filmgurlland

Deconstructing a Hollywood Remake

2009-02-01T22:48:00.007-05:00

The Uninvited vs A Tale of Two Sisters

This article contains spoilers about both films. Proceed with caution.

Based on Kim Ji-woon's 2003 chiller, A Tale of Two Sisters, the Guard Brothers' first feature, The Uninvited (2009), is, at its core a mediocre fright film aimed at 13 year old girls. And although it comes rather late in the seemingly endless J-horror (or, technically K-horror in this case) remake cycle, an examination of the differences between the two films actually manages to provide some interesting insights into the differences between Asian and North American culture and audience expectations.

The first major difference is, of course, the title. The Korean title of A Tale of Two Sisters is Janghwa, Hongryeon, which can be translated literally as "Rose Flower and Red Lotus". The Korean title comes from the Joseon-era folk tale on which it is based, about two sisters put upon and eventually murdered by an evil stepmother. The English title brings the relationship between the two sisters to the forefront, whereas the Korean title is actually the names of the two girls from the folk story. For the Hollywood remake, the name was changed to The Uninvited, which takes the girls out of the picture all together and puts the emphasis clearly on the haunting/ghost aspect of the story. It also thoroughly confuses those familiar with Lee Soo-youn's 2003 Korean horror film, 4 Inyong Shiktak, which was released in North American as The Uninvited. Other than both dealing with ghosts and being uncommonly elegant and moving, Lee's film and Kim's have little in common.

Another key difference is the shift in focus from the older, more assertive sister in Tale to the younger, more fragile sister in Uninvited. In Tale, Soo-mi (Lim Su-jeong) has just been released from a mental health facility after suffering some sort of nervous breakdown (which is never really explained), but upon returning home she immediately becomes confrontational with her step-mother, Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah) and protective of her younger sister Soo-yeong (Mun Geun-yeoung. Eun-joo, frustrated by Soo-mi's insolence, turns her anger towards the passive Soo-yeong, which only fuels Soo-mi's teenage rage.

In The Uninvited, it is the younger sister, Anna (Emily Browning) who was institutionalized after a suicide attempt stemming from her having witnessed the death of her terminally ill mother in a (hilariously spectacular) fire. Upon returning home she immediately seeks out her older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel), who is sassy, irresponsible and bikini clad for much of the film. It is also Alex who first raises suspicions about the role their father's new girlfriend, and incidentally, their mother's nurse, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), played in their mother's death.

While a subtle difference, making the more "innocent" sister the protagonist plays directly into North American notions of purity and victim-hood. Were Anna to have been immediately confrontational with Rachel, one assumes that the audience would have felt less sympathetic towards her. This serves mostly to increase the shock of the final twist, which also greatly differs from the that in the original film. However, making Anna the "virgin" also better aligns her with the North American horror tradition of the "last girl".

Differences in attitudes towards sex and sexuality are also clearly evident in the way the protagonists are portrayed in the two films. Uninvited opens with a scene of Anna making out with a boy, but she ultimately pulls away from him as he starts to become aggressive. Older sister Alex, on the other hand, is implicitly more sexual and Rachel is clearly portrayed as a sexual temptress, complete with a drawer full of lacy underthings and a metallic dildo. Anna is also given a love interest who seems to hold a key piece of evidence to what really happened the night of her mother's death, a character that is completely absent from Tale. In fact, the concept of boys is altogether absent from the Korean film and burgeoning sexuality is hinted at. It could even be argued that sex and issues related to female sexuality are the major themes of The Uninvited, since it is implied at the end of the film that Anna's psychosis was triggered by her having caught her rather engaged in a sexual act. Not really that surprising as this is a standard preoccupations of North American horror films.

The mood an tone are also strikingly different between the two films. Whereas Tale is a baroque fairytale set in a dark and mysterious house, Uninvited is much more glib and sunny which ends up undermining much of the intended horror. Tale is as much a tragedy as it is a horror film and the prevailing feeling of deep sadness inherent in the way it was shot and scored, as well as the actors' performances, are what ultimately fuels the horror aspects. It functions largely as a mood piece with minimal dialogue, while Uninvited didactically spells everything out for the audience and includes such charming lines as, "[s]he's like a crack whore, only without the dignity."

However, it is the treatment of the mentally ill that most distinguishes The Uninvited from its Eastern inspiration. In Tale, Soo-mi's father (Kim Kap-su) is a doctor and his inability to help his daughter is what fuels his frustration. Although we are never told what kind of doctor the father is, it is clear that he feels he should be able to help her, either as a doctor or as her father. His emotional impotence and his compounded guilt is heartbreaking, yet his silence in the face of what is revealed to be an incredibly ill girl could be seen as too foreign to a spoon-fed Hollywood audience. And so in Uninvited, the father (David Strathairn) is given the much sexier occupation of writer and his frustration with his daughter is portrayed more as a result of the disruption to his life her return has caused than out of any real concern for her health. Because his exposure to to the true depth of Anna's illness does not happen until the very end of the film, we never get the sense of heartache that Tale exploited to such marvelous effect.

In Kim's film, the fact that Soo-mi has multiple delusions only serves to reinforce the horror imagery and the audience ultimately feels great sympathy towards her, especially at the end of the film. The Guard Brothers' take, on the other hand, feels much more like a case of bait and switch and the result is that the viewer feels manipulated and unmoved. Whereas Soo-mi is a girl struggling and ultimately unable to come to terms with tragedy, Anna is a cartoon psycho, straight out of central casting.

Whether the failings of The Uninvited are the result of studio interference, mediocre film making, or the Hollywood need to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator is unclear. But the original premise and a capable and talent cast could have yielded something much more interesting. But then again, I guess it already did.

Weekend Round-Up: Bloodshot Bill, Goodbye K.C. & Whisky

2008-11-11T16:54:00.004-05:00

Friday: Due to a problem with the internet at work I got to take off early, which was awesome because it meant I could crack open a couple beers and continue my full frontal assault on my laundry which had been collecting on my floor for the better part of three weeks. Once things were approaching sanitary, I made my way down to the Esco for Bloodshot Bill, a one man rockabilly band.

The opening act was also super fun, they're called The Kid and had a sort of psychedelic 60's sound to them. Also, the lead singer was hilarious in his skinny pants and pointy white loafers. He even let me shake a maraca during Bloodshot Bill's set.

Thing I'm learning is that I need to start being careful going to rock shows by myself. While the attention is certainly flattering, it ends up being distracting to the show. I had no less than three suitors vying for my attention, but I just wanted to get my dance on, which I did.

Saturday: Feeling the effects of my over indulgence, Saturday was a decidedly slow moving affair. L came to pick up the cat around noon, but instead of starting the de-fur-afying of the apartment I went back to bed since my meeting had been pushed to Sunday. At some point I agreed to meet MJ to try to help her with her computer, but slept through the appointed meeting time and agreed that it would be better if I just stayed home.

Made a couple calls out West and then curled up in a blanket and set about catching up on the mound of films piled under my TV. First up was Little Miss Sunshine, which I really enjoyed, but probably not as much as most people. However, it was the perfect antidote to my foul mood, so there was that.

Next up was Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which while well acted and written, suffered from some technical flourishes that ended up being rather distracting. The nonlinear plotting was fine, but the forced strobing effects used to signal a change in time/perspective were pedantic and useless. Also, Ethan Hawke was so fucking twitchy I wanted to see him hurt, badly, which didn't really happen. At least not enough for my tastes.

Sunday: Another pretty lazy day. Went for my weekly bagel run. Finished off Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and made some calls out West. Tidied up the house a bit and then made my way to the office for my meeting with MJ and Taien. Since MJ is going to leaving for Korea for close to 6 months next week, we needed to have a sit down to discuss who would take care of what. Didn't take too long and afterwards we contemplated going for a drink together when Taien pulled out a bottle of whiskey, so we opted to do that. A few drinks later MJ and I stumbled over to Sago for some sushi and then I walked home. Made some more calls West and started watching the Darjeeling Limited, which I plan to finish tonight.

Long Weekend Round-Up: NYC, Canadian Thanksgiving & Fletcher Tattoos

2008-10-18T18:34:00.006-04:00

Photos pending

Friday: Got up bright and early to catch the train to NYC to spend Canadian Thanksgiving with my Fletcher brethren, Rock, Slim and Linda. Packed entirely too much stuff to occupy myself on what ended up being another 12 and a half hour ride through purgatory (actually, Upstate New York) and ended up mostly listening to Broken Social Scene, knitting and reading The Atrocity Exhibition.

Got to Penn Station at 10 PM where I met up with Phil and Tina and jumped on the train to their place in Astoria. Got to meet their doggy, Trixie, drank wine and ate greasy food at Mike's, then passed out on the couch.

Saturday: After a suitably late start, Phil and I headed out to the East Village to price tattoo places on St. Marks Place. Met up with his friend Amber in the park and ate stupidly delicious hummus with sauteed mushrooms at a restaurant called, appropriately enough, Hummus Place. Hung out for a bit and then called my old UBC drinking buddy Andy to arrange a meeting place in Williamsburg.

Met up with Andy and got some cheap and delicious tacos and frozen margaritas, then headed out to Greenpoint to catch his buddy's show. I felt super bad because I ended up nodding off during the set, but it turned out my brief siesta was much needed because the evening ended up turning into quite the adventure.

After leaving the Red Star bar we went back to Manhattan for someone's birthday at the eleventh street bar. Unbeknownst to us it was actually a costume party, although only about half the bar seemed to be participating. Costume highlights include the woman dressed as Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, complete with a stuffed rabbit in a pot, a guy dressed as Alex my droog from Clockwork Orange and no less than 3 Sarah Palins.

After several cocktails we moved on to someone's loft in the area, but while everyone else was at the convenience store buying more beer I opted for an extra large bottle of mineral water. Partied on the roof to a DJ spinning tunes and managed to sticker one of the Sarah Palins with an Obama/Biden sticker. At about 4 AM I was ready to pack 'er in, but Andy talked me into sticking around to enjoy potato latkes and perogies at some 24 hour dinner in the neighborhood.

Got back to Phil & Tina's at around 6 AM and promptly passed out on the couch.

Sunday: After waking briefly to grab some breakfast with P & T, I passed out again until 3 PM when Bess called to organize meeting up that evening. Ended up choosing to attend an evening of indie/experimental music at the Issue Project Room at the Spiegeltent on Pier 17, which was an eclectic mix to be sure. First up was a noise-rock band from Boston called Neptune who make all of their instruments out of scrap metal and other various things. Next was Tony Conrad, who worked with the Dream Syndicate and krautrock bank Faust, who basically played a modified violin with reverb for about 45 straight minutes. After that was 5 piece blues band.

Being that we were both starving, we ventured up to the lower East side to grab cheap and delicious Chinese food at the Congee Village, where I also enjoyed my first ever apple martini (I know). After catching up over congee and yummy tofu and veggies we both conceded defeat and went our separate ways to sleep.

Back in Astoria I opted to give Louie a call since his plane from Vancouver should have landed by then. Chatted briefly as he was in a cab back to his apartment and once he was settled he came by Phil and Tina's to hang out. Ended up at Mike's again and stayed up until about 1 AM talking.

Monday: Slept a decent amount for the first time my whole trip, then set about helping Phil with his preparations for Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner that evening. I was in charge of desert, so whipped up an old fashioned Quebecois sugar pie & a yummy & spicy sweet potato pie. Other yummy things we prepped included samosa stuffed twice baked potatoes, and a stuffed pumpkin.

At about 2:30 PM Louie came by and he and I made our way to St. Marks Place to arrange for our group tattoos. Luckily they were able to accommodate all four of us and the quote was slightly less than we had originally been told. While we were waiting for the artist to get ready, Louie went up to The Onion offices to grab a copy of the issue with the Sukiyaki Western Django review with my pull quote in it while I waited for Phil. Snuck into Search and Destroy to grab a thank you gift for MC for making sure my cat didn't starve.

Around 4:30 PM Tina showed up and the artist did up sketches of our tattoos. Mine was a little bigger than the others because I opted to get a banner under the house. They were very sweet at the tattoo shop, letting us all take a million photos like the bunch of nerds we are. Phil and Louie left after getting their tattoos to finish the preparations for dinner, so us girls had to tough it out on our own.

Once we were all down we headed back up to Astoria and went straight to Louie's place because we were starving. As soon as we got to the door I was accosted by Louie's friend Heidi, who I hadn't seen in years. Once inside, I proceeded to drink much wine and mingle. Before dinner I helped Louie and his friend Carson from Sarnia put together a YouTube playlist of Canadian Heritage Minutes and Hinterland Who's Whos.

After dinner I chatted outside with a French girl who commented on my Quebecois accent, probably the best compliment I've gotten since I moved out here. I didn't really think about my accent until she mentioned it, but as I was speaking to her I suddenly really noticed the difference between my lazy, low, Canadian French and her more lyric, refined, continental French.

Back inside, things had degenerated into a Rock Band Party, as do most parties I go to these days. Once that started to wind down and people started to go home, Louie got out his Uke for the traditional post dinner Ukulele concert, which went very well, right up until the guy from upstairs came down to ask us to keep it down.

I had started to nod off on the couch when Louie suggested we make a conference call to his parents to tell them about our tattoos, which was funny and lovely. Finally, at around 2 AM, Phil, Tina and I stumbled back to their apartment so I could crash on their couch one last time before scrambling to catch my train home.

Tuesday: Got up at 6 AM and scrambled out the door with my little suitcase in tow and set about getting the supplies I'd need to survive the trip home: food, water, etc. Got on the subway and suddenly realized I didn't have my cellphone. Got off the subway, went back to Phil and Tina's, woke them up, searched the couch cushions and then realized that the damn thing had been in my purse the whole time. Went back out on the street to hail a cab. Forty minutes and $40 later, turned up at Penn Station in time to realize that I'd missed the boarding call for my train by half an hour. After briefly waiting in the Amtrak customer service line, decided to play it safe and asked an elderly police officer where the nearest Greyhound station was. Walked the six blocks to the Greyhound station and bought a ticket for the next bus, which conveniently was leaving in two hours. Put myself directly in the line-up for the bus, since I would be damned if I missed that too, and accepted my bus going fate.

As it turns out, the bus was quite pleasant, and despite leaving two hours after the train, actually got me back to Montreal at the same time the train would have, if not sooner. I even enjoyed our rest stop in Albany. Fuck the train.

Weekend Round-Up: Shows, Shows & Soup!

2008-10-04T16:05:00.016-04:00

Friday: Being that I was starting to get a little homesick because I realized I wouldn't be going home for Xmas, I made a date with myself to go see The Evaporators at the Mint Records showcase at Bar St-Laurent 2. Conveniently the bar is a ten minute walk from my house so I spent the evening tidying up and then trundled down just in time to catch Wax Mannequin, a one man prog-rock band, which is exactly as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.

Next up was The Buttless Chaps, I'd been hearing about for ages but had never been to see. About half-way through their set I noticed someone in the corner who looked strangely familiar. I'd expected to run into some Vancouver ex-pats so I made a point of introducing myself. Turns out she used to work at my local comic book store on Main Street and had been living in Montreal for two years. Just before the second to last act we zipped up to St-Viateur for fresh hot bagels (nom, nom, nom), then nipped back in to finish the show, then exchanged numbers so we could go to movie together some time. Yeah! New friends in town!

Got back just in time to catch one of my new favourite bands (at least they are now, after seeing them live), The Pack A.D. Two women: one on guitar, one on drums, playing amazing striped down blues. Great energy, great sound. Totally check them out if you get the chance if you like that sort of thing.

As per usual I bounced around like an idiot to The Evaporators and I made a point of telling Nardwuar how happy I was that he was in Montreal as I was starting to get a little homesick.

Saturday: Got up hopelessly late and spent most of the day not doing very much. At about 1 PM I went on my weekly bagel run to St-Viateur bagels and stopped off briefly on the way home at the Puces POP craft fair. I had finally tried out Bagel Beaubien last week, which while closer, does not offer flax seed bagels and were kind of lackluster, comparatively. Also, I like people watching in Mile End.

Around 3 PM I finally worked up the will to run the rest of my many errands. First I headed up to Marche Jean-Talon, but got caught up talking to a co-worker and didn't notice that the market was actually closing until it was too late, so I didn't manage to actually buy anything. After that I headed down to IGA to do a quick grocery and almost left without paying. Finally, I went and cast my vote since I'd be on a train most of the 14th and wouldn't be back in Montreal until well after the polls had closed. At least I didn't screw up one task, sigh.

Heated up some leftovers and made my way out to the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore for a vernissage by Jack Dylan (he did a bunch of posters for POP Montreal this year, including an awesome Obey style series of portraits of the four major Canadian political leaders), but there was nobody there so I decided to start walking down to the Just for Laughs cabaret to meet Chris and Lee for the Black Kids show.

Being that I was super early I killed some time drinking a vanilla tea later on St-Laurent and did my best to kill time window shopping/people watching. Ended up being even earlier than I'd counted on by virtue of the fact that the opening act was no longer on the bill.

Didn't realize how hung over I actually was until I started drinking my beer and the fact that my back was killing me didn't help the fact that I felt very, very old as I looked around. I guess that's what happens when I go to see new bands in venues other than dive bars... Didn't really get into the first act, the Virgins, who, as I mentioned to Ali when she arrived, I liked better when they were called TheKillerstrokeferdinands. Opted to leave my perch for the Black Kids, and did have a good time bouncing to the lively, joyful sounds, despite being tired and decrepit.

After the show I went for a beer with Chris, Lee and Ali, despite being rather exhausted, then walked home up St-Laurent.

Sunday: Got up around 9 AM and set about being productive. Went up to Marche Jean Talon and bought a ridiculous amount of vegetables, including some weird broccoli like thing that looked like an angry coral that Chris had dared me to buy the night before. As no one had called me back about going to Puces POP I decided to focus on my culinary plans and set about making 2 kinds of soup and a giant batch of chili. My freezer is now fully stocked for at least two weeks worth of delicious and nutritious lunches (not to mention thrifty!)

Then, to close off my POP Montreal weekend, MC and I went to the Cartune Xprez show, a cartoon-music-performance from the minds of Hooliganship. Difficult to describe, but definitely entertaining. Also, the last part was in 3D, which was super fun. I opted to keep my glasses in anticipation of my Mike Relm DVD, courtesy of the best sister ever since he played in Vancouver but won't be coming to Mtl.

Weekend Round-Up: Vamps, shopping and CAKE!

2008-09-24T10:30:00.008-04:00

Friday: A fairly mellow night, punctuated only by a trip to Cinema du Parc to meet up with Chris, Lee & Alex for Daughters of Darkness on the big screen. I was super stoked because star Danielle Ouimet (a.k.a. Valérie) was going to be in attendance. She looked lovely and elegant, radiating the same beauty she did even in her early ingenue roles. She told some very entertaining stories about her difficulties with director Harry Kümel (apparently at one point things devolved into an all-out physical brawl) and her affection for her co-stars, particularly Delphine Seyrig.

I had wanted to ask her for a photograph after the screening, but I totally chickened out. She did seem super nice though, so hopefully by the time I do have my shit together enough to interview her she will be cooperative.

After the movie I opted to walk home, then watched some crap on YouTube before calling it a night.

Saturday: Got up much later than I'd expected, but considering how tired I was from the week I opted not to feel too bad about it. Met up with Alain & MC to walk around and do a bit of shopping. Made the mistake of going to H&M (which, for the record, is the devil) and walked out with what is probably the shortest skirt I have ever owned. I blame the fact that I was having a "skinny" day and everything I tried on looked really good. Also, I deserve clothes that fit me. Yeah, that's it...

After Alain was all shopped out we stopped for Indian food as we all had a craving. I stuffed myself stupid on onion bhajis, extra potato-y saag and some kind of delicious fresh mushroom curry. After dinner more walking was in order, but I'd eaten so much I started to get stomach cramps and had to beg off to take the bus the rest of the way around Mount Royal. Tidied the house a bit, then read and went to bed.

Sunday: Another lazy morning. Finally got around to my bagel run around 1pm, then headed up to IGA for a grocery run. Did a bit of work before meeting up with Gloria from work to bake cakes for Margherita's birthday on Monday. Gloria made an almond chocolate mousse and I pulled out the good-ole Red Velvet Cake. Got home in time to call the 'rents and ice my monster cake before stumbling into bed.

Weekend Round Up: Meetings, JP & Markets

2008-09-18T09:24:00.005-04:00

Sorry this is way later than usual, but working two jobs is really starting to kick my ass...

Friday:Since we had another colleague leaving our little translation family, another 5 a 7 was organized for our department. Lucky for me, everyone loved my suggestion of Vices & Versa for the last two 5 a 7s, so we opted to there this time too. However, even though I arranged everything, I had to leave early for a meeting with MJ. Got a little annoyed when she almost stood me up, but luckily we were able to connect and I was actually rather grateful for what ended up being an early, quiet night. Went home after my meeting and watched the penultimate episode of Season 4 of Weeds, which I had been saving for just such an occasion, then nearly pissed myself watching The Angry Video Game Nerd before falling into bed around midnight.

Saturday: In an effort to me more productive, I actually set my alarm for 8 AM, and managed to get-up before 9 AM. Gobbled some soy yogurt and walked down to St. Viateur for my weekly bagel run. I'm surprised they don't just hand me my half-dozen flax seed w/ smoked salmon spread when I arrive I go there so often. But I guess they get a lot of regular customers...

Since my back had been bothering me something fierce this week I forced myself to do some pilates, which actually seemed to do the trick. Then I finally got around to tidying my office and did a quick grocery trip. By about 3 PM I was finally ready to get down to business. Worked on the media package a bit before heading off to yet another meeting with MJ.

After my meeting I was able to hook-up with an old karaoke pal from Vancouver, JP, who was in town impromptu from Toronto. We got dinner in the Village and talked about lives on the Eastern side of the country. We both agreed that it was hard to compare our lives here to our lives there, but it was very nice for me to spend time with someone who'd known me in my former life. After dinner I went home, goofed on the internet a bit and called it a night.

Sunday: Another bright and bushy day, I managed to get showered and dressed in time to meet Rachael and Ben and their baby at the Jean-Talon Market. Got home in time to make up a big batch of potato leek soup with my freshly purchased veggies & finish off a bit of work before my previously scheduled dinner plans. Sadly, those were canceled at the last minute so I consoled myself with some instant ramen (chow mein style!) and Christian Bale & Alan Tudyk (3:10 to Yuma). Called a few peeps out West and tucked myself snugly into bed at a respectable 11 PM.

Weekend Round-Up: Garage Rock, Dinners and Smoochy

2008-09-09T17:31:00.000-04:00

Friday: After a slightly more mellow week, had a quick sushi dinner with a friend after work and then hurried home to give mom a happy birthday phone call before zipping down to the Bistro de Paris for the B-Sides album launch party. After blowing $6 on a pint, realized that the half-pitchers were $7.50 and kissed my good intentions for the evening goodbye. Danced like a goof and put out my back and neck, but it was worth it. Good old fashioned, garage-y blues/rock-- my favourite dancing music.

After the show I introduced myself to a couple guys I recognized from Fantasia and followed them to some other garage bar on St. Denis for one last beer. Spent the evening talking to strangers and getting asked questions like, "what model are you?", the correct answer being "1979", which was followed by, "I'm old enough to be your dad". Awesome. Finished the night off with some greasy-ass french fries and a cab ride home.

Saturday: Woke up hungover with a mild case of whiplash. Realized that I am getting too old for this shit, but I doubt that's going to stop me. Spent most of the day in my pajamas watching Weeds, but I did manage to make a couple phone calls, but that's about it.

In the evening I met up with my friends Rachael and Ben from Vancouver and their new baby. They are recent transplants to Montreal and I've been dying for a chance to show them around. Had a nice pasta dinner on Mt-Royal and then called it an early night. Went home and watched the rest of Weeds, then crawled into bed.

Sunday: Got up late and wandered around in a lazy stupor until Alain called to invite me to meet him and MC at the Jean-Talon Market. Took the opportunity to pick-up some much need fruits and veggies & also remembered to grab cat food and litter for K.C. After the market we went back to Al and MC's place where they proceeded to make an excellent Pasta Puttanesca. Drank too much wine and some Turkish drink that tasted like anise & watch Death to Smoochy, which was much longer than we'd expected. Didn't end up watching Dirty Harry like we'd planned, but I guess there's always next time. Wobbled my way back to the Metro and called it a night after a quick call to Van.

Another Crazy Pull Quote!

