Another reason why I think Sarah McLachlan is cool. And an awesome person in general.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
More Proof...
...that I have a ridiculous capacity to retain all facts and trivia relating to pop culture and entertainment. Last week at work, we heard these words broadcast on the PA system: "Birdie num-nums". I was in Marianli's office at the time, and I just started cracking up while Marianli looked confused. Thankfully, Scott was passing by and started laughing too, since he knew who it was who had made the "announcement". I said to Scott, "It's from 'The Party'!" And he confirmed it, saying that Malcolm used to say "birdie num-nums" on the PA all the time. He figured that Malcolm decided to do it one last time before he left the company (makes sense). The next day, Scott mentioned to me that I was the only person he had talked to who knew that the line came from that movie. I was kind of shocked, for a few reasons: 1) the movie predates my existence by more than a decade, 2) it has become a classic Peter Sellers movie, and 3) given my relative youth compared to the majority of my fellow employees, I would have thought at least one other person would have seen that movie in their lifetime. In addition, I haven't seen that film since I was a preteen, but the line sticks with you long after you watch the scene. Now, in retrospect, I guess the only minor problem is that it makes fun of East Indians the way Mickey Rooney made fun of Asians in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". But it was the '60s, and I guess I can forgive them for being a little politically incorrect. So if you're bored sometime, and you've never seen Peter Sellers make a complete ass of himself, go rent it.
"There was a little Spanish flea, a record star he'd like to be, he heard of singers like Beatles and The Chipmunks he'd seen on TV, why not a little Spanish flea?"
"There was a little Spanish flea, a record star he'd like to be, he heard of singers like Beatles and The Chipmunks he'd seen on TV, why not a little Spanish flea?"
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Well, Aren't We Pretty...
So...what do you guys think? You have to admit that my blog needed some sprucing up, and I was really tired of trying to figure out how to fix the comment formatting.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Critical Eye
One and a half weeks, 8 films. I still laugh when people consider this an impressive statistic. Not to say that it isn't, I guess, but being someone who knows what the festival is like, I'm impressed when the woman who's standing in line behind me has seen 30+ films and it's not even the last day yet. That's an average of 4 films a day. I think I read somewhere that someone once saw 6 films in one day. That would probably mean that they didn't stick around for any Q&A's, or see the end of a lot of films for that matter.
But I digress. As promised, a little recap of the week's highlights and a sneak peek at some films about hit a theatre near you:
Les Revenants (They Came Back): Not your typical zombie movie. Everywhere in France, the recently deceased start walking into towns and villages. No blood and guts, no feasting on brains. The citizens of the town in the movie begin to reintegrate the dead back into society, reuniting them with their families, giving them jobs, etc. But the dead behave differently than the living, and they discover that they are resistent to disease and don't die quite as easily as they did the first time. Fear takes over, and then some really weird stuff starts happening. Not likely a movie you'll see at the Cineplex, but still interesting.
Haven: If you liked Traffic or Love Actually, you will like this film. Three groups of people converge in the Cayman Islands, with plenty of sex, drugs, violence and millions of dollars in offshore accounts to go around. Anyone who thinks that Orlando Bloom only gets pretty-boy roles will be happy to know that he becomes physically disfigured during the course of the movie. During the Q&A, there was a question to the cast asking them which aspect of the Caymanian culture made a lasting impression on them. Bill Paxton replied, "The jerk chicken is just excellent." (Watch the film to understand the joke)
Beyond the Sea: Hitting your local theatre on November 24th. A biopic that blends fantasy with reality with a bit of song and dance thrown in. Kevin Spacey was really impressive, singing all the songs himself. He's a really funny guy in person too. When the film fest dude was telling the audience that anti-piracy devices were going to be in use during the screening, Kevin added, "I'M the anti-piracy device...I'll chase your motherfuckin' ass down the street!" The film itself is set up so that it appeared as though Bobby Darin was actually directing the film about his life, so you get the "film within a film" idea. He talks to his 10-year-old self quite a bit, and the boy who plays the young Bobby, William Ullrich, is really talented. He's already done 4 Broadway musicals. My mom thought that the real Sandra Dee was way prettier than Kate Bosworth. All in all, a highly recommended film.
