:

“A warning to comedy writers out there: if you’re working on a gag in which someone has to buy something embarrassing at the supermarket and the cashier calls for a price check on the store PA system, you better make sure Eckler hasn’t used that one – if she has, she’ll think you nicked it from her.”

Tee hee.

.:.

For the sake of my blood pressure, Christopher Hume needs to stop writing articles like this one about the Toronto waterfront.

[tags]old maid’s day, rebecca eckler, christopher hume, toronto waterfront[/tags]

"Coupons…you want coupons, don't you?"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Today was day 1 of the mesh conference here in Toronto. I met up with Colin, cursed the caterers for only having bagels to eat, drank as much water as I could and found a seat before the proceedings got underway.

The first (and best) part of today’s schedule was TechCrunch‘s Mike Arrington. He’s a pretty frank guy, and when he lambasted Ted Murphy from PayPerPost — calling him “the most evil person in the room” — things got fun. He also spoke frankly about how silicone valley is in need of another meltdown, to get all the PR and money-grabbing types out and let the real revolutionaries take over again.

Tom Williams and Austin Hill were also good, giving their perspectives as two guys who got very rich very young, and have devoted their time to effecting social change. Hill talked about an interesting new distributed computing power saving tool; think SETI@home for saving electricity. Check it out at DarkGreenPC.org.

After a sad lunch (strike 2 against the caterers: only vegetarian options were ceasar salad and pasta salad) I saw a very funny panel with Rachel Sklar, Loren Feldman and Cynthia Brumfield about whether or not old media should be scared shitless of new media. The consensus: maybe a little. New media won’t kill old media, but it’ll scare it into reacting.

I also watched panels entitled “Digital Blinders – Are We an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep?” and “The Always-On Generation – What Do Youth Do with the Web?”; the former was more like a university lecture or radio show than panel discussion, while the latter was amusing for how old it made most of the participants feel. A sample snippet:

[panelist] Erica Sum: “How many people in here have been to YTMND?”

[I raise my hand, as do maybe 4 or 5 other people in a room of about 100. Erica then starts talking about how cool it is in a screwy kind of way.]

Confused audience member #1: “Umm, could you maybe describe what that is for people who don’t know?”

Confused audience member #2: “Yeah, like how it’s different than Facebook or MySpace?”

Erica [trying to stifle laughter]: “Oh, it’s not at all.”

You can’t fault the audience members for not knowing what YTMND is, or for thinking it has something to do with social networking, since it’d been the dominant theme of the day. It was just a funny exchange.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Note to self: bring a nutrigrain bar.

.:.

Obviously, if I’m at home writing this, I wasn’t able to attend the free screening of Severance that I won passes to earlier this week. I was feeling too wonky, and have too much to do tonight. As soon as I finish writing this I plan to do an hour or two of work while I watch the hockey game. Dagnabbit…I wanted to see that movie too.

.:.

Things I’ve learned in the last 36 hours: never wear a white dress shirt to the dentist (that pink shit they polish your teeth with sprays) and screens for balcony doors are outrageously expensive (we’ve been quoted >$400 each).

.:.

An instructional video: how to break up with advertisers.

[tags]mesh07, severance, dentist, balcony screen doors, bring the love back[/tags]

McLovin

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It’s a good thing I was super-productive for the early part of this day ’cause around 2:00 I got one badass mofo headache. I assume it’s because of the cold I’m still trying to fight through, but man…it took somethin’ out of me. I managed to do about two more hours of good work, but then it got even worse so I left for home. Now that I have some Advil in me and I can look in the general direction daylight again, I should be able to get some studying and some heavy thinking done tonight.

.:.

I won some tickets today for Severance (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which, according to the TIFF website, is a cross between The Office and Deliverance. I wanted to see it at last year’s festival, but the timing didn’t work out; I guess I’ll still get a sneek preview. Thanks for the tickets, Eye Weekly.

.:.

I cannot wait for August 17th. Why? Because that’s the day Superbad comes out. Watch the trailer. I will watch anything that has Michael Cera and Seth Rogen in it.*

.:.

Also funny: this Dr. Tran clip that my brother sent me. I almost broke my damn elbow falling off my chair. If you have 7 minutes to spare (and are not easily shocked by cartoon violence), watch this one too.

