Category: Movies

"You call it an electrified anal prod, I say tomato."

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Today I watched Little Dieter Needs To Fly (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a Werner Herzog documentary about Dieter Dengler, a German man who moved to America because he wanted to be a pilot, eventually winding up a prisoner of war after being shot down over Vietnam. It was totally engrossing and captivating, unbelievable in parts. I highly recommend it.

In a funny little coincidence, not an hour after I finished watching the documentary I read that Werner Herzog will be showing a movie at this year’s film festival…a retelling of Dieter Dengler’s story. I’ll be doing my damndest to see that.

Which reminds me…a while back I also watched Incident At Loch Ness (imdb | rotten tomatoes), another Herzog [ahem] documentary. It’s pretty entertaining.

.:.

TOist takes on the ugly yellow obelisk at the corner of Yonge & Bloor. I would have suggested that abandoned storefront on Bloor between Spadina and Bathurst next, but it seems to have found someone to love it again.

.:.

The US Government is moving to protect their interrogators from prosecution even if they’re found guilty of “humiliating or degrading wartime prisoners.” This isn’t surprising, given the kind of things I read about in this Esquire article or how you see Alberto Gonzales act in this Daily Show clip.

.:.

If this is true — or even close to true — then people are even dumber than I thought: 30 percent of them can’t remember what year the September 11 terrorist attacks took place.

[tags]little dieter needs to fly, werner herzog, rescue dawn, hudson bay obelisk, interrogation, prisoner abuse[/tags]

Creepy … crawly … creepy … crawly … creepycreepycrawlycrawly …

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night we decided to head (further) downtown for some shoppin’ and some eatin’ and a movie. We picked up a new backpack for me at MEC, had dinner and some new beer (both very good) at Smokeless Joe’s, and went to see The Descent (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the Paramount theatre. Nellie and I were attracted to it by the good reviews it’s gotten to date, and by the reputation it’s garnered for being scary. We weren’t disappointed.

There were three parts: standard setup, claustrophobic tension and violent mayhem. It didn’t lapse into any silly horror movie clichés, nor into any female horror movie stereotypes (there were no major males characters). They used a few standard horror movie devices (e.g., panning shots as a person backs up toward a dark corner), but sparingly. All in all, I’d recommend it…if you’re ok with scary movies. Oh, and enclosed spaces; I don’t consider myself claustrophobic, but some of the scenes where they’re crawling through tiny passages made my freaking skin crawl.

Oh, and one final note: if you’re just going to talk with your two friends at cocktail-party volume throughout the entire film — as the trio of chattering assholes behind us did — do the rest of society a favour: wait for the DVD and watch it at home.

.:.

Then we came home and watched a schmaltzy, sappy, dorky movie…a Christmas movie, in fact: Noel (imdb | rotten tomatoes). I have no idea why, nor am I even sure why it was on our Zip list. Nellie thinks it was a film festival movie. In any case, avoid this one if you can.

[tags]descent movie, noel movie[/tags]

An evening of disappointments

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Disappointment #1: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (imdb | rotten tomatoes). In retrospect I don’t even know why I wanted to see this. I think I was sucked in by the preview, with the shot of the Kraken tentacles enveloping a ship, but even those special effects — which were very good, as was Davey Jones’ head — couldn’t save this movie. It was scattered and nearly plotless, it was only funny once or twice and it dragged on forever. That was three hours of my life that I could’ve spent watching squirrels waterski or something.

Disappointment #2: again…I don’t know what I was thinking. We decided to go to 7 West after the movie, even though I swore I’d never go there again. It’s just so convenient, and the food’s ok…but the service is just unbelievably bad. It’s like they train their staff to be inattentive. Granted, the guy we had last night was new to the job, but I don’t know why they’d leave a newbie to cover a whole floor. Things were ok at first — we got a bottle of wine and split a plate of pasta — but it took him half an hour to bring us the bill and then return for it, both times only doing so because one of us signalled wildly from across the room. Then, when he finally returned, he’d forgotten to bring a pen.