White Tower: Unfortunately, not at all what I was expecting, and mostly disappointing since it could have been much more interesting. It's a documentary about the deaf in China. Since we NEVER ever see or hear anything about the physically handicapped or how they're treated in that country, I thought it would be enlightening. It was a couple of hours of watching the camera move back and forth while deaf people talked to each other. The other problem was that there were technical difficulties with the projector, and everything was kind of blurry, which was really bad since subtitles were extremely essential. They stopped the movie after half an hour, spent about ten minutes fixing the problem, and then, at the request of the directors, started the movie again from the beginning. Oy. There was a story (a partially deaf man fell in love with a deaf girl who was already involved with a deaf Taiwanese man), but it was really hard to watch. However, it answered my question about how the Chinese sign a word that doesn't have a sign (since there's no alphabet). They just write the word in the air with their finger or on the palm of someone's hand. I doubt that anyone will see this film in a theatre in North America.
A Good Woman: Funniest film of the lot. Set in the '30s, a woman with questionable morals (Helen Hunt) leaves New York and heads to Italy to target a newlywed couple (one half of which is Scarlett Johansson). Based on the Oscar Wilde play, "Lady Windermere's Fan". Some of the best lines I've heard in a movie in recent years. A lot of social commentary about men and women and relationships between the two. And there's a twist in it. It will likely be in theatres eventually.
Siblings/Trouser Accidents: The latter is a five-minute short film about accidents caused by pants. It's like a mock-documentary, with what appears to be actual statistics of pants-related mishaps. It also compares them to accidents caused by other household items (brooms, newspapers, etc.). But it's important to keep in mind that the statistics are a little misleading, since there are some trouser accidents that are not reported, or reported under a different category. Siblings is a great film. Four kids who are not blood-related to each other or the people they call "Mom" and "Dad" accidentally-on-purpose kill the parents after their grandfather dies. A black comedy, to say the least. The parents are the worst people on the face of the earth. The little girl has the best lines in the movie, as she tries to come up with ways of killing the parents and making it look like an accident. Film fest veteran Sarah Polley has a supporting role. Go see this film. Support Canadian cinema.
Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes): This was by far the most serious of all the films I saw. It's based on a true story, and takes place in El Salvador in the 1980s during the civil war. The Salvadorean army "recruits" 12-year-old boys by force and trains them to become soldiers. The story centres around 11-year-old Chava, who, with his family, is caught in the crossfire almost every night. After being introduced to an underground radio station by his uncle, Chava begins to fight back in his own way. The kids in this movie were amazing.
L'Équipier (The Light): A predictable but still nice French film about a wounded veteran who takes over a position in a lighthouse on the Breton island of Ouessant. The residents are furious about the idea of an outsider taking the position over a local. But he slowly wins some of them over, and falls for the wife of a fellow lighthouse keeper. A lot of humour, and a tiny bit of action too.
So...that's it. Good thing I didn't see 30 films, huh?
But I digress. As promised, a little recap of the week's highlights and a sneak peek at some films about hit a theatre near you:
Les Revenants (They Came Back): Not your typical zombie movie. Everywhere in France, the recently deceased start walking into towns and villages. No blood and guts, no feasting on brains. The citizens of the town in the movie begin to reintegrate the dead back into society, reuniting them with their families, giving them jobs, etc. But the dead behave differently than the living, and they discover that they are resistent to disease and don't die quite as easily as they did the first time. Fear takes over, and then some really weird stuff starts happening. Not likely a movie you'll see at the Cineplex, but still interesting.
