Willow

Willow is above grade as eighties fantasy movies go. Inspired by the adventurism of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and not really owing much to Conan, (A movie often credited with spawning a hundred poor imitators) Willow recyles a few bits and pieces from producer Lucas' own works as well as LOTR. It stands above some of its contemporaries largely because of its good humour, budget, effects, and relatively good cast. We don't get James Carradine in underpants with a plastic sword in this movie or Ralph Bashiki inhaling the remaining budget up his nose and ending the movie 2/3 of the way through.

On the other hand, some wimpy writing and an overabundance of cliches and talking special effects of the variety Lucas will become damned for decades later; (French Canadian brownies/fairies, a sorceress trapped in animal form, Warwick Davis) fill up too much of a good movie.

Warwick Davis aka Willow is actually just 18 in this role, which proves that we can't tell how old dwarves are since we totally buy that he has two adolescents and is married. He wants to be a sorceror but lacks the ability to successfully make pigs disappear or convince an old beardo that he knows which finger is magic. The beardo holds out his hand and --yes, of course it's Willow's own finger --this is a riddle not The Price is Right! He'll figure that one out later though. I like the wizard, he seems less powerful than he is just clever. I'd imagine the movie could have used more of him.

Val Kilmer, (Known as Madmartigan; not Mad Martigan or Bad Cardigan) overacts a great deal which is unfortunate, but I think he still deserved a better romantic entanglement than he got. It's good that he doesn't steal the picture from Willow though. The movie also includes some incredibly annoying green screened little fairies with French Canadian accents who replace Willow's fellow villagers as his companions. I guess the real little people couldn't get bigger roles because they wouldn't work for sufficient scale.

Willow is given a wand by someone who is definately not the elf-queen from the Lord of the Rings. Willow by this point in the movie has both a very powerful magic wand as well as a bag of rocks that can actually turn things into stone. So it's funny in hindsight to realise that our star is carrying around so much deadly firepower as he runs from all confrontation and he and his friends face all sorts of peril he could easily have destroyed had he bothered to use what he was given.

The outline of the plot is that the evil sorceress queen needs to cast a spell on a baby princess that is destined to defeat her. Notably the baby does no such thing. Instead we get a catfight between 170 years of old ladies and Willow tricks the queen with a cheap magic prank. She throws a shit fit so severe she accidentally kills herself. It was one of the worst endings I've ever seen for a movie of this relatively high quality.

Except for the green screened fairies, the movie has great effects, a good set, pretty good actors --and the best is the star, Warwick Davis. The script isn't really bad either. I'm not sure if there were many good entries in this genre of movie until the last decade. (Conan, Excalibur,...?) Still I think it's fair to say that this movie got by in large due to good feelings, and genuine effort more than the merits of great spell weaving. I do enjoy the movie, but I think there may only be a few genuinely strong scenes, like the scenes at the castles toward the end. (Though I also found the castles seemed a little too lonely --they were more like forts)

I think this could have been a cooler movie with more of the not-hobbits and if the evil sorceress did more than send her minions out to do her work.

May I direct your attention here?

You May have filed to notice the hilarious pun on the month these pictures were taken in. If you read to this point, you're forgiven.

Take me out at the ballgame

Well the hot days didn't last long. Yesterday morning I woke up to an apartment that was 25 degrees, but by sundown a temperate wind had made the weather a bit less balmy. Unfortunate then that I had not taken a coat to the Blue Jays game I went to. Also unfortunate for differing reasons, that I also forgot my glasses.



The game did not go well for the Jays, who showed poor hitting and poor fielding... and pitching. They hit some dingers though, and there's one really good player on the team --Jose Bautista.

If you could just like... hit more home runs?

It was 10-2 by the eighth inning, at which point I decided to leave. The game had started at 7PM and it was kind of cool out. Actually I didn't arrive until about 20 minutes after the game started. Still, it's a long peaceful game, so I didn't mind too much. Though the Jays finally started scoring some runs after I left... and now that I think about it, they scored their last just before I took my seat. Huh.




The seats were pretty good as you can see from the pictures. Just off of third base. Though there weren't many people present; it was Monday evening after all. The Skydome was mostly empty, (Though attendance on previous game days are way up this season) but you could see how the crowd all came to sit in just a few important sections; around the bases and the area of left field where big hits and home runs would end up. There were even people in the top level, but only behind home plate. The dome was open, which I haven't seen in a long time --and it sure did look nice.

I know the Rogers Centre security can be very dick-ish, but I was still surprised to see some people sitting off either alone or in a group in isolated sections. You'd think that the ticket sellers would at least be able to crowd everyone as close together within price points, but I guess not.

I must mention the security --and while nobody acted rude or anything like that, there does seem to be way too many of them and they seem pretty anal. One attendant asked me to wait until an at-bat was over before taking my seat, (Though concession sellers can walk up and down the aisles shouting with impunity) and while standing on the concession level watching just before I left, I was asked to step back behind a line. They just really don't want people in places they don't have tickets for... even when there's no one there and the audience has mostly left for the night. Jeez.




Speaking of concessions, the people are nice but the prices are evil. 4.75 for a coke bottle. 5.75 for a poor hot dog. Ugh. I do like the beer boys though. They seemed very self-aware: "Buy beer now instead of the half price beer later! Why let logic dictate your purchases?"