Normally I’d give the guy a break; everyone has service like this once in a while. But this has happened nearly every time we’ve gone. We seem to keep forgetting, I guess. Must write note to self on back of hand: avoid 7 West.

Fortunuately we’d had a much better dining experience earlier in the day when T-Bone treated Nellie and I to lunch at Fieramosca. Not only is their food a cut above anything at 7 West, they treat you like old friends.

.:.

Great article by Robert Ouellette in Reading Toronto this morning titled The Real Cost Of Suburbia. They expand on an op/ed piece in the Globe about the consequences of low-density housing growth:

“I fume when the water bill for our downtown home comes in when I know the amount of water used is a tenth of the billed amount. Where does the rest of that money go? Well, let’s just say it costs a lot to water those suburban lawns and keep their backyard pools filled and run the storm sewers all the way down to the lake where their waste closes once pristine beaches. For once I’d like suburban dwellers to subsidize me.”

Ouellette raises a the related issue of gas prices, one I plan to touch on in the next few days (when studying down-time presents itself):

“Ironically, it might be gas prices that finally force the end to the disaster known as suburbs. $3 per litre gas anyone?”

[tags]pirates of the caribbean, 7 west, fieramosca, reading toronto, robert ouellette, suburbs[/tags]

Bacchanalia

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Haven’t…blogged…in…48 hours…must…catch…up…

Friday night five of us went out to a dinner organized by my lovely wife: we two, CBGB and T-Bone. It’s appropriate that T-Bone accompanied us that night; dinner was at The Fifth Grill (formerly just The Fifth, the top-notch Fench restaurant that started the Toronto careers of Didier Leroy and Marc Thuet, among others) and the menu item of choice was steak. We were meant to have a drink on the terrace, but it was blindingly hot outside, so the only place we could find a breeze was the smoking section. This simply was not on, so we took to our table a bit early.

After that, it becomes a blur of meat and wine; I had grilled tiger shrimp to start (others got mushroom ravioli and the tuna ceviche), and I went big on the steak: the 18 oz Delmonico. That’s a ribeye on the bone, and the chef’s opinion was that the bone counted for at least 2 of those ounces, while I would estimate that the fattier cut accounted for at least another ounce of waste, so I justified it to myself as a 15 oz steak. CBGB both got the New York strip, T-Bone got the bison ribeye and Nellie got the Filet Migon; while the flavour of my steak was excellent (thank you marbling!), GB and I had a bit of Nellie’s filet and agreed that the texture was impeccable. We were also allowed a choice of toppings on the steaks (I abstained, but others got scallops, shrimp and foie gras) and sauces (we had one of pretty much everything, but my favourite was the brandy peppercorn).

Did I mention our plan to becomes vegetarians?

Anyway, dessert was next; we took our time, imploring our stomachs to digest faster and make some room. CB and Nellie split a cheese plate, while T-Bone and I split the roasted hazelnut dacquoise with praline ice cream (GB got one for himself; he still had room for it, having found the willpower to stop eating his steak). It was good, but not great; however, they had written — very expertly, I might add — “Happy Birthday” on the plate in chocolate (it’s my birthday today, and was T-Bone’s birthday yesterday) and our server somehow snuck up the piano player and had him sing to us.

After all that food, I was ready for hibernation, so we took the back elevator down to the street…which was filled to overflowing with club-goers. We said our goodbyes and jumped on the subway.

.:.

Yesterday was a bit more low-key: CBGB came by post-karate and we popped over to the patio at The Pilot; thankfully the beer was cold, ’cause even in the shade it was microwave-hot. We sweated a while, bought some cookies from The Dessert Lady, got CB an icy drink from Starbucks and walked over to the Cumberland Theatre where we watched An Inconvenient Truth (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It’s less a movie or documentary, and more a very well-done Powerpoint presentation; I consider myself reasonably well-informed about the environment, so there wasn’t too much new for me, but Gore did manage to present it in a very compelling way. Hopefully a few folks will see it for whom it’s news.

