Anarchy in TO

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.

Checkmate in 16 games

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 feel like an Audi right now.

Sole Survivor

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.

Epic Tennis

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....

You should really give the whole bit a read.


Speaking of cannibals, Salon has a feature on someone who cooked their own placenta; and ate it of course.

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.








Remember to try before you buy.

Irwin Allen presents: Earthquake!

Dateline:

At the Office

Within the perimeter

Twenty minutes ago

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.

Betrayal at Wendy's

Dateline:

Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers

Within the perimeter

Two hours ago

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.

You and I now have a Medium-sized problem.

Machotaildrop

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.

Ship of Fools - Luminato 2010

An imitation Chinese Junk erected in Trinity Bellwoods Park is filled with all sorts of strange motorized gadgets with no obvious purpose. Take a trip inside.

Star Odyssey

A long time ago in a place far, far away.. STAR ODYSSEY

Me and Steve watched this 1979 masterpeice of Italian cinema on the Strange Tales movie pack that I bought some months ago. For whatever reason, I hadn't got around to watching this one before two weeks ago. A shame, since it's a perfect example of what I bought the discount B-Movie set for.

Star Odyssey is a sci-fi epic which isn't satisfied with ripping of Star Wars or cheap effects. No, this movie even features its' own human super-team and rips off Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy too.

The earth is discovered by an international slaver named Lord Kess, who has a face that seems to be made of leather and whose ship is crewed by android Scandinavians.

Soon your skin cream will be mine.

The earth's meager technologies are no match for him, and he commits some havoc before leaving to report his findings to an intergalactic auctioneer. Earth's defenses are clearly not up to task, what with their computer screens having to blink on and off during use. The earthlings have no defense from the WWII stock footage that Kess broadcasts to them and worse, the villain's equipment seems reinforced with some unearthly element with a name I can't remember.

This film starts to go off into unpredictable territory when the earthlings turn to a scientist who doesn't play by the same rules, who marches to a different drummer, who... is like 60 and bald. He also wears a dracula cape. From the build, and this movie's initial appearance I was expecting some dashing 30 year old with a deep voice to lead humanity's defense. But no --it's gotta be Prof Dracula. (Actual name Professor Mauri)

Even I can't believe I'm not a villain. Look at me!

Professor Dracula and his daughter/niece Irene are approached by the human authorities who assure him that they need his help, but can't be associated with him. Since he was already aware both of the alien threat and their alien technology this amounts to a big FU from earth to Mauri. I suppose this is why he doesn't feel guilt about sucking the blood of the townsfolk.

He immediately realizes that he'll have to assemble a team of miscreants with great powers and skill. This consumes much of the movie. I got these names from a website, and they may not fully accurate. Here are the characters:

Professor Mauri, aka Professor Dracula, aka Professor X; can hypnotize people and perform other mental feats because he's some kind of psychic wunderkind. He recruits a charismatic rogue named Dirk who is not Han Solo and can also hypnotize people.

Shawn and Bridget: two con-artists one of whom is a chemist and the other who dresses like Barbarella and Emma Peel. Professor Xcula will need them to create a weapon that can penetrate the alien spaceships.

There's Oliver or Holly, (?) a soldier who becomes instantly memorable with his utterly sincere utterances about a solider's duty and what goes against it, his silly gentlemanly mustache, and his cartoonish poise. When you combine that with his obvious gut and puny arms and we can assume he's trying to overcompensate for his lackdastical personal physical standards with all off this ridiculous posturing.

Free criminals? No...never. That goes against my duty as a soldier! (hand chop)

Norman is a pugilist who we first see winning the Android/Human mixed-martial arts something or other. It's funny, because he defeats the silly robot by knocking the referee down, and then tripping the robot over the ref's back. As I told Steve, "A robot designed to never go down could never be man enough to get back up." Of course, it genuinely seemed not to be designed to get back up what with it actually being a man in a gray suit. (Though neither the ref nor the film seem to acknowledge that fact)

Norman Robot Fighter is brought on the team because of his ability to fight androids. But that's not all they get with him. Nobody will ever bring as much energy to a performance as this guy. Probably because their contracts do not specify that they be allowed to enter and leave every frame by leaping about.

