The white cat must smell like fish

MLS CUP 2010 TORONTO

I went to the MLS Cup here in Toronto on Sunday between Dallas and Colorado. There were however some problems. I left at around 7 to catch the Matthew Good pregame concert. But unfortunately, I guess they ended that at around the 7:30 mark. Then I had to wait until 8:30 for kickoff. It was cold and windy too. (it was really nice on Monday, but its been the rest of the week) I also forgot my glasses, which wasn't too bad; but it did bother me that the first time I'm sitting at the north end of this stadium, and all the goals were scored at the south end. Though I did get a good view of goal #2 on the television monitor I was watching in the concession line. Argh.

Pictured: Argh

Some Dallas fans had made the trip all the way up here to Toronto. They moved as a group and had brought a lot of flags and a drum. They were actually outnumbered by fans of the other contender, but made sure to make up for this by being very audible throughout by way of chanting and drumming.

Was it always common practice for us to sing our national anthem at sporting events? Or was that a more recent thing? Whenever singing O Canada, people try to avoid belting it out, but everyone knows the rhythm and words so its always a very low harmony that sounds nice. After the anthems, they set off fireworks. A lot of them. Or perhaps that was to help warm up the stands.

The game itself was pretty scrappy, probably because the ref kept himself out of it even perhaps when he shouldn't have. Dallas with their aggressive style came on fast, but as we approached the later hours, I saw Colorado begin to take over offense. Dallas scored first with a good high angle assisted goal, but Colorado struck back in the second half to tie it up. The Colorado goal scorer kicked a loose ball in while on his back which may have characterized Colorado's scrappy play style.

Pictured: Scrappy play?

In overtime, Colorado scored again to take the lead. A Colorado player got near the goal from the side and an attempt to cross or curl the ball into the net was deflected in off of a Dallas defenseman. Some call it an own-goal, but it really didn't look like one to me. The goal scorer actually managed to injure himself and after rolling around celebrating, found himself unable to leave the pitch to the consternation of Dallas who believed him to be deliberately trying to eat up the clock. There was a physical altercation and the ref handed out yellow cards. Colorado actually had to finish the last 10 minutes of extra time a man down because they were out of substitutions before the injury.

Pictured: The game's MVP

Dallas retook the offensive and had multiple big chances, and almost succeeded at putting the ball in the net. They really seemed to come alive. Either they needed a reason to become aggressive again, or they really were able to take advantage of the additional man. However they were unsuccessful and Colorado won their first MLS Cup.

Pictured: Shiny

Perhaps it was the lack of celebrity, the weather, the paucity of promotion, or the fairly late hour for a Sunday game; but the stands were not totally full. Maybe 80-90% of the seats were filled, though I think it emptied out more as the game moved to extra time. I guess people really needed to get home in time to sleep. (Most people aren't as close to home or as much as a night owl as I am)

It was pretty fun in spite of the chill. This may not have registered big in the media today, but one day if this league becomes big I can say I saw this event.

Aussie Madness

I think it must have been Peter Weir night on TCM yesterday. They were playing a couple of the Australian director's films like Gallipoli and The Last Wave. The former is a really good movie with a lot of symbolism about Australian youth going off to get killed in Turkey. (A good scene was the one where the 18 year old protagonist is trying to describe to a backwoodsman why he's going to war against Germany by going to Turkey)

The Last Wave is a surreal creepy movie about an Australian lawyer who is enlisted to defend some aboriginees who are accused of murdering a man. As this goes on, he begins to discover a connection he has with the aboriginees, or more accurately his connection with the spirit world. Amid worsening weather in Sydney, he has visions of a tsunami catastrophe. I thought the movie was pretty good; but its also pretty simple, and a lot of the film is the protagonist talking to one guy who neither acts nor says much. The synth music is really atmospheric, but until the movie starts coming towards its conclusion there's not much going on. I could it see it being boring if I were paying more attention. One thing that's obvious is that Weir is a really good director when it comes to atmosphere and symbolism.

The third movie of Weir's they showed was Picnic at Hanging Rock, a movie based on a book that a lot of people came to believe was about a real event, but wasn't. A scenic trip by Australian girls in a private school in 1900 becomes a tragic mystery when four disappear for unknown reasons. This movie was really good and would have made it onto my scariest movie list if I'd seen it last month.

I was able to get a ticket to the MLS cup final on Sunday between Dallas and Colorado. A lot of the ticket were going for prices of like 60+ dollars, and even the resale ones seemed to be for face value only. Fortunately, I got a very cheap ticket at ticket hub. Some there were even going for 25 dollars after fees. I got one at a good section of the stadium for 30 dollars... which seemed actually a better deal than I could get for tickets at previous games. It was weird that there was such a disparity between the prices I could find the same tickets at for this event. There's also a free concert by Matthew Good before the game, though I may not come when it starts as there;s both rough weather expected, and a CFL playoff game on.

Send in the Clowns

Didn't do too much over the weekend. The Buffalo Bills were in town and brought a giant inflatable football player with them. A shame they didn't let him play as they may have needed the help.

Tooth delay: My dentist is out of town, so I'll have to get my tooth fix over my lunch break next week.