After the movie we all lounged around our place for a bit before calling the Biryani House (the small one around the corner, not the fancy one at Wellesley) for some Indian food, and scarfed it down as we watched a few episodes of Arrested Development. It was a fun day with them. As Nellie and I were pretty wiped we just watched a movie — Derailed (imdb | rotten tomatoes) — after they left and fell asleep.

.:.

Speaking of food: I’m liking the new Chowhound design…especially the RSS feed for Ontario (which seems to mostly be Toronto)

.:.

Today — my actual birthday — been a nice one as well. Nellie took me to brunch on the patio at The Duke, bought me some gifts and is now busy in the kitchen making me a cake. How good is my life? 😀

[tags]fifth grill, didier, thuet, dessert lady, an inconvenient truth, biryani house, arrested development, chowhound, kickass wife[/tags]

"no one understands the mindset of a volume shooter"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

OK…how much do I want to see The Descent?

Umm…very much.

It’s running an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now; not bad for what looked like a cheesy horror flick at first glance. I expect it’ll come down as none of the mainstream critics have rated it yet, but still…it looks reasonably scary, so I’m in.

.:.

There are days when I’m reminded why The Mighty MJD sports blog is one of my favourite sites on the whole interweb. Today is one of those days.

[tags]the descent, fuck alonzo mourning[/tags]

"Yes, absolutely…what?"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

As I lay on the couch last night, trying desperately not to feel like crap, Nellie popped in Shopgirl (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was better than I thought it would be; I’d heard poor reviews when it first came out, and the trailers made it look like more of a cliche than it turned out to be. I’d say “elegant” is a pretty good word for it, perhaps “minimalist” fits as well. However, I’m doomed to always associate it with light-headedness and mild nausea.

.:.

I’m feeling better this morning, but hope to feel even better by tonight as we have dinner at Canoe (finally!) with T-Bone and I don’t want the experience to be muddied by, you know, feelings of impending death.

[tags]shopgirl, canoe[/tags]

An apology in point form

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry, I’ve been too busy to blog anything terribly interesting because:

  • The course I’m doing right now is killer. I was talking to a classmate today, and he concurred: the workload for this one is much, much heavier than anything else we’ve done. It’s interesting, but it’s time-consuming. I guess I was due for one of these; too many so far have been crazy easy.
  • It’s the summer. Days that aren’t hotter than the hubs of hell draw me outside.
  • Family’s been visiting, and family trumps blogging.
  • I seem to be reading (for fun, in addition to for school; I finally finished Cluetrain, Planet Simpson and No War: America’s Read Business In Iraq) again, not to mention finally putting a dent in our Zip queue.
  • Work is busy…not so much because I have impending deadlines, but because I feel a bit rejuvenated. It’s just as frustrating and bureaucratic as ever, but I seem more determined than ever to kick bureaucracy’s ass. I’ll let you know how that goes.

However, I can report some things that grabbed my eye today, but only in point-form:

Music:

  • I’m going to miss Asobi Seksu at the Horseshoe in September as I’ll be away on course. Frig.
  • There’ll be a new Trail Of Dead album in October.
  • The Mercury Prize shortlist has been announced, and I couldn’t give a toss about any of the finalists. The only one I liked at all is the Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan album, and even that wasn’t great.
  • The Weeds theme song next season will be sung by a different artist every week. Lined up so far: Death Cab For Cutie, Regina Spektor, Elvis Costello and Jenny Lewis. Cool. “Little boxes…”
  • The new Johnny Cash disc, American V…magnifique.

Movies:

Sports:

  • Bill Simmons has picked a favourite English Premiership League team. He settled on Tottenham Hotspur, because “If London was the Corleone family, Manchester United was Sonny and Arsenal was Michael, then the Spurs would be Fredo with a little more street smarts.” Brilliant.

Right, that’s it. Back to work for me.

[tags]cluetrain, planet simpson, no war, asobi seksu, trail of dead, mercury prize, isobel campbell, mark lanegan, weeds, johnny cash, clerks ii, lady in the water, arrested development movie, all your snakes are belong to us, bill simmons, tottenham hotspur[/tags]