OK, on a serious note…WHY in the Sam Hill has no one told me about Dr. Tran before?

[tags]headache, severance, eye weekly, superbad, michael cera, seth rogen, dr. tran, lonesausage[/tags]

* Except porn, should any exist.

"What is a ghost?"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I finally summoned enough energy today to do some shopping. We had a delicious brunch at Toba, went to UpCountry to buy a new bed and some patio furniture, picked up some groceries and came home to collapse on the couch. This thing is just lingering forever; I’m feeling marginally better each day, but sleep is still difficult, and I still wake up so congested that I have to blow my nose non-stop for half an hour.

Normally, if I felt like this I would never leave home to do a bunch of walking & shopping, but the furniture situation was just going nowhere and we’re tired of living like students. I mean really, who has a futon for their couch? A long time ago we made the decision not to buy furniture until we were in the new place, but now it was time to get on it. Nellie’s mom is coming to visit soon and we need the couch so that the futon can go to the den/guest bedroom.

Next, the final “urgent” purchase: the barbeque.

.:.

Whilst laying on the couch today I watched The Devil’s Backbone (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a Guillermo Del Toro film released before (and related to) Pan’s Labyrinth (which I loved). Though not as good as Pan’s, it’s absolutely worth watching.

[tags]toba, upcountry, devil’s backbone, pan’s labyrinth[/tags]

Foiled

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

At the last minute I had to cancel our plans to meet up with friends in Niagara On The Lake this weekend. This cold just isn’t going anywhere, and over the course of the day my voice has completely disappeared. I felt ridiculous leaving voicemails for people, sounding like a just-pubescent kid drawing his last breath.

I’ve never before taken a double-dose of neo-citran before going to sleep; I fear tonight it may be necessary.

.:.

Happy birthday, Star Wars. I was one year old when you were released, but I came to love you as I grew up. A little too much, maybe.

.:.

Speaking of my childhood obsessions, Chuck Klosterman writes about a Rush song that, 27 years later, shows how badly the mystique of radio has faded.

.:.

The Globe and Mail harrumphs all over the lolcat meme.

[tags]niagara on the lake, sick, star wars, chuck klosterman, rush, globe and mail, lolcat[/tags]

Who's ready to speak ill of the dead? :D

Dan Dickinson5 Comments

I don’t understand how one human head can produce so much snot. Incroyable.

.:.

Link dump:

.:.

We watched a documentary called The Bridge (imdb | rotten tomatoes) a few days ago. I’ve wanted to see it since I first saw the trailer last fall, and it was very good. Unsettling subject matter, obviously — the Golden Gate Bridge is the world’s #1 suicide site — but it was very well done and not sensational.

[tags]snot, bill maher, jerry falwell, maple sap, veronica mars, the bridge[/tags]

Clearly my timing is off

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Just in time for the warm weather coming this week, I have a cold. Scratchy throat, sinus headaches, lethargy…yay.

.:.

We finally watched Borat (imdb | rotten tomatoes) last night. Yeah, it was funny, but we obviously waited too long to see it since I’m pretty sure I already knew every funny bit in the film. Although, simply knowing that you’ll see Ken Davitian naked in full flight does not prepare you for the sight of it.

[tags]cold symptoms, borat, ken davitian[/tags]

Going out with a very big bang

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Is it cruel to rename your animals after several years? Granted, they’re cats so it’s not as if they give a shit what we call them, but today Nellie floated the idea of naming them Ryan and Cyril instead of Sonny and Michael. Ryan was smart and scheming, whereas Cyril was mentally challenged, so it fits. And we could name the Roomba McManus or something.

If you didn’t watch Oz, you likely have no idea what I’m talking about.

.:.

Wow…while poking through IMDB there I noticed that John Cazale — Fredo — acted in only five feature films before his death: The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. All five were nominated for the best picture Oscar. That’s a pretty impressive body of work for the final six years of one’s life.

.:.

OK, back to my [yawn] corporate strategy paper.

[tags]ryan o’reilly, cyril o’reilly, sonny corleone, michael corleone, pet names, john cazale[/tags]