I saw this on the weekend on the SPACE channel; The Clown at Midnight, a horror movie starring ....Christopher Plummer?!

Well, more like featuring....

As the pictures above may suggest this isn't so much a horror film as it is one of those tiresome and forgettable late 90s slasher movies trying to bank off of the success of Scream.

The titular clown at midnight is a reference to a Lon Chaney quote mentioned in the movie, wherein he suggests a clown may be fun at the circus, but one appearing at your door at midnight would be a terrifying thing. Certainly true, although I think this movie doesn't really get why that may be.

Pictured: Lon Chaney in London at Midnight

A opera clown doesn't really seem an out of place character when he's hanging out in an opera theatre, nor does he contrast with other slasher characters who invariably wear disguises. The only notable difference being that the clown's visible features could really be beneficial to a good actor.... instead of being wasted in the usual silent and understated manner of the slasher killer as it is here.

I wonder if she smelt that?

The movie got on my bad side despite having some things going for it, and I think most of that can be pinned on the terrible staples of the average lame-O slasher movie. The cast of characters is really annoying and filled with stereotypes like the post-Will&Grace gay guy, the best friend, a space case who's into spiritualism, the ludicrously bitchy ice queen, (Seriously, this is way over the top) the jock, and the prankster character as seen in three or four Friday the 13th movies. The main character meanwhile is an over sensitive girl who has psychic visions, (Never explained BTW) about her mother's murder at the hand of an opera clown. (Dead parent being another holdover from Scream) These characters seem to lack any sense of tact and will often fight over nothing and act like complete jerkoffs. Unlike the victims in older slashers which are either naive, sleazy, or prudish, the 90s slasher tries to make every character annoying.

These kids are fixing up the youth centre... I mean theatre where the protagonist's opera performing mother was apparently iced by a clown. Along with the Lon Chaney quote, further evidence of someone's brain power behind this movie is hinted at in the naming of the opera Pagliacci as being the one they were performing during the ill-fated tour. (Pagliacci apparently being a fourth wall breaking play where a jealous actor playing a clown murders his actress wife 'for reals' thus interrupting the play with the play)

Its hinted at early on that the clown murderer may not be the murderer, and may even be still in the theatre, (All of which is true --rumors are never red herrings in these movies) however its not immediately obvious to me when the prankster manages to terrify the protagonist by dressing up like the guy who killed her mother, (Serious WTF was he thinking?) that she will fall for him later on.

The move starts off trying to be ghostly with mysteriously unlocking doors, visions, and blood on the floor of the murder scene that hasn't dried after decades. (Once again ...Never Explained!) Psychic girl finds out from something her mother left behind that the clown was probably her father. There's a short lived attempt to portray the prankster as perhaps unhealthily interested in a clown costume as if to point the finger at him. Don't worry though; things will get stupid and predictable soon enough.

The clown uses secret passage ways in the theatre to sneak around and kill the teenagers for no obvious reason since he's after only the one person, while the teens slowly realize that they're being hunted. Now the victims actually manage to show a glimmer of brains and humanity at this point, and plan to escape to the roof and signal help, but its far too late for them as the movie needs to follow a certain annoying circuitous pathway towards a final reveal and confrontation. The victims are separated for a variety of stupid reasons and diverted from what should have been a good plan of escape so that the clown can murder them through a variety of different means. Oddly, there seems to only be a half-hearted attempt to create variety or a theme, and there's really nothing frightening, shocking, campy, or even consistent about a rampage that includes an electric chair setup, a fake clown hand, a spear... what is this? Just use a knife or stick to theatre stuff.

Someone out there still has some talent, and tries to play around with things like dropping sand bags onto the set from above, or having the clown pretend to be a painting by standing in a frame, (Though nobody was looking so that's only for our benefit) but its mostly wasted.

After all the chaff is killed, only prankster and psychic protagonist remain and they're getting along just as well as the protagonist and her romantic lead should. They find the clown's dusty home inside the secret passages, and determine that the clown-father accused of murdering her mother is probably not guilty of that murder. They are then separated and psychic girl eventually finds herself confronted by the clown and Christopher Plummer ...who's character is so not in this film I don't even know who he was supposed to be. The clown and Chris both try to convince the psychic girl to come to them and then the clown-father gets pissy at Plummer for betraying him and leaving him couped up in the theatre for decades. He rushes Plummer and suffers a terrible fall and dies. Also he had a poor Italian accent.

Plummer reveals that he was the killer the whole time, which clearly shows there was a rewrite at some point. (I suspect the shift away from the supernatural at the beginning of the movie was similarly a rewrite, like in the other theatre-set slasher movie Popcorn)

See --it couldn't have been Plummer. He puts on the clown makeup and doesn't look anything like the killer. The clown apparently took on the football jock victim while unarmed on the roof of the theatre too, (Its funny because he was really unhanded because he offered his hand to the jock while he was holding onto the ledge and...you know how this goes; remember the ledge scene in Batman?) which would have been difficult for a poorly fed dungeon clown let alone a senior citizen. Also, if the clown father wasn't a crazy killer how come he was still wearing the clown makeup all this time...and living in-between the theatre's walls? We're told later that her father was trying to help them the whole time...but no he wasn't.

