18 posts tagged “movies”
I swear my phonology prof was under the influence of something today. That was one hilarious session. In addition to discussing the joys of stress placement algorithms, we also learned about ice cream, the Italian public education system, and Alabama Slammers (orange juice, Southern Comfort, amaretto, and sloe gin, apparently, which sounds like something I should try this summer).
Speaking of booze, yesterday was a terrifying day to be out on the town. I was too busy to take part in the St. Patrick's festivities myself, but I was downtown for just long enough to have to help some lost girls find a subway station, and then on my own ride home to be pelted with flung pamphlets as some drunken asshole had a fit and started throwing things. I felt sorry for police and security folks.
Other things. Um. Watchmen was pretty much what I expected. They nailed the 80s aesthetic super-well, the celebrity "cameos" were pitch-perfect (the opening-credits montage! Wow!), and Snyder's fetishistic devotion to capturing every tiny nerdy detail in the panels (and even adding a few of his own, e.g. Ozymandias' "Boys" folder on the computer) was fantastic. Alan Moore was right, though. The damn thing is unfilmable. The movie was a messy distillation of a much larger work, and I'm not just referring to the ending (which, while actually kinda clever, was still a travesty). I can't imagine how confusing it would have been for those who haven't read the book.
Also, if you haven't seen this yet, you need to. Some Israeli DJ watched thousands of those goddamn Youtube music performance videos (guitar in the bedroom, drums on the porch, trombone recitals, keyboard lessons, singing in the bathroom mirror, etc.) and layered them into some brilliant, brilliant music. My mind was blown.
Well then. That was a weekend to remember! Rebecca came up to visit again, with all the usual merriment and chaos.
Because everybody at work has been on my case about not having been there, we made the trek down to the mighty Salad King for yummy Thai goodness. Strikingly, there are only two salads on the menu; I have no idea why they call it that. However, the food is excellent (about a billion different Thai curries and stirfries), and the almost cafeteria-like setup (gigantic stainless-steel communal tables, shared benches, etc.) pretty much force you to make new friends. I can also report that Thai beer tastes...pretty much exactly like North American lager. However, it is Approved by the King, which surely means lots.
After that, we moseyed on down to Richmond and John (having to elbow our way through a crowd out front of Muchmusic, as apparently the cast of Twilight was in the building, and Twihards were blocking both Queen and John Streets) to climb the longest escalator I've ever seen (holy shit, four stories!) and see Quantum of Solace. I really don't understand all the critical hatin' on the movie; it's not "great cinema," and it wasn't quite as innovative and awesome as Casino Royale before it, but it was still a solid, entertaining action film. The new Bond girls were winners, the fight scenes were great, and even some of the oft-decried Mark Forster arty touches (oil is the new gold!) were pretty spiffy. I was satisfied, anyway.
For Sunday, I threw Rebecca at Jess for the day so I could go to work, and what a crazy shift that was. It was the perfect storm: the Santa Claus parade, the buildup towards Christmas, and a huge sale. The crowds were massive, and the lineup at my till never really ended. Thankfully, I was in such contagiously good spirits that not even the grumpiest of customers really got to me or got mad at me. In fact, the day would have gone off without a hitch had one of the head cashiers not made a counting mistake earlier in the day that made it look like I was hundreds of dollars off on my final totals. Cue a minor panic attack, until we dug the truth out of the back of the safe.
To conclude the awesome weekend (actually, this was the raison d'être for the weekend), Rebecca and I reunited at Lee's Palace (with a hilarious cameo appearance from Jess!) to see a concert at Lee's Palace. The opener was painfully, painfully bad; his voice was passable, but his songs were hopelessly cheesy and bland. After that, though, came a band I got into in the first year of my undergrad and still love: Ours. They aren't so much a band as a vehicle for the three-and-a-half-octave post-Buckley insanity of Jimmy Gnecco's voice, but damned if it doesn't all come together brilliantly live. Such a huge voice coming from a man who is probably less than 120 pounds (starvation? Heroin? Theories abound) just doesn't seem possible, and his chosen backing band is both tight and hilariously versatile (trumpet and bass at the same time? Why not?). I might've cowered in fear during the outro of "Murder," and all the songs from the first album (i.e. the ones the audience might've actually known) brought the house down. Why the hell is that band not more famous?
In fact, Ours was opening for somebody more famous: Lukas Rossi, that eyelinered dink from reality TV. Thus, I did something I've never done before: walked out on a show. It only took two songs (and the predations of a disturbing amount of local cougars trying to get closer to the stage) before Rebecca and I fled in terror. At least I got my money's worth from Ours.
Sunday: a day of rock.