You know how sometimes you notice a thing that's silly and then they stop doing it? Not this time. I think me and Steve noticed his habit as we entered the movie's third act, and then he kept on doing it. One time he actually he clearly waited while another character ran from one shot to the next shot, only for Norman Robot Fighter to jump into the second shot after him. Steve even had time to ask if he was being left behind. Emphatically not, as it turns out.


Then there were two. Oh god. Someone apparently liked Marvin the paranoid android from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. See there's this robot who they find in a dump. (Where they should have left him) He's really annoying and apparently depressed. But mostly annoying. He implores them to save his robot girlfriend in spite of the fact that they were committing a double suicide. The kind where one is disassembled into parts in a junk heap but the other is being lowered in one piece into a compacter.

Earth's mightiest heroes: Oliver thrusts out his chest, Dirk digs a hole, Norman does handstands for no reason, and Till and Tilly do their best to stay out of this movie. But only for now.

See I actually watched the majority of this movie not realizing that Till, but not his girlfriend Tilly; is indestructible. (But somehow he was the one reduced to spare parts... I dunno) I actually thought they had no reason for having this unbelievably annoying robot with a wussy voice on their save-the-world squad. Stephen thought that was pretty funny. Someone had to be. Till and Tilly weren't. Maybe that's what Oliver and Norman Robot Fighter were doing --trying to distract everyone from these two. There's another less offensive robot in this movie that's kind of like an R2D2 who does nothing of importance. So I guess Till is also like C3Po if this movie can rip off two stories at once with the same character.

Indestructible juggernaut of annoyance.

Kess, (Of Kobol as he is known apparently) wins an auction to own Earth. I guess he only got a commission by reporting it in, or maybe there are some guild rules for intergalactic slavers we're not to which we are not aware. Another bald villain with bad skin is not pleased with this so he walks threateningly towards Kess before Kess psychically knocks him down. I can see why he'd wanted it so badly; As the auctioneer tells them, Earth is valuable because of that most rare of commodities --earthlings. Hard to find those elsewhere I presume.

Another reason this guy wanted Earth: He wants to reunite with his dad, Professor Xcula

Kess returns to Earth and engages the heroes in battle. Things do not go well for the heroes. They booby-trap their backyard with mines and Norman Robot Fighter steals one of the Scandinaviandroids' lightsabers which he uses to good effect. But with things looking ugly, the heroes decide to take pills that will make them appear to be dead. The androids fall for it and leave.

Pictured: Norman Robot Fighter; unconcious.

It becomes clear to Lord Kess that Professor Mauri has psychic powers, so he kidnaps him and his daughter and takes them aboard his ship. The good guys gain entry to it and engage in physical combat, assisted by their own lightsabers created by Shaun. This leads to some amusing action and some annoying robot behaviour. (Damn you Till!) The good guys carry the day and then aided by the weapons that Shaun and Bridget have designed to overcome the alien spaceships' construction; they engage Kess in space. Mauri will also help by using his psychic powers to slow down the alien ships. While sitting in a chair on earth. Jeez.

One very poorly lit space battle later and Norman and Oliver are dead. Oliver makes sure to remind us that, (Bullshit) "Even in the great days of Hollywood, no movie star ever died so heroically." You wish.

Seriously; did they film this scene with my camera?

Kess is chased back home by Shaun and Bridget while everyone else returns to Earth. Dirk has a thing for Irene, (Why not, she looks like Sigourney Weaver) and Mauri tells Till and Tilly that he can build them robot genitalia. It's like the writer needed to add in one last awful robot joke and also wrap up their depressed histrionic warbling as if it were a plot thread. It doesn't work on either level.

Sigourney?