Haven: If you liked Traffic or Love Actually, you will like this film. Three groups of people converge in the Cayman Islands, with plenty of sex, drugs, violence and millions of dollars in offshore accounts to go around. Anyone who thinks that Orlando Bloom only gets pretty-boy roles will be happy to know that he becomes physically disfigured during the course of the movie. During the Q&A, there was a question to the cast asking them which aspect of the Caymanian culture made a lasting impression on them. Bill Paxton replied, "The jerk chicken is just excellent." (Watch the film to understand the joke)
Beyond the Sea: Hitting your local theatre on November 24th. A biopic that blends fantasy with reality with a bit of song and dance thrown in. Kevin Spacey was really impressive, singing all the songs himself. He's a really funny guy in person too. When the film fest dude was telling the audience that anti-piracy devices were going to be in use during the screening, Kevin added, "I'M the anti-piracy device...I'll chase your motherfuckin' ass down the street!" The film itself is set up so that it appeared as though Bobby Darin was actually directing the film about his life, so you get the "film within a film" idea. He talks to his 10-year-old self quite a bit, and the boy who plays the young Bobby, William Ullrich, is really talented. He's already done 4 Broadway musicals. My mom thought that the real Sandra Dee was way prettier than Kate Bosworth. All in all, a highly recommended film.
White Tower: Unfortunately, not at all what I was expecting, and mostly disappointing since it could have been much more interesting. It's a documentary about the deaf in China. Since we NEVER ever see or hear anything about the physically handicapped or how they're treated in that country, I thought it would be enlightening. It was a couple of hours of watching the camera move back and forth while deaf people talked to each other. The other problem was that there were technical difficulties with the projector, and everything was kind of blurry, which was really bad since subtitles were extremely essential. They stopped the movie after half an hour, spent about ten minutes fixing the problem, and then, at the request of the directors, started the movie again from the beginning. Oy. There was a story (a partially deaf man fell in love with a deaf girl who was already involved with a deaf Taiwanese man), but it was really hard to watch. However, it answered my question about how the Chinese sign a word that doesn't have a sign (since there's no alphabet). They just write the word in the air with their finger or on the palm of someone's hand. I doubt that anyone will see this film in a theatre in North America.
A Good Woman: Funniest film of the lot. Set in the '30s, a woman with questionable morals (Helen Hunt) leaves New York and heads to Italy to target a newlywed couple (one half of which is Scarlett Johansson). Based on the Oscar Wilde play, "Lady Windermere's Fan". Some of the best lines I've heard in a movie in recent years. A lot of social commentary about men and women and relationships between the two. And there's a twist in it. It will likely be in theatres eventually.
Siblings/Trouser Accidents: The latter is a five-minute short film about accidents caused by pants. It's like a mock-documentary, with what appears to be actual statistics of pants-related mishaps. It also compares them to accidents caused by other household items (brooms, newspapers, etc.). But it's important to keep in mind that the statistics are a little misleading, since there are some trouser accidents that are not reported, or reported under a different category. Siblings is a great film. Four kids who are not blood-related to each other or the people they call "Mom" and "Dad" accidentally-on-purpose kill the parents after their grandfather dies. A black comedy, to say the least. The parents are the worst people on the face of the earth. The little girl has the best lines in the movie, as she tries to come up with ways of killing the parents and making it look like an accident. Film fest veteran Sarah Polley has a supporting role. Go see this film. Support Canadian cinema.
Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes): This was by far the most serious of all the films I saw. It's based on a true story, and takes place in El Salvador in the 1980s during the civil war. The Salvadorean army "recruits" 12-year-old boys by force and trains them to become soldiers. The story centres around 11-year-old Chava, who, with his family, is caught in the crossfire almost every night. After being introduced to an underground radio station by his uncle, Chava begins to fight back in his own way. The kids in this movie were amazing.
L'Équipier (The Light): A predictable but still nice French film about a wounded veteran who takes over a position in a lighthouse on the Breton island of Ouessant. The residents are furious about the idea of an outsider taking the position over a local. But he slowly wins some of them over, and falls for the wife of a fellow lighthouse keeper. A lot of humour, and a tiny bit of action too.
So...that's it. Good thing I didn't see 30 films, huh?
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Does This Count As A Degree?
Oh my...where to start? I was planning on writing up the whole festival experience after next Friday, so that I'd be able to share my reviews of the films I'd seen and make my recommendations. But I had to write about my close encounters now...while I'm still reeling from the excitement and absurdity of it all.