2008-09-02T23:08:00.004-04:00

So another review I wrote is being used in the advertising of a film. This time it's Montreal indie Who Is KK Downey, which opens this Friday at the AMC Forum. And you should totally go see it if you get the chance, it is hilarious!

Long Weekend Round-Up: Leatherface, Jazz & Work, Work, Work

2008-09-02T09:17:00.010-04:00

Friday: After another psychotically busy week, I was rather relieved to have some time to chill out at home before going to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, on the big screen, at Cinema du Parc with Chris & Lee. It actually my first time seeing it (I know, I'm shocked too), and I'm very glad I waited until I had the chance to see it in 35mm. Despite some 70's fashion and dialogue, it stands up pretty well and while not nearly as graphic as it's reputation implies, I thought it was creepy as hell. Some of my viewing companions thought it was more funny than scary, but I know I'm not going to bother with the blasphemous remake. Also, Rob Zombie is a hack.

Afterwards we went to Benelux for some beers & Chris made the mistake of trying the homemade, non-alcoholic root-beer. I quite liked it, but I have something of a sweet tooth. However, it did have a rather too strong vanilla aftertaste that was a little off-putting.

Saturday: Decided to take a break from working and spent a leisurely day enjoying the warm summer weather that had suddenly decided to appear. Went for brunch near Parc Molson and spent the afternoon drinking red wine and eating sushi in a park. Watched a couple of squirrels fight/fuck, which was mesmerizing and inappropriate at the same time.

Later, a friend invited me to check out The Cinematic Orchestra at Club Soda, and although I am not a jazz fan I decided to be open minded and check it out. Turns out my instincts were correct, as even my friend was underwhelmed by the free-jazzy noodling, but I can't call the evening a total loss because the opening act was amazing. He's a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn named Grey Reverend and I totally recommend checking him out if you like that sort of thing. I think he's best live, where his fierce acoustic strumming carries the most weight, but his lyrics are poignant and clever and heartbreaking.

Sunday: After farting around a bit in the morning, finally got out to Mile End for my weekly bagel run. Managed to get some work done for my second job, but my meeting that morning got pushed to that evening and then to Monday. Thought about going to see Vengeance is Mine at the FFM, but opted instead to stay home and watch The Last Winter, eat baked potato chips and drink mineral water. I was impressed by what director Larry Fessenden was able to accomplish with what was obviously a minuscule budget, but an over abundance of wanky camera techniques took away somewhat from the creepy tone. Still, it was intelligent, well acted and socially relevant, three qualities sorely lacking in indie horror these days.

Monday: Had a meeting re: my second job where I discovered that I will have even less free time this coming week. Oh well, it's good experience with a (very) vague possibility of visits to film fests in the future. After my meeting I had my first bad experience with the Montreal Metro, but that was due in part to my poor listening skills. Finally made it home and cooked up a huge batch of Thai curry using my stash of homegrown basil, that I will be eating for the next two weeks. Made a quick call to my folks and then worked, worked, worked, until I found that crazy pull-quote I blogged about last night. Then worked, worked worked some more until I finally had to sleep.

Holy Crap - Insane Pull-Quote

2008-09-01T19:10:00.009-04:00

Being essentially a freelance film critic (read: unpaid), I'm never really sure if anyone ever actually reads the reviews that I write and I don't really have any control over how those reviews are used.

So, when two people on Facebook got in touch with me recently to let me know they saw my review of Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, I decided to look into it a little more. Apparently a pull-quote from my Film Threat review is being used in the American advertising campaign for the film, meaning my name is all over a bunch of NY papers right now.

Which is pretty crazy, to me.

Although, according to this website (about 3/4 of the way down) it sounds like I was kind of totally misquoted.

Investigating further, I found the American website for the film, including a larger pull-quote right on the friggin' home page! The only other people quoted on the site are Guillermo del Toro, Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino. Bizarre...

Not sure that this really actually means anything, but it is pretty cool to be associated with such a cool movie. And it makes me sound vastly more important than I actually am, which I suppose isn't really that bad.

Film Threat
Gelf Magazine
Sukiyaki Western Django Official Site

Weekend Round-Up: Takin' It Easy

2008-08-25T09:12:00.001-04:00

After a hectic week that included attending two free shows at the Apple Store (Plants & Animals and Creature, if you're interested), a potential business meeting and another 5 à 7 with the translation department at Vices & Versa, I decided to play it a bit more casual this weekend.

Friday: After running some errands in Mile End, met up with a friend for dinner on the Plateau. Sadly I don't remember the name of the restaurant (damn aportez votre vin), but it was good, decently priced Italian at the corner of Duluth & St-Laurent. Afterward we stopped at Crèmerie Meu-Meu, an artisanal ice cream place that also does sorbettos and Soy Ice Cream! Can you imagine my joy? While my favourite so far is the fresh green tea sorbetto, I have to say the cinnamon soy ice cream I tried was quite something as well. Went home and listened to music, then called it a night around 12:30 AM because I am old.

Saturday: Feeling quite drained and fuzzy from the hectic week I slept in very late and generally bummed around. Did manage to get out of the house to do my weekly bagel run, but didn't end up doing much aside from that. Thought about going to Place des Arts for Cinema Under the Stars, the outdoor screening series that's part of the Montreal World Film Festival that kicked off on Thursday, but eventually decided I was too tired. Caught up a bit on season 3 of Weeds, called a few people in Vancouver, listened to lots of new music, cuddled with my much neglected cat...

Sunday: Another pretty mellow day. Managed to do some yoga, laundry and a quick grocery trip. Met up with a contact from Fantasia to discuss my possible involvement with her company. I won't say much about it as I'm afraid of jinxing things, but so far it sounds like a great opportunity and definitely more the direction I'd like to take my "career". Right now my duties would consist mostly of writing grant proposals, but it sounds like she also wants to move me into programming, which is just too exciting to contemplate. Then we drank beer and ate dried squid as is the custom in Korean. Got home and called some more people out West, then called it a night.

Ch-Ch-Changes: Part Deux

2008-08-19T17:57:00.003-04:00

While this blog seems to be read fairly exclusively by people I already know, and I don't generally like talking too much about my personal life on the internets, I figured it was about time to address the recent change to my relationship status. I'm not even sure I have that much to say about it, but in some ways I guess it is the final step in my "Total Life Makeover" of the last year or so.

New city. New job. New relationship status.

And while I am sad that things with L didn't work out, I am also excited about the future in a way I haven't been in a while. I am listening to music and going to shows. I am getting comfortable in my own skin. I'm cooking again and I'm taking pride in my money management skills. I even decided to give up meat (although I still eat fish), but I don't know if this will be a permanent change or just a phase. I've also stopped using my prescription cortisone cream for my eczema, which despite doctors warnings about thinning my skin, I've been using nearly every day for close to 10 years.

I'm taking care of myself, both in the "get enough sleep and eat enough vegetables" way and the "taking out the garbage, taking the metro at night" sense. It was hard to admit that I was happier by myself, but that's the way I feel right now. And although I'm alone, I have yet to feel lonely. I guess that's part of growing up.

REPO! Review

2008-07-28T08:41:00.003-04:00

My review of REPO! The Genetic Opera finally went up!

Link is here.

Fantasia Fallout

2008-07-24T22:26:00.003-04:00

So, Fantasia officially wrapped up on Tuesday and I've only just managed to find time to write about it. Not much to say really. Things went out on kind of a whimper with closing film Dying Breed, a fairly standard inbred cannibals in the woods terrorize naive city folk flick that gets points only for properly taking advantage of their Tasmanian location.

Movies I did get to were kind of hit and miss. Sadly going to Vancouver in the middle of the fest really screwed with my momentum and I only got to 21 of the 25+ I was planning on seeing.

Really enjoyed Sukiyaki Western Django, [REC] and Ex Drummer. Didn't like Let the Right One In as much as I thought I would, probably because I was so fekkin' tired. Remind me to rewatch it after I get some sleep... I've already forgotten Truffe. Both docs I saw (Second Skin & I Think We're Alone Now) were surprisingly great, very eye opening. Who Is KK Downey? managed to live up to expectations. Le tueur & La creme were sort of disappointing despite having some really good performances. Sparrow was fun and light. Sasori was ridiculous, but fun. Timecrimes was fun and smart. Before the Fall was very disappointing. The Echo & Midnight Meat Train were underwhelming, but not terrible. REPO was fascinating, but not for the right reasons. I remember really liking What We Do is Secret, but I was still kinda drunk and ended up vomiting after the film... And the less we say about Mother of Tears the better.

I guess the biggest thing I'll take away this year is the people I met, being that it's the first year I've actually had the time to try to network. In some ways it was a great event for me to take part in being new to a city because I met a lot of like-minded people in a very short amount of time, and it was the sort of ego boost I needed to get back into the film writing thing.

Which reminds me. Film Threat finally got around to posting six more of my reviews, which I have linked to for you:

Who Is KK Downey
The Echo
Sparrow
La creme
I Think We're Alone Now
After the Fall

I've got three more I'm working on and two that are pending. I'll post links as soon as they go up.

A Tale of Two Musicals...

2008-07-20T15:25:00.000-04:00

Or Why You Should Ignore REPO! and Watch Dr. Horrible Instead.

So, like I told you on Thursday, I got into a press screening of REPO! The Genetic Opera since a) the official Fantasia world premiere screening on Friday night was TOTALLY sold out and b) L and I went to George Michael on Friday.

When I first heard about the project I have to say I had my doubts, but coverage on io9 and in Rue Morgue had piqued my interest. Also, the wacky casting was intriguing and I love me some Anthony Stewart Head. Let's just say that I wasn't entirely surprised with what I saw, just a little disappointed. Which isn't to say it's terrible, it just isn't very good. You can read what I have to say in more detail on Film Threat whenever they post my review.

However, on Friday I also discovered that Joss Whedon's writer's strike project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, was in full swing with two of the three acts already available online (click the pic below to watch). Part three went up on Saturday and all three parts still seem to be available on iTunes and streaming on www.drhorrible.com.

I had some time to kill at work so I watched the first two parts and it was very interesting to compare the two projects. While REPO! is more of a full fledged opera, Dr. Horrible is definitely the stronger of the two lyrically and even possibly musically. And this despite Dr. Horrible being a comedy and REPO! aiming for tragedy. Of course it helps that I love all three of the leads (Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion & The Guild's Felicia Day) almost equally (although I think Neil Patrick Harris wins, but only because of that scene in Harold & Kumar where he does blow off a stripper's ass).

Or maybe I'm just more of a closet comic book nerd than I am a closet goth?
What do you think?

Back to the Grind

2008-07-17T09:14:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I survived my visit to Vancouver and I'm back at work and reviewing for Fantasia (a.k.a. the film festival that never ends). Only made it to one film yesterday, a press screening of REPO! The Genetic Opera, before meeting L for dinner and almost passing out in my Pho. I'm pretty happy with the review for that one, so I'll be linking to it as soon as it goes up later this week.

Also, thanks to everybody who caught my first movie night column in three years (yikes). If you didn't see it I've linked to it here.

And because I mentioned it earlier, I did managed to record a commentary for Purple Rain with BJ and Damon (no Robin) during my marathon visit to VanCity. If and when it gets posted on the internet I will let you know.

Fantasia: Day 5

2008-07-07T09:33:00.005-04:00

Reviewing and working a day job is definitely starting to take a toll on me. I've been averaging two movies a day, but I think I'm only going to make it to The Sparrow tonight, being that I still need to get a hold of people out West and pack for my trip on Wednesday.

Films so far have been more hit than miss, with the biggest miss of all being Mother of Tears on Saturday. Actually, it almost qualifies as so bad it's good, which I'm sure isn't much consolation to Argento fans. L remarked on the fact that everyone who was leaving the theater had the same stricken look like their dad had just died. It really is saying something that the best part of the film, and everyone seemed to agree with me on this one, is the monkey. If you have a chance to see this movie, do yourself a favour and skip it, lest you break your heart. Or at least make sure you've got one hell of a buzz going on.

The other miss was opening film Truffe, which despite some cool visuals and uniformly good performances wasn't quite weird enough for me to recommend. It's unusual for a Quebecois film, but the thin story probably would have worked better as a short.

Surprises so far were MMORPG documentary Second Skin and Miike Takashi's Sukiyaki Western Django, which is way more entertaining than it had any business being. Strange? You bet, but rather accessible by Miike standards. Still, I'd be damned if I could have understood the English dialogue without the English subtitles.

Three of the stronger films I've seen so far were all Spanish: indie horror [REC], which is far more effective than it could have been (I screamed out loud more than once), sci-fi who done it Timecrimes and apocalyptic crime thriller Before the Fall (3 Dias). Out of the three, Before the Fall was my least favourite, due largely to an over reliance on cliche and Hollywood style plotting and character development.

Also good were Who's that Knocking on My Door, a quiet revenge film from Korea and Germ's biopic What We Do is Secret, although I'm going to have to meditate a bit more on this last one. Parts of it reminded me of 24 Hour Party People it the way it captured the energy and excitement of a scene, but some parts were playing it a little safer than maybe they should have.

Another highlight was watching Gordon Liu tear up during the multiple standing ovations he received before and after the screening of Disciples of the 36th Chamber, an airy and infectiously fun Shaw bros kung-fu pic.

I've got to hang out with a bunch of cool people so far, including festival programmers Mitch, Simon, Mi-jeong and King-wei, Simon and Rick from The Naked Lunch radio show and Jason and Rob of Hobo with a Shotgun fame.

And for those who are interested, Film Threat has already posted some of my reviews:

Truffe
Sukiyaki Western Django
[REC]
Who's that Knocking at My Door

And Jeremy and I also collaborated on a pre-festival piece.

My new movie night column, Meeko's Movie Night Massacre will go online tomorrow.

Ooh, and if you wanna check out the Fantasia Trailers, go here. And there are video recaps of each day of the fest on YouTube.

Update

2008-07-04T16:47:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Things have been hella busy with Kat & Doug in town last week and my impending trip to Vancouver.

And Fantasia is in full swing and I'm going to be reviewing for two sites: Film Threat and Oddity Cinema.

Also, I started a new movie night column with Film Threat which should be posted to the site early next week.

Upcoming: Commentary for Purple Rain with BJ, Robin and Damon.

Stay tuned.

Recipe: Warm Potato Salad

2008-06-17T14:56:00.001-04:00

I mostly came up with this one on my own. An excellent summer recipe, perfect for BBQs.

1/2 lb panchetta or bacon, sliced and cut into 1/2 inch chunks ( I used spicy panchetta)
1 - 2 lbs new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
1/4 cup parsley (flat leaf is best), finely chopped
2 green onions, sliced thinly or 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
Cider or while wine vinegar (I used herb de provence flavoured cider vinegar)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Chop the onions and parsley, set aside.

In a big pot of boiling salted water, cook the potatoes until just tender, about 12 mins. Immediately drain the potatoes and rise under cold water until cool enough to handle. Roughly chop the potatoes into 1/2 cubes and throw them in a salad bowl. Add the onions and parsley, then drizzle everything with a tablespoon or two of vinegar and toss gently.

Meanwhile, fry the panchetta at medium high heat, stirring to break up the slices. Continue cooking until the panchetta is browned and slightly crispy. Immediately add to the potatoes, including any grease that collected in the pan. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to the potatoes, depending on how much panchetta grease there was. Add salt, pepper and any other seasoning you'd like to include. Toss gently and serve immediately.

Serves 4 - 6

Weekend Round Up: Stand-Up, Improv & Tea

2008-06-16T15:57:00.005-04:00

Friday: Since L was working late with the art department, I decided to call up my new friend Brandon and his wife to see what they were up to. They are newly arrived from Texas and neither of them knows much French so I'd kind of taken it upon myself to help show them around town. Since Andrea was opening for Joey Elias at the Comedy Nest I suggested we do that since it also met the necessary criteria of being an Anglo activity.

After some not very helpful directions from me, they managed to find their way to the club just as Andrea was getting ready to go on. Her set was good and included some material I hadn't heard before, but for whatever reason the audience wasn't that into it.

Part of Joey Elias' thing is to just talk to people in the front row and riff on what they tell him, and oddly enough the couple he was picking on also happened to be from Texas, which we all thought was extra funny. His set was very long, but there was at least point where I had to wipe away tears and Brandon and his wife seemed rather impressed with their first Montreal comedy experience.

After the show I suggest we go for a drink, but then it came out that they'd never had poutine, so I took them straight to Belle Province to remedy that. We got a family style poutine, but between the three of us we only managed to finish about half of it. Then I looked at the time and realized L was probably freaking out so we opted to call it a night.

When I got home L was lying on his back on the sofa, barely conscious after a 14 hour day. I helped him into bed, despite his incoherent and half-hearted protests and tucked myself into bed.

Saturday: Being that L wanted to hit a public pool at some point in the weekend I insisted in doing a pilates workout at home before going out. While I was in the shower we got a call from Alain & MC who were apparently in our neighborhood at a Spring Tea Seminar and they wanted to know if we wanted to join them for a couple sessions on Sunday. We told them we'd join them for the Intro session and talked them into joining us for brunch at Coco Gallo.

After brunch we followed Alain and MC back up to the Jean-Talon Market and L and I got lost in the Marche des Saveurs du Quebec. We decided to stock up on local beers for when Kat and Doug are in town and I picked up some Caribou pate.

When we got home I realized I was exhausted so I opted to take a nap while L sat outside and called friends back west. When I awoke L let me know that he'd taken the liberty of making evening plans for us. We would be going to an improv show called Argument with a Dolphin that was a part of the Fringe Festival.

The show was very funny and successfully washed the disappointing taste out of my mouth from my last improv experience. The format was similar, a single story interupted periodically for the audience to vote on whether to continue the story. But this time, instead of starting a whole new story, there were merely interruptions, either shorter scenes or other games with provocative titles like "Argument With a Dolphin" or "The Slap". After each interruption we were then given the choice of whether to proceed to another interruption, or go back to the story and with one exception of two interruptions in a row, the evening followed a story, interruption, story, interruption, etc. format.

After the show, Mark, Andrea, MC, L and I decided to walk up to Sergeant Recruteur for a drink and Alain met us on the way. While we paused on Mont-Royal to wait for Alain I ran into my colleague Alexandre and convinced him and his date to join us for beer and pizza.

At the bar I opted to stick to the Frousse, and while I was concerned about my tummy and it's adverse reaction to my shish taouk dinner I was shocked to discover that the beer seemed to settle my tummy. I decided to take advantage of this gastral calm and ordered the Beer Mouse cake. While L admitted to becoming bored with the beers on offer, I have to say that the beer cake would certainly entice me back. Thin cake layers with delicate mouse with a faint beer aroma and a layer of dark beer jelly right in the center. Incredible.

By 11 PM it was down to me, L and Mark so we managed to coerce into coming back to our place to hang out. He and L had another beer and decided to finally check out our creepy basement. Turns out there's lots of room down there for storing beer once we start brewing, although that probably won't be until sometime in the fall.

Sunday: Despite our late night, L and I still managed to get up in time to attend our 11:00 AM intro to Spring Teas seminar. Luckily we got to taste the teas too, otherwise we might not have made it through the entire hour.

After our seminar we met up with L's cousin Annie for breakfast at Coco Gallo, and L started to have second thoughts about our planned afternoon excursion to the public pool at Parc Jean-Drapeau. I pointed out that if he wanted to go to the pool he'd need sandals, so Annie accompanied us to Plaza St-Hubert after breakfast so that we could find L some flip-flops and I managed to find some walking sandals.

However, by the time we'd finished our shopping there were some mighty angry clouds gathering so L chickened out for good and we called Alain and MC to see if we could still register for the afternoon session on Japanese tea since we weren't going swimming after all.

After the second session we stuck around the Market and picked up some boar and pork sausages, corn, and new potatoes for dinner. When we got home I opted to scrap my original plan for the potatoes, butter and chives, and skipped out to get some spicy panchetta, green onions and parsley to make a warm potato salad that L is still raving about. (I'll post the recipe tomorrow).

While I was cooking, at my urging, L called our landlord to inform him that the contractors he'd hired to sandblast our building had not only failed to shield our tiny vegetable garden from clay dust, but they had also repeated dragged their hose through it, effectively killing every last plant in it, effectively break L's heart. Later, L also discovered that they had taken our garbage out of our garbage can and left it instead filled it with murky grey water. L wisely decided to stay out of the house on Monday when the workers were due to return to finish the job as he was afraid of confronting them in a rage.

After dinner we tidied a bit in preparation for Kat and Doug's arrival next week, I called my dad to wish him a happy father's day and we watched as much of the second season of weeds as we could fit in before bedtime.

Weekend Round Up: Improv, Opera and Walking. Lots of Walking.

2008-06-09T17:42:00.011-04:00

Friday: Got charmed into going to another All Stars! improv show with Alain and MC at Theatre St-Catherine, which was sadly rather disappointing. The crazy homeless man who kept interjecting/playing with crinkly plastic bags didn't help much, but luckily he left half-way through. It was an intriguing format, but like with most improv it really depends on the players and the night and it just kinda felt like things were a little "off". Also, I was exhausted and nodded off a couple of times. Never a good sign.

Yet, despite my weariness I was determined not to be a complete wimp and so we joined Alain and MC on a walk up St-Laurent to take in some of the F-1 street sale action. Had fun laughing at the Eurotrash and L coveted the twice baked potatoes. Ended up walking all the way home from St-Catherines street, which didn't quite take as long as you'd think, and passed out almost immediately.

Saturday: We were supposed to go L's friends cottage just outside of Ottawa so L could get some practice driving, but I was having a very bad day so we opted to stay home. Called Alain and MC to see what they were up to and after a quick breakfast at a cute little cafe in Mile End we walked down to Mont-Royal to meet them. Turns out Mont-Royal was also closed for street-sale action so I loaded up on cheap cotton undies, half-priced organic cosmetics, not to mention free yogurt (yum!).

After a couple of hours of that we went back to Alain and MC's place to have a sit and Alain whipped up some coffee smoothies for everybody, although I had to abstain for the good of my digestive system. While sitting on the patio L thought better of his baked potato for dinner plan and we opted to go to the awesome Mexican place Alain had mentioned the night before. I got a veggie burrito and horchata, which was a little grainier than I was used to, but still super yummy.

Post dinner we continued down St-Laurent towards St-Catherines so that we could take in a little Crescent St action before hitting Place-des-Arts for Madame Butterfly Under the Stars. However, once we got downtown we realized we didn't have as much time as we'd thought so we decided to just grab a beer at Benelux before the opera. I grabbed an apricot cream ale, while L was seduced by the gold medal winning rye beer.

Being that the boys were a)slow drinkers, b)trying to find reasons to procrastinate, MC and I headed off to PDA alone. It wasn't 'till we got there and saw the sea of lawn chairs that we realized how ill prepared we were. We had a mere 5 minutes to find a spot on the concrete by the far right side of the stage to park our bums. Luckily I had a sweater to sit on for a bit of tail bone cushioning, other were not as lucky.

Despite a restless first act, L did manage to get into it. I was impressed by the fact that they'd managed to find a Japanese soprano to play Cio-Cio San, not just the usual white chick with too much eye make-up. When it was all over I asked L what he thought of his first opera, and his response was, "they were all such jerks, except Mme. Butterfly," which, in my opinion sums things up quite nicely.

After the opera we wandered up towards Crescent, but things were starting to wind down and I was getting super tired so we walked to the Metro and called it a night.

Sunday: L had tried to find us a pool, being that it was yet again, crazy hot; but sadly was unsuccessful. We almost ended up at Parc Jean-Drapeau, but at the last minute I convinced him that we should to to the Tam-Tam. He called our friends Andrea and Mark and they agreed to meet us there. We opted to walk the 20 mins to Mont-Royal park through Mile End so we could grab some fancy groceries for a picnic, a concept L seemed to be having quite a bit of difficulty grasping as it had obviously been a while since he had just hung out in a park.

After our mini-feast of sparking blueberry lemonade, whole wheat baguette, guyere chese, summer sausage and hummus I took L on a tour of the sites. In addition to the drumming hippies and the guys (and girls this time) beating each other with swords there were circus arts and capoera and a girl swinging from a giant sheet tied to a tree. L. was also shocked at the number of people drinking in public, but as usual everyone was so chill about it it wasn't a big deal.

On our way home we got caught in a sudden deluge, and while it was still very warm I cannot say I was all that comfortable being that soggy. Luckily it let up enough for us to grab some Portuguese chicken in Mile End which we happily scarfed while watching yet another installment of Buffy. Since L had to be on set quite early the next day we called it an early night, but not before switching our duvet for our summer quilt.

