If Ghana/USA in the World Cup had gone to a shootout, my quest to get new shorts would have probably landed me in the middle of the rioting. As it is, I left the Eaton's center around 3PM, and had the opportunity to see the police start closing in on both sides. People were waved south of Richmond, and north of Wellington, and some cars were turned around on King Street. Though I don't understand the reasoning for the last move.
It's very weird. I remember seeing a few stores set up with wooden walls and board in their windows to protect them, which as it turns out may have been very necessary.
The weekdays made much of the deeper security zone look like a ghost town, but oddly downtown TO seemed busier on the weekend. There seemed to be a a slightly smaller crowd around town and the Eaton center.
I'm disappointed in a lot of ways. First, that the extensive security measures utterly failed to prevent vandalism even as far south as King street. Also, the presence of any of the black clad anarchist vandals is pretty depressing. I'd like to there are less people around who thinks that, (Or doesn't care) showing up here and breaking windows somehow accomplishes anything of value.
I think protests would be more effective when they can speak to a specific cause and avoid being predictable like the G20 tour. The reception to the anti-prorogation protest really showed the value of those qualities when applied to peaceful demonstrations.
I'm a little down tonight as I looked up the office's World Cup Pool. After a very good showing in the round robin, I find that my odds of winning are very low all the same.
Not only do I need the teams I've picked to go through, but I need specific circumstances to occur in addition because other entrants, including one with more upside potential than I --have the same picks for the end of the tourney. It feels like in the Price is Right where one person just adds a dollar to another person's bid. Though without the obvious sociopathy, as all of these choices were made in advance.
It kind of takes some of the fun out of it though; when you're so close and yet someone's parked in front of you.
I got out of work early today. Which gives me plenty of time to watch the World Cup go down the way it was meant to be seen. With the sound on.
It's weird though, as everyone else in my apartment seems to still be at work because they don't work downtown. Just as everyone downtown isn't there. I'm almost all alone enjoying this afternoon in Toronto.
Today saw the end of the longest tennis match in history, which had been temporarily suspended overnight. Xan Brooks of the Guardian began unwittingly live-blogging Wimbledon yesterday, and you can see his commentary change from reporting to poetry here. Some cuts:
4.05pm: The Isner-Mahut battle is a bizarre mix of the gripping and the deadly dull. It's tennis's equivalent of Waiting For Godot, in which two lowly journeymen comedians are forced to remain on an outside court until hell freezes over and the sun falls from the sky. Isner and Mahut are dying a thousand deaths out there on Court 18 and yet nobody cares, because they're watching the football. So the players stand out on their baseline and belt aces past each-other in a fifth set that has already crawled past two hours. They are now tied at 18-games apiece...
6pm: The score stands at 34-34. In order to stay upright and keep their strength, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have now started eating members of the audience. They trudge back to the baseline, gnawing on thigh-bones and sucking intestines. They have decided that they will stay on Court 18 until every spectator is eaten. Only then, they say, will they consider ending their contest....
7.45pm: What happens if we steal their rackets? If we steal their rackets, the zombies can no longer hit their aces and thump their backhands and keep us all prisoner on Court 18. I'm shocked that this is only occurring to me now. Will nobody run onto the court and steal their rackets? Are they all too scared of the zombies' clutching claws and gore-stained teeth? Steal their rackets and we can all go home. Who's with me? Steal their rackets and then run for the tube....
Let's counter balance this morbid stuff with something very cute:
This is probably the origin behind the strange behaviour seen in the previous cartoon I showed of the manga Yotsuba. This one's truncated a bit with some editing.
The earth moved. According to the Globe and Mail, it may have been more of a big deal in Ottawa, as here the earth just shook a bare amount. Not unlike some of the rare minor shakes in Sudbury. I at first thought that the construction piledriver across the street which had dimmed the power yesterday while digging was to blame, but that is apparently not the case. I've been told that the mysterious eighth floor had actually evacuated as a response to the shaking.
I was considering the absurdity of the man next to me ordering two double stacks and a diet cola, when I was presented with the unwelcome sight of an oversized combo being presented on a tray in front of me. Supposedly, my order; this Big Bacon Classic combo came complete with a large fry and drink. Thinking back, I recalled being asked by what I took to be a confused cashier if I wanted a small, medium, or large combo. My bad.
It had become clear sometime earlier that Wendy's definition of a small cola was by anyone else's definition a medium. So I perhaps should have expected that a 'medium' combo would come complete with an extra 70 cents on the pricetage and large amounts of filler cola and fried potatoes. Medium of course was once big-sized. But people don't want big-sized either because they're cheap, or because they're trying to keep their weight down.
Better have a Diet Coke with that.
So why not 'Stealth-Size' it with lies! They're not just offering to make you into a balloon anymore...they're doing it secretly without your knowing consent.
I won't forget this, nor will I be made a chump again.
Yeah... just your-old fashioned craven burger harlot. I'm on to you now.