Last night I went to see the world premiere of "Haven" with Ada. Yes, there was an ulterior motive for my choosing of the film (Orlando), but the story was also interesting. So, the two of us were in line waiting to go in. There were some people in front of us who started screaming, but that was because they were listening to the radio and Canada had just scored to make it 3-2 (I think). Then, I kept hearing sporatic screaming from further off. As the line moved closer, we could hear the ridiculous chanting ("Or-lan-do! Or-lan-do!"). And then the screaming, and people running into the path of oncoming traffic, and flashbulbs lighting up the street. The guy behind us was asking his female companion why they were going nuts. I turned around and said that it was probably because Orlando Bloom had just arrived, and the guy looked at me with a mixture of complete incredulity and disappointment and said, "Aw, MAN! Is HE in this movie?!" Hmmm...looks like he wasn't the one who bought the tickets. As we passed the red carpet area on our way in, we tried to look at the commotion but it was really quite blinding and chaotic.
As we sat and waited in the theatre, we noticed that the people in the front had started standing up, looking towards the back and taking photos. We looked ourselves to see who they were looking at, but it took us several minutes to figure out that Kevin Bacon was about 20 feet away from us. He was wearing a leather jacket and glasses, and Ada kept saying "It doesn't look like Kevin Bacon!" until he stood up to greet someone and took off his glasses. He's not in the film, but he's here to promote his own movie ("The Woodsman") and I realized later that he was probably there to support his good buddy Bill Paxton.
There were many more highlights but I'll save that for the final review later. After the showing and the Q&A, the stars fled out the back door while we went out the front. There were STILL people on the other side of the red carpet with their cameras and pens. Honestly. They're not going to come back out the front door. We continued towards Yonge, past the line of people waiting for the Midnight Madness movie to start, when we noticed the line of limos on the side of the road. Then there was a crowd of people being stopped by security, and suddenly we realized we had stumbled across the "back door". The security guys opened the car doors and there, not two feet in front of me, the whole cast was getting into the limos. Bill Paxton walked right by me and thanked the crowd for coming out to support the film. That was...moderately thrilling. Still doesn't top the Fran Drescher/Kim Cattrall moment from last year, but it's a very close second.
This morning, my mom (pinch hitting for my dad, who wasn't feeling well) and I went to see "Beyond the Sea". While we were in the theatre, people were whispering excitedly and craning their necks to look at the back corner. There was Kevin Spacey. To my mom, she was kind of amazed at how people can pick out and identify "just another white man" in a dark corner of the theatre. I laughed and said, "Yeah, they all look alike to us, don't they?" She asked me if I was going to go over there to ask for an autograph, and I said no way, I'm not weird like that. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, since a couple of girls were stopped by the large bodyguard before they could get near him. I was just impressed that he was there at 9 in the morning, since the movie had screened the night before at Roy Thomson. But he was there and he answered questions at the end and everything.
So, four brushes with celebrity in two days. Three films down, five to go.
"And someone's sneakin' 'round the corner, could that someone be Mack the Knife?"
Last night I went to see the world premiere of "Haven" with Ada. Yes, there was an ulterior motive for my choosing of the film (Orlando), but the story was also interesting. So, the two of us were in line waiting to go in. There were some people in front of us who started screaming, but that was because they were listening to the radio and Canada had just scored to make it 3-2 (I think). Then, I kept hearing sporatic screaming from further off. As the line moved closer, we could hear the ridiculous chanting ("Or-lan-do! Or-lan-do!"). And then the screaming, and people running into the path of oncoming traffic, and flashbulbs lighting up the street. The guy behind us was asking his female companion why they were going nuts. I turned around and said that it was probably because Orlando Bloom had just arrived, and the guy looked at me with a mixture of complete incredulity and disappointment and said, "Aw, MAN! Is HE in this movie?!" Hmmm...looks like he wasn't the one who bought the tickets. As we passed the red carpet area on our way in, we tried to look at the commotion but it was really quite blinding and chaotic.