Weekend Round Up: Birthday, Beerfest and Bad Movies

2008-06-06T16:28:00.004-04:00

We were a man down at work this week and it was super busy, so I'm afraid I'm only posting this just as I am about to begin collecting adventures for my next installment... sigh.

Friday: It was my co-worker Gaëlle's B-day on Tuesday so she was hosting a little BBQ party at her place. Luckily she lives quite nearby so L and I were able to walk there, although we did get caught in the rain during the walk back at 1:30 AM. The party itself was quite lively, most of my coworkers showed and we even managed to make some new friends. We were planning on leaving much sooner than we did, but the appearance of SingStar 90's meant that I lost L for close to an hour. Needless to say, he was a hit.

Saturday: Didn't get up nearly as early as we would have liked due to the previous night's hijinks, but still managed to get down to Mile End for breakky before noon. Because they were also running behind we even had a little time to kill before meeting up with Alain & MC to go to the Puces Pop Printemps craft fair, so I decided we needed to get some bagels at St-Viateur Bagel and man am I glad we did. SO DELICIOUS! SO CRISPY... SO CHEWY... SO... drool...

At the craft fair I coveted many things and spent $15 on handmade soap. Rosemary and coffee?! Yum! MC got a super cool silver anatomical heart pendant and some hand cream. Alain and L managed not to whine too much.

Afterwards we rewarded the men for their patience and headed down to the Mondial de la bière (International Beer Festival). Being that they had an extra tasting mug, we stopped by Alain and MC's on our way down to pick them up and had an impromptu Apple Trailers party while drinking delicious roasted Japanese green tea. Then Alain introduced L to GTA and I thanked my lucky stars that we don't have a gaming system that would support such a game (for the record we have a Sega Genesis and an N64), otherwise I would probably also be a gaming widow.

While the threat of rain did seem to keep some people away, the beer fest was quite busy as it generally is on the Saturday.

As MC pointed out, the fest has a genius profit scheme: entrance is free, but tickets are $1 a piece. Each tasting is anywhere from 2 - 8 tickets (usually in the 3 - 5 range) and is equal to about half a pint. So you go in thinking you'll stay on a budget and only get $20 worth of tickets, but by the time you've ingested 20 tickets worth of beer you decided you need "lots more ticketsh!" and end up leaving with a pocketful to scrounge a poutine somewhere.

I started off with a trio of stouts, including one with hints of raspberry, then moved on to a lighter, super refreshing ginger beer. In addition to beer I also had delicious Belgian fries, wild deer sausage on a stick and I had a wild boar & field mushroom hot dog on ciabatta bun with homemade sauerkraut.

While in the men's room, L learned of a tent providing 16% golden ale for a mere 3 tickets so we all decided to make that our last stop (like there would have been a choice after 16% beers), since I'd already made reservations for us at the Comedy Nest to watch my friend Christophe headline his first stand-up gig.

By the time we showed up at the comedy club, we were admitted a little on the rowdy side so we were prompted seated right in the first row. I, in particular, heckled and was heckled by the host (all in a supportive, non show ruining way) and MC was the subject of Christophe's serenading, not once, but twice. All in all the show was quite successful, although I'm sure the fact that we were, in a word, loaded, that much funnier.

After some minor Metro mischief I managed to steer L home and we both passed right out.

Sunday: Being that we were in bed by 11:30 PM, neither L nor I were particularly hung-over, but that didn't stop us from being totally lazy house-bums. We watched some more Buffy the Vampire Slayer (finally on to Season 2!) and L decided to finish watching Dead Silence while I did sudoku and snarked at the badness of the movie. Make that deep and painful badness. I cannot express how bad this movie is. Do not bother, even out of curiosity. It is a train wreck and dumber than a tree stump. A retarded tree stump.

After dinner we popped on Valentine, and I'm still not sure why L rented it. I guess he was on a David Boreanaz kick. Also bad, but in a fun, sarcastic late 90's way. But mostly it is bad. And also REALLY stupid.

French Slang Saturdays: Poche

2008-05-30T07:08:00.000-04:00

Poche [adj]: Something or someone that sucks. Can also be another term for "lame", but is stronger than plate. The word literally means "pocket", but I have no idea where the slang usage comes from.

Bouchard-Taylor: Everybody Just Calm the F*%$k Down

2008-05-29T19:03:00.001-04:00

Being an outsider in a province with arguably one of the most distinct cultures in Canada does give me a unique perspective on the culture and politics out here, and I've been mulling over how to address the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation since it started. And now that it has finally release it's report last week, I figured it was finally time for me to comment on it, although I'm opening a can of worms that will take several posts to properly cover.

While the whole circus Reasonable Accommodation had created certainly got everybody's panties in a knot, the final recommendations in the report were unsurprising to anyone with half a brain in their head (or at the very least a passing knowledge of the pedigree of its authors). "The foundations of collective life in Quebec are not in a critical situation," the authors wrote, which makes you wonder why the whole rigmarole got started in the first place. And the reasons are simultaneously complicated and simple.

The simple answer is of course Hérouxville, the municipality of 1,300 that in February of 2007 drafted a code of conduct for it's citizens that included, among other things, a ban against stoning women and the covering of their faces. A reactionary gesture, sure, but a reaction to what exactly? It wasn't as if Hérouxville had been the site of a recent influx of lady murdering Islamic extremists. In fact, the town apparent has exactly one immigrant family living withing it's limits, although the Wikipdeia article for Hérouxville maintains that they have none. It wants more-- needs more, if it is going to survive as a community, they just wanted to make sure they got the "right kind". Which of course sounds like code for "French, Catholic and White", which it could be, even if they don't realize it. Political correctness hasn't taken hold in Quebec the same way it has in other parts of Canada, and I've witnessed surprising casual racism from people I consider educated and aware.

It would be easy to label the whole Hérouxville incident as the result of uneducated, small town, small minded thinking. Except that it hit a nerve. The media went crazy. And the politicians jumped on a bandwagon that seemed to be gathering steam. The right leaning nationalist party, the ADQ, won some startling victories in the March 2007 provincial election to become the official opposition, fueled by populist anger at what they saw as the PQ's failure to protect Quebecois values.

Then, in fall of 2007, in Parti Quebequois leader Pauline Marois finally threw her hat into the whole ugly mess, tabling an "identity" bill that would require new arrivals to the province to swear an oath of loyalty as well as pass French and citizenships tests. The joke of course is that this was the second attempt at a Quebequois constitution the PQ had tabled in less than 6 months. A desperate attempt to stay relevant after being lambasted for suggesting that sovereignty would be on the back burner of her party's agenda after being sworn in earlier that month? The likely answer is yes, especially considering that this is also when the Bouchard-Taylor commission really started to heat up.

See, despite two failed Sovereignty referendums, Sovereignty is still a hot-button issue in Quebec. My own neighborhood has dozens of apartments with Quebec flag placards in their front windows. But let's face it, whipping the people of Quebec into enough of a frenzy to risk winning another referendum would take some serious cash, cahones and charisma and there isn't a party in Quebec with enough of any of these to make a serious stab at it. And so Sovereignty gets traded in for its ugly cousin: Nationalism. And while Sovereignty and Nationalism can seem like the same thing (it's got the word "Nation" in it), Nationalism becomes dangerous because it hinges on that thorny idea of Identity. And Identity is what leads to "Us" versus "Them" and the blatant insecurity that leads to things like the Hérouxville code.

Weekend Round Up: Sudoku, Housewarming and Improv

2008-05-29T08:37:00.000-04:00

This should catch me up on round ups, now to tackle vlogging...

Friday: One of the unfortunate side effects of my recent weight loss is that not one of my bras actually fits me, so I decided to stop putting it off and went downtown to rectify the situation. Luckily, LaSenza was having one of their 3 for whatever sales so I was able to get a variety of colours and styles, meaning that I shouldn't have to do this again for some time. Then I wandered into Simons because none of my spring clothes fit either, and low and behold they were having a sale, so yeah, I bought stuff.

By the time I got home it was close to 9 PM and being that I had managed to get L hooked earlier in the week we opted to stay in and finish off Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, we are lame.

Saturday: Our friend Isabelle was having her pendasion de la crémaillère (literally: "hanging of the chimney hook"), or housewarming for all you Anglos, so we trekked all the way out to St-Eustache in 450 area code. The event was actually quite lovely and we took advantage of the sun by lounging in the back yard. L had fun tormenting Isabelle's cat who had a booboo on his head and had been fitted with a plastic cone to keep her from picking at it. I gorged myself on cheese and red wine and managed not to be sick. At about 10 o'clock the kids were all getting restless so we caught a ride home with Annie and Mel. I felt kind of bad because I got the feeling they wanted to go out in Montreal after getting back, but L and I were bushed and actually passed out shortly after arriving.

Sunday: Despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour we were still quite late getting up and I lounged around doing sudoku for most of the morning. We had been planning to take advantage of Free Day at the local museums, but being that it was approaching late afternoon and things were no doubt quite zoo-y, we opted instead to stay at home and watch Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. I started off loving the movie, but as most reviews I had read warned, by the time the third act rolled around all the cleverness and promise built up in the first half of the movie was replaced by the same tired horror movie cliches it had started off exploding. And they had the audacity to waste Robert Englund in a marvelous against type role as a Dr. Loomis type. However, compared to most contemporary American horror films it is still very smart and original enough in concept to totally recommend.

After wolfing down some homemade mini-pizzas for dinner we dashed down to the Theatre St-Catherine for Sunday Night Improv. I'd been meaning to check out the improv scene here for a while now and being that there were going to be special guests present as Sunday's show marked the end of the third annual Sketch fest, I figured now was our shot. It was an interesting format: competitive with coaches present and a real emphasis on scene building and character development. All of the performers were quite strong but the girl who ended up winning was definitely the strongest of the night. And a couple of the guys were promoting their Fringe show in a couple weeks which we will definitely try to check out.

Long Weekend Round Up: My Last Minute Trip to NYC, A.K.A. Trains, Metros and Subways or, Coney Island WTF

2008-05-28T18:24:00.011-04:00

Yes, I am totally, woefully behind on my blogging and for that I apologize. With any luck I will be able to pump out Weekend Round ups for the last two weeks, a vlog or two and maybe even some political commentary before the next weekend shows up. We will see. In the meantime, here's the round up for May 16 - 19.

Friday: After bailing on a camping trip at the last minute, I suddenly got it into my thick little skull that I needed to go to NYC to hang with my Fletcher siblings*, Rock, Slim & Bunny. See, Rock lives in NY now and was getting ready to leave on a comedy tour of Canada and then he was off to camp for the remainder of the summer. Slim had been living in New Orleans with Linda, his wife, but she had recently gotten a job in NY and Slim was in town apartment hunting. Bunny still lives in Van, but was on vacation with friend in NY. And while I was making friends in Montreal, that house did a lot to shape me into the lovable neurotic mess I am today and the novelty of being able to just jump on a train to see everyone was something I could not pass up. So I purchased a ticket and spent Friday stealing myself up for the 10 hour (one way) trip.

Despite needing to pack and get organized, L and I still managed to fit in our traditional Friday night movie. This week it was Candyman, which I had actually avoided at a slumber party as a teenager, opting instead to play Ouija board with my friend's younger sister upstairs. I did not get into horror movies until much, much later and admittedly I still whine and scream and have to sleep with a light on after watching one to this day. In some ways I am glad I put off watching it until I was an adult because, hot damn, is it ever good. On so many levels. It's exactly the kind of heady, intellectual horror that I didn't think got made in America. But the fact that it was made by an Englishman and was based on a story by an Englishman lends credence to that theory. If you've never seen it, or even if it's been a while, I highly recommend checking it out. You'll be glad you did.

After the movie it was straight to bed since I had to be at the train station by at least 8:30 AM, which meant leaving the house at 7:30 AM.

Saturday: L walked me to the Metro in the morning as I started my epic journey on railed transport. The line was already quite long when I got to the station, but I managed to find a spot on the train next to a polite Brazilian woman. Being that this was my second time taking THE TRAIN TO HELL I made sure that I was properly prepared. Blanket to protect me from the freezing air conditioning? Check. Variety of foods and liquids to avoid having to buy a hotdog microwaved in plastic wrapping? Check. An assortment of books and magazines with which to occupy myself? Check. An MP3 player, DS or laptop with DVD player would have also been welcome accessories, but being that I own none of these, I got by alternating between reading and napping.

As I should have expected, the train was late, meaning that I had less than 5 minutes to make it to the theater for Rock's comedy show at 9 PM. Luckily, the train let off at Penn Station, a mere 4 blocks from the Magnet. I made it to the theater with two minutes to spare and entered the lobby to hugs from Slim and Bunny. The show seemed to go very well and afterwards we all went to a local bar called Walter's to hang out.

I met lots of nice people at the bar, including a friend of Slim's from DC who lives in NY now and her cousin from California who I got to talk hockey with (go figure, he's a Pittsburgh fan), as well as a nice lady who let me hold her autoharp. Afterwards we caught a cab to Rock's place in Queens and I pretended to strangle a 22 year old wrestling enthusiast with his seatbelt. He'd even shown me picture of him in spandex!

Sunday: Being that it is one of Rock's favourite places in the world and he had yet to make his annual pre-camp pilgrimage, it was decided that Sunday would involve a trip to Coney Island. On our way to the Subway we stopped at a bagel shop to get some nourishment and much to my astonishment I was able to get mine with tofu spread in lieu of cream cheese. My heart seldom knows such joy. While waiting in line a (very) New York cop tapped me on the shoulder to ask about my tattoo and was very disappointed when I told him I had gotten it done in Vancouver as he loved the work and was looking to add some more ink to his collection. I did my best not to squeal, but even Slim was impressed by the genuine coolness of this member of the NYPD.

After an hour and a half on the Subway (the length of the L line, in fact) we made it to Coney Island just in time for the rain to start. Joy. While waiting for Bunny and her friends, Rock, Slim and I rode the Cyclone twice, but opted to put off riding the Wonder Wheel until they arrived. We killed time in a pathetically ill-maintained spook house with a hilarious animatronic vomiting man out front, although I did feel a little bad that Slim had to ride in a car all by himself and thus didn't have anyone to turn to aghast as rubber Halloween decorations held together with duct tape wobbled feebly on their worn-out springs.

After having blown $5 on that mess we wandered up to Cha Cha's for a drink, but there was some sort of post-church luncheon going on so we had to find seats at the bar to watch the assembled five year olds crawl around on the stripped pole by the stage. Slim wisely ordered a White Russian which prompted the woman behind the bar to point at herself, because apparently she was a "White Russian". Rock and I tried to order pina coladas, but they were all out so we got strawberry daqueries and proceeded to get even colder than we already were. Eventually Rock was so chilled that he had leave to buy a hoodie from one of the local crap merchants.

Bunny and her friends finally arrived to join us for a drink and then we all opted to explore the boardwalk a little bit. Sadly, by this point Deno's was closed, meaning no Wonder Wheel, and Slim had left so we opted instead to ride the Cyclone a third time.

By this point it was pouring, so we found shelter in an arcade and played a bit of skee ball. Then we went back to the subway to pick-up Rock's friend Rosy who had just arrived. While on that side of the amusement area we stopped in at Nathan's for hot dogs and everybody else got ice cream at the candy place next door. Which is where I think I found the single grossest confection possible: candy glossed marshmallows. My fillings hurt just thinking about it.

After that the plan had been to hit the Freakshow, but it was also closed. So Rosy and Louie rode the carousel for what seemed like half-an hour while a small Latino child hollered his guts out before the guy selling tickets was able to yell at the guy operating the thing to shut it off. Then we decided to leave.

Back in Manhattan, Rock went back to the Magnet to prepare for his Buckshot and Benny show and I got some decent cheap Indian food across the street. The show was excellent as usual and afterwards we went for a drink with Kaitlin (a.k.a. the other half of BnB) and her boyfriend Alistair and I got to talk about how I hate smoked meat (sacrilege, I know).

After all that Rock and I took the subway back to Queens and I chatted with his roommate briefly about working in the video game industry. In yet another example of the world being too damn small, it turns out his roommate is head of development for a studio loosely affiliated with the company I work for and was on his way to Quebec City to lay down some smack. Being that I am very new to this industry it was really cool to be able to talk shop with someone who'd been immersed in it for some time and it was unfortunate that we both had to get up so damn early the next day for our respective trips as I would have really enjoyed getting more inside dirt. Next time, I supposed.

Monday: Got up before my alarm and wrote a nice note thanking Rock and his roommates for putting me up which I left next to the Caribou and Maple Syrup I'd brought down with me as peace offerings. Then it was on to the bagel shop to grab breakfast and lunch and a bunch of juice smoothies to replenish vitamins.

Back at Penn Station I was surprised at how comforting it was to hear people speaking French all around me in the line to get on the train. While the trip back home was supposed to be shorter than the trip there, we got held up at the border for what seemed like hours and it ended up taking even longer, meaning that in three days I had spent 23 hours on a train. L met me at the station and we had dinner at Nickel's before taking the Metro home.

*Background: Near the end of my last year of University I moved into a shared house in a residential neighborhood near school with a bunch of friends. We called ourselves the Fletcher family and we all had Fletcher names. Mine was Nancy.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-23T10:47:00.008-04:00

Warning: Mild spoilers to follow. If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading now. Otherwise, you've been warned.

So, like the mindless fangirl zombie that I am, I accepted my company's social committee's invitation and snapped up a stack of tix for "that movie with the old guy in the hat with the wip" for my friends and I. Thing is, I really wasn't that excited about it. I had done my best to avoid reading spoilers, promotional interviews, advanced reviews or anything else that would rouse my interest beyond, "Yeah, I should probably try to see it before everybody else tells me about it." What I did absorb prior to last night was a) The plot had something to do with aliens and b) The critical mass was largely positive.

And I guess it was these low to no expectations that informed my enjoyment of the film because I was the only one out of the six of us who seemed to genuinely enjoyed the movie. Is it perfect? No. Are there moments of staggering, eye-rolling stupidity that I'm going to blame on Lucas? Yes. Is the climax kind of abrupt and not very satisfying? Yes, but that's okay because the climax isn't the end and the ending is just fine, thank you very much.

Also, and I really hate to admit this in public, but I think I'm getting over my irrational hatred of Shia LaBeouf. At least until the next Transformers movie comes out, anyways.

I won't bother rehashing the plot because everybody knows that that's not what's important about an Indiana Jones movie. What I am going to try to do is identify what it is I liked about this movie and why.

First off, it's short and well paced. I have to say that one of my biggest pet peeves with the current crop of genre/action movies is that they are all WAY TOO FRAKKING LONG. I'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is to blame for this one, but Michael Bay took it to new, redonculous levels with last year's noisy time-waster, Transformers. Everyone has forgotten that "less is more". I don't care if you can stretch the movie out to 3 hours to fit in more explosions and guys jumping around on unconvincing CG sets. Just give me a beginning, a middle and an end and get to the end before I start wondering where it is. Making your movie longer, does not make it more interesting or important. You are not making The Godfather, you are making a B-movie with a decent budget. And that's a-okay.

The other thing that struck me about Crystal Skull, and it's related to my first point, is that it was kind of old fashioned in it's storytelling. This, I think, is one of the strength's of the Indy franchise. It wears it's B-movie origins on its sleeve without veering (too often, anyway) into high camp. It's exciting and playful, and the humour is warm and gentle. No crass cynicism, no irony trying to cramp its way down. And it's cut more old-fashioned too. The camera is allowed to sweep majestically across the landscape (bonus points to those who spotted the Touch of Evil Reference near the beginning) and the cuts are organic and preserve the integrity of the action. You can tell who is who in a fight. This is all instantly attributable to Spielberg and what makes him stand out from those who would assume his place as blockbuster movie king. No one, and I mean no one, is able to blend artistry and action the way that Spielberg can and that is why he is and will always be king. His true reverence for the origins of American genre film making are obvious and reassuring to me in a way. His is a respect that is all but dead, and it makes me very sad to think of what we are losing the American film cannon becomes newer and newer.

I liked seeing Harrison Ford and Karen Allen together again. I liked that it had a sentimental ending. I liked that it was set during the cold war. I liked that the big bad was a girl and that she was played by Cate Blanchett with a Natasha Fatale accent. I liked that Mutt was a greaser, even if those first shots of him in the hat made me giggle like a grade-schooler. I liked that it was set in the Amazon. I liked that it had a sword fight. And I even liked the aliens, so sue me.

And now what I didn't like. The prairie dogs were too plentiful and cutesy. Ditto for the monkeys. And the less I say about the repeated shots of Shia grabbing his junk, the better we'll all sleep at night. That said, I think a lot of the current backlash really has to do with people my age having inappropriate expectations. Imagine if you were a 12 year old watching Indy 4 in a theater. You would freaking LOVE it. Or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe today's 12 year old would find the elegant pacing and old fashioned charms too quaint. Without a boyhood admiration for Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, would their reunion mean as much? Who was this movie really made for? The 12 year olds, now grown, who grew up on the Indy movies? Or the 12 year olds of today, whose fanboy dads (and moms) dressed them in Indy drag and trundled them to the theaters? Honestly, considering these dueling target markets, I think the film did a very good job of appealing to both simultaneously. Was it high art? No, but neither were the first three. Was it silly? Yes, but it was also a lot of fun and dammit sometimes that's good enough.

Could anything have lived up to 20 years of hype and speculation? I will say this, though, and I think it's important to keep in mind: warts and all, it was still a hundred times better than even the best bits of the Star Wars prequels. And yeah, I went there.

Sidenote

2008-05-18T10:45:00.003-04:00

I just got notification that a photograph I took when I was in California three years ago was chosen to be used on a Schmap Map of L.A. You can view the map and the picture here.

Also, French Slang Saturday will be late again this week. Sorry.

Weekend Round Up: Movies, Indian Food, Tam-Tam

2008-05-13T20:27:00.001-04:00

Friday: After a busy week where L and I both entertained guests from out of town we opted to make it a quiet night in. After scarfing some leftovers from my lunch at Elio's I tried to make a few calls out west and L went to pick us up some DVDs. Sadly, they didn't have Wendigo or Paris, Texis and Henry Fool was only available on VHS so we ended up going with The Wicker Man (73), Un crabe dans la tête and Altered States. Popped on Wicker Man only to discover it was the US theatrical cut, not the UK Director's cut, but that was okay by me since I really didn't like it as much as L. But it was definitely worth it if only to see Christopher Lee in a kilt. Oh, and he sings too.

Saturday: L was busy at a course during the day so I chilled at home by myself and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. When L came home we went for a walk towards the Plateau and had some excellent and very reasonably priced Indian food at Maison de Cari Golden. After dinner we walked back through Mile End and accidentally ended up in a Hasidic neighborhood. It was strange being so close to home and yet feeling like we had trespassed into another country, but very cool and comforting in another way. When we got home we watched Un crabe dans la tête which was directed by André Turpin, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. After the movie we called it a night since L had to be at his course again Sunday.

Sunday: With L at his course again I met up with Alain and Marie-Claude at the Jean Talon market. They were there with some friends from Ottawa and were gathering supplies for a picnic on Mont-Royal park. Every Sunday when the weather is nice enough hundreds of drummers gather in Mont-Royal park for a huge drum circle known as "Le Tam-Tam". After a delightful lunch of sausage, cheese, bread and pesto we wandered into the woods a little bit to witness the other bit of lunacy in Mont-Royal park on Sundays: dozens of boys and men whacking each other with duct-taped swords. Some of them were in full armor, some only had chain mail or leathers, but the majority were in basic jeans and a t-shirt. After a couple of rounds of that we ventured back to the front of the park to paruse the hippie wares for sale on blankets, but being that it had cooled down considerable since we'd arrived we decided to call it a day and I walked home through Mile End so I could check out a used book store I'd spotted a couple weeks ago.

After purchasing a book on Herbal Magick and some body lotion I got home in time to record a French Slang video and work a bit in the little garden in the front. When L got home I cooked a nice pork loin in the oven and we watched Altered States which was both awesome and pure Ken Russell.

French Slang Sunday: Char

2008-05-11T16:52:00.003-04:00

Char [n]: Short for "chariot", literally: carriage, wagon or truck. Used in France to describe a tank or chariot. In Quebec the shortened form is a slang term for car.

Weekend Round Up: Super-Lazy Weekend of Nothingness

2008-05-05T16:25:00.008-04:00

Friday: Being that I never properly recovered from a late night talking UFC with my brother on Monday, we opted not to go out and instead just grabbed a bunch of DVDs. Sadly we only got through the first one, Chaos, which was confusing even for a Japanese film, before both L and I passed out.