Rebecca came up to visit yesterday, and it was an epic day indeed. We started off with a brief tour of the U of T campus, then wandered up to the Manulife Centre (my workplace on my day off! Ack!) to go see "Choke." The movie plays far looser with the source material than "Fight Club" did, but is still faithful, not to mention utterly hilarious. Never before have colonial reenactment, mental hospitals, Christ's-children conspiracy theories, and a wayward anal bead come together so well. The constant Palahniuk educational asides were sorely missed, but probably would have ruined the comedic tone anyway.
Of course, the real reason for the visit was a concert down at the Mod Club. 3, who I fell in love with when I saw them open for Porcupine Tree last year, were back in town, this time as headliners.
The Mod Club is basically the same as every midsized bar-that-hosts-concerts ever; I was really reminded of Guelph's Denim in its pre-redneckification days. The crowd was pitifully thin; this must have been disappointing for 3, but it meant that Rebecca and I got to waltz right up to the edge of the stage, with only one row of "with-the-band" types in front of us.
For once, I had actually heard of the opening band; I bought an Alpha Galates album after seeing some really enticing reviews, so it was a happy coincidence that 3 picked them to open. They're rather unusual as metal bands go, in that all five members sing, the drummer takes care of most of the vocals, and both the bassist and the keyboardist are female (random aside: holy crap, is their keyboardist ever gorgeous). They played a spectacular set, every bit as brutal live as they are on the CD, but bad sound levels marred the experience. I don't know if it was just bad mixing or the rhythm guitarist's ego, but whenever he cranked the distortion (on a Danelectro baritone, no less! What a weird guitar for that kind of music), good luck hearing anybody else. When you could actually hear the vocals, though, it was pitch-perfect five-part harmony. Very impressive.
The next band, The Tub Ring, was certainly interesting. They were kind of a poor man's Mr. Bungle: at least three genre shifts a song, light-speed prog-punk riffs, and an insanely versatile vocalist with one hell of a stage presence. Even if the music wasn't quite my thing, they were sure a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Their bassist played like a madman, and when he accidentally ripped the strap pin out of his bass (!), he finished the set holding the end of the strap in his mouth. The keyboardist was even crazier, executing all kinds of gymnastic maneuvers while playing, and continuing unfazed after he somehow managed to slice his finger open (he spent most of the third song playing one-handed and watching confusedly as blood trickled down his arm). The guitarist...actually mostly stood in one place, and bore an uncanny resemblance to our good man Nathan.
3, of course, blew my mind again. How Joey Eppard manages to play such intricate guitar riffs, while singing like that, without a goddamn pick, will forever blow my mind. Everyone else in the band was in spectacular form, too. The drummers did their traditional drum duet, this time with even more cymbal-biting and a hypnotic sequence that had two of them fighting over use of a cymbal. Rebecca claims that the other guitarist's solos were inaudible, but I could hear the glorious shredding crystal-clear; I kind of wonder if the sound at the Mod Club is so very directional that more can be heard at 71 inches above the ground than at 64". Best of all, we got some really left-field songs in the setlist: a funky oldie from their let's-be-a-heavier-Jamiroquai days, and a new song still in the process of being written (kind of a fluffy ballad, but these things happen). In the end, I just feel sorry for Joey's acoustic guitar; he once again managed to break most of his strings during the outro of "Amaze Disgrace."
Today was another one of those crazy celebrity extravaganzas at work. This week, because it's TIFF season and the who's-who of Hollywood has descended upon us, the event stage on the lower floor of my store has been a revolving door for bigshot directors, authors, and actors building up hype for whatever's playing at the theatres around town. I arrived at the store just as Sue Monk Kidd finished flogging The Secret Life of Bees, and after that, we went into full sandbagging mode to prepare for a huge event with Mr. Spike Lee.
Large-scale events like that always feel like a symphony with multiple conductors; the managers, the publishing reps, the hired security, and the celebrity are very rarely on the same page. This one had an interesting added wrinkle: Hollywood groupies. The gaggle of "with Spike" people milling about and micromanaging was downright maddening. Despite that, the event went off without a hitch. Major props go to our guest interviewer George Strombolopoulos, whose entourage was only one person, and who is every bit as affable and friendly as he seems on TV.
Also: there is nothing creepier than your subway train stopping, noisily and for no apparent reason, on the underside of the Bloor Viaduct. WTF, TTC?
(BBQ.)
Another silly roundup:
- Let it be known that Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is the best thing to happen to musicals in a long, long time. It's only up for free until midnight, so get your asses over there and watch it. On that note: am I the only one who sees an eerie resemblance between the squinty sneer of Neil Patrick Harris and that of Guelph's own firefightin' pyro-Neil?
- Apparently I live in Jack Layton's electoral riding. Neat! I'm kind of embarrassed that it took me this long to look up who my new Member of Parliament is.
- Cats! My neighbourhood has a lot of them. Apparently there's a crazy cat lady across the street, and she's less than vigilant about where her minions wind up. Thus, I always have a little herd of felines sitting on my lawn when I leave for work. None of them are tagged, so I've taken it upon myself to name a few. The most frequent visitors so far are Holyfield, the monstrously fat tabby who punches any other cats who get too close, and Landmine, the grey who hides on my staircase.