Much better is that Kess has appeared back at the villain auction ready to put his planet back on the market. He has Bridget and Shaun with him, although it is revealed that they have in fact defeated him and he is splitting the money with them. Also, he sells the planet is not so defenseless anymore to the other villain he totally humiliated twice previously. He must be the loser of the intergalactic slavery ring.

Good ending, and lots of crazy stuff. Some of it funny-bad, and some of it seemingly intentionally funny. There was one strange moment where footage from an early scene was shown much later in the film, out of order. I guess nobody felt ike fixing that editing bungle for the last couple decades. Those robots though --oh god. Also, the space battle was poor. I liked the lightsaber fighting though.

Clam Pasta Rockefeller

I tried making the recipe located here because I've been in an oyster mood ever since me and Steve went to an oyster bar. I had to use Alaskan Surf clams and more oil since I had no oysters and forgot to get butter. It was pretty good.

Oysters Rockefeller are more soft and oily, and has different textures when eating. This did not, not just because of my substitutions. It's a dry crumbly pasta with a spicy seafood taste. very unusual, but it works. (Not as well as the namesake, but still)

I plan on seeing an indie flick that payed at TIFF last year --Machotaildrop. Hopefully I'll have time. The review in the Globe made it sounds really unique. While I'm out, I'll take a look at one of the Luminato exhibits in Trinity-Bellwoods park. I'll see if I can get my cheap video camera to work. (It'll be day, so I'll look better)

I'm in a World Cup pool at work, though I know little of world soccer. I was a little peeved, (and not the only one BTW) when the pool website we were using began to have problems the night before predictions were locked down. Suffice to say, a lot of my later predictions have the right teams but for the results I'm now on the record predicting almost everything after July 1st ends in shootouts. Ugh. It's not so unworkable I won't just run with it though as my initial plan was just a monkey with a dartboard anyway.

Finally, this is a director's attempt to arouse interest in a producer for a new Mortal Kombat movie. This is easily is better than anything in either of the two films made in the nineties. While an actual movie will may not have anything to do with what was shown, the director certainly knows how to put together a scene.

Hawk the Slayer

Let me tell you a story of high adventure!

Hawk the Slayer is the fantasy standard for a subset of gamers from the generation before after Dungeons and Dragons and before Conan. The not-so-epic sweep of this fantasy story involves two brothers, one a winner and the other a loser; a hostage plot, and some other stuff that seems like it should be important but wasn't.




The story opens with Jack Palance (Of Shane and City Slickers) slumming as a villain Voltan, wearing an "I'm not quite Darth Vader" outfit, (This did come out in 1980) killing his defenseless father and then fleeing from Jack Terry, (The Living Daylights and Full Metal Jacket) aka Hawk his younger by-like-twenty-years brother. The father while dying gives Hawk some powerful sword with a glowing gem on its end that Hawk can use to fight evil. This magic sword can be called back to Hawks' hand by his own will.





~~
Flashforward to the present: Voltan takes an Abbess hostage from a church after pursuing a mutilated refugee, (Ranulf) whose village Voltan's army destroyed. The church heads don't want to give into terrorist demands lest they endanger all their other abbeys.

They'd give you some money; but as you can see, they're strapped for cash.

So they send Ranulf, (who sports an automatic crossbow) to find Hawk. (The titled Slayer of the film) Hawk is riding aimlessly around the woods through fog to some really terrible synth music. The wiki article says it's a cult favorite, but me and Steve found it conspicuously bad. No doubt the makers of the later Conan saw this as a cautionary example.

Hawk dramatically slays two bandits who were menacing Ranulf, and then saves a witch from some other jerks. The witch will teleportate him a few times so he can recruit three allies. An elf, a hobbit, (That's not a dwarf! No matter what this movie claims. Not on my life!) and a a third cliche.

He takes these guys with him to the abbey to assist in the hostage crisis. One of the nuns doesn't seem to like them as she prefers to deal with Voltan. (Guess how that will work out)

Peace in our time!

Gamers tend to be favorably inclined towards this movie, and for good reason. The party doesn't really act like epic heroes, so much as they do Dungeons & Dragon players.