Saturday: Despite the crap weather, I still wanted to go to Mile End to spend more money on organic cosmetics so we called up Annie and Mel and invited them out for breakfast with us. Went back to our new favourite Mile End spot, Zorba, and I got fluffy pancakes and super yummy sausages.

After breakfast I got around to making my purchases and $50 in deodorant, hand cream, face cream and toothpaste later (I am a sap...) we headed back home. The afternoon was spent cleaning the house and working on my French Slang Saturday video before Marie-Claude and Mark came over to watch the hockey game.

After the crushing, depressing defeat of the Habs, which incidentally also crushed the hopes of all Canadians of seeing a cup in Canada for the fifteenth straight year, we all trundled down to the old forum to catch our friend Andrea do her stand-up thing. Alain, who had been at the Habs game, met us there. The evening went pretty good, and Andrea was particularly in form. However, we've been going to enough comedy night recently that the host and the headliner were the only comics we had not already seen before and most of the material was kind of old news. After the show it was back home to bed.

Sunday: Weather was still crap so we stayed in and watched the rest of our movies, namely Hannah and Her Sisters and Phantom of the Paradise which I really want to learn more about. L put some more plywood and pressboard out for garbage pick-up. We had burgers for dinner and L went and got us some more movies. We got through The Mist and called it a weekend.

French Slang Saturdays: Écoeurant

2008-05-03T17:24:00.005-04:00

Écoeurant [adj]: Another word that has different meanings in France and in Quebec. "Coeur" is the word for "heart" and "avoir mal au coeur" means "heartburn" or the pain you get before vomiting, so écoeurant in France is used to describe something disgusting or that induces vomiting.

In Quebec it can be bad or good, used in an exaggerated,almost ironic fashion: "so good that I almost puked..." Most often it is used in the same way "awesome" is used in English. When speaking, the "é" is sometimes dropped, giving you "'coeurant".

Like a lot of slang words in Quebec, variations can used as a verb or a noun. Ex: mon écoeurant, écoeurer, etc...

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Iron Man

2008-05-02T19:00:00.000-04:00

The boy and I caught a preview screening of Iron Man yesterday, and I have to say that even with my high expectations, I left the theater pretty damn satisfied. Despite some initial reservations after learning that it was rated G, I've got to hand it to director Jon Favreau. He managed to make an entertaining superhero flick that was adult enough for me to enjoy, but tame enough to deliver the wide audience the studio wanted. It's pretty violent without being exploitive and Favreau is able to imply quite a bit without really showing anything.

While the plot is pretty standard and simplistic, the true strength of the film is the performances. Robert Downie Jr. is perfectly cast as the narcissistic scientist bad-boy come superdude Tony Stark. His dry wit and luminous charisma create a character the audience wants to root for, regardless of your familiarity with the original comic book. Jeff Bridges is predictably good and makes for a smooth and compelling villain, easily matching wits with Downie but never outshining him as often happens in these types of films. Terrence Howard is serviceable as Jim Rhodes and Favreau even gives himself a bit part as Stark's driver, Hogan.

Most surprising of all is Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Stark's long suffering assistant. Often the female lead becomes a super-hero film's greatest weakness (see Halle Berry, Kirstin Dunst, Katie Holmes, etc...), but Paltrow is one of those few actresses who "gets it". She does not resort to camp, although her portrayal of Pepper is delightfully flighty, and she is able to participate as a close equal to Stark. She is at turns on the ball and out of her depths, a sidekick but never second banana. The chemistry between Paltrow and Downie is also very strong and I would even say it is one of the film's great strengths.

The film clips along at a decent pace, lacking the bloat of many recent superhero movies being just over two hours long. The effects are impressive and fluid, never hijacking the story and the designs for the Iron Man and Iron Monger suits are beautiful to look at. If you like action movies, R.D. Jr. or superheros, see this movie. Also, stay until the very end of the credits for a special treat...

Weekend Round Up: BBQ, Demolition, Maple Syrup

2008-04-29T00:40:00.000-04:00

Friday: Started the weekend a little early with a 5 a 7 on Thursday at work. Finally got a chance to talk to some co-workers not in my department and alternated between playing Rock Band and watching the first two periods of the Habs game projected on the wall on the cafeteria.

On Friday my teammate Susie invited the rest of the English team to join her for lunch, although only Fred and I were able to. We ended up at a cute little Chinese/Thai place on Beaubien, not far from my house. After work I met L at Club Video Beaubien to pick out some flicks for the weekend, but limited ourselves to two because Mark and Andrea had invited us over for BBQ. Being that we had a little time to kill we wandered up to Plaza St-Hubert and I bought my first ever bikini. It's brown with blue flower accents, and it was on clearance so it was very cheap.

After snagging beer and burgers at IGA we wandered over to Mark and Andrea's place in St-Henri. After dinner we amused ourselves watching Flight of the Concords videos on YouTube and I laughed like a maniac. Being that I hadn't actually slept that well Thurday night, I was dead tired by about midnight so we took a cab home and I crashed out hard.

Saturday: Being that I knew we were going to be eating a big-ass breakfast on Sunday, we opted not to go out in the morning and I did some pilates. Then we got ready and headed out to run errands. The shredder we'd gotten less than a month ago never worked so we went to Bureau en Gros to return it, and as I'd suspected we weren't the only ones having trouble with that model. Afterwards we headed up to Zellers to pick up some more stuff for our backyard project with the Gift Card my brother had gotten me for Christmas. As we were lugging all our goodies back with us on the Metro a girl actually approached us to ask if we were moving (apparently she had something to sell us if we were). We told her no and continued on our way.

Back home L got to work demolishing the faux deck thing in our backyard, but it turns out most of the work had been done for him. The whole thing was so rotted and poorly constructed in the first place that he was able to pull most of it apart with his hands. Luckily the soil underneath looks like it's in pretty good condition so it shouldn't take too much more work to prep everything in time for L's dad's arrival to build our garden. Meanwhile L has thoughts of paving stones and patio sets dancing through his head.

Later, Alain and Marie-Claude came over to watch the game. After a disappointing loss we opted to watch Living in Oblivion to boost our spirits. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before, especially since it has my boy, Peter Dinklage. I doubt Dermot Mulroney has been better in a movie.

Sunday: Sadly we hadn't gotten as much sleep on Saturday as we would have liked, but we still made it to the parking lot of my office in time to catch our ride to the Au Pied Des Erables cabane a sucre. The social committee at work had organized a last minute sugar shack outing and I had jumped at the chance to enjoy the tail end of the season.

I had never been to a sugar shack before and had not really known what to expect, but I have it on good authority that the one that we went to was quite good. Basically, a sugar shack outing usually involves a meal around a large communal table, followed by tire on snow. The food is generally homey old-fashioned fare: potatoes, fluffy omelet, pancakes, baked beans and ham, all with liberal dousings of maple syrup. After gorging ourselves, the group went for a little nature walk where we found a grass snack and a tiny black froggie.

After the ride back I had a little nap and L continued to work on the back deck, then we had some burgers and watched The Kiss of the Vampire, which while not one of the best Hammer horror's, does boast one of the most amazing endings to a vampire film I have ever seen. If you're a Hammer fan and you haven't seen it yet, it is worth checking out for that alone.

French Slang Saturday: Niais, Niaiser, Niaiserie, Niaiseux

2008-04-28T01:24:00.000-04:00

Sorry this didn't get posted yesterday. I'd done a really good job of editing it too, except iMovie crashed and my files were locked in trash-limbo and then Alain and his computer skills had to save them, but I still couldn't edit anything, so we had to import it all into Final Cut...

But it's done. So here you go:

This one's a four parter, all four words having a common root.

niais[e] [n]: Originally it was used to describe a bird that had not yet left the nest, but it is now used to describe someone who is naive or thick.

niaiser [v]: To joke, annoy or lie. To behave like an ass.

niaiserie [n]: Something not to be taken seriously. Something frivolous or silly.

niaiseux [n]: One who is obnoxious or undesirable. A simpleton or ass. Commonly used as an insult.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Apocalypse Edition

2008-04-25T13:02:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we watched three movies with apocalyptic overtones, but luckily it is sunny and warm and the Habs are winning so my outlook is still pretty positive.

First up, Right at Your Door (2006): This one screened at Fantasia last year as part of a series on Urban Apocalypses that included Mulberry Street (see below) and the excellent The Signal. The premise is straight forward enough: after seeing his wife, Lexi (Mary McCormack) off to work, Brad (Rory Cochrane, best known as Slater from Dazed and Confused) is shaken from his lazy morning routine by a series of explosions in downtown L.A. Being the good husband he is, his first instinct is to hit the road and rescue his wife who is stuck in traffic with a dead cell phone, but panicking cops and fellow motorists mean that he can't get past the L.A. suburb where there new house is located. He returns home to plot his next move and is startled to find the gardener from next door in his house. The gardener convinces Brad to seal up his house from the inside as the radio instructs as it now seems the explosions were "dirty" in nature and toxic ash is showering down on most of the Los Angeles area.

The real drama starts when Lexi returns, having walked home after abandoning her car on the freeway. Being that Brad isn't the only one in the house now, he makes the agonizing decision to leave Lexi outside since she is covered in ash and therefore "contaminated". Will she survive long enough for help to find them, and when help does arrive, will it be enough?

While certainly far from perfect, Right At Your Door does an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension with limited funds and locations. Writer/Director Chris Gorak wisely puts the focus on the actors, making the film more about Brad and Lexi's relationship than about the citywide meltdown happening around them. The result is a film that is instantly relevant to the viewer, unlike other overblown apocalyptic films like Deep Impact, for example. The film is as much about whether Lexi will survive her toxic exposure as whether Lexi and Brad's relationship will survive this incredible strain on their relationship.

Where the film starts to break down is after the introduction of new characters and locations. Lexi strays multiple times from the back porch, sneaking through neighbors yards and even rescues a young boy she finds wandering around. The introduction of the child does add a nice moment where Brad ponders about the children they never had, but the forays ultimately slow down the momentum that has been building and dilutes the feeling or claustrophobia that drives much of the tension in the film.

However, these nitpicks are minor in light of the excellent performances provided by both Cochrane and McCormack. The chemistry between the two actors is very good and it is easy to believe that they are a married couple in their 30's full of love and frustrations. Where the film really breaks down is the Twilight Zone-ish twist ending, but everything else up to that point is good enough to still recommend the film highly as a well written, intelligent and nuanced portrait of urban paranoia.

Later that same day we indulged our curiosity and rented Southland Tales (2006), Richard Kelly's long shelved follow up to Donnie Darko. Remember how I was talking about overblown crap? This is pretty much the definition. While I'm sure Kelly and his buddies in the movie (including Kevin Smith) will get a kick out of watching the movie together and reminiscing about the fun they had shooting it, I cannot figure out for the life of me how it got made in the first place. It is confusing, poorly constructed, wildly self-indulgent and ultimately, largely boring.

Somehow, there is still a certain charm to it that I can't quite place my finger on. Maybe it's the fact that it's so clearly the bizarre vision of one person, even if that vision isn't really that interesting. Maybe it's the fact that the best performances in the thing come from Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Geller. Maybe it's to do with the rampant stunt casting: Christopher Lambert as an underground militant, Wallace Shawn in lipstick, Kevin Smith in old-man make-up... Maybe it has to do with Kelly's choice to cast the comedians in the dramatic roles (Cheri Oteri, Will Sasso, Jon Lovitz, Amy Poeler, etc.) with mixed results. However, whatever it is it is not enough to recommend the film. It is just too long and too weird and too all over the place to justify sacrificing 2 and a half hours of your life to watch it. Oh, did I mention it's narrated by Justin Timberlake?

Normally I revel in the "so bad it's good", but Southland Tales feels more misguided than anything else. It clearly wants to be funny and wacky, but is instead tacky and forced. The script feels mainly like an excuse to get famous people to say really dirty things. The construction of this post-apocalyptic world wants to be nuanced and political, but is instead juvenile and half-baked. I can't call it a disappointment because my expectations going in were very low, but it will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest miscalculations a major studio has ever made. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: it's also a musical. Drugs might have helped, but I kinda doubt it.

Luckily, the third film of the day washed away the stale taste. Mulberry Street is similar to Right at Your Door in that they are both low budget, limited location horror flicks with a very simple premise. This time the setting is New York and the premise is this: the rats have started attacking people who then turn into ferocious, man-eating "rat people". Sounds pretty stupid, right? Well it isn't. It's actually really, really good and the perfect antidote to overblown crap.

Like Right at Your Door, Mulberry Street focuses on characters to make the outlandish events accessible to the viewer. The setting is a tenement on Mulberry Street which has recently been purchased for development with the tenants facing imminent eviction. The first character we are introduced to is Clutch (Nick Damici), a retired boxer awaiting the return of his daughter, Casey (Kim Blair), who has just been released from the veteran's hospital after a stint in Iraq. Clutch is a good guy, shy when it comes to women (specifically his neighbor Kay (Bo Corre)), and always willing to help out the elderly or less fortunate. Damici, who also co-wrote the script, gives an excellent and nuanced performance, really adding to the film's effectiveness.

The rest of the plot is fairly formulaic: rats attack people, people attack people, everybody freaks out, citizens of tenement fight back; but what makes it work is what director Jim Mickle left out. First off, there are no guns & no clever kills. Clutch and Casey fight back with what they've got: fists and heavy things. Second, there are no clever one liners. which isn't to say there aren't moments of humour, but it's the kind of dark, deadpan humour that suits the story and the characters. And most importantly, the film is not a cliche laden, movie referencing comedy. Everything is played deadly straight, resulting in real empathy, real tension and real suspense.

Shot for about $30,000 in the director's apartment, Mulberry Street is the kind of serious, thoughtful indie horror that deserves to be celebrated. Highly recommended.

French Slang... Tuesday? : Hockey Edition

2008-04-21T23:05:00.006-04:00

In this episode, which is dedicated to the Habs, we go over some classic hockey terminology.

Also, for the record we had nothing to do with the riot last night. People are stupid.

Weekend Round Up: Movies, Gardening, Bloodsports

2008-04-21T10:09:00.011-04:00

Friday: By the time Friday rolled around I was dead dog tired. Never did recover from our whirlwind trip to the Saguenay and I trapped in a bad habits of going into work late and leaving late. After work I walked down to Mile End to buy cosmetics at the organic grocery store we found a couple of weeks earlier. Called L. at home and he met me there so we could find a place to eat together. On the way to the Polish restaurant/general store L. had spotted on his way to meet me we ran into an old friend of my sister's. I told her that my sis would be visiting me in June and she gave me her number so they could hook-up.

At the Polish place we got the platter for two, which consisted of two kinds of perogies, cabbage rolls, Polish sausage, goulash, potato dumplings & something called "hunter's stew". It all had a wonderful homemade taste and was all together delicious and extremely filling. Actually, a little too filling for me, if truth be told. That said, I would gladly go back for their chicken perogies any day.

After dinner we went back to the house so L. could change as we decided that at least he should go to the party we'd been invited to by Mark & Andrea. I was just too tired. L. walked me to the video store so I could grab some DVDs I knew he wouldn't want to watch and he continued on to the Metro. I settled on an eclectic triple bill of Primer, Paprika and The Sea Hawk.

After thoroughly bending my brain with the first too films, I was still up watching ol' Errol Flinn when L. came home around 2 AM. Turns out the couple with the two cats who were on the flight from Vancouver with us were at the party. Small world.

Saturday: Since the weather was still good we decided to focus to getting stuff together for our garden since L.'s dad would be arriving soon to help us with it and we hadn't even started demolishing the faux deck yet.

After a surprisingly tasty breakfast at a new place on Parc in Mile End, we opted to pop in to Rona to start amassing supplies. We got a crowbar to start the demo, as well as planters and lots of dirt. I also grabbed a bunch of seeds and a little rake and a trowel to start working the soil.

When we got home, I determined that we didn't have enough soil and we also needed some rocks for drainage so we ventured out again to Home Depot to pick up the rest of what we needed. L. and I both put out our backs carrying home big heavy bags of dirt and rocks. I spent the rest of the afternoon building my Martha style tiered planter (thanks for the tip, Bean!) and cleaning the garbage and weeds out of our front "yard". L. meanwhile took charge of cleaning the inside of the house in anticipation of our hockey watching guests.

I was anticipating an easy Habs victory, meaning that they could move on to the next round of the playoffs. But no. They let an early lead go as we all howled and wailed at the television, deeply disturbing poor K.C. I think he was just upset we hadn't gotten him a little Canadiens jersey yet.

After the game Andrea had to make an appearance at a birthday party and I convinced everyone once else to follow me to the creepy sports bar near our place to watch the Georges St-Pierre/Matt Sera UFC match. Yeah, that's right, UFC. I had recently discovered Georges St-Pierre on RDS late one Friday night about a month ago. Actually, the fight I saw was the titled bought he had lost to Matt Sera where St-Pierre had been strongly favoured, but had gotten his ass handed to him in violent and mildly disturbing fashion. Hearing that a rematch was on the horizon and knowing that it was going to be held in St-Pierre's hometown of Montreal I was very interested in seeing the fight, but after the Canadiens' shocking loss, it was imperative. I had to see someone from Montreal win something that night!

We quickly found a spot amongst our fellow depressed Canadiens fans and settled in for the fight. There were four matches before the main event and we quickly determined that we could guess the winner from their entrance theme. Dude who entered to the Verve Pipe did not do well. Our boy St-Pierre came out to a French Rap song, so we knew he'd do well.

There were a number of Canadians fighting, including St-Pierre. The first fight involved a kid from Toronto named Mark Bocek who lost, but he stayed in all three rounds despite crying blood through two of them, so he did okay. However, this show of true Canadian grit augmented our disappointment at Kaleb Starnes of Surrey's performance, dancing around so his opponent, Nate Quarry, couldn't even take a swing. My other faves (incidentally they also won their respective fights) were Mancurian Michael Bisping and Rich Franklin.

Finally it was time for the main event. Everyone was channeling their hockey frustrations towards Matt Sera. Although he comes from NY, to us he represented Boston. And we howled with blood lust as Georges St-Pierre charged into the octagon and pummeled Sera like he should have the first time. While Alain was hoping they would go at least three rounds, it was called near the end of the second round, St-Pierre winning on a TKO.

Sadly, Andrea arrived just as the match finished, so she missed out on our vicarious vengence. Alain and MC had to go home, but Mark and Andrea followed us back home to watch a movie. Being that Andrea needed some serious cheering up we pulled out the Showgirls box set again, although this time we abstained from the drinking game. However, we did play a quick round of Pin the Pasties on Elizabeth Berkley just for fun.

At about 3:30 AM, Mark and Andrea said their farewells and L. and I crawled into bed.

Sunday: Annie called at 10:30 AM to see if we were still up for breakfast before salsa dancing. Being that neither of us could move, we opted to skip both, knowing that skipping a second week of dancing lessons essentially meant we were dropping out of the class. But we promised instead to join up the next classic ballroom class offered at the same studio in May.

After lying in bed as long as we could we moved to the couch and watch Right At Your Door, a surprisingly effective low-budget apocalyptic flick we'd missed at last year's Fantasia. While the ending was a little too Twilight Zone for my liking, it was still quite well done and I totally recommend checking it out, especially if you have a crush on Rory Cochran like I do.

After the movie we decided to get dressed and located some cash, cheap food and more DVDs. We ended up at Le Roi Du Smoked Meat in St-Hubert plaza where we ate our meal in the company of an Italian bridal shower upstairs. Luckily they had Mulberry Street, another one we missed at Fantasia which L. has been obsessed with, at the video store. I also got to pick a film and for some reason opted for Richard Kelly's epic mess, Southland Tales.

After enduring Southland Tales, where about every three minutes L. and I would look at each other and say "Uh, what?" we opted to at least make a real dinner to make up for our complete lack of motivation in every other aspect of our day. Then it was on to Mulberry Street, which did not disappoint. If you like old school survivalist horror, see this movie. I highly, highly recommend it.

Sadly our viewing of the film was interrupted by a mini-infestation of some sort of horrible multi-legged bug I had never seen before. They came one by one, but there were three of them. Each dispatched in turn by L.'s boot and quickly disposed of so we knew it wasn't just the same one. Even K.C. was scared of these things, backing away as is skited across the floor. Somehow, despite all this we managed to get to bed a decent hour so that we could start the week in better shape than the last one.

Weekend Round Up: My Saguenay Adventure

2008-04-16T23:43:00.002-04:00

Friday: Went into work super early so that I could leave at 4:00 PM without dipping into my vacation time, which was hard because I was starting to come down with a sinus cold. Spent the day starring at my monitor in a fog, but still managed to get something done. At exactly 4 PM, I met L., Annie & Mel in the parking lot and we started our trip north.

It took about an hour to get off the island, and if we had waited even half an hour later it would have taken three times that long. Mel managed not to get into any road rage incidents with anyone, which was good and I prayed to St. Christopher as I do anytime I get into a car with someone in Quebec. Not that I've converted or anything, it's just that scary.

After a quick supper at a St-Hubert Express in Trois Rivieres it was back onto the road. Sadly it was too dark for me to enjoy the view on the treacherous Parc, and it had started snowing, but the trip was pretty uneventful. We got to Annie's parents' (L.'s taunt Denise and oncle Evans) place around 10:30 PM and we hung out in the kitchen talking and looking at Annie's sister Jasmine's pictures of South American beetles.

At around midnight we bid our farewells and Evans gave us a lift to L.'s cousin Valerie's charming little trailer home where we would be spending the night as Valerie was actually in Montreal for the weekend at a dance conference. Again, Saguenay hospitality was offered in spades and L. noted that a boy cousin probably wouldn't have thought to leave out towels for us.

Saturday: After a restful night we called L.'s step-dad Yves who was also in town for L.'s cousin Dave's anniversary memorial (the real reason for our trip) who picked us up so we could all have breakfast together.

Being that it was nearly noon, finding a place for breakfast was a bit of a struggle, but we did manage to find somewhere that was still serving. There was some minor drama regarding the coffee and I thoroughly confused the waitress by asking for black tea (I got Earl Grey and an apology).

After breakfast we toured around the Saguenay at bit on our way to the fromagerie Boivin (cheese factory?).

The Saguenay is a very interesting and beautiful city, that is actually three cities merged together: Chicoutimi, Jonquière and La Baie. L. had lived in all three areas at various times, and the cities that make up Ville de Saguenay were actually made up of smaller cities and towns. It is actually a Fjord but is mostly agricultural, with rolling hills and fields. The main industry is still Alcan, one of the first to settle in the area. We actually found out recently that my uncle Martin (my mom's sister's husband) had done co-op work for Alcan while in college in Arvida, now part of Jonquière.

Unfortunately the weather was a bit inclement and it started snowing again. We drove around taking photographs and L. bought a bag of warm, fresh, squeeky cheese curds. That's right, squeeky. That's how you can tell they're fresh. In joual, the sound they make is "skouik, skouik".

Around 3 PM we arrived at L.'s dad's place in Jonquière. It's a beautiful Victorian era apartment, originally built by Alcan when they opened their first facility. It even has a dining room! Yves hung out a bit with us all and L. got to play with Nicole's dog Noisette.

Later, Nicole's daughter Katherine showed up with a giant tourtière, the official meal of the Saguenay. L. had two helpings and we saved him some for breakfast. After dinner we all sat down to watch the Canadiens game, when L.'s half brother John and his mother, Florence, came by for a visit. It was a very nice surprise as it had been a couple years since L. had last seen John and we had a very good conversation about video games and film. It turns out that John had been interested in pursuing a career as a game designer, but stumbled into starting a degree in art instead.

It was a little overwhelming for me to meet so much of L.'s family all at once, but most people I had met before and everyone was so welcoming and genuinely nice that it was really a pleasure. Everyone seemed very excited to meet me, and L. boasted that I was the reason he had decided to move back to Quebec.

Sunday: Went to my first Catholic mass. Ever. It was actually less scary than I expected, due mostly to the engaging young priest with a goatee and skate shoes under his robes. After mass we went for a brunch buffet with the rest of the friends and family, where L. had (believe it or not) more tourtière. I met more of L.'s family and he and his cousin Caroline talked about how somebody from their side of the family better start having babies soon.

After brunch we visited with L.'s tant Reine and oncle Arthur while Yves gathered his stuff as he had been staying with them for the weekend. Arthur taught us about L.'s ancestor's (apparently the Malthais side of the family is originally from the Isle of Malta) and Reine asked if my parents spoke French at home, probably the best compliment I've ever received.

Then it was off to Ste-Foy (next door to Quebec city) with Yves so we could catch a bus back to Montreal. Luckily we were able to catch an express bus and made it back in time to catch the third period of the game.

