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]

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]