As we sat and waited in the theatre, we noticed that the people in the front had started standing up, looking towards the back and taking photos. We looked ourselves to see who they were looking at, but it took us several minutes to figure out that Kevin Bacon was about 20 feet away from us. He was wearing a leather jacket and glasses, and Ada kept saying "It doesn't look like Kevin Bacon!" until he stood up to greet someone and took off his glasses. He's not in the film, but he's here to promote his own movie ("The Woodsman") and I realized later that he was probably there to support his good buddy Bill Paxton.
There were many more highlights but I'll save that for the final review later. After the showing and the Q&A, the stars fled out the back door while we went out the front. There were STILL people on the other side of the red carpet with their cameras and pens. Honestly. They're not going to come back out the front door. We continued towards Yonge, past the line of people waiting for the Midnight Madness movie to start, when we noticed the line of limos on the side of the road. Then there was a crowd of people being stopped by security, and suddenly we realized we had stumbled across the "back door". The security guys opened the car doors and there, not two feet in front of me, the whole cast was getting into the limos. Bill Paxton walked right by me and thanked the crowd for coming out to support the film. That was...moderately thrilling. Still doesn't top the Fran Drescher/Kim Cattrall moment from last year, but it's a very close second.
This morning, my mom (pinch hitting for my dad, who wasn't feeling well) and I went to see "Beyond the Sea". While we were in the theatre, people were whispering excitedly and craning their necks to look at the back corner. There was Kevin Spacey. To my mom, she was kind of amazed at how people can pick out and identify "just another white man" in a dark corner of the theatre. I laughed and said, "Yeah, they all look alike to us, don't they?" She asked me if I was going to go over there to ask for an autograph, and I said no way, I'm not weird like that. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, since a couple of girls were stopped by the large bodyguard before they could get near him. I was just impressed that he was there at 9 in the morning, since the movie had screened the night before at Roy Thomson. But he was there and he answered questions at the end and everything.
So, four brushes with celebrity in two days. Three films down, five to go.
"And someone's sneakin' 'round the corner, could that someone be Mack the Knife?"
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Family Matters
Hallelujah...my brother got a job. For months he's been the laziest ass in the world. Each day started melding into the next to the point where every Friday he asked me, "Don't you have to go to work tomorrow?" And I reply, "No doofus, it's the weekend again." And he answers, "Oh yeah...what month is this again?" But lately he's been getting tired of the routine himself. He told me recently, "Karen, I've gotta get a job...even if it's at Canadian Tire." And lo and behold, he got the call today. I got home from work and found out that my brother got a job at a nearby CT on the spot. Well, he went in for the interview this morning around 11 and they called him at around 2 to report for work at 5. To me, that's on the spot. Right now he's doing all the gopher work but eventually he'll be in the service department. You gotta start somewhere.
Not two days after my youngest brother went back to Queen's, a letter arrived for him from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. That's right folks, my 19-year-old brother is getting audited. I just started laughing when I found out. What, they're going to question him about those three days that he tried to sell natural gas? Or the four weeks that he did those heavy lifting jobs from the temp agency? Or whether or not he's actually a university student? Well, it turns out that it's a question about the amount of rent he paid last year. Do they have nothing better to do?
It's been about five days and my mother is still getting persistent headaches. Why? Because she spent last Sunday afternoon in Kingston inhaling chlorine bleach fumes in a closet of a bathroom that isn't even remotely ventilated. I am still incredibly pissed off at her. So my brother's bathroom is a disgusting mess. That doesn't mean you should clean it using EVEN MORE bleach than you usually use in our home bathroom that's ten times bigger (and I can usually tell that she cleaned the downstairs bathroom almost before I open the front door). On the plus side, her eyes have stopped watering and her throat has stopped hurting and her lungs have stopped burning.
Daddy...nothing to say about Daddy. Daddy's been REALLY busy lately. Daddy deserves a break.
"My mother, my mother she hold me, did she hold me when I was out there, my father, my father he liked me, oh he liked me, does anyone care"
Not two days after my youngest brother went back to Queen's, a letter arrived for him from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. That's right folks, my 19-year-old brother is getting audited. I just started laughing when I found out. What, they're going to question him about those three days that he tried to sell natural gas? Or the four weeks that he did those heavy lifting jobs from the temp agency? Or whether or not he's actually a university student? Well, it turns out that it's a question about the amount of rent he paid last year. Do they have nothing better to do?