Upon arriving on the scene, their first plan to save the hostage is to attack a completely different criminal, (The Hunchback) and take his money. Supposedly this is so they'd have a lure for Voltan, but given their lack of interest in deals I'm not sure why that would have been necessary. When the 'heroes' attack, they strike with the awesome power of jump-cut editing. The Elf and Ranulf guy fill dozens of common thugs with arrows before they even know what's going on. It doesn't seem fair.

Needing to feel useful, the large man then puts The Hunchback in a deathtrap by suspending his own club over his own head with a rope through a tree, held in place by putting the rope in his mouth. This is supposedly because the The Hunchback talks alot, though I didn't really notice anything of the kind. The Hunchback is not pinned in place by anything, so he really only has to wait until the heroes leave. But the big man called it; The Hunchback can't keep his gums from flapping. Maybe he wanted to die.

The heroes banter a bit; Voltan's forces are too numerous to fight, but they realise that the only solution is to attack him where he lives.

The heroes gameplan has in fact stepped up a bit, as they now utilize a smoke screen when they ambush Voltan's easily dispatched goons before being compelled to flee by the necessities of a third act. This is the second of four major fights in this movie that play out with eerie similarity. The good guys kill dozens of thugs with arrows while the rest try to look busy. The bad guys barely can do a thing.

Trying to step up like his father, Voltan's (adopted) son brings a message, "... of death!" (Actual line) to Hawk and his buddies at the abbey. He and his goons are easily slain. Meaning he's surpassed his father already.

It's like in Role-Playing games where a party is fighting challenges way below their strength. Accordingly, only DM railroading, (Or in non-rolepaying terms; betrayal) can put the heroes at a disadvantage. They are sold out by Sister Appeasement, who gets stabbed by Voltan for her troubles. The Dwarf gets killed by what seems like a gut punch when he humiliates Voltan.

The heroes are saved by the witch, (Who seems to come and go as she pleases) and they engage Voltan once more. With the cover of a snowstorm summoned by their witch, the heroes once again fill helpless villains with arrows before Hawk makes the critical Dungeons & Dragons mistake of splitting the party to go save the Abbess. (He should know better!) Meanwhile his friends seem to falling over due to the sheer exhastion of killing more extras than Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando.

Don't go nowhere.

With his new hostages, Voltan has prepared a trap for Hawk when he returns.

~~
At this point; it's important to consider just how bad a villain Voltan is. Jack Palance has so far kept things interesting by chewing the scenery, as the scripted character is so ineffectual.

Pictured: Voltan getting beaten up by a bound midget.

This is the guy who was born first to his family but didn't get named Hawk. His parents saved that name twenty or thirty years for the next kid. Voltan, (contrary to what Steve told me) is not some fire god. The name may refer to a Mayan earth god or just be random letters. Either way, Voltan's name means dirt.

In flashbacks during the movie, we are shown how he is rejected as a suitor by the woman (Eliane) he favored for Hawk, possibly on account of his being three times her age. When taking into account that his son we see in the present is adopted; one can only assume that this man is really deprived. Eliane also rubbed it in by suggesting that he should be happy for her and Hawk. (Not even a 'let's be friends')

When Voltan makes his move against his brother, it is in fact Elaine who defeats him, wounding him with a torch and then fleeing with Hawk in a boat. Having been scarred for life, Voltan shoots her in the back from a safe distance. You may have noticed that killing defenseless people is about the best Voltan can do when it comes to villainy. For the rest of his life, Voltan seems plagued by the pain of this facial wound, and often receives relief from a mysterious evil figure in a robe.

I think Voltan can't kill anybody who isn't unarmed or have their back turned to him.
~~

Voltan doesn't stand a chance against Hawk and is quickly dispatched to no one's surprise.

Even eye saw it coming!

Hawk and his remaining ally ride off in search of adventure. Voltan is revived by the evil robed figure, for a sequel which is... just around the corner according to Wikipedia.

