We saw Black Swan (imdb | rotten tomatoes) last night. It was gripping and unsettling and typical Aronofsky and so, so good.
If Natalie Portman doesn’t win an Oscar I’ll be amazed.
If wild my breast and sore my pride
This past Saturday started a little differently than most: a police officer and detective knocking on the door.
Sorry, I should have specified: different than most for us.
They asked to come in, and did. They asked a couple of questions, about whether we noticed anything unusual that morning. I mentioned that I’d heard a strange noise that morning, around 6AM or so, that came from outside. It sounded like a noise on the balcony, like something falling over or maybe a screen door banging, but more of a thump. I didn’t recognize the sound, but I didn’t think much of it. It’s a big concrete balcony, there’s only so much that can happen out there. But the officer’s questions made me wonder whether someone had tried to get into people’s apartment’s by climbing between balconies.
He then asked to check out my balcony. I let him out, and followed him out myself. Inside the detective was explaining to Nellie what had happened, but I had now figured it out too — the officer was leaning over my balcony.
I looked down. There was a tarp on the ground. With a hand sticking out.
Someone had fallen.
The detective asked for our help identifying the person, given a description, but we weren’t much help. When we went downstairs there were at least a dozen police officers in our lobby, questioning everyone who came and went, looking for information. Given the lack of news vans outside we assumed it must have been suicide; by the afternoon the police and cordon were gone, which pretty much confirmed it.
We found out later that someone had jumped from the 36th floor. I’ll never understand suicide. How can things get that desperate? Not to question that they can; I just can’t even fathom being at that point. Even if they do, how does one summon the wherewithal (I can’t bring myself to call it courage) to climb over a 36th-floor balcony?
I hope whoever it was is at peace, and hasn’t left hurt and turmoil in their wake.
"F-f-f-…fornication?"
All of the Oscar buzz surrounding The King’s Speech (imdb | rotten tomatoes) meant I couldn’t pass it up. Obviously I knew what I was in for: light drama surrounding an historical figure who overcomes great odds to be a great leader / musician / athlete. And that’s precisely what I got. Colin Firth was good, essentially playing himself with a stammer. Geoffrey Rush was fine as well. Helena Bonham Carter alone was sublime, but then I expect no less of her.
I’m not trying to put the film down; it’s a very entertaining and inspirational story. I was just slightly disappointed that there was nothing new here. Not a thing. Well done though it may be, I find it rather unseemly when a film so obviously gussies itself up for an award.
I’ll put it another way: I could recommend this movie to anybody — regardless of their preferred film genre — but it was gone from my head ten minutes after we left the theatre.
Ten best films of 2010
One month ago I lamented my slim chances of watching all the major Oscar-contending films before the ceremony itself. While we have knocked a few off the list, I figure I can’t wait any longer to lay out what I see as the best films of 2010, even though I still haven’t seen 127 Hours, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, Buried, Exit Through The Gift Shop, The Fighter, Get Low, Incendies, Inside Job, The King’s Speech, Restrepo, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, A Single Man, Somewhere or The Tillman Story. Alas. Here’s the early list:
- Inception
- The Social Network
- True Grit
- Winter’s Bone
- 13 Assassins
- Let Me In
- The Town
- Easy A
- Kick-Ass
- Toy Story 3
No surprise with the top three, I think. The bottom of that list is clearly where things got light, but Easy A, Kick-Ass and Toy Story 3 were all comedies with depth, so they make the list.
Honorable mentions: Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage, The Kids Are All Right, Trust and Confessions.
"Grandpa said, 'No…but I served in a company of heroes.'"
Anyone who has watched the HBO miniseries Band Of Brothers knows the name Dick Winters. He was the lieutenant played by Damien Lewis, and the central figure of the series. He led Easy Company and rose to the rank of major by the end of the war. He fought in Normandy (where he won the Distinguished Service Cross), Holland and Bastogne. Ten hours of television isn’t enough to give the true measure of a man, but by the end of the series all who watched it felt inspired by Dick Winters.
And so, it saddened me to learn that Dick Winters passed away last week. From what little I learned of him by watching the DVDs and reading a few recent interviews, his quiet passing, lacking all fanfare, would be just how he would have wanted it.
If you haven’t seen Band Of Brothers, I beg you…rent it, buy it, download it, steal it…but watch it. Learn about Easy Company and the men who fought in it, especially the extraordinary ones like Dick Winters.
At last: winter
After not having much of a winter last year I suspect we’re in for a rough one this time around. Yesterday was cold and messy and made for slow driving, but it’s been so long in coming that people seemed to enjoy it. It was actually quite beautiful for a few hours, until the exhaust had at it.
The next time I’m in a howling February snowstorm I’m sure I’ll forget ever saying this, but I like winter. I like having snow on the ground, even if I have to walk through it, and miss it when there’s none about on December 25th. The feeling of still sub-zero air is one of my favourites, especially when I’m in the woods of my family’s farm or in the Rockies or standing in a downtown Toronto plaza, deserted on a weekend.
Obviously I can see the appeal of living in a place with no cold weather, but I think I’d miss it pretty quickly. I’d miss the variety it provides in the year, and the feeling of sheer joy we all get when spring arrives. Most Canadians with no tolerance for snow just move south to Florida or Arizona, but there’s not enough sunshine in the world to make me move to a state so monumentally damaged. Case in point.
"He's the master of space and time. He knows about black holes and shit."
Over the past few weeks I’ve watched a bunch of movies and just forgotten to talk about them…UNTIL NOW!!!!!1!!
- The Town (imdb | rotten tomatoes), exhibit two in the case for Ben Affleck being an excellent director and the great Pete Postlethwaite’s final curtain call.