It's been about five days and my mother is still getting persistent headaches. Why? Because she spent last Sunday afternoon in Kingston inhaling chlorine bleach fumes in a closet of a bathroom that isn't even remotely ventilated. I am still incredibly pissed off at her. So my brother's bathroom is a disgusting mess. That doesn't mean you should clean it using EVEN MORE bleach than you usually use in our home bathroom that's ten times bigger (and I can usually tell that she cleaned the downstairs bathroom almost before I open the front door). On the plus side, her eyes have stopped watering and her throat has stopped hurting and her lungs have stopped burning.
Daddy...nothing to say about Daddy. Daddy's been REALLY busy lately. Daddy deserves a break.
"My mother, my mother she hold me, did she hold me when I was out there, my father, my father he liked me, oh he liked me, does anyone care"
Monday, September 06, 2004
Not Complete Without a Crazy Person
In a way, I guess I could have qualified as the crazy person. You know, going downtown at 6:30 in the morning on a holiday, sitting in a line for two hours, just to pick up some film tickets. But, I'd like to point out that I wasn't the first person in the line. Actually, there could easily have been 60-70 people in front of me. And the whole point of being down there so early was that in the event that I didn't get all the tickets I ordered, I could quickly get into the OTHER line for the replacement tickets, which moves much slower comparatively to the first line. But, lucky for me, I got every ticket I ordered this year, so woo hoo, etc.
The crazy person was a guy that I encountered after I picked up the tickets. It was about 9:30, so it was still relatively early, and as I was walking along Yonge, I heard a commotion somewhere behind me. I stopped to look, but couldn't see anything. Then I heard the voice again, only it was louder and closer. Then I saw him walking down the street in my direction. I couldn't think of anything to do except to walk away from the crazy man. Of course, I didn't want to look like I was running away from him, so I just casually walked down the street. He got closer and closer and finally I could sort of hear what he was saying. I say "sort of" because he was screaming at the top of his lungs in a semi-maniacal manner. I heard him say something about starving children, and "fucking this" and "fucking that", and then as he passed me he said something like "for the glory of the British Empire" and then mentioned something about George the VI. I guess that officially qualified him as a crazy person for me.
Not that he looked crazy, he wasn't noticeably dirty or carrying plastic bags. He had normal clothes, a hat, and he was even wearing headphones. Wasn't sure if they were plugged into anything, but I haven't seen very many homeless crazy people with headphones. I lost sight of him after a while, but as I was about to go into the Eaton Centre, there he was in front of me, heading into the mall. At that point I became convinced that I should walk outside, since it was such a nice day.
"Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation, everything isn't meant to be okay"
The crazy person was a guy that I encountered after I picked up the tickets. It was about 9:30, so it was still relatively early, and as I was walking along Yonge, I heard a commotion somewhere behind me. I stopped to look, but couldn't see anything. Then I heard the voice again, only it was louder and closer. Then I saw him walking down the street in my direction. I couldn't think of anything to do except to walk away from the crazy man. Of course, I didn't want to look like I was running away from him, so I just casually walked down the street. He got closer and closer and finally I could sort of hear what he was saying. I say "sort of" because he was screaming at the top of his lungs in a semi-maniacal manner. I heard him say something about starving children, and "fucking this" and "fucking that", and then as he passed me he said something like "for the glory of the British Empire" and then mentioned something about George the VI. I guess that officially qualified him as a crazy person for me.
Not that he looked crazy, he wasn't noticeably dirty or carrying plastic bags. He had normal clothes, a hat, and he was even wearing headphones. Wasn't sure if they were plugged into anything, but I haven't seen very many homeless crazy people with headphones. I lost sight of him after a while, but as I was about to go into the Eaton Centre, there he was in front of me, heading into the mall. At that point I became convinced that I should walk outside, since it was such a nice day.
"Welcome to a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation, everything isn't meant to be okay"