There was a sing along mid-way through the seventh, and the ground crew amusingly came out to the William Tell Overture as they quickly fixed up the in-field. The crowd had a good atmosphere in spite of the small size. I think the dangerous foul balls present a way for the crowd to be the centre of attention. Its funny seeing somebody nearly get beaned, or kids racing for a ball.

It's hard not to find a good view, as in baseball there's little to obstruct your view of the action. Though I guess being out in the field inherently means you're almost always far away from the action. When I walked behind left field I could even see Detroit's pitcher because his grey uniform blended into the I-can't-believe-it's-not-green-construction-paper turf that the Rogers Centre uses. (Again; glasses) I'm always surprised when I'm at the Rogers Centre by both how large the stadium is and how the field never seems to big by comparison.

I also noticed that the seats are angled to look out into centre field instead of the infield, which is because the sections are designed to slide into the outfield for football games. Also, the upper decks are not cantilevered over the field seats at all, which might be better when they're empty and the field seats get an unobstructed view of the sky or dome, but both that and the angled seats are unfortunate side effects of a multi-use stadium.



The game itself was fun enough. It sort of blends together though, and it doesn't seem as long as it does on television. Its a well paced game in person... still kind of long though. Music is piped in a bit too, used to intro batters, pitchers, or to herald an event in the game. (Kind of like in basketball) Seeing someone really hit a ball deep sure is fun, and the game looks very different when all those on-screen stats are not in your field of vision.

The Unblinking Eye

I went to see Thor on Saturday afternoon.

It's a good movie. I thought Thor was a funny and friendly character and I liked that like Tony Stark in Iron Man, he has some notable character flaws to overcome. Though this is a simplified version of the job done by Robert Downey Jr. Indeed, I think Thor's relationship with Natalie Portman's character was in a similar vein. They had chemistry, but matters were a little more vanilla in Thor than they were in Iron Man.

Where director Kenneth Branagh really showed his Shakespearean background was in the relationship of the Aasgardian Royal family. Thor, Odin, and Loki made for the most interesting part of the movie. Loki was probably the most tragic and intriguing villain of these superhero movies, (Except perhaps for Magneto from X-Men) and the royal machinations of these alien god-people made this superhero movie distinct from the other superhero movies. Thor's fish out-of-water style exile to Earth may make it seem like a familiar story on the surface, but even that was handled differently. This wasn't like the Masters of the Universe or Beastmaster 2 where a superhero spends his time wasting ours by being amazed by internal combustion or a Big Mac.

I didn't really think that the whole Norse gods as 'aliens' in space would fly but I guess it worked out alright. It just goes to show that you can use any crazy background you want for movie just so long as there's simplicity and internal logic.



The movie was funny, and had good action, and I really liked the plot. But anything on the ice planet was kinda blurry looking, (a consequence of 3-d filming I guess even though I didn't see it in 3-d) and for some reason it seemed a little less memorable. Maybe I've just seen so many superhero movies at this point, it doesn't even matter if the movies are different.


Earlier in the week, I seemed to have a twitch under my right eye. I read online that this can result from stress or lack of sleep rather than anything serious, (I suspect I know what brought it on) so I made arrangements to get some rest by buying a ticket to a baseball game, though my twitch had gone away by the weekend.

EPIC FAIL

Need anymore be said?



Damn I wish I didn't have a newspaper subscription. I do not look forward to being aggravated on a regular basis for the next five years.

Angry Bairds and a blast from the Past

Get ready for the election with Angry Bairds! Smash Tony's Gazebo, the Supreme Court, and Parliament Hill!




Here are some photos from ye olde York. While digging up some land near the Batthurst bridge, an old railway station from the 19th century was uncovered where a Library is supposed to be built.

Here I am helpfully indicating the most interesting part of the structure in the foreground with my thumb.

Among the plans for the remains is one neat proposal for a glass floor over the ruins.

Kevin's lock of the century...of the week!

Went out to a TFC game at BMO field yesterday. It did not go according to plan. The weather was overcast, windy, and cold. At least the rain earlier in the day had stopped for the duration. About 16,000 people, (Maybe less to my eyes) turned up to see Toronto FC play DC United and were not treated to a welcome sight.



The home team went down 2-0 within 10-15 minutes, and then went down to ten men after one was sent off the field after the second half. The final score was a humiliating 3-0 against the home team.



Their new manager and coach have tried to rebuilding the consistently poor team with new characters and a new style, which unfortunately seems to involve a lot of lazily passing the ball back and forth in front of their own goal. The resulting consequences being a lot of giveaways in their own half. The crowd eventually stopped caring and started lighting flares and setting off smoke bombs, (Well... one I think) but they seemed to have more enthusiasm then the slowly jogging team on the field or the foodies who don't bother to char my hot dog.


According to the stadium announcer I can now expect to see, (or not see since I'll be out of town and most TFC games are broadcast on a specialty channel that no one buys) Toronto absolutely 'crush' their 'local' rivals the Columbus Crew, (Yes, that is Columbus Ohio) who've they've never beaten before. In the market we call that irrational exhuberence.

Unless the awful weather continues and BMO field is washed away by a biblical torrent of freezing water, (To which the red patch boys, north end elite, U-sector et al. will still make pilgrimage to) then Columbus becomes my lock of the century... of the week!