A weekend for the vaults, to be sure! Rebecca and her friend Ashley were visiting from Sault Ste. Marie for the Great Big Sea concert, and darned if I wasn't going to show them a good time while they were in my city. We had a nice wander around Queen West, stormed various parks and tourist attractions, laughed at Ashley's compulsive photo-taking (two months in Toronto, and already tourists make me twitchy!), and generally goofed around. I missed Rebecca, and I enjoyed having guests at the new Bradlands. It sounds like they had a good time at their concert, too, so huzzah.
On Friday night, we watched the new Hellboy movie. As with just about everything Del Toro does, the visuals were impeccable; the scenery, critters, and fight scenes were gorgeous. That was one uneven script, though. I couldn't believe how clunky the dialogue was compared to some of his earlier work. However, that little troll-baby has a hell of a one-liner.
Today was neat too. I mostly just relaxed, but also made the trek down to Kensington to see my old Guelph friend Jo for the first time in far too long. We had mighty burritos from Big Fat Burrito on Augusta, threw around the usual hilarious innuendo, got back in the Guelph gossip loop, and peoplewatched in the park. Next time, however, we won't let Jo navigate.
So I saw Iron Man a few nights ago. It wasn't the cinematic orgasm so many of my friends have made it out to be, but it was a pretty damn solid movie, certainly the best of the current epidemic of superhero flicks. Picking a troubled hedonist like Robert Downey Jr to play a troubled hedonist like Tony Stark was an inspired choice, and Jeff Bridges made a damn good evil tycoon. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, who normally bugs me on a level I can't even explain (this was true even before she married Chris Everything-That-Is-Wrong-With-Modern-Rock Martin), was a cute sidekick and convincing redhead.
Most of my life lately has been work. I've been pulling forty hours a week at the flagship, and I'm still in love with the place. I even have a German-speaking buddy on staff, which has been refreshing practice. Oddly enough, I also find that the stockbrokers and socialites actually have a more manageable sense of entitlement than the bitchy suburbanites we had at Guelph and Waterloo. Oh, Toronto, will you never cease to boggle my mind?
On the urban exploration front, I finally lost my Kensington virginity a few days ago. What a neat little neighbourhood! I went hat shopping, enjoyed the best burrito of my life and laughed at the crass service at Big Fat Burrito, and wound up demoing a doubleneck guitar for some of my fellow customers at the pawn shop. On the way home, I also popped by Yonge Street for some bargain-hunting and found an awesome alternate solution to my home electronics problem: why spend $40 on a cable to connect my laptop to my TV for movies when I can buy a $45 used Playstation 2, play movies on it, and be able to play some games? That's a victory, I think.
Good Lord, I'm 22. I guess it mostly feels like 21, but still. Balls to aging. That is all.
Today was a pretty spectacularly random day. As I was enjoying a nice bike ride around town for some exercise (all of this home cooking and relaxation has me feeling like a lard-ass), I ran into my old friends Alex and Danielle on King Street. That led to me winding up at an apartment full of Comp Sci majors, flexing the old Waterloo in-joke muscles (totally beat everyone on the "phone's a-ringin'" thing) and playing the new Smash Brothers game. Even on the fancy new system, I'm still a hopeless player, though Ganondorf (one of the coolest game villains ever) and his comical 300 kick served me well. It was good to see those kids again, too. Alex is going to go very far with that computer brain of his.
I got in touch with Esther today, too, and we went out for coffee and a movie. The Princess was showing La Misma Luna, a really touching story about illegal immigration. It's a damn shame that there were only four people in the theatre. I can't imagine going through the shit that those people go through to try to support their families. You know it's got to be a good movie, too, when it stars a precocious, silly little kid, and I don't hate him after two hours.
So I'm in Waterloo, of all places. My time at the Bradlands in Guelph is over, and I can't move to Little India until Sunday, so here I cower. My worldly possessions are in a pile in the garage. Life otherwise makes all kinds of sense, though. I finally received the "Yes, Virginia, You're a University of Toronto Student" paperwork, I have keys to my new apartment, I have an almost-definite transfer to the Indigo at Bay and Bloor, and it's my friggin' birthday on Thursday.
Oddly enough, I'll be in Toronto for the big day, as that's when the Indigo folks want to interview me. I don't mind, though, as I'm meeting a friend downtown to celebrate, in what looks more and more like a date with each passing moment. Excited? Nervous? Thrilled? Yes.
I watched "Cloverfield" out of boredom last night. It wasn't half-bad! I'm still not a big horror fan, but I loved how they turned the genre on its head. I can imagine why people might have thrown up, though, watching that on a large screen. That was some seriously choppy cinematography. My favourite part, though? You hardly ever see the monster. It makes it a much bigger deal when you actually do.