Concert Mini-Review: Hot Chip

2008-04-16T20:32:00.001-04:00

As part of my Total Life Reboot I've been trying to get back into music, and have been listening to a lot of Last FM. I've then been cross referencing the new bands I've discovered while listening at work to the local concert listings in the Hour and Mirror weeklies to discover shows to go to. And that is how we ended up at Hot Chip last night at the Metropolis.

It was our second trip to the Metropolis, the first being around Christmas for the St-Phonic gig. It is one of the larger club style venues in Montreal, similar to the Commodore in Vancouver, only with two bars and a balcony. The place was already quite full when we got there, and happily enough we seemed to fall only slightly on the older end of the crowd.

We only caught a bit of the opening act, whose name escapes me -- which is probably for the best since they were terribly underwhelming (actually, kind of just plain terrible). Got drinks at the upstairs bar, which I guess worked out because the bartender first gave me half a shot before the dispenser thing malfunctioned, so he put in another full shot, then tipped over my cup and spilled about half my rum on the bar, so he added another full shot to what remained, meaning that my rum and coke was about 50/50 rum to coke.

After our bar misadventures we headed down towards the stage to meet up with Chris and Lee (different Lee). This is where we discovered that they actually have a guy with drinks on a tray selling them to people near the front of the stage. How civilized!

The show was great and it was great to see so many people (straight men included) dancing like little maniacs. I danced also like a little maniac and maneuvered my way towards the center of the stage.The lead singer reminded me a lot of Mark Mothersbaugh, only tinier and nerdier with an even more beautiful voice. L. was impressed with the musicianship of the group, especially considering their overtly dance-y sound. I was more moved by the lyrical content and energy.

Here are some tunes to check out:

Shake a Fist
Boy From School
Ready for the Floor

French Slang Saturdays: Joual

2008-04-12T19:09:00.000-04:00

Hey kids,

No video this week as L. and I are in the Saguenay visiting L's family.

However, I figured I'd throw up a few links about joual [n] [prounouced: zwahl], the working class dialect of Quebecois French. The word itself comes from the French word for horse, cheval as in pronouncing it in one syllable. It is also important to note that because joual is chiefly a spoken dialect, spelling variations for joual words are common.

From the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Joual Vert - The unofficial dictionary of Quebecois French.

A CBC files about Michel Tremblay and his landmark play Les Belles-soeurs, which was the first internationally recognized play written in joual.

The Sweater

2008-04-11T10:23:00.001-04:00

In honour of the Canadiens playoff win last night, a modern take on a classic Canadian story.

Bonus: Cute story on cbc.ca about Habs fever.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Junior

2008-04-10T22:53:00.003-04:00

The NFB (ONF out here) does a free screening series on Tuesdays at their Cineroboteque downtown and this week Marie-Claude and I checked out a very interesting documentary about junior hockey called, appropriately enough, Junior.

Filmmakers Isabelle Lavigne and Stephane Thibault followed the Baie-Comeau Drakkar for an entire season, focusing not on the drama on the ice, but the drama off the ice. In fact, there is no game footage in the film at all.

For people not that familiar with the behind the scenes of Major Junior League hockey, the film is definitely an eye opener. The majority of the players have agents and the business aspects of the league are obvious. While the coaches do believe that they can turn these boys, generally in the 16 - 20 age range, into major league players, they have other considerations as well: filling seats, keeping league officials and team owners happy and potentially propelling their own careers.

The film opens with Benjamin Brault, one of the Drakkar's star players being lectured by a man we eventually learn is his agent. His face is that typically blank canvas of the teenage male visage, equal parts stoicism and dumbfoundedness. We are not sure how much of this he is absorbing, but we are equally unsure of how much we want him to absorb. For a kid who really does look like he'd rather hang out with girls and party all night, there is a lot of pressure coming from a lot of different places.

The film is particularly hard hitting because of the techniques employed by the directors. There is no game footage, and there are also no interviews. All reactions are authentic, as they happened. The sense of the audience really is that of being a fly on the wall, in the locker room, in the coach's office, on the bus, in hotel rooms. We are even privy to a secret trade negotiating meeting in a Tim Hortons (it really doesn't get much more Canadian, does it?)

Typically poker faced players and coaches are subjected to unending close-ups, the better to catch a tell-tale eyebrow twitch or shift in focus. The close-ups are so tight as to almost induce a sense of claustrophobia in the viewer, which ultimately increases the drama in what are in a lot of cases one-sided or one word conversations.

It is also interesting that the Drakkar are not a particularly winning team. They struggle through most of the season and the heartbreak of the players is obvious, particularly when they don't even manage to win the last game of the season. It is not often that you see that many teen aged boys all crying in the same room. We are also privy to last minute trades against the wishes of the player and painful surgery.

While ultimately a very quite film, but powerful enough to be recommended as essential viewing for anyone with children with ambitions of playing major league sports.

The film will also be airing on Radio-Canada on May 1st.

Resolution Reflections

2008-04-08T20:49:00.000-04:00

I recently came across this article in the NY Times about how exercising willpower in one area of your life can in the short-term, negatively affect your ability to exercise it in other parts of your life, but in the long run will improve your willpower overall. While the article specifically references financial restraint with reference to the apparent economic meltdown happening south of the border, the results certainly apply to almost anything where willpower is involved.

Using my own recent New Years resolutions as an example, while eating apples and flossing regularly were initially the tasks I had the most success in completing regularly, my goal of blogging regularly fell sorely by the wayside. It wasn't until a couple of months later, once I was confident that eating healthy and flossing were a part of my regular routine was I able to start focusing on my blogging goals.

Sure, I'm not exercising as much as I was in January, but I'm also finding that I don't need to. Walking to and from work everyday is enough to maintain my goal weight and a pilates session once or twice a week tones everything else up to where I like it. The addition of long weekend walks and dancing lessons certainly means I get enough exercise to be considered "healthy", and I didn't even need to join a gym. I would still like to visit a yoga studio once a week, perhaps in lieu of my at-home pilates; as a way of multi-tasking on my goals for this year: stay fit & meet people.

This is certainly the best I've ever done at keeping new year's resolutions, but it is also the first time I have ever taken keeping resolutions so seriously. Obviously, moving across the country is a drastic way of rebooting your entire life, but I might as well take advantage of this opportunity, right?

Weekend Round-Up: Snow, Taxes and Dancing, Dancing, Dancing

2008-04-08T00:36:00.000-04:00

Friday: All of my dreams of spring gardens and not so sensible footware were violently dashed by a mid-afternoon snowstorm. Tabarnak! Being that L. was also feeling a little drained we opted for our usual Friday night routine of burgers and fries at Nouveau System Hotdog Beaubien followed by some DVDs at Club Video Beaubien. I was starting to get a little impatient in my stupid high-heeled boots as L. agonized over picking the perfect combination of films. We finally settled on an eclectic combination of French indie-horror, Ils, Japanese coming of age comedy, Kamikaze Girls, and old school UK thinking man's gorefest, Hellraiser.

Since it was still rather early we opted to watch Kamikaze Girls first which L. enjoyed way more than he thought he would. I laughed myself stupid and managed to get weepy. Then it was on to Ils (Them), which was frankly a little disappointing, but still not bad considering it was obviously made for almost no money.

Saturday: The day started off with a bang as both Annie & Frank invited us out for breakfast. Being that Frank & Isabelle had to come in from the suburbs and wouldn't be around until close to noon, we opted to meet Annie & Mel at Coco Gallo again. It's really nice having so many good places to eat around us. We had our usual server, originally from New Brunswick who remembers me because we have the same French Immersion accent.

After a quick weekly grocery trip it was back home for taxes. Weeeee. After about 4 hours of struggling, it looks like we're getting a hefty chunk of money back, so that's good. And L. only starting hyperventilating once.

Just as we were finishing up the taxes, Frank and Isabelle showed up so we could go grab the dinner and then find somewhere to watch the game. We were hoping to watch it at our place, but Isabelle's deadly cat allergy meant she could only stay inside for about half an hour at a time, so that was no good. Instead, they took us to an excellent little Italian restaurant just a couple blocks from our place called Elios which we had been meaning to check out but just hadn't had an opportunity yet. The fresh pasta was tasty and prompt and L. and I opted to indulge in some homemade Italian style cheesecake to finish.

After dinner I headed back to the apartment to make some calls, shower and get ready to go out dancing with our friend Chris. L., Frank and Isabelle headed to Bar Chez Serge to watch the Canadiens game and I was supposed to meet up with them later, but the bar was packed so they left after the second period. Frank and Isabelle decided to call it a night and L. watched the end of the game while we waited for Chris, who was also watching the game.

A bit around 11 PM we met up with Chris and his friends at the Green Room, about a 10 minute walk from our house in Mile End. Being that the weather was still nice, I was marveling at how "Montreal" I've become in such a short time. I mean, look at my get-up:
I fit right in with the young and hip crowd, sort of. L. and I tried compared the venue to something in Vancouver but couldn't. First of all, the hipsters in Vancouver don't dance, at least not the ones I've met. And I can't think of a bar in Vancouver where no cover, DJs and $4 beer specials would mix. But I'll accept that I'm biased.

The music was an interesting mix of 80's Brit-pop, DEVO, Mash-Ups, 60's R&B, dance-punk and French electro. Not all of it was exceptionally danceable, but there were only a couple tunes that I really didn't enjoy. Chris and I meanwhile entertained ourselves by mocking the DJs with their twin hairdos, black-rimmed glasses and head bobbing.

Being that we're old, we called it a night around 1:30 PM and walked home.

Sunday: Despite saying that we could make breakfast at home, I woke-up craving a restaurant breakfast so we made our way towards Deli-Joe on our way to dance class. They were jam-packed so we instead headed up to Premiere Moison in the Marché Jean-Talon for fancy sandwiches. While it wasn't cheap ($15 for two for sandwiches, one soup and one salad), it sure was tasty and left us feeling much less gross than a greasy breakfast would have.

After lunch we hustled our way down to the Village for Salsa lessons. L. was stressing because we'd only been able to practice once last week, but I think we did okay. What was a bit of a problem was the new dance we learned in class: Bachata. I was doing pretty good, the basic steps are rather simple. It was the hip "thrust" that was giving L. some difficulty. I did my best not to laugh and the instructors were all very good at giving us some extra attention and telling L. to relax and just enjoy himself.

After dancing we popped in to Bureaux en Gros to pick-up some stuff to organize the office. While we were there we picked-up a paper shredder, but when I got it home it didn't work. Boo.

Later in the evening I went to Chris' place for a meeting to discuss plans to possibly help put on a movie night in the near future. Sadly, by the time I got there the meeting was over, but Chris filled me in on the details. Everything is still in the very early planning stages, but it's exciting to be involved with a group of people keen to get something going.

Being that I fell asleep on the metro on the way to Chris' I opted to skip the movie and headed back home where I promptly passed out.

French Slang Saturdays: Tanner & Tannant

2008-04-07T01:17:00.000-04:00

Sorry it's a day late, but it's a two for one to make up for the tardiness.

Tanner [v]: Annoyed, fed-up. Implies a certain amount of resignment of the part of the speaker. Conjugated in the usual fashion.

Tannant [adj]: To be annoying.

Yet More Observations About My Job

2008-04-04T18:48:00.003-04:00

So I've been at my current job almost three months, what would be considered the "probationary period" at most companies and the point at which your benefits finally kick in. But my benefits kicked in when I started, so I guess I'd better get my ass to a dentist...

I still enjoy my position quite a bit, even if the patently ridiculous nature of some of my tasks (I won't post them here, but they aren't that different from most office busy-work) and office politics have started to rear their ugly heads. My work is writing related and I do have to work my brain muscles on a fairly regular basis. Sure, there are days when my eyes glaze over, but I get paid to play video games and surf the net. Things could be so much worse.

Another thing that helps is my coworkers. They are all genuinely awesome, cool people. Because I work in translation, the majority of my colleagues are educated and not originally from Canada and as a result the cafeteria conversations are free of your standard observations of what Britney Spears did on the weekend. Recent topics include the German education system, the Brazilian economy and French politics. T

While I am a Canadian, I find that I relate to my foreign coworkers very well as I am still an outsider here in a lot of regards. I think they also find it interesting how different things can be on one side of the country versus another. here are also discussions on Quebec language laws, which my coworkers for the most part find unnecessary and bordering on fascist.

While the office itself is very quiet due to our reliance on MSN for office communications, everyone is warm and friendly. My department tends to stick together, but that suits me just fine. We also take turns bringing in baked goods when it is someone's birthday.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Funny Games (2008)

2008-04-04T01:32:00.000-04:00

Last night we went to see Michael Haneke's American remake of his own film: Funny Games. I had been avoiding Haneke for a long time, not sure if I would be able to stomach his reportedly brutal and downbeat style. But being that I had survived both Irreversible and A Hole In My Heart and actually enjoyed them-- at least on an intellectual level-- it seemed time to give Haneke a try.

While I usually prefer to go into a film blind, I opted to readKatrina Onstad's review on CBC.ca first as I generally respect her opinion and find her to be an excellent writer. For the most part I agree with what she says, although admittedly I have not seen the original and cannot compare them. But, a shot for shot remake ten years after the fact is a curious for your American directing debut.

In a way it makes perfect sense, as it is a rather didactic comment on the American appetite for glossy film violence, one that for the most part was overlooked by the intended audience because lord knows Americans can't be bothered to "read" their movies. And so it was relocated to the Hamptons and English speaking actors capable of convincing American accents were cast.

The film is full of harrowing and impressive acting, particularly Michael Pitt as the chief attacker. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth also turn in predictably strong and emotional performances as the set upon couple, and Devon Gearhart as their son shows talent beyond his years. But, middle-class coldness and the ineffectual American male have become cliches in the intervening years since the original film and act as barriers between the viewer and the characters. But this is likely by design.

However, the film is not simply an "examination of violence" as most critics dismissively have called it. In its construction and content, Funny Games is almost a joke on the audience, mean spirited to those not expecting it, and absurdist to those who are.

The biggest joke, of course, is that very little graphic violence is actually shown on screen. The most horrific violence is only implied with sound effects and careful framing. What he does show is the mundane, the meaningless details and rituals that we cling to even in times of crisis. In an age where studios greedily green light so called "Torture Porn", Haneke's remake is at once a comment on our appetite for violence and a cinematic scolding for our lack of intellectualism.

But to compare Funny Games with something like Saw is to sorely miss the point. The most graphic scene in the film is the one the audience is actually yearning for, not in a sadistic, voyeuristic way, but in a way that satisfies our cinema fed sense of justice. The small audience in the theater with us actually cheered at that scene, which seemed to be the reaction Haneke was going for, since the audience is chastised immediately following the scene with an audacious, almost comical, rupture of the four wall.

Self-reflectivity is introduced early on as a device in the film, with Michael Pitt speaking directly to the camera at numerous points, challenging the viewer to deny their complicitness in the proceedings. And while Haneke does make an interesting point about the role of the viewer, the message feel old and empty. And that is certainly part of the point too.

While pretension usually upsets me in a director, Haneke's cinematic lecture was more like a joke that he himself was in on. It is an intellectual exercise masquerading as a thriller. It wants you to be horrified and angry and upset, because those are the predictable, and in a way most comforting, reactions to the film. But dismissing something solely because it upsets us is both unfair and simplistic.

While the message of the film is far from fresh, Haneke's skill as a director cannot be denied. The specter of Hitchcock is clearly present in the careful framing of visual clues. Even the plot can be seen as an allusion to Rope, with its privileged boys who murder for sport. But while Hitchcock had Jimmy Stewart to dismiss the villain's intellectual arguments, Haneke does not rely on a "voice of reason". He wouldn't see the point.

In Defense of Long Duk Dong (sort of)

2008-04-02T19:12:00.005-04:00

Because my workload can vary dramatically from one day to the next, I spend a lot of time surfing the internet, watching webisodes and obsessively refreshing my favourite blogs. Which is how I found this post on the NPR In Character blog about everyone's favourite Asian stereotype: Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles. The gist of the article is basically that Dong is a stereotype and Asian American men who attended school in the 80's were all at one time or another referred to as "the Donger".

As the child of a Japanese Canadian woman (Sansei for those who care) and a Caucasian father, I've been aware of the evils of racism and stereotyping since perhaps a little earlier than most people. Things like the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII formed my identity as a child. While the majority of my childhood was rooted in western culture (I never did learn how to speak more than a few words in Japanese), I was aware that not everyone had a Baachan instead of a Grandma, not everyone went to a Buddhist Church on Sundays and not everyone had stick straight black hair they couldn't do anything with.

And while I haven't had the same cultural experience as other Asian-Canadians, I usually identify as "Asian" because that is how others identify me first. And I take this to heart. I smile politely when people tell me I need to visit Japan, a country even my mother has never been to and has few ties with. And I take negative (or in most cases ridiculous) portrayals of Asians very personally.

And yet, I love, no... I LOVE, Long Duk Dong. I am not sure if this is a love worth defending, or if I should just characterize it as a guilty pleasure, but here I go anyways.

As kids, my sister and I grew up on John Hughes movies. My favourite was (predictably) The Breakfast Club. Her's was (also predictably) was Sixteen Candles. And even though we know better, to this day we giggle hysterically as we trade Dong-isms back and forth:

"You beat up my face".

"Sexy American Girrrlfriend!"

"Mehleed?"

But I think on some level it is because we know that these jokes belonged to us. None of our other friends are allowed to laugh at these jokes, lest they be branded a racist. Which is a shame, because they are really fucking funny. Not because they reinforce offensive stereotypes, although they do. They are funny because the actor delivering the lines is genuinely funny.

Sixteen Candles was Gedde Watanabe's second film role, and likely the first one to give him anything to do. While things have improved somewhat for Asian actors since the '80's, let's try to wrap our heads for one second around how hard it must have been for Watanabe to break into things in the first place. Obviously he read the script and understood what his role in the film was. He was comic relief. He was a stereotype. He was the "other". And he acts the fucking hell out of his role.

I guess this is one of the things that lets me not get completely offended by the Donger, as opposed to Mickey Rooney's portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's-- at least the Donger was portrayed by an Asian person. It is more like we are laughing with someone, than at someone. Watanabe understands how outrageous his performance is, Mr. Rooney was relying on WWII stereotypes created to demonize Japanese people. Long Duk Dong is a comedic character who happens to be Asian. He could easily have come from England, or Kazhikstan, and while he would still a stereotype, it is the stereotype of "other", not simply a nasty embodiment of what white people think Asians are.

Granted, I was not an Asian male growing up in the '80's. I know I will never truly understand the complicated expectations that are heaped on Asian men, but I do have a hard time with this albatross of Asianess that so many of my Asian male friends carry around with them, the whole "Banana Boys" identity crisis thing. Maybe it is because I am not "completely" Asian. Maybe it is because I am an Asian female and therefor fetishized and desireable. But I take almost as much offense at this self martyrdom as I do the less savoury aspects of Long Duk Dong. As I pointed out to one Asian male friend while he moaned and wailed about how hard life is for Asian men and how white girls (or girls in general) weren't interested in Asian men: maybe female lack of interest comes from the fact that women are simply turned off by whining and moaning. Then again, I have never been called "The Donger" or been asked if I knew Kung Fu simply because of the colour of my skin (I do however regularly get asked if I eat a lot of sushi, especially now that I live in Quebec...)

That said, I am not trying to excuse Long Duk Dong all together. The accent is problematic and the whole dressing like a retarded person joke is offensive on multiple levels.

Focusing on what was positive about the character: depictions of Asian men on film have been traditionally non-sexual. There have been entire master thesis written about how Bruce Lee is the only guy in Enter the Dragon who doesn't go fool around with the girls. Arguably it was because Lee wanted to be portrayed as a spiritual, serious minded fighter. Fine. But that is only one in long line of examples. Dong, on the other hand, on his first night out, hooks up with a busty blond. Granted she is a "geek", not possessing the aesthetic qualities demanded by middle-American ideals of beauty, but she's exactly what Dong is looking for. She makes him happy. And the fact that they are both outsiders seems to solidify their relationship, and make them probably the most functional couple portrayed in the film, even if it is only for one night.

We Did It!

2008-04-01T22:00:00.008-04:00

With news that temperatures in Montreal hit 12 degrees Celsius today, and that we'll be breaking 10 degrees again later this week, I think it is fair to officially declare our victory over winter. I didn't even have to wear long-johns this morning.

I was close to giving up hope, but given the sheer viciousness of the weather this year I think we survived our first Eastern Canadian winter pretty well.

Now we can look forward to building a vegetable garden, getting a BBQ, drinking sangria on patios, the Jazz Fest, Fantasia, visitors from Vancouver...

But first we'll need to clean up all the garbage that got trapped between the layers of now melting snow:
Eww.

Weekend Round-Up: Spendy Cupcakes, Comix & Salsa Dancing

2008-03-31T19:28:00.001-04:00

Because L. and I both work day jobs, a lot of our exploring the city is done on the weekend. In the spirit of providing as much first hand experience of Montreal as possible, I had been wanting to do some sort of Weekend Round-Up feature for a while now, but I would usually forget until Wednesday, at which point the previous weekend was starting to get fuzzy and it stopped seeming all that relevant. I was hoping to have this post up on Monday, which would have made more sense, but we're a girl short at work right now so I actually have something to do during the work day. So here you go:

Friday: Hooked up with MC as I was going to be in her hood running some errands and I wanted to drop off Alain's metro card which he had given me last weekend as he was going to be out of town for a week and figured I could use it. Had a very girly evening of buying Organic shower gel, $15 worth of cupcakes at Petits Gateaux & body butter at Bella Pella. Grabbed dinner at our new addiction, Thai Express & met up with L. at our new favourite video store, Club Video Beaubien. Rented The Getaway (original), Pump Up the Volume & Shampoo. Watched Pump Up the Volume, which is AWESOME and the only Christian Slater movie Kim and I didn't watch during a sleepover night because her mom rented us If Looks Could Kill instead.

Saturday: In an effort to break out of our usual routine we opted to explore the Mile End neighborhood which is basically the area between us and The Plateau on St-Laurent. It is a predominently Anglo & student hood, with lots of cool boutiques and bagel shops. Had brunch at tiny, but packed Brazilian restaurant with roasted fruits. Found Drawn & Quarterly, a very nice store specializing in alternative and indie-press comics and novels. L. hinted strongly at wanting the Rick Trembles book, I finally picked up Therefore, Repent! and butted in on conversation about Vancouver and the till. Found another Organic supermarket with a huge selection of wellness & cosmetic products. Will pick up foundation there when I am all out. Headed up to Plaza St. Hubert to try on Yoga pants at Belle & Rebelle. On the way there we stopped in to Studio 9, which I had been avoiding it because it is so close, but I will have to start a box or something there. Didn't really find any pants & went home. I worked on computer (hello, editing!) while L. cleaned. Sorta participated in Earth Hour by watching the Habs game by candlelight with no heat (it's better than nothing, right?). After the game, Alain & MC came by to watch my recently purchased (for $9.99, natch!) Showgirls VIP Limited Edition Box Set. I made the mistake of the playing the drinking game with red wine. Tried watching Shampoo after Alain & MC took off, but my tummy would have none of it. Vomited red potato chips into the sink and called it a night.

Sunday: After Saturday night's adventures, opted to join Annie for Salsa Dancing classes in the Village instead of our planned outing to the Wine & Spirits Salon. Met Annie & Mel for breaky first at their favourite weekend haunt, Coco Gallo (after we introduced them). L. and I managed to get through the lesson without breaking up or physically harming each other, so that was good. Had coffee in the village with Annie and her friends before departing to wander downtown prior to getting to Comedyworks to see Andrea in a best of Open Mike showcase/contest. She won in a tie. Stumbled home & passed out by 11:30 pm.

French Slang Saturdays: Ben

2008-03-29T17:08:00.003-04:00

Today's slang word is a good multi-purpose word and adopting it's usage is one of the fastest ways to sound like a native Quebequer.

Ben [adj]: Literally: very. Can be used literally, at the beginning of a sentence or as a pause the same way as "well..." or to add emphasis.

This one might take longer to load because it is a bit longer than the previous videos, but that's because there are so many ways to use the word. I've also upped the production values a bit with the introduction of titles and transitions (oooh, impresive!)

Microbrasseries & Brew Pubs I Have Been To

2008-03-26T21:31:00.001-04:00

In an attempt to refine L.'s pallet in preparation for The Great Home Brew Adventure, Alain has been dragging us all over Montreal to experience some of the many Microbraseries and Brew Pubs. People in Quebec take their native beers very seriously, and they should given the consistently high quality on offer. Below is a list of the establishments we have visited so far with mini-reviews and my favourite brews when applicable.