On the good feelings I got from a review in the Globe, and went to see this indie movie at the Royal Theatre on College Street.
College street was a pretty posh place late at night and the Royal was a very small but good looking theatre, which shows a lot of indie and second run movies. Very clean little place, and the interior featured statues in alcoves beside the screen, a curtain, and a table among the seats in the theatre; as if it were the place a casting director would be sitting during auditions.
Machotaildrop is a skateboarding movie that does not suck. Or at least that's one the selling points. It was at TIFF last year, but wasn't one of the few movies I saw.
Walter Rhum (Anthony Amedori) is a kid who's grown up idolizing the popular and famous skateboarders of the Machotaildrop franchise. His dream of becoming a big-time professional skater himself are seemingly answered when his gold spray painted audition tape catches the eyes the Baron the Richard Branson-like owner of Machotaildrop, and Walter is whisked away from the drugery of hanging around the local Cake n' Skate. (A store that sells skateboards and cake… or pastries on skateboards, I'm not clear about that)
Walter Rhum's first experiences with Machotaildrop make it seem like he's fallen down the rabbit hole or gone off to Hogwart's. The entrance to the Machotaildrop grounds is a door in a hillside leading to a cave with an electric train which ferries him out to a grand country estate. Perkins is a gruff manservant in a hood with a strange interest in birds, the Baron is either enigmatic or nutty, and Dr. Mansfred is as creepy as his name suggests. Walter also quickly finds a rival in his personal idol Blair Stanley. There are also various other skaters and servants on the grounds. But they are mostly not important or named.
The movie thrives on the strangeness and wackyness of the setting with such great elements as the crazy Machotaildrop arcade game, the half-pipe challenge, (Done with all the grace and fashion of a 19th century duel) and the silly costumes the skateboarders are expected to wear.
The story follows Walter's rise to greatness, despite Walter conspicuously not doing all that much to earn it. This I'm sure is a nod to the undercurrent of anti-commercialism in the movie. He's just the new product for Machotaildrop to sell. While this is not a serious movie, it's clear that there's something said here about commercialism and exploitation.
The Baron; mannerisms aside, is probably best summed up by his unflagging interest in selling merchandise, and his own need to once again become an athletic star. (He used to be a tight-rope walker) The former drives the plot, and the latter dovetails with Walter's growing insecurities.
The Baron is a criminal capitalist, taking advantage of his employees, stealing culture and property to build his commercial empire in addition to sucking the soul out of the sport he promotes. Everything comes to a head when the Baron begins encroaching on the territory of feral skateboarders and Walter begins to rebel against his place in the business.
The main star acts much in a the way a teenager…might act. He's kind of lifeless and one-note, but good enough not be a trial. He does best when he's not the straight man: When he's the too-sincere host of the Machotaildrop show, "Finding the Spot," (and dressed like a Victorian age British explorer) and when he's on goofballs during a strange and uncomfortable press conference. These are short sequences though. I liked him all the same though.
Blair Stanley is an excellent character. He comes across at times as a mentor, and other times jealous. Sometimes petty and sometimes wise. He's scripted well, and acted well. He occasionally is seen clutching onto his own bust, given to him by Machotaildrop as a symbol of his commerical status, and when he loses it, it's almost Shakespearean in it's gloriously incoherent drama.
The Feral skateboarders are led by a guy who I swear seemed like the love child of the beatneck thug from Matinee and Gollum from Lord of the Rings. He and his feral counterparts have a blast overacting a prancing about. Their terrorist style response video to the Baron's encroachments is very amusing for both the pratfalls and the sincerity.
The movie is fun, easily very unique, and had a good score. But as unique and fun as this can be, the movie is not without flaws. I wish the soundtrack has stuck more with the curious and classy string oriented score, and avoided easily licensed indie music. One character; Sophie the librarian, seemed to offer little to the movie other than to be a (very) minor romantic interest for Walter and act as an agent provocateur for him. I also felt that the movie was unable to truly realise much of it's ambitions. A final showdown with feral skateboarders should have been perhaps more epic or crazy. A rise to stardom should be accompanied by screaming fans --none were ever seen as almost all of the action takes place in isolated grounds. Many of the extras, the factory workers and the skaters are seemingly important to the story but never seem to say or do anything. They're almost props.
Though there were no big holes in what was on screen, it still was clear that this could have been a better movie it more funds were available. There were scenes that I felt should have been revisited or that could have amounted to more.
Upon my exiting the movie, I noticed this poster:
Previously I had heard of this from one of Cracked's lists of horrendous movies, and I felt like I should check it out. Why see such a bad movie? As I suggested to Stephen; if one would pay $10 to find out if there's a God, I think it's a fair deal to spend $10 to find out if there's a Satan. I've heard this movie may be bad enough to make the case for it.
Unfortunately, the next screening was on Saturday, so I can't go. But it may be screening monthly, so I'll have to check again later.