- Toy Story 3 (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which — as with most Pixar films — I liked, but clearly not as much as most people.
- She’s Out Of My League (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was funnier than I expected from a stupid, formulaic movie…though that was due almost entirely to the excellent Jay Baruchel.
- Unthinkable (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a TV movie (I think?) about the moral conundrum of using torture to stop a bomb. Formulaic and often dopey, but entertaining.
- Hot Tub Time Machine (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was pretty much as stupid as I thought it would be.
"Fill your hands, you sons of bitches."
Ever since seeing the trailer for the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit (imdb | rotten tomatoes) I’ve been giddy with excitement. Surprising, maybe, since I’ve never seen the original. But I’ll see anything the Coen Brothers make, and the idea of seeing a grizzled Dude yelling “I mean to kill ya today!!” had me hooked. So yesterday we went to see it.
How was it? Well, I want to go see it again RIGHT NOW, so that should give you a hint. Of course, there are too many other Oscar-contending movies we still haven’t seen so it’ll have to wait, but I daresay I’ll be buying this one when it’s out on Blu-Ray.
When we left the theatre I kind of wanted to see the original, but after watching this I’m not so sure.
Happy nom year
Given the traveling around we’ve been doing, and the colds I’ve just gotten over and Nellie hasn’t quite yet, and the fact that we’re old and can’t be bothered with douchebags-ridden bars or over-anxious servers, we decided to just relax at home for New Year’s Eve last night with some awesome food and wine. What you see up there, piled on a huge cutting board (a recent anniversary gift from my parents) is:
- Niagara prosciutto, prosciutto/salami blend and cacciatorini from Cumbrae’s
- Csabai sausage and four cheeses (parmesan, clothbound cheddar, beemster and piave) from About Cheese
- Green & red peppers, green & black olives, pear, orange, grapes, baby dills
- Pecans and cashews
- Spicy mustard, jam and honey
- Baguette with olive oil/balsamic and tomato/basil oil
- Chocolate pie chart
- 2007 Loxton Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
- Also consumed with great fervour: a bottle of 13th Street Premier Cuvee sparkling wine and a bottle of Unibroue La Terrible
2010 annual report: expansion
Dear stakeholders, I present herein the report on my progress for the year 2010. Please, hold your questions until the end.
The highlight of the whole year may well have been our excellent trip to California where we visited San Francisco and the Napa and Sonoma valleys. Trips to Nova Scotia for our friend Karen’s wedding (in the spring) and to see our families (at Christmas) were great too, especially since being away from Toronto during the G20 meant we managed to avoid that whole clusterfuck. We even went camping in Algonquin. All in all a good year for travel.
Of course, we enjoyed ourselves closer to home as well. We were mesmerized by the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and celebrated the men’s hockey gold in Dundas Square just like the rest of the city. We saw a Habs/Leafs game, our second in three months after not seeing one in the previous 12 years we lived here. We did new Toronto-y things like dragon boating and a harbour cruise and biking around the islands and seeing a concert (Iggy & The Stooges) live in Dundas Square. We also did annual pilgrimages to Hot Docs and TIFF.
We explored a few new local restaurants like Origin (twice) and Duggan’s (many, many times) and ate an utterly decadent meal at MoRoCo in our first venture past the truffle bar out front. Most of our new restaurants discoveries came during our travels, and I’d need all day to list them all. Really, the biggest change this year might have been Nellie’s emerging talent in the kitchen, preparing incredible meals for Valentine’s Day (as is her custom) or various dinner parties.
I watched 71 new movies, bought 19 albums and ten DVDs, and read nine books. That’s right, only nine; I blame it on the fact that I’ve been reading Postwar by Tony Judt since January and I’m 2/3 of the way through the goddamn 830-page thing. Believe me, reading 560 pages of Judt is like reading 5 normal books, so I have to keep taking breaks and reading something else. In 2010 I read Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges, Enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee, Liar’s Poker and The Big Short by Michael Lewis, The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, Blood Meridian and No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Ill Fares The Land, also by Tony Judt.
Lots of good things happened in 2010, like when I won the Oscar pool, or when we won some art at auction during a charity event, or when I finally settled on my favourite albums of the past ten years, or when my team and I volunteered at Ronald McDonald House. I got to watch my Canadiens make a run deep into the NHL playoffs, and maybe best of all was that Nellie’s favourite team won the cup, and she helped her dad celebrate that win. Of course, there was a lot that troubled us too: some small (a Rogers fiasco, the earthquake which I suppose was more fun than troubling from my perspective) and some big (the afore-mentioned G20 debacle and — perhaps most importantly — Chris Farley somehow being elected mayor).
Most of all, though, I think the biggest development of 2010 was my expanded interest in wine and beer, especially local wine and beer. We finally took advantage of the two main wine regions near Toronto, making two trips to Niagara, one to Prince Edward County and one to the AGO for a wine tasting event called TasteOntario. learning that there really is great Ontario wine out there. I then decided to take that local streak and apply it to beer, starting a little endeavour called Project FiftyBrew.
There’s a large portion of my life which I don’t discuss here, and that’s what I do for a living. Last year I said developments at work were the biggest source of change in my life; this year I’d say that change has become the status quo, to the point where everything else (watching movies, listening to music, watching TV, reading books, and certainly blogging) falls by the wayside. Know what else stops when work is like this? Exercise. I haven’t run in months, and at present I weigh more than I ever have before in my life. Obviously, I’m hoping that my 2011 annual report will contain news of how I turned that around. To that end I did one last thing in 2010 to get that underway: I signed myself up for the Harry Rosen Spring Runoff 5k.
So it seems the two most noticeable elements of my 2010 were my expanded interest in wine & beer, and my expanding waistline. As I write this, it occurs to me the two may not be unrelated.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 