1) Dieu Du Ciel
Alain's favourite and everyone else's considering the place is jam-packed every time we've tried to go. They have a rotating selection of uniformly delicious beers, including a coffee stout called Peche Mortel (Mortal Sin) and everything else from Scotch Ales, to Porters, to Barley Wine to European varieties you've never heard of. Worth the effort to get a table, you can also find their brews in certain specialty shops (like our favourite Delires Du Terroir). Added bonus: the nachos are insanely good, more like fresh bruchetta on top of chips topped with broiled Quebec cheese. Nom nom!

2) L'amère à boire
Where we end up most often due to it's proximity to the Cartier Latin and Scotiabank Theatres. Also featuring a rotating selection of beers & an upstairs and downstairs bar (more selection downstairs). My current fav is the Odense Porter, although I'll settle for Drak when it's not available. The Odense Porter is very rich with a caramel top note and a smoky full body. The Drak tastes kinda like warm honey toast and has a satisfying, dry finish. The Imperial Stout is also very tasty, but a little dangerous at 7.5%. They also serve food of the upscale tapas variety, and while not cheap it is super delicious. I highly recommend the Kielbasa & Portobello Salad for
$6.

3) Saint-Bock
Just a couple doors down from L'amère à boire, Saint-Bock is similar to Vices & Versa in that they sell all sorts of different beers, not just ones produced on site. They also have one of the most comprehensive menus of any of the microbrasseries we've been to, even if they didn't have any deserts available when we were there. The selection is revolving with about 20 different beers to choose from on any given day. I decided to be adventurous and tried a carrot beer, which would normally be lighter than I prefer, but really hit the spot with just a hint of spice. I followed that up with an Omega 3 Brown Ale made with roasted flax seed that was also not too heavy, but with a full, nutty/roasted flavour. They also have giant TV screens if you wanna catch a game.

4) Sergeant Recruiter
Located in the Plateau, its proximity to Dieu Du Ciel makes it a good back-up if we can't get a table. My favourite so far is the Nessy Scotch Ale, which is rich but not heavy and very drinkable. They also do wood fired pizza's which are very yummy and made with local ingredients and they have a sister store (Saum Mom) next door specializing in smoked salmon (& gravalox etc.) And, on Sundays they have French raconteurs (story tellers)!

5) Vices & Versa
Not a brewpub per se, this bistro style bar does carry a couple exclusive brews which is enough for me to include it. Located across the park from us, it is also usually packed beyond belief. The rotating selection again means it can be hit and miss, but the staff is more than happy to help out and you usually have upwards of 15 brews to choose from. And the nachos are tasty and full of olives. They also boast a lunch menu and wireless internet access.

6) Benelux
Cafe by day, pub by night, one of the definite highlights is the back room built into the vault of this converted bank. A good place to catch a game, their American Brown Ale was a little hoppy for me, but I'm dying to try their 9% Russian Imperial Stout. They also offer cheese and olive plates as well as European sausages.

7) Brutopia
Often crowded and loud due to bands playing. First time I went I got the Nut Brown Ale which sounds good, but is actually pretty disappointing. The seasonal offerings like the Maple Stout are much safer options and I have it on good authority that their Honey Beer is tasty and refreshing. They stop serving food at 11 PM, and it's of the very greasy pub-food variety. That said, it's probably the only place on Crescent I can see myself going to.

8) 3 Brasseurs
Like the McDonald's of microbrasseries, this chain is especially popular with tourists and frat boys. Only been in once and after waiting 20 minutes for someone to take a drink order that never arrived, we opted to leave and never come back. Ever.

French Slang Saturdays: Capoter

2008-03-22T15:47:00.006-04:00

Capoter [v]: Literally it means capsize, but in slang usage it means "to freak out". Can be used positively or negatively, to express elation or frustration. Conjugated in the usual fashion.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Mémoires Affectives & Mon Fille, Mon Ange

2008-03-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

After trying and failing to watch the Jutras (Quebec's answer to the Oscars) a couple weeks ago (just too "French" for me, and by "French" I mean "lame"), we opted instead to rent some of the movies that were either nominated or had won in previous years. While compiling a list of our options we discovered that we had missed out on quite a few recent, good, Quebecois films, so we've got some work ahead of us.

That night we rented Mémoires affectives (2004), Séraphin: un homme et son péché (2002) and the "classic" Quebecois comedy, Elvis Gratton (1981).

After staring at the screen in disbelief for the first 10 minutes of Elvis Gratton, I decided that I would rather watch "the one about the guy in the coma", so we popped in Mémoires affectives with former pretty-boy Roy Dupuis. In the 18 or so years since endearing himself to every pre-teen girl in Quebec with his role in the seminal tele-roman, Les Filles de Caleb, M. Dupuis has managed to develop into quite a talented actor and is easily one of the biggest stars in the province.

The film opens with someone taking Alex (Dupuis) off of life support, but instead of just dying the act forces him out of the coma he has been in for the last 6 months. As a side effect of being in a coma for so long, Alex has almost complete amnesia and is therefor useless to the multiple police investigations he is involved with, the first pertaining to who tried to kill him in the hospital and the second being how he found himself in the coma in the first place.

His wife, Michelle (Nathalie Coupal), from whom he was estranged at the time of his accident; wants to pretend that everything is fine and that the years of trouble never happened. His daughter, Sylvaine (Karine Lagueux), is disgusted by what she perceives as her mother's hypocrisy, but she too struggles with what role she wants this man to play in her life. Alex, for his part, is more concerned with putting back together the pieces of his identity, even if the resulting picture is less than admirable.

I won't give away too much more of the plot as one the most engaging things about the film is trying to put together all the disparate memories and clues together along with Alex. We discover information at the same time as the character and because of Dupuis' touching performance we are usually as surprised and disappointed as he is when the information is negative. Unfortunately, the director introduces too many mysteries to properly resolve all of them at the end of the film, but this is far from a reason to avoid the film.

The film is similar in many ways to Memento in the way that it plays on our notions of memory and identity, but in many ways it is a much stronger film because it focuses more heavily on character development and setting. The acting is uniformly good, with Dupuis stealing the show with a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a man literally searching for himself. The cinematography is beautiful in that typically Canadian way and the choice to set the film in Baie St-Paul in the winter yields some spectacular shots.

Overall, Mémoires affectives (Looking for Alex in English) is a very strong Canadian film and while not perfect, it is definitely worth a look.

That Wednesday we rented the "controversial" Mon Fille, Mon Ange (My Daughter, My Angel). Promoted as a gritty look at the real world of online porn, the film is actually a Holywood-ized who-done-it melodrama, with some of Michel Côté's hammiest acting to date. And yes, that is saying something.

Côté (who L. likes to call Quebec's answer to Al Pacino), plays Germain Degenais, a former lawyer now working for the office of a prominent cabinet minister in the Quebec legislature. His daughter, Nathalie (Karine Vanasse), has taken off to the big bad city of Montreal to attend university and unbeknownst to her parents, fallen in with the wrong crowd: namely, strippers and pornographers. While settling in to an evening of "working" alone in his study, Germain is shocked (shocked I say!) to discover his "ange" promoting herself on a porn site as "Samantha", the new girl. See, she's going to be poppin' her porno cherry live in 4 days, meaning Germain has only 4 days to get to Montreal, find, and save his little girl.

The film utilizes an interesting device of starting at the end, the result being one dead porno producer, and tracing things back through Germain's admission to a work colleague and Nathalie's interrogation by a police detective, played by Christian Begin. We don't actually know who killed the sleaze-bag and the film does a good job of conceiling the true killer right up until the end. Both Nathalie and Germain confess that the other has done a terrible thing, and its up to the audience to determine what is meant by their statements. Neither one is what the other believes them to be, Nathalie the perfect student is really Nathalie the backdoor slut and Germain's perfect political exterior covers some rather shocking rage issues; but does that make either one of them a killer?

The film is briskly paced at an hour and 25 minutes, so the audience is seldom bored. However, this doesn't leave much room for plausible character development and this is the film's greatest weakness. The exception is Laurence LeBeouf as Nathalie's childhood friend Angelique, who radiates with a primal energy in her portrayal of an almost middle-class girl in way over her head and she deservedly won this year's Jutra prize for breakout performance.

While entertaining enough, Mon fille, mon ange is a largely forgettable who done it and not really worth seeking out.

French Slang Saturdays: Plate

2008-03-15T15:09:00.005-04:00

While my first post about Quebecois slang was neatly arranged around a single theme, I've found myself struggling with a good way to post about all the other Quebecois slang I've been absorbing that would a) make sense and b) not be insanely long. So, in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone I've opted to post one slang word per week. And I'm including video of me saying the word!

If there are words that you would like explore in a future post, please let me know in the comments, or send me an email.

This week's word:

Plate [adj]: Lame. Literally means "flat", but is used to describe anything boring or just generally sucky and undesirable.

I'm Ready When You Are Spring

2008-03-12T20:44:00.007-04:00

Seriously.

Here I was thinking I was all butch, weathering my first East-Coast winter. Bragging that it was the worst one seen my Montreal in like 35 years.

But, I'm done. I concede defeat. I am tired of snow.

Here I was optimistically dreaming of pedicures and purchasing my first two-piece bathing suit... but, no. We got what is likely the biggest dump all winter this weekend. Most of the outlying areas have already blown their snow clearing budgets for 2008. It is highly likely that the same has now happened to Montreal.

My walk to work has now turned into an obstacle course of giant black lagoons and winding, icy pathways that bring to mind the routes taken by mountain goats in the rockies.

It almost makes a girl miss Vancouver. Almost.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Persepolis

2008-03-08T15:57:00.002-05:00

Let me say it right now: the Oscars are a crock of shit. Some of you may not be surprised by that statement, and I have long held that sentiment, particularly after having read Robert S. Sennett's book Hollywood Hoopla which goes into the social and economic conditions in which lead to the creation of the Academy Awards. Basically, ticket sales were dropping so they needed a big glitzy event to get people excited about movies. Celebrating "artistic achievement" was an afterthought.

However, my opinion was further cemented upon having watched the moving and beautiful Persepolis, which just lost the best animated feature Oscar to Ratatouille. Don't get me wrong, I like Pixar as much as the next girl. I think Brad Bird is extremely talented. And while I haven't actually seen Ratatouille yet, I have a very hard time believing that a comedy about a cooking rat is more deserving of an Oscar, the American symbol of excellence in film, than Persepolis, which is a socially relevant, innovatively realized, important work of ART. It further elevates animation being children's entertainment, and proves that countries other than the US and Japan can consistently produce compelling animation.

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis is the biographical memoir of Marjane Satrapi, who grew up Iran during the fall of the Shah. The film starts as a fascinating look at revolution and war from a child's perspective, then slowly shifts to become a more general coming of age tale, coloured by war and tragedy and oppression. Director Vincent Parronaud wisely chose to stay as close to the original artwork as possible and Satrapi is credited as is credited as a Co-Director. While the drawings themselves may seem overly simple compared to the CGI wizardry of Pixar, they are the images that best suit the story and are complemented nicely by Satrapi's evocative backgrounds and subtle facial animations.

Although the story itself contains many sad moments, it is far from being dreary and is more personal than it is pedantic. It is overall an uplifting and inspiring story about maintaining one's personal integrity, no matter what.

Being that the graphic novel was originally written in French, I was lucky enough to see the film with the original French language track, without subtitles. I am not sure how the film is being shown in other parts of the world, but I do recommend viewing it with the original language track if possible as the voice acting is very strong and adds to the emotional impact of the film. Particularly great is Gabrielle Lopes as the voice of Marjane as a child, and I would be remiss if I did not mention Catherine Deneuve as the voice of Marjane's mother.

As to why the film was so sorely overlooked, there are several possible reasons. Some political, some not:

1) No one bothered to watch it. - This is the most likely reason, and why I've never felt that the Oscars deserve the amount of prestige that people continue to associated with them.

2) It is in Black and White. - Black and White = Old fashioned & boring to Hollywood. And yet the framing sequences set in the present are in colour and the use of a black and white colour scheme is clearly meant as a stylistic choice.

3) It is 2D animation. - 2D = Old Fashioned. This is why Disney closed their 2D animation studio, even though 2D animation is still cheaper to produce and is still artistically relevant (perhaps even more so now than it has ever been).

4) It is in a foreign language. - Because God forbid you have to read when you go to the movies.

5) It presents an alternative view of Iran, enemy of the US. - It's a lot harder to make a case for bombing the shit out of a country if you realize they're just as fucked up and diverse as the rest of us.

6) Satrapi's family are unapologetic Communists. - Okay, this one's getting a little conspiracy-theory, but let's face it: the Academy has always been scared of Commies.

7) It comes from France. - Those Commie, freedom hating frog eaters! And again, God forbid a country that didn't spawn Walt Disney is capable of making animated films.

8) It's too arty. - It isn't an animated film if it doesn't have voice-work by washed-up comedians and songs by writers of the adult contemporary variety.

9) You can't take kids to it. - Well, you could, and I would recommend you did, although not under the age of 8; but that isn't necessarily the target audience. Apparently, animation isn't supposed to be "serious".

10) It's actually good. - Now I'm just being bitter...

Go See This Band

2008-03-06T23:09:00.002-05:00

As I stated in an earlier post, I have decided to start getting back into music, and it was with that end in mind that I accept my friend Chris B.'s invitation to the Creature album release party last night. The fact that it was on a weeknight did concern me a little, but then I decided to stop being a wuss and start living a little. Moving to a whole new city really has allowed me to "reboot" my life, and getting out more has definitely been a goal of mine. Although L. never really got into the live music scene growing up the same way I did, he has been very enthusiastic about going to more concerts, especially after I dragged him to the CPC Gangbangs in January. Luckily, Creature is right up L.'s alley.

I don't know if they'll be playing Vancouver anytime soon, but they seem to have played every bar, club, warehouse and basement in the metro Montreal/Quebec area and it shows in their enthusiastic stage manner and expert musicianship. If I had to describe them, I'd say they were reminiscent of Franz Ferdinand with some B52's, a little Talking Heads, a little Prince and a lot more cowbell. While they are essentially a dance-rock band, the lyrics are often surprisingly intelligent and they don't shy away from political subject matter ("Last Days of America", "Kandahar") and even managed a ballad during the encore ("Star"). But mostly it's about having fun and being yourself and what's cooler than that?

You can download their album here.
Also, check out their music on MySpace & Facebook.

Absolutely go see them if you have the chance, before they get too popular and you have to pretend they suck.

My Top 5 of 2007

2008-02-14T20:46:00.004-05:00

Normally I abhor top whatever lists and avoid them like the plague. Too simplistic and arbitrary for my taste. But being that I haven't written about film in FOREVER, a list seemed like the simplest and most elegant way to jump back into it. So with the Oscars right around the corner here's a list of my top 5 favourite movies of 2007:

1. No Country for Old Men - Dir. Coen Brothers: This movie deserves every bit of praise that is being heaped upon it and then some. And I actually loved the ending, which many people have complained about. I'm sure being raised on Westerns has contributed to my appreciation for the film, and I consider this a better representation of a modern Western than most things that have come along. My boy Josh Brolin was the star for me, although Javier Bardem is great. But we kinda expect that from him. Brolin is the son of a B-actor married to Barbara Streisand and he used to be engaged to Mimi Driver, so nobody really expects much of anything from him, but his portrayal of the classic Western anti-hero was nuanced and brilliantly crafted. That said, I can't actually think of a single bad performance in the whole thing. The violence that turned some people off was integral to the story and particularly the ending. Easily one of the Coens' best ever.

2. Juno - Dir. Ivan Reitman: If I had to describe this movie in one word, it would be easy: lovely. Sweet, profane, smart and extremely life affirming. While one friend dismissed the dialogue as "too hip", only one character was particularly hip in their speech and they were treated as an oddity by the other characters. And, it's a movie. People are supposed to be hipper, smarter, cuter and funnier. Otherwise I'd save my money and call a friend. It's also nice to see smart people having babies.

3. Control - Dir. Anton Corbijn: Okay, fine, so I'm a little biased on this one. But my only caveat is that it did drag a little in areas, particularly for those not already familiar with the story. Emily Watson was the perfect choice to play Deborah Curtis and the painterly framing and lighting was a marvel to watch. The decision to use the actor's performances in the musical sequences was also inspired. An awespiscious feature film debut and one that sadly I doubt Corbijn will be able to live up to.

4. Blackbook - Dir. Paul Verhoeven: Although technically released in 2006, it didn't make it to North America until 2007 so I'm going to count it. Surprisingly restrained for Verhoeven (despite some full frontal nudity and a lady covered in shit), his return to Holland and his reunion with writer Gerard Soeteman is his strongest work in years. A little old fashioned in tone, it's essentially a female version of his previous WWII adventure epic Soldier of Orange. I won't try recapping the plot, because it's just get messy real fast, but imaging mixing the Great Escape with Turkish Delight and you'll be half-way there. Also, Carice Van Houten should become an international superstar.

5. TIE Eastern Promises Dir. - David Cronnenberg / Michael Clayton - Dir. Tony Gilroy: Because I couldn't come up with a full 10, I decided to cheat a little and include a tie and an honourable mention. I put these films together because while they were both better than they should have been, the plots were too conventional to make them stand-out enough for me. Eastern Promises survives largely on the strength of Viggo Mortensen's performance, and while I have to admit I did not see the final twist coming, the storyline did seem to tie up a little too neatly for a Cronnenberg film. Thematically, A History of Violence is easily masterpiece, but Eastern Promises would not have been as good as it was without a director willing to go to those darkest places. Michael Clayton is also a triumph of directing, coupled with very, very strong writing. All of the actors are at the top of their game. Essentially a corporate thriller, Tom Wilkinson's portrayal of a man having a nervous breakdown and a bipolar episode is uncomfortably realistic.

Honourable mention: There Will Be Blood - Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson: My dislike of PT Anderson is well known to those I am closest too, and I have been known to go on long spite filled rants when asked my opinion of the self-proclaimed auteur. However, it looks more and more like my rants are based on my feelings towards one film, Magnolia, and that I am not alone in considering this Mr. Anderson's weakest and most self-indulgent work. Arguably, most of his work falls under the category of "self-indulgent", but with TWBB his talent as a filmmaker can no longer be debated. A harrowing epic of one thoroughly unlikable man's climb to the top, comparisons to "Citizen Kane" are not out of place even if Anderson's film is that much more sinister and bleak. There is an old fashioned elegance borrowed from Wells at work in the film, which helps to temper some of the more eccentric and over the top choices, and the grounding in gritty reality provides the humanity that Day Lewis' character lacks. Which brings me to my central point regarding the film. The film is about one man, and that man is Daniel Day Lewis and though cliched, tour-de-force is the only real description of what he delivers. Paul Dano also distinguishes himself as being able to hold his own against Lewis, no small feat.

Music in Quebec

2008-02-07T21:24:00.000-05:00

In high school and University, I was admittedly something of an audiophile. Granted, not a very dedicated or knowledgeable one, but was on the mailing lists of a couple indie labels, I went to live shows (though not as often as I wanted to) and I listened fairly exclusively to non-mainstream radio. However, since leaving the dynamic atmosphere of school I have fallen sadly behind in my knowledge of current music. While never really ahead of the curve, I now resided in a musical time-warp that ended at about 1988. And while the occasional mix-CD passed by a friend has made sure I haven't become completely out of touch, I do deeply miss the excitement of discovery that keeping up with a music scene brought me. So, being that moving to Quebec was a way to reboot my life I've been trying to make more of an effort to get back into music. I wouldn't say that I've been completely successful, but having new friends with similar musical tastes at least seems like step in the right direction, and I've already made it to two shows, both on opposite sides of the Montreal musical spectrum.

In December we attended a Christmas benefit for a jam-space co-op founded by Michel Rivard of legendary Quebec folk/rock bank Beau Dommage. I must admit to not really knowing anything at all about pop music in Quebec, aside from Mitsou and Celine, but a steady stream of MusiMax during my three months of unemployment has at least given me something of a foundation. The highlights for the concert for me were teen girl favourites, 3 Gar Sul' Sofa (Three Guys on the Couch) a folk based pop-y trio with great humour and harmonies and Gilles Vigneault, the poet and sovereigntist who at the age of 79 lead the crowd in a rendition of Gens Du Pays, the unofficial anthem of Quebec and as I recently discovered, the Quebecois substitute for "Happy Birthday".

While L.'s musical tastes were undoubtedly coloured by a childhood of overproduced Quebec pop, my taste is Quebecois music tends towards either the folky-pop sensibilities of groups like the widely celebrated Tricot Machine to the distinctive electro/hip-hop sound of groups like Omnikrom. I've even added an embedded radio station to this blog so that you can listen to Q-pop while you read.

On the other end of the spectrum, we recently caught the CPC Gangbangs at the Theatre St-Catherines, a relatively new art/show space which is quickly gaining popularity among hip Anglos. It had been a long time since I'd been to a real indie-rock show, let alone a punk show and I had a blast despite a very sore neck for the next two days. L. was initially a little scared, he didn't gown up listening to punk music and was nervous about what to expect. However, the band's energetic performances and up-tempo set managed to win him over. I also found out that there is still a very active and impressive rockabilly scene in MTL, which I am dying to check out.

A Few More Observations About My Job

2008-02-03T20:22:00.002-05:00

So, it's been 4 weeks since I started working in the gaming industry and I have to say I am really enjoying it so far. Despite having the flexibility to choose my start time, most of my team is in the office by 8:30 - 9:00 A.M., so that's usually when I try to get there as well. However, not having a fixed start time means that if it happens to take me an extra 3 minutes to do my hair and 5 minutes to eat my breakfast it's not the end of the world. By not having to rush around like a mad-woman stuffing burnt toast into my face while I power-walk to work I find I arrive at my job focused and ready to work and my body is not taxed by unnecessary stress. I am happier and healthier. Not having to worry about ironing my clothes also helps.

In fact, there are many initiatives at my work that seem designed specifically to make sure the nerds are healthy and happy:

1) There is a social committee. They organize all sorts of things like ski-trips and hiking outings, making sure the nerds are socially and physically active.
2) We have our own cafeteria where hearty soups and sandwiches can be purchased at very reasonable prices (under $5 for soup & sandwich with crudites).
3) The cafeteria also has big baskets of fruit (apples & oranges mostly) which are free for the taking.
4) A one hour lunch is both strongly encouraged and loosely enforced. Apparently they didn't used to and people were burning out.
5) They are actively working on getting us a discount at the gym that just opened in our building.

I am enjoying the novelty of the being "the new girl". I'm sure the fact that I wash my hair only adds to this (seriously people, get out more!) I'm still amused by the guy who tried to "cruise" me while I was eating lunch by myself. He was very charming and not creepy about it and seemed to be more due to the facts that a) I am surrounded by French people & b) most of these French people are nerds. It was more flattering than anything, but my insistence on replying only in broken French must have been a turn-off because he hasn't bothered me since.

Also, there is a guy who wears red elf booties. Every day.

Resolution Self-Evaluation

2008-01-31T18:02:00.002-05:00

So it's been about 4 weeks since I started on my various self improvement programs and now seems like as good a time as any to take stock. So, how did I do? Well, if you've bothered to check this blog since I started, you've probably noticed which resolution I was least successful with. There are various excuses I could dredge up to account for my lack of bloggy-ness, the fact that L is monopolizing our one computer probably being the most pertinent, but dreaming of my own MacBook Air isn't really helping anything and I'm happy his writing, editing, composing and trying to find a new job.

Oddly enough the two resolutions I am having the most success with are the most mundane: flossing and eating more apples. I am also doing pretty good on avoiding sugary things (I have pretty much cut out all snacking) and exercising (4 - 5 times a week). I've even managed to drop 5 pounds and keep it off for a whole week. Yeah me! I try to do three to four 20 - 30 minute workouts during the week before I get ready for work and then one hour long cardio workout on the weekend. If our weekend activities include cardio heavy activities such as dancing or ice skating, then I usually skip my extra weekend workout. The side benefits of exercising so frequently are that I sleep much better and I have more energy. I don't even need my morning tea anymore (I gave up coffee years ago due to stomach acid issues I nicknamed the "proto-ulcer"). When not felled by a cold I can get up at 7:00 A.M. with no problems and I don't really start to feel saggy until 4:00 PM or later, which usually just means I need dinner. Also, my jeans fit better, even when I'm wearing long-johns under them!