The movie isn't bad, but it isn't really good either. It's a good thing to pass the time, though it can easily mistaken for something that isn't a feature film. Or perhaps it's being mistaken for one. I wouldn't really put it much above the Dragonstrike board game's instructional video. It's got no tension nor are the characters really interesting. But the movie makes good use of its lack of money and it's lack of epicness makes it kind of unique. Weak but fun.

Dentists

Ugh. Got back from the tooth butchers. The dentist wasn't in, so I'll have to go back for the check up and x-rays. I also have a small recession so I'll need some filling or fiscal stimulus.

You know what I really hate though? They keep giving me some rinse that causes my mouth to salivate for the next half hour and make me kind of queasy in the mouth. I don't know how to describe it beyond that. I always have to find a place to spit on the way home. All that saliva building up gets pretty slimey.

Major Waste

More great stuff:





You know how the first thing you want to do when emailing people is send them everything you see and like? I still do that.

General Nonsense

The above is an exert from a Japanese comic about a girl named Yotsuba. She's a darling.


This food column @ Salon absolutely must be read.

You won't regret it. It's totally tight.

This, you may regret seeing though.

The girl's accent was probably the weirdest part. This is not tight.

(Maybe I should have called this blog Typical Chazz...)

Yeah, here at the Muddle, we're all about in-jokes that no one else gets. It helps reinforce my loneliness.

Batman is both a fibber, and an idiot.

The Penny Arcade guys are doing another D&D podcast. I don't know if you listened to these Tom and Steve, but here's the link to the new one.

A truly inappropriate trailer for a movie:

RAW in Toronto

I went out to a live taping of RAW in Toronto at the Air Canada Center two weeks ago. It was okay, but I was pretty far back from the main stage and couldn't hear much. The crowd is louder than on television, but I miss hearing the announcers talk when the wrestlers are not. I thought I had a great view from the nosebleed section, but it was too far away. The wrestlers could have been an inch high by my perspective. It was interesting how vertical the stands were where I was. I almost got vertigo looking up where my seat was when I got to the upper deck.

Frankenstein

Stephen and I had a lot of fun last weekend. We spent a lot of time watching movies, good and bad, and good-bad.

Frankenstein was a lot of fun. It was a musical to my surprise, but it also kept up a poetic cadence even when not singing. The play is helped along by a chorus/narrators who talk to the audience. So it's not trying to suspend disbelief so much as it is telling us the story that we're familiar with.

It's emotional and funny, and it doesn't seem to deviate much from the original story in content. Display is a different matter though. One of Frankenstein's friends gets a song about him despite not having a line in the play or doing more than the amusing housekeeper for his lab/apartment. That seemed a little strange.

The costumes and sets are all exaggerated paper constructs, making it look kind of dream-like and Seuss-like. Lights are projected on the white sets and costumes, and sometimes this is dramatically significant.

The acting and singing was all quite good, and the players seem to be doing double duty on stage as part of the chorus and the characters. The actors and chorus all seem to have a satircial exaggerated bent to them. When taking the content and acting together, it's clear that this is some kind of post-modern reimagining. For whatever that matters.

Stephen drew my attention to the way Frankenstein still doesn't seem to quite get where he went wrong in the end. His ignorance, when taken in conjunction with the introductory and closing numbers where, "we close our eyes and cover our ears..." may suggest there was a small message in this story too about ignorance. The implications of scientific discovery? Consequences to our actions? (Example: The Hip Hop Kids frontin' on a bear)

Inaugral Post

It's important for my random musings too be preserved for posterity. Oh, for all the long summaries and reviews and funny comments that could have been retained instead of forgotten!

I had a 'greek' snadwich from Quiznos today. Ugh. Usually, sandwich places can create some really bland and interchangeable products, but this was really bad. It had Quizno's 'we swear it's not Mayo' white cream sauce instead of the taziki as claimed, ( I refuse to spell it correctly) and it used regular swiss cheese instead of something appropo like Feta. The red onions also left a bad taste in my mouth. Won't do that again.

Venison blows, and I'll try frog's legs soon enough. Probably fried.