The eating allergens thing has been going okay, but I do admit to drinking a few beers here and there or forgetting to tell servers to omit certain things. Most recently I was confronted by the fact that both of my herbal teas at home contain lemon peel, which does in fact make me itchy. But the fact that I have been able to resist the temptation of eggs bennedict for an entire month is some at least I am proud of.

As for the blogging, I'm going to try a couple things over the next month and see how they work out:
1) Take advantage of my slow periods at work, of which there are many right now, to make notes or start/finish posts in gmail.
2) Stockpile posts developed in this manner to improve my consistency.

I had been hesitant to blog while at work, but for some reason writing my posts in gmail and then posting them later when I get home doesn't seem as bad to me. I am fortunate to be working somewhere that understands that we have slow periods and doesn't mind if you use that time to check Facebook, write emails or catch-up on your gossip as long as the work you do get assigned gets finished in a timely fashion. My workload can change drastically from one day to the next, so instead of trolling the nets for some way to entertain myself, I figure I should get over myself and take advantage of this gift of time. Of course this would be a different matter if I was posting trade secrets about my company, or making money off my blog, which given that it is invite only would be pretty hard.

My First Two Days

2008-01-08T22:35:00.001-05:00

For the nerds (like me) who actually bothered to watch JPod tonight, no, working for a video game company is nothing like that. Well, it's a little bit like that, but our desks are much smaller and we do a LOT more work. It's also much quieter. And the view is better.

My first two days have gone well so far. I do still feel like I am wearing a sign that says "girl" on it, but I work on the team with the highest percentage of girls so it's not so bad. I don't really even have to talk to the programming nerds. In fact, I don't even have to talk to my co-workers. As a bi-product of the open office concept, everything is very, very quiet and most communication is done by e-mail or MSN. That's right, I'm supposed to use MSN at work.

Highlights include fooseball in the lunch room, the fact that I get to walk to work and the fact that I don't have to answer a phone as part of my job. Ironically, there is no dress code, yet I am treated more like a grown-up than at any of my previous "office" jobs.

Quebequois Slang Part 1: Cursing

2008-01-04T15:55:00.001-05:00

NSFW or children

Admittedly, having completed a large portion of my schooling as part of the French Immersion program (pre-school to first year university) has been a huge asset to me these past three months. I would also have to say that my accent and confidence have improved tremendously in the short time we have been here, and my ability to speak and understand French has made my life infinitely easier in every way, from finding a job to shopping for groceries.

However, because school is supposed to teach you how to do things properly, there were a number of essential words and terms that I had to pick up on the fly. I am referring of course to slang, and the Quebequois of course have their own very specific and unique terms for all kinds of things. In lieu of just listing every bit of seeming gibberish I've picked up since October, I've opted to split the topic into several posts, beginning with the most fun: swearing!

I had an interesting bar conversation with someone not too long ago about swearing, and specifically how a culture's curse words actually reveal a lot about the particular hang-ups of that culture. For example, in English, most curses have to do with sex or bodily functions (ex: Fuck, Shit...); while in Polish a lot of curses have to do with disease and illness, a hold over from the plague days. In war ravaged areas of Eastern Europe the curses are generally very convoluted and violent (an example along the lines of "skull fuck your mother through the eye with a dog penis" comes to mind). So, it should come as no surprise that the majority of Quebequois curses have to do with the Catholic church, specifically: deliberately mispronouncing the words for sacred things.

Below are some of the most popular Quebequois swear words along with explanations and examples of their use. Please note that some of these words have multiple spellings as the issue has more to do with the pronunciation.

Tabarnak: [tah-behr-nak] This one is a play on tabernacle (same in English & French) and is probably the grand-daddy of Quebequois curses. The usage is similar to that of "Fuck" in English, although it probably isn't quite as harsh. Variants include "tabarwhet" and "tabarmoush", which are basically the same as saying "fudge" or "fiddlesticks".

Ostie: [uh-stee] A play on ossuarie or ossuary. Generally used in the declarative, or as a preposition: "Ostie,que t'est con!" Not as bad as tabarnak, it can also be shortened to "'sti" as one would shorten "Goddamn" to "damn".

Calisse: [koh-lee-ss] This one comes from calice or chalice. One of my current favourites. It is very fun to say and immediately gets across how you feel.

This of course is just a sample, I do plan on posting lots more in the future as well as some less offensive slang. While not extensive, these words are more than enough to get you started, and you can of course combine them in a host of ways to come up with new curses as demonstrated by Tom Green in the clip below:

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T14:44:00.003-05:00

I know that most people my age have given up on such things, but I've decided to make some resolutions this year. I've tried to stick to things I'm pretty sure I can accomplish and I've made them specific enough to yield measurable results. In some cases I have even added time frames so that the resolution does not seem as daunting.

1. Floss every day
2. Eat one apple a day (pears and apple-pears are also acceptable)
3. Blog every day
4. Exercise 5 times a week for 30 days (I am hoping to fit in morning work-outs before work since my commute time will be a mere 10 - 15 minutes)
5. Eat nothing I am allergic to for 30 days
6. Cut out sugary deserts and candies for 30 days

To help me reach my goals I have implemented a few tools and hacks to keep me focused. The first one is Sciral Consistency, which is more of a "fuzzy to do list manager", but I am using it as a sort of "don't break the chain" style motivator. It should also help me to remember to water my plants as I carry the curse of the black thumb.

I have also added To-Do List to my Google homepage as a further reminder. And, if all else fails I have the mantra "How does this help me achieve my goals?" for whenever I am feeling weak.

If you've got resolutions or tips/tricks for staying focused, please post them in the comments.

Our Friends Online

2007-12-18T11:06:00.000-05:00

Our friend Frank, who kindly put us up when we first arrived in La Belle Province was recently featured on Radio Canada Telejournal news magazine as part of a series about Park Extension, one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Montreal. Frank is a cop and Park Ex., as it is known, is his beat. I've posted a link to the video here so you can see what Frank looks like, but please note the clip is entirely in French.

Roast Chicken Review: St-Hubert's

2007-12-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

Please see part 1 of this series for the backstory and criteria.

In many ways this is the review that L. is dreading because St-Hubert's is his favourite restaurant ever and I am notoriously not that big a fan. I will go so far as to say that I do prefer dining in to take out and their coleslaw is pretty good.

Chicken: Skin was more chewy than crispy and very salty. The meat wasn't that dry, but very mealy -- a quality I detest in chicken. 6/10

Fries: Colder and greasier than I remember them. Must be a side effect of having had to wait an hour for the delivery guy. 4/10

Coleslaw: Warmer and soggier than the dine in variety which I quite enjoy. In fact, I generally do not like coleslaw, but their original vinegarette style is usually refreshing and delicious. I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one because of the delivery delay. 7/10

Gravy: Thin, very salty and a little spicy. The spice would normally seal it for me, but the salt content kind of skeeves me out. 5/10

Biscuit: The St-Hubert's "biscuit" has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Tell me it doesn't look exactly like the bottom of a McDonald's bun that's been squished:

Barely edible, even with St-Hubert's Sauce. 2/10

Overall score: 24/50

First Storm of the Year

2007-12-04T14:51:00.000-05:00

Looks like the weather's been playing havoc with everybody's life.

In other news, I bought a hat with ear flaps. It keeps me warm.

Busy Weekend + Good News

2007-11-27T16:11:00.000-05:00

My apologies to those of you who were expecting daily updates. Last week was a bit of a blur due to L.'s very good friend Brendan being in town (different Brendan, for those of you in Van.) Below are a few of the highlights. The ones I can remember anyways.

Wednesday, November 21st
Brendan arrives late in the evening, a little shell-shocked by the snow and cold. This was to be expected as he currently resides in San Jose, CA (although he grew up in Newfoundland). Sadly, L. had to crawl into bed shortly after Brendan arrived, but I stayed up and talked with him for another 2 hours.

Thursday, November 22nd
Continuing my efforts to get to know one of L.'s best friends I invited Brendan to breakfast before his meeting with a local software company. I started to feel a little bad about dragging him through the snow in order to get to one of our new favourite haunts, Coco Gallo. Montreal is covered with all day breakfast restaurants & diners. We are within a ten minute walk of about 5 places I can think of right off the top of my head and that doesn't even include big chains like Chez Cora. After a leisurely late brunch, Brendan hoped in a cab and I went about my daily routine of grocery shopping and laundry.

After L. got off work we opted, for logistical reasons, to order in some St. Hubert's rotisserie chicken (review pending) instead of making the trek downtown to an actual restaurant. It was also decided that instead of venturing to St. Sulpice we would instead head to Vices & Versa, the excellent bar specializing in local microbrews that Alain introduced us to a few weeks ago.

However, even on a Thursday night, Vices & Versa was packed. We then opted to just venture down St-Laurent towards the Plateau as we were sure to find something before long. After some minor drama hooking up with Mark who had already beaten us to St-Sulpice we opted for a weird little bar called Bar Taverna VV. It was empty when we got there, but quickly filled with an eclectic mix of young women playing pool, local winos and a long haired guy in a suit out to get his dance on. A few beers and many laughs at the expense of the dancing guy later we excited back into the snow and L. made sure that Mark got safely into a cab home.

Friday, November 23rd
Fortuitously, L. had already booked the day off, so we all went out to another one of our local breakfast haunts. Brendan had another meeting that afternoon, so we opted to put off shopping until Saturday. L. and I got to take a much needed nap before tidying the house for our party Saturday and then I got to make a pork chop dinner for Brendan and Mark. After dinner we all jumped into a cab downtown to Le Boite de Karaoke, where we were all older than the KJ. This was the Montreal Karaoke debut for L. and I, so we opted to stick to the tried and true. L. did a little Tainted Love and a surprisingly faithful cover of Jessie's Girl. I stuck with China Girl and Ballroom Blitz and I even got to do Love Shack with Mark's wife Andrea (I was Kate Pierson to her Fred Schneider).

Saturday, November 24th
Yet another breakfast out. I opted to add a breakfast smoothie in order to get some much needed vitamins. We then accompanied Brendan out to Plaza St-Hubert, which is basically an outdoor shopping mall that spans about four blocks on both sides. I like it because it's such a bizarre mix of shops and services. High-end bridal boutiques are next to outlet shoe stores and not far from sex shops and places that sell hooker shoes with sparkly mud-flap girls on them. But, it is also home to some great little local shops like Les Delires du Terroir which specializes in artisan beers from Quebec as well as local cheeses and preserves. After striking out on finding some souvenir t-shirts, Brendan wisely opted to have a gift-basket made up here. I stayed to help him pick-out the contents and buy some goat Camembert for the party, while L. headed back to apartment to wait for Frank who was arriving early with another of our recent passions: Guitar Hero III.

After deciding that the maple syrup options at Delires were not sufficient I offered to walk Brendan through the Jean-Talon Market as the selections would be much better. After jokingly suggesting that Brendan purchase a bison rib from a kiosk at the market, he instead ordered several for the boys at home as well as a selection of game-meat sausages. We also managed to find maple syrup in a tin shaped like a sugar-shack. Perfect.

While L. went to fetch more snacks, I played guitar hero with the boys and Frank helped me hang the curtains in the living room. The party itself was very well attended, especially considering we don't really know that many people here yet. I even got to catch up with my friend Chris from Cinemuerte in Vancouver.

Being that Brendan had to be at the airport by 6 AM on Sunday, I opted to say my goodbyes before going to bed around 3 AM. All in all, not nearly as nerve racking a visit as I had feared. And who knows, maybe we will accompany him to Newfoundland this summer.

Which brings me to my Good News: The sample profiles I did for Montrealplus.ca were very well received and I have been offered eight more profiles to do for December 11th. While not enough to live on by itself, it'll certainly take the edge off while I look for more freelance gigs. Yeah me.

More Snow!

2007-11-22T19:18:00.000-05:00

It's official. Vancouver is a city full of wimps. I actually get to experience a city that doesn't go into panic mode at the sight of the first snowflake. There are teams of trucks pushing the snow off the street all day long. The streets are full of people, on foot and in cars. Our neighbors even shoveled our walkway for us while they were out there, instead of just dumping their snow on our steps!

Roast Chicken Review: Coq au Bec (Part One of a Continuing Series)

2007-11-21T16:33:00.001-05:00

First off, a little background:

Not long after I met L. he began extolling to me the virtues of a Quebequois institution known as St Hubert. It's a chain of restaurants specializing in roast chicken and ribs and doesn't really exist much outside of Quebec (although I understand there are a couple in Ontario, but that's about it). I had initially assumed that this obsession with roast chicken was just another one of L.'s quirks, a personal fetish nourished by happy childhood memories of meals out with his mom. But no. On our visit in July it quickly became apparent that this obsession was not unique to L. People in Quebec really like their roast chicken, often referred to as "Montreal style rotisserie chicken". It doesn't matter where you go in Montreal, you will be within walking distance of roast chicken. Even the shwarma places offer the option of half a roast chicken.

And so I decided that despite not really caring for roast chicken (too dry and mealy for my tastes) I would strive to rate the various roast chicken options as fodder for my blog. In order to make sure the comparisons are fair, only the traditional chicken breast dinner will be rated. In most cases, a dinner consists of five parts: the chicken, french-fries, gravy, a biscuit & coleslaw. Each part will be rated individually on a scale of one to ten, adding up to a total score out of 50.

First up is Coq au Bec

Chicken: Surprisingly moist and flavourful. Not too greasy. The skin was crisp, salty and spicy in just the right combination. Overall, kinda delicious. 8/10

Fries: A whole different story. Greasy, squishy and obviously fresh from the freezer. Could even have been imported potatoes (for shame!) Reminds me of the fries I ate at the ice-rink concession stand as a child. 4/10

Coleslaw: A little on the scary side. Basically just weak, hair-like strands of cabbage, with a sneezing of carrot thrown in for colour; floating in a sour vinegar marinade. 2/10

Gravy: Not too salty or too spicy. Good, thick consistency that sticks well to the fries. Easily the best part, next to the chicken. 8/10

Biscuit: Tasteless white roll. Cold, but edible with a bit of gravy. 3/10

Overall score: 25/50

Snow!

2007-11-20T18:24:00.000-05:00

It snowed last night. About 5 cm, although most of it got rained away. Apparently there's going to be more tomorrow and Thursday. L. doesn't even have boots yet...

Hobbies

2007-11-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Here in Quebec there is a concept known as "terroir". This is similar to the French concept of terroir which is used mostly when speaking of wine and is meant to refer to the geographic area where the wine was produced. Each terroir has certain innate qualities associated with it, which are thought to influence the resulting wine.

However, in Quebec the term is used a little more generally and with a lot more pride. "Les produits des terroirs" can describe anything that is produced locally and with local ingredients. There are "vins du terroir" (native wines), "bieres du terroir" (local micro or artisan brews), "fromages du terroir" (native cheeses) and even a genre of literature: "romans du terroir". Because many in Quebec see themselves as belonging to a distinct culture (and in some cases, a distinct country), such products are celebrated with a good deal of pride as they represent something uniquely quebecois.

It goes even further than that though, because "terroir" not only implies where something is produced, it can also be used to describe how it is produced. In many ways Quebec still sees itself as a land of humble farmers who live off the land and so "terroir" can also imply a sort of folky, home-made quality.

Which leads me to the subject of hobbies. Apparently, L. and I have both been inspired by the spirit of the land as we are both pursuing hobbies involving handcrafted food/drink stuffs. See, being that I am still mostly unemployed I have a lot of free time during the day, and being that we are pinching pennies, I have decided to start making my own bread. L., on the other hand, is taking inspiration from his friend Alain and is going to experiment with brewing his own beer.

So, because I've been meaning to bring my love of food to this blog for a while I have included my own recipe for Honey Wheat and Flax Bread:
1 Cup Soymilk (unsweetened)
1/2 Cup water
1 Heaping tablespoon active dry yeast (or 2 packets)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon honey (the darker the better)
1 Teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup Brown Flax Seeds
3 Cups Organic Whole Wheat Bread Flour + aprx 1/2 cup more

1. In a glass measuring cup, heat water & soymilk in the microwave for about 40 seconds until it is a little warmer than lukewarm. Be careful, if it is too hot it will kill the yeast.
2. Pour the liquid into a large mixing bowl and add the honey, olive oil, salt and yeast. Stir gently to combine everything and then let the bowl sit for about 10-20 minutes in a nice warm place (I like the top of the stove, especially if the oven is pre-heating).
3. Take the flax seeds and give them a quick whir in a blender. Reserve.
4. When the liquid in the bowl is covered by a think layer of yummy foam, give it a stir with a fork and add the flax seeds, then start adding flour, one cup at a time.
5. When the dough is too tough to stir with the fork, get your hands in there and keep adding flour by the handful until it will no longer stick to a clean finger.
6. Form the dough into a ball in the bowl, then cover the bowl with a hot, damp tea-towel and leave it somewhere warm. (Again, I like the stove).
7. After about an hour, the dough should be about double the size it was when you left it. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead it a couple of times on a lightly floured surface. Then, take a sharp knife and cut the dough into two equal portions.
8. Form both dough lumps into loaves by tucking everything under.
9. Lightly oil two bread pans, pop one loaf into each pan and let them sit on top of the stove for another 15 - 20 minutes.
10. toss the loaf pans in the oven for about 35-45 minutes.
11. The bread is ready when you can knock on the bottom of the loaf and you hear a hollow sound. Take the loaves out of the pans and cool them on a wire rack.
12. Enjoy with a liberal dollop of homemade jam.

In Case You Didn't Know

2007-11-20T15:30:00.001-05:00

I know I'm a little late on this one, but I thought I'd give a shout out regarding the new Cinema Sewer book that FAB Press just put out a little while ago. It's a revised collection of all 12 issues, plus 100 pages of comics, interviews and other cool stuff. The perfect gift for the trash-hound on your Xmas list...

Update 2

2007-11-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

So we finally did manage to get internet hooked up, minutes before L. got on the phone with Primus to scream bloody murder about their lousy service. Turns out they had forgotten to send us our modem. Then they sent us two. Luckily they were kind enough to give me the tracking numbers so that I knew which one to refuse when they finally showed up.

We completed our final trip to Ikea (again, with the very gracious Isabelle) over the weekend and have only one more room (the office, of course) to finish setting up before L.'s friend B. comes to visit. I am a little nervous because B. is the only one of L.'s close friends I have yet to meet. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I have been warned to expect non-stop giggling from the pair of them.

Update

2007-10-30T13:37:00.000-04:00

Things are going well. We have been living in the apartment full time since my last post. Things are finally settling down to the point where I can start looking for a job (wish me luck), although I'm thinking of getting something part-time and then supplementing that with freelance writing gigs.

KC has been living with us for just over a week and he has already started to take liberties. Our brand new sofa bed is already quite scratched up in the back and my air plant is down to half its size.

We will be getting internet in the apartment in the next week or so, so my updates will be much more regular and hopefully I'll be able to get started on some of my feature ideas, as well as finally post some of my pictures.

Our First Week in Montreal

2007-10-03T21:10:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't been updating this as regularly as I would like. The last week has been very crazy and I haven't had a block of time to dedicate to blogging about it all... until now.

Day 1: Monday, October 1
After spending a relatively relaxing weekend with my parents in was time to load K.C. into his carrier yet again and make the trek out to the airport. Luckily we had time to enjoy a nice lunch with my mom when we got there and I only cried a little when my dad called to apologize for not being able to see us off is person.

Our flight on Monday was surprisingly uneventful, the cat having made it through security faster than we did (actually, we carried him through the metal detector in our arms while the carrier went through the x-ray machine). It turns out K.C. had actually been one of three cats on that particular flight and managed not to make a peep the entire way over.

Upon arriving at Frank's house in Blainville K.C. was quickly sequestered in the basement so that he wouldn't be eaten by Frank's chocolate lab, Jigger. After a sleepless night for L. listening to Jigger pushing against the bedroom door we decided that the best option after all was to leave him with our friends Marc & Andrea downtown.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 2
Being that we'd both had fitful sleeps we opted to lounge in bed as long as possible and spend the day doing as little as possible. It is unseasonably warm in Montreal, 25C+. L. and Frank spent much of the day constructing Frank's new wall-unit/desk-thing and I tried not get crushed by Jigger, who really seems to enjoy having a girl in the house. Frank was still off work so he took us to do a mini grocery and I marveled at how much lower food prices are out here. Even at the corner store we managed to find our brand of soy milk for $1.00 less. I also got lots of ideas for a series on Quebequois foods (cretons, tortiere, cheese curds) that I'll get started on once we have regular net access. The evening was spent shuttling K.C. to Marc's place, but we still got back to Blainville in time for me to catch the last half of the Tudors (yeah!).

Day 3: Wednesday, October 3
Our plan had been to get up super early, cruise the net for apartment listings and spend the afternoon looking at places. Being that I was still only sleeping in 2 hour increments with 3 hour awake periods we didn't really get started until about noon. However, after only 10 calls we had six (!) appointments for the next two days. A very sharp contrast from trying to place in Vancouver.

We jumped onto the commuter train and got to enjoy "les couleurs" on our way into town. The first place we looked at turned out to be way too small for a couple, but rent was only $550. The next place we looked at, a block and a half away was perfect. It's a little north of the Plateau in the Little Italy neighborhood, but within walking distance of everything we need, including a SAQ and Home Depot. We have a choice of three Metro stations, all less than a ten minute walk and we have mini balconies in the front and back. It's the ground floor of Montreal style triplex with French doors in the bedroom and my mind is already racing with thoughts of barbecues and herb gardens.

The only catch is that the last tenant left most of his stuff and it doesn't really look like he'd bothered to clean anything in about 5 years. Also, he was a smoker, which means we'll have to wash and paint all the walls. Our landlord is a pretty chill dude who seemed most interested in having cool down to earth tenants. The neighborhood is very safe and peaceful and we are right across the street from a park. Pictures are pending.

The day ended with rotisserie chicken (review also pending) and the season opener for the Habs. I quickly realized I am going to have to make peace with being a hockey widow because there is really no escaping it here.

Day 4: Thursday, October 4
A pretty uneventful day. Frank had to work in the afternoon so we just puttered around the house and I cruised for furniture online. Accidentally placed an order online with Ikea, but opted to cancel it and go in person to see if that would yield a better delivery time. We realized that if we were able to get even just a sofa bed we would be able to start staying in the apartment right away, instead of waiting until our stuff (read: bed) arrived on the 29th. Decided to spend the weekend downtown since we'd be able to stay with L's cousin Annie who lives within a 10 minute walk of the apartment.

Day 5: Friday, October 5
Arrived downtown and went straight to Annie's place. She told us where the Home Depot was and she and her girl friend immediately offered to help us with groceries, trips to Ikea, painting etc. I am still getting used to the hospitality here, but I have to say it is growing on me and I'm very anxious to get the apartment set-up so I can start returning the favour. It turned out that Annie and Mel were going camping for the weekend so we had the run of the loft. We went for breakfast and then straight to the apartment. It was still full of crap and we started to get depressed. Opted to go to Home Depot while waiting for the landlord to come by to settle the remaining rent and to do something about all the stuff. Started cleaning the kitchen while the landlord and his friend hauled stuff onto the street.

Eventually left to go see K.C. at Marc's house and perhaps accompany Marc to some Pop Montreal shows. It turned out that Marc had a bunch of tickets to see Patti Smith play in a church so we went for dinner on St. Denis and then got lost on our way to the church, but it was okay because the show was half an hour late starting. Outside the venue I ran into an ex-coworker from Videomatica. Turned out he had also opted to moved back because of the cost of living issue. Waited at least 20 minutes in a never ending bathroom line-up that eventually rebelled and started using the guy's bathroom as well. I laughed as the women ahead of me quizzed all the indie rock dudes on whether they were using the urinal or the stall and then informed them that we'd taken their stalls. The show was very good, if a little "crunchy-granola" at times and we returned to Annie's loft for some much needed sleep.

Day 6: Saturday, October 6
The weather had suddenly changed and it was grey and drizzly and cold. Annie & Mel were still determined to go camping, but bullied L. into calling his friend Isabelle to see if she could give us a lift to Ikea since apparently the bus takes hours. Isabelle was predictably excited about an Ikea trip and we met her for breakfast nearby to catch up.

After fighting some typical Montreal weekend traffic we finally made it to Ikea around 1:00PM. Let's just say that Ikea on a Saturday afternoon when it's rainy is the same in Montreal as it is in any other city around the world: not unlike the seventh level of hell. We had to line up for everything: line up to check availability, line up to order, line up to pay, line up to pick up our order... and on, and on. Worst of all we couldn't even get our sofa bed because they didn't have any mattresses. Not one. In the entire store. We would have to wait until the following Thursday, call to make sure they had what we wanted in stock, then go to the store to buy it, then arrange to have it delivered.

Luckily we did manage to find a little table with flaps that we could raise and lower to make it bigger of smaller, some chairs and a few cheap knick-knacks. But I think I'm going to have to heavily sedate L. if we ever go back.

Next, Isabelle was kind enough to take us to Home Depot so we could get some more cleaning supplies. I also picked up some paint for the kitchen and the office and some bulbs for out front.

We said goodbye to Isabelle, did a bit more cleaning, grabbed some dinner and then crawled back to Annie's so that L. could watch the hockey game and I could pass out.

Day 7: Sunday, October 7
Got a call from Annie & Mel. They were freezing and decided to cut their camping trip short so we made plans to join them for dinner at St. Hubert's. Finally got a hold of L.'s dad since he was supposed to be in town at his girlfriend's daughter's place just outside of Montreal. We made plans to have lunch there in the afternoon on Monday so we could still spend the evening eating roast chicken with Frank back in Blainville.

Cleaned the apartment a bit more (we're almost done the kitchen!) and called Isabelle to invite her to join us all for dinner as she had expressed interest on Saturday. After gorging on roast chicken we all decided we were too tired to party any more and called it a night. We chilled at the loft with Annie and Mel and watched Occupation Double, probably the dumbest reality show I have ever seen. Imagine a cross between Big Brother & Blind Date and you're half-way there. Only it's French, so there's cameras in all the bedrooms and they don't censor as much.

Day 8: Monday, October 8
At Annie and Mel's suggestion we went out to Brault & Martineau to try to find a sofa bed. Managed to find one very similar to what we'd been looking for at Ikea, only nicer, for the same price plus free shipping. Met up with Caroline and L.'s father James and went back to Caroline's house for lunch. Caroline and Nicole were very excited about our apartment and we all got to swap decorating tips.

In the car back to Montreal I started to feel very tired all of a sudden and it wasn't until we met Frank at the Metro station that I realized I had a mild case of the flu. Missed my roast chicken dinner because I was sleeping and then called my parents as they were sitting down to dinner to wish them a happy Thanksgiving.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: C.R.A.Z.Y. & Control

2007-09-29T22:38:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't been updating this as regularly as I would have liked, but the last week has been a never ending cavalcade of packing, cleaning and last minute socializing. However, we did manage to sneak a couple of movies in there as well.

C.R.A.Z.Y. This 2005 film was a monster hit in Quebec and apparently one in eight Quebequers saw it in theatres. It also swept the Genies that year and had been on our to watch list for a while. So, in an attempt to further psych ourselves up for the move we decided to finally give it a chance. And I am very glad we did. Backed by an awesome period soundtrack (which apparently ate up most of the budget), C.R.A.Z.Y. tells the story of the Beaulieu family, a fairly average French Catholic family and their "exceptional" second youngest son, Zachary. See, while all four boys are very different, Zack is the wrong kind of different, the kind that alienates him for much of his childhood from his macho father (an excellent Michel Côté). The highlights of the film were definitely the performances, particularly Côté, Danielle Proulx as the mother and Marc-André Grondin as Zachary. I also recommend checking out this excellent CBC article.

Control If you've known me for any length of time you know that I am a HUGE diehard Joy Division fan, so when Beej informed me that the Ian Curtis biopic was playing at this year's VIFF, I had to squeeze it into the schedule, no matter what. And I have to admit that I was very apprehensive when I heard that Tony Wilson and Deborah Curtis had finally giving the project the go ahead, but the fact that they were basing the film on Deborah's heartbreaking book was some consolation. I also admit to having mixed feelings about Anton Corbijn as the director. Sure, it was fairly common knowledge that his move to England in the 1970's was inspired by Ian and Joy Division's music, but I have to say that I was not all that impressed by his music video output. While his grainy black and white esthetic is iconic, it doesn't really showcase a lot of depth or dramatic development.

However, all my fretting was for nought. Control is a beautiful, powerful, and very good film. Comparisions to Saturday Night, Sunday Morning are certainly appropriate as Macclesfield is a working class town and Joy Division was a working class band. Samantha Morton does a marvelous job as Debbie, never falling into the trap of playing the victim or the shrew, instead emphasizing her love for Ian and her initial starteling innocence. Sam Riley is also incredible as Ian, an ambitious but fragile man worn down by fate and his own fickle wants.

My other favourite preformances include Toby Kebbell as Rob Gretton, Craig Parkinson as Tony Wilson and Joe Anderson as a delightfully crabby Peter Hook.

The naturalistic and heartbreaking performances are aided by several directorial choices, including the use of a stark black and white portrait which both conveys the spirit of the kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s and allows Corbijn to best demontrate his painterly photographic style. Corbijns framing and use of shadows tell stories where the dialogue is absent, particularly in the way he frames those around Ian and Annik when they are together: backs turned perfectly away, but present and compliant none the less.

The other surprisingly effective trick employed by Corbijn was to have the actors to play their own instruments during the concert scenes. Because Joy Divisions music is not technically difficult, the difference in their playing is barely noticeable, but the immediacy and energy their playing brings to their scenes makes it incredibly easy to understand how they became popular so quickly. While Sam Rileys melodic tennor can be distrancting to those accustomed to Ian Curtis haunting mono-baritone, the power with which he sings conveys the character perfectly.

My only complaint is that because the film is such a slow burn, for those already intimate with Curtis story, it does seem to drag at times. And yet, eventhough we all know how the film has to end, it is even more heartbreaking than we could have imagined.

Bad Timing?

2007-09-21T11:52:00.000-04:00

A study released on Wednesday by the Quebec Community Groups Network doesn't really seem to bode that well for me. According to the study, Anglos in Montreal are a dying breed and they need to better work together to make sure their needs are met. An earlier version of the story which I can no longer locate online quoted unemployment for Anglo Montrealers at close to 10% (although the sample group referenced was only 400 people). They also say that many Anglos do not have access to English speaking health care professionals. Among other recommendations, including better cooperation between English school boards, they suggest that Anglo Montrealers try to brush up on their French.

As for why some Anglos are having trouble finding health care professionals, I found this report about a dentist in Quebec who speaks four languages, including English and French, who is being denied a permanent license because he failed a French written exam. Four times.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2007-09-20T19:07:00.000-04:00

So, you've probably noticed that I haven't written on my blog in a long time. There are many reasons for this, time being one of them, lack of inspiration being another, and let's not forget the devastating blows my self-esteem have taken in the last couple of years. It's hard to say anything with conviction when you don't really want to get out of bed.

Well, in an effort to tackle at least two of these problems I decided to indulge another romantic fantasy, slightly less costly and not nearly as legally binding as my last one. In a mere 11 days, I am boarding a plane for Montreal. And it's a one way ticket.

I will have two companions along for the ride, my fabulous Quebecois beau, L, and my pretty (even the vet said so) male cat K.C. (a.k.a. Bitey). All we need to do is find me a job & all of us an apartment.

I have long fantasized about starting over, just ditching everything and going to a new city. You have to admit it's a fantastically romantic idea, and I am a true Pisces. Now I find myself on the brink of doing just that, and I have to admit, it's kinda terrifying. It's hard for me to expect sympathy for my fear. This was, after all, my idea, and I know that I'll be fine. I guess it's just the mountain of boxes is making me realize this is real. Which means I am about to leave my family (I have never lived more than 30 minutes from my parents) and my friends to start life in a province where I will be a minority, not because of my race but because of my mother tongue.

As much as I think that I will be more at home on the East Coast, there will be a learning curve. While I do speak (pretty good by most accounts) French, I am still lacking confidence speaking it to strangers, although L keeps insisting that I will be perfectly bilingual in a matter of months. So, in addition to film I am going to start blogging all things Quebec, mostly because Quebecois culture has fascinated me ever since I was crowned Duchess of my kindergarten class during our version of Winter Carnival (I went to a French Immersion school).

Of all the places we could be going, Montreal makes sense for a host of reasons:

- Allegedly they get more sun than Vancouver and being that I am affected by S.A.D., this seems like a good thing
- The arts seem to be better supported, both my the government and by the public
- The bars are open until 4 AM
- They will pay me to have a baby
- I have a better chance of running into Jean-Nicholas Verrault
- I already promised Jeremy Knox I would help him review at next year's Fantasia Festival
- I can already cook tourtiere, cretons, and tarte au sucre
- I really want to go to Carnival for my birthday and it's easier to drive there from Montreal

Wish me luck.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Grindhouse

2007-04-11T01:27:00.000-04:00

WARNING: CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS & WHINY RANTING

Being that I’ve been running a monthly series of trash film double bills, inspired by the festival circuit and the old grindhouse era, it was pretty much a requirement that I see this film. Or these films, as a couple of our buddies figured out after three hours on their butts.

Now, it would be pretty easy to sit back and be all jaded about this project. Let’s face it, Tarantino isn’t exactly known as Mr. Original and I’m slowly learning that I’m actually only a little bit behind him on the trendy curve. Rodriguez I’ve regarded as consistently fresher, but his insistence on doing everything himself had resulted in a couple of sloppy outings (Spy Kids 3D & Once Upon a Time in Mexico, I’m looking at you) recently. However, I really liked Grindhouse. It did everything I wanted it to, it played to the audience and it made going to the movies an event. Even the fake trailers in between the films were super fun. It’s a tribute to an era and it manages to take what each director loved about that era and craft it into something distinctly theirs.

In many ways I feel that Rodriguez was more successful than Tarantino in this endeavor. He wore his influences on his sleeve, with hard boiled characters and pitch-perfect acting. His offering, Planet Terror, clips along at the breakneck pace Rodriguez is known for, but he still has time to introduce us to a great array of oddball characters and somehow manages to build sympathy for them. It’s heavy on the gross-out, but has a ludicrously endearing love story. It’s filled with jaw dropping performances, from Jeff Fehey to Josh Brolin to especially Rose McGowan. Freddy Rodriguez is an unlikely but wholly convincing action star and Michael Parks kicks fucking ass.

Death Proof on the other hand, spends so much time smashing you over the head with the fact that it’s a “Quentin Tarantino Movie” that the mood he managed to create was sadly overshadowed for me. I say sadly because, (and this is probably one of the more embarrassing things I will ever admit to the internets,) the teenage me adored him to the point where I had actually constructed a Q.T. mini-shrine in my high-school agenda planner. The other thing that is sad about my reaction to the Quentin film is that because he played it straighter, instead of loading on the one-liners and gore, he had the opportunity to make a truly great piece of trash. But no, it became the “I-think-Austin-is-cool-I-know-lots-about-old-movies-and-TV-shows-oh-and-did-you-know-I-like-UK-garage-now-Quentin-fucking-Tarantino-show”. The car chase at the end did kick fucking ass, though.

Really, what it came down to for me were the characters. While Rodriguez did play it more tongue in cheek, he created characters you could root for, even if everything was painted so broadly you couldn’t really identify with anybody. The only person I wanted to identify with in Death Proof was Stuntman Mike, but his smug swagger disappeared halfway through the film and we were left with nothing but another group of self-involved girls. I don’t care if one group was the hunted and one was the hunters. Same loudmouthed pretentious bitches, different pile.

I want to say something here about misogyny, but I know I have to be very careful because accusing a film of being misogynist can be a very reactionary thing to do. When you are dealing with a film about a man who stalks and murders women, misogyny just kind of goes with the territory. The story wouldn’t work as well without the objectification and subjugation of women and trust me; I am the last person to go on a feminist rant about a movie like this. However, as ballsy as Mr. Tarantino wants to think he is, in Death Proof it felt half-assessed and irresponsible. I understand that by having a group of chicks turn the tables on the lady killer he was trying to excuse his earlier glamourization of brutality against women. This despite the fact that our “heroines” leave one of their own (albeit not a bright one) to get raped so that they can go out joyriding. Okay, so that might be a stretch. At no point is it made explicit that chicky-poo in the cheerleaders outfit is going to get raped. But if it had really been a grindhouse exploitation film, she would have been. That is my point.

My other point is that if you are going to have male stomping she-heroines, make them interesting. I’m talking Tura Satana style psycho-cool. While the decision to kill stuntman Mike was startling and rewarding for the audience, it really didn’t make a lick of sense. Especially when their friend is back at the farm house getting raped, something they seem to have invited. Or maybe Rosario Dawson’s character was supposed to be a sadistic bitch that uses her perky persona to goad her friends into devious acts. Or maybe they’re all stupid.

The thing is if you take out all of the annoying “Tarantino-isms” and half-hearted misogyny I probably would have liked Death Proof even more than Planet Fear. Too bad Tarantino is coasting on pop-culture references and borrowed cool to the point of self parody.

Which brings me to my other big complaint about the films: where were the boobies?! At least there were some in the trailers, but real exploitation has ‘splosions and T&A! Hollywood pussies.

R.I.P. Bob Clark

2007-04-09T01:11:00.000-04:00

I was saddened to learn this weekend of the passing of Bob Clark, director of the beloved Christmas Story, Porky's and one of my personal favourites, the original Black Christmas.

I had the honour of meeting Mr. Clark a couple of years ago when he participated in a panel discussion at Cinemuerte for the launch of a book on Canadian horror films from the "Tax Shelter" period. I had just seen Black Christmas and excitedly told him of my admiration for it. He was very gratious and struck me as a very genuine, optimistic man filled with passion for film and his upcoming projects.

While often cited as a Canadian director, Bob Clark had actually been born in Louisianna, but decided to settle in Toronto after shooting a movie there. Although not a native son, he considered himself an honorary Canadian and took great pride in his adoptive country.

My sympathies go out to his family and friends.

EFS February Heads Up

2007-01-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

Hey kids,

Before I depart for Sin City and a four day booze bender, I though I would give you a heads up on next month's EFS:

Evil Film School Presents: New York Sleazy

When: Friday, February 23rd

Two lost gems from the golden age of exploitation.

7:30pm - Telephone Book [1971]: Wacky comedy about one girl's quest to date the world's greatest obscene caller. Ahead of it's time.

9:15pm - Who Killed Teddy Bear [1965]: Post "Rebel" Sal Mineo is a creepy stalker with serious sexual hang-ups. First rate trash that's still creepy.

Doors: 7pm, Admission $5 - $10 Sliding scale

For more info: evilfilmschool@gmail.com or www.evilfilmschool.com

p.s. It's also my birthday that night, so get there early if you want birthday cake!

Evil Film School: Not This Friday!

2006-11-21T23:15:00.000-05:00

Hey Kids,

So, because I am a goof, I did not realize that Blim had actually scheduled Evil Film School for Thursday November 30th, not the 24th as I had been advertising.

DO NOT GO TO BLIM THIS FRIDAY!!

Turkish Wizard of Oz will be happening on THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30th.

A big huge apology to anyone this might inconvenience.

Thank you,

~meeko

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (and Most of the Fall): A Return to Blogging

2006-11-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

This post is meant partly as an explanation and mostly as a round-up of relevant stuff I've neglected to post about in the last few months. First, let me just say that my life has been rather rocky recently, and instead of boring all of you with my emotional travails, I opted to just keep it to myself.

So here, in bullet form, is what I was up to:

Moved - Moved into my first solo apartment. It is huge. I was hoping to post some pictures, but my digital camera got busted before I could do so. I still need to paint and work on getting a couple more chairs for the kitchen & a few more pieces of wall art, but in general it really does feel like home. The only downside so far was the one time I was propositioned on the the way to work (bearing in mind that I leave for work at 5:30am, more on that later). Other than that, the neighborhood rocks. Everything is within walking distance, from markets, to doctors to drugstores and butchers. People are generally unpretentious and I'm close enough to The Drive to conveniently go for a nice dinner or brunch and far enough away to avoid most of the hippies.

Found a New Job - So, shortly after I moved into my new apartment (read: my rent just doubled), the company I was writing Anime Scripts for failed to get me a translation script in time for me to work on and invoice for a script, meaning I didn't get paid that week. Realizing that this was no way to live and that I was beginning to tire of working from home (not to mention Shojo in general), I decided that it was time to find a real job. After some frustration, I was suddenly confronted with two promising offers, one in the film field with room to move, and one in sales with the possibility of travel to New York. Since the sales position was a lock and likely paid better than the other job, I went with it. However, because I work a territory in Eastern US, I have to start work at 6am. To say that this has been an adjustment, is an understatement. My karaoke appearances are sporadic at best and I have given up entirely on going out Friday nights. In fact, the last time I was invited out on a Friday at 8:45pm I actually thought to myself "Good god, who would want to go out so late?!" Luckily everyone I work with is very nice and we all get along very well. It is a small company (>20 people), so it is cozy and comfortable, but owned by a larger company, which means good benefits. I don't plan on spending more than a couple years here, but by that point I should have paid off most of my debt and saved sufficiently for my next adventure. While sales isn't my first choice of jobs, the industry and my position require enough crossover skills with my dream career that it seems like the right place to be right now. Plus, I have the potential to make mad cash for a change.

Went to the Seattle Film Festival -- Had a very good time, made a pilgrimage to Scarecrow, saw A Scanner Darkly & Strangers with Candy. Got to hang with Xian & MiuMiu. Scanner's probably still my favourite film so far this year, but there's a lot I haven't seen yet. Strangers was funny, but didn't really add anything new. The Dan Hadeya cameo was cute.

Made my Burlesque Debut -- In the spirit of trying new things and broadening my horizons I took the Femme Factory Burlesque workshop. I did the 5 week course which includes an opportunity to appear on stage. Between moving, finding a job & trying to get my scripts done, I basically had one week to choreograph my routine and build my costume. Runthrough with my instructor did not go well (I was unprepared) & I found out that she'd done a routine to the same song a couple of weeks prior. Eek! Stressed out terribly and swore up and down that I would do it this once and then never again since I "just don't have the time". The actual event went marvelously. The crowd was very responsive and multiple people complemented me on my enthusiasm. Pics are available on Flickr here. Photos of my finale are available to friends via email request. Oh, and because I know Theron will want to know, my routine was to SCOTS's cover of "House of Bamboo".

Hosted a Bunch of EFS Nights -- All well attended, with one notable exception. Put together a Halloween shorts program which went over very well, although I was a little disappointed at the small number of local submissions I received. I'm starting to get media inquiries and attendance is becoming more consistent. Yeah me.

Watched Lots of Movies -- Capsule reviews to be posted shortly.

Trying to Improve My French -- There are multiple reasons for this one, but I'm not ready to comment on most of them yet. Mostly it's the fact that I've been learning it since I was 3 years old and I still don't feel comfortable using it at work. Not that I have to use it that often, but it'd be a nice thing to include on my resume & would help with a couple of projects I'd like to start.

So there it is, in a nutshell. I do plan on posting more regularly & will be expanding my reviews to include restaurants because it was brought to my attention recently that I am a foodie. If you give two craps, I would ask you to leave a comment. However, I seem to have deleted that function. Please email me if you are more proficient at HTML than I.

Thanks,

~meeko

Monster Mash - Oct 27th!

2006-10-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

Hey Kids!

Have Halloween weekend plans yet? Well, now you do!

What - Evil Film School's First Annual Monster Mash

When - Friday Oct 27th

Doors - 7pm

Admission - $5 - $10 sliding scale

It's a Halloween Party with a horror shorts program, costume contest (with AWESOME) prizes and of course, the main attraction: The Monster Squad [1987]. Directed by Fred Dekker (House, Night of the Creeps) and written by Shane Black (Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang; Leathal Weapon), this is sure to be a major nostalgia fest for many of our regulars.

Remember, costumes are manditory, and if you don't have your own, one may be provided for you.

Shorts start at 7:30pm, costume contest stars at 8:30pm and The Monster Squad will be on around 9pm. Bring your friends!!

Prizes provided by Fright Rags and Happy Bats Cinema! Thanks guys!

Blaxploitation Rarities - Sept 29th!

2006-09-20T14:52:00.000-04:00

Hey Everybody,

Just a quick reminder that the next Evil Film School is less than 2 weeks away!

Evil Film School Presents: Blaxploitation Rarities

When: Friday, Sept. 29th
Doors: 7pm
Admission $5 - $10 (Sliding Scale)

For more info, email evilfilmschool@gmail. com

Hope to see you there,

~Mariko

p.s. I'm still accepting submissions for our Halloween Monster Mash. Email me for more info.

Fang in Cheek! Friday Aug 25th

2006-08-09T15:33:00.000-04:00

Hey Kids!

First off, a big thank you to everyone who made it out to Summer Camp last month.

Second, we're doing it again! This month's theme is Vampire Comedies!

What: Fang in Cheek
Where: Blim (197 E. 17th @ Main)
When: Aug 25 (Fri)
Doors: 7pm
Admission: $5 - $10 Sliding Scale

7:30pm -- Sundown, The Vampire in Retreat [1991]: Count Dracula (David Carradine) thinks he's got it made after retiring to the Western town of Purgatory, a sort of Fort Lauderdale for vampires. They're all non violent and drink a blood substitute. Unfortunately, he didn't count on a bumbling descendant of Van Helsing (BRUCE CAMPBELL, yes, that Bruce Campbell) or a rogue band of vamps intent on returning to the old ways. Extremely goofy and silly, it's still a rather unique take on an old tale. And just think, Ash vs. Bill. That's gotta be worth something, right?

9:30pm -- Vampira (a.k.a. Old Dracula) [1974]: David Niven stars as the count, and Teresa Graves (a.k.a. TV's Christie Love) stars as his lady love Vampira after a faulty blood transfusion turns her black. No really. Tries to be sort of an English version of "Young Frankenstein", but doesn't quite live up. Worth a look if only for the unflappable Niven and of course a whole host of hotties including Graves and the lovely Jennie Linden.

As usual, beer & popcorn will be available

Mind. Blown.

2006-07-14T16:28:00.000-04:00

So, on Robin's LJ a couple days ago he posted this awesome link for this site with hundreds of 80's and early 90's music videos some guy had culled from YouTube. I highly recomend you check it out. What's extra cool about the site is that he's included groups from all over the world, and it runs the full gammit of 80's-ness: everything from Warrant to Paula Abdul to weird Minutemen concert footage.

Of particular note:

Sam Kinison singing "Wild Thing" with an all-star back-up band of 80's metal icons. And Billy Idol.

Les Rita Mitsouko, this awesome New Wave band from France that I'd never heard of before.

And, Show-Ya.

Japanese.

All Girl.

Hair Metal.

And guess what?! They just reunited! And they're still hot!

Joy!!!

Some Notes on The Job Hunt

2006-07-11T14:53:00.000-04:00

An open letter to potential employers. A few suggestions based on my recent experience:

* If you are not interested in hiring me, or do not feel that I am suited to the job; do not call me and treat me like I am wasting your time. Guess what, you've just wasted your own time.

* If you are going to be conducting a phone interview, use the words "phone interview" when you call me. "A few questions" implies that what you want to know is a) am I still interested and b) am I available to come in for an interview. At the very least give a time frame for the conversation, like: "this will take approximately 20 minutes". Even if it takes longer than 20 minutes, I'll at least know whether I'll be able to make my lunch date or not. Just because I'm underemployed doesn't mean I don't have things to do.

* Just as I am expected to be prepared for an interview, so I expect you to be prepared. At the very least make sure that you have read my resume before you call. That way you'll be well informed about the highest level of education I have achieved and whether I am a teacher or a rocket scientist. Asking questions I have already given you the answer to gives me the impression you are reading off a script and probably don't remember my name.

* Repeating the same question over and over again is tantamount to harassment. If I am not giving you a clear idea of how my past experience relates to the job, either a) you have not explained the requirements of the job to me sufficiently or b) I am not actually suited to the job in your opinion. Throw me a bone, or move on.

* Treating me like an idiot does not make me want to work for you. You need me as much as I need you. Remember that.

* Just as you have had to wade through multiple resumes, I have sent resumes to multiple employers in a variety of fields. Assuming that yours is the only company I have applied to is naive and unrealistic. I would never assume that I am the only person who has applied for the job and strive to present myself in the best light possible as a result. I suggest you do the same.

* If you are outsourcing your HR duties to someone, makes sure they are suited to the job. In fact, there are many wonderful agencies that specialize in this field that hire friendly, personable staff. Just as my resume creates your first impression of me, the person who calls to discuss my resume is my first impression of you.

*Asking if maintaining a professional appearance will be a "problem" for me is both judgmental and vague. A better way of determining such things would be during the interview, or to give an example of what you consider to be "professional" attire, ie: "do you own a suit?"

This is dedicated in particular to the woman from the Real Estate Agency and the woman from the National Bank of Canada. Thank you for your time.