Plummer now wants the psychic girl to take her mothers place in ...a performance? A relationship? I don't know what the killer is trying to do. Or why he needed to kill anyone. Or why he helped the clown father hide out in the theatre. I get he was jealous of the clown being in a relationship with the protagonist's mom, but that's it. He's also seated all of the corpses of his needless victims in the seats of the theatre so they can see Plummer totally chew the scenery while threatening the girl who he has an very unhealthy fixation on.

Anyway, prankster shows up and he's dressed like the clown and he fights Plummer unsuccessfully but survives. Funny that Plummer worked so diligently to eliminate everyone else in the building and then just forgets one of them. Can he not count? Plummer is dropped down a trapdoor by the protagonist. One which conveniently doubled as a storage space for sharp pipes.

Falls well that ends well!

Prankster and psychic girl are safe now and they kiss. In a call back to an earlier insult, the girl jokes that his people skills are improving. They laugh and exit the theatre together. Rolls credits.

Pictured: People skills improving

I just can't get over that. "People skills?" Ha. That is so funny!

Your friends are dead. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH

Your father died in front of you.

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH



HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAH

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I'm glad she's decided to take this all in stride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Between this clown mess and Dracula its clear that its best if ladies make sure to let the guys down quickly and decisively to avoid any dangerous murder sprees or unhealthy attachments.

Pictured: An unrequited love story

Escape from Castle Dracula

Dracula: A Love Story at Casa Loma Thursday night was a mixed experience.

On a technical level the play was kind of a mess. The production staff and their equipment was far from invisible during the play, and the dialogue wasn't great. Dracula set the tone for the acting early on when I heard his cartoon-y east European accent. When he introduced himself to Jonathan Harker, he is proceeded, (or followed) by a blast of mist from a fog machine easily visible on the floor. They couldn't even put it just behind the corner where he emerged from. Sometimes it was a little hard to hear the dialogue sometimes because the venue was so voluminous and sometimes characters were running around. A lot of the characters were also very thin and poorly developed.



The music and songs likewise didn't really seem to add much because this play didn't attempt to be a musical with lots of memorable performances. Instead we just sort of got some singing just dropped in but seemingly only in the first half. So the pipes were kind of wasted. The organ/piano music was also not very melodic or memorable...or used consistently. A lot in this play just seemed thrown together.

The events of the story also proceeded at a strange pace. There was a cross between correspondences/monologues and other scenes, (A neat idea) but I don't think the play really took advantage of the use of the perspectives. Instead you might get a scene where a person's diary flat out provides exposition about Dracula which they have come to by seemingly magical means. Some scenes were good or creepy, yet didn't seem to have any reason to exist.
The play was subtitled as An Unrequited Love Story, but that didn't seem to have anything to do with anything as the story was more a black and white conflict rather than a dramatic horror.

The show was at its best when it was being campy, funny, or melodramatic. There were a couple of funny moments: The doctor seemed to think he could impress Lucy by talking about male genitalia, and Arthur the 'gentleman' seemed pretty much a weenie. (His suit seemed too big for him which would make for a good metaphor if I wasn't sure that it was probably just a lack of a better fit)

Pictured: More costume difficulties

Renfield was this fat, happy, lunatic and lit up the show whenever he was on the scene; Dracula takes a zombie-like Mina to a vampire ball where Dr. Van Helsing insinuates himself into the crowd by pretending to dance along; There's a fake decapitated head, and the musical coordinator is dressed as the Phantom of the Opera.

Sometimes between scenes we were just directed to the next spot, but other times we would be compelled to follow either a precocious paperboy, or a demented Van Helsing, or lured off by Renfield running away from an orderly, (Maybe not a good idea to get a crowd of people to run down back corridors and thin steps though) and you'd see somebody pretending to be a corpse in one room as you passed by.




Casa Loma was also a pretty neat place. There was a large open entry hall overlooked by the master bedroom's balcony, a conservatory(?) with white floors and big windows and a dome roof. The library was the old style with glass cases for books and a lot of space. The basement doesn't really look period though. Unlike The Turn of the Screw we didn't have so much period lighting and the rooms were generally bigger. Also, that play was much more confined to a residence than this play was, which probably made it work better even though a period house downtown would not seem more impressive than a castle on a forested hill. Still, the Casa was a nice place and its usually pretty great when you have an interest set and get to move around in it. Nice view from the hill too.

So the play was pretty fun and it was a pleasure to spend the evening this way, but not quite technically one of the better plays I've seen.

Arrrgh!

I didn't have a great day yesterday. Work was a pain, a calculator melted my chocolate, (Yeah, that happens apparently) and I think the molar filling I got in June fell out. Or disappeared or something.

There's a gap in my tooth that I didn't notice, and I've got major sensitivty there now. It reminds me of the day I got my last cleaning and was told I'd need the work done; I hadn't noticed a gap or sensitivity until after the checkup, and it felt like this. I don't want to go back to the horrible dental office I'd been going to before, (Always makes me wait, costs a lot, very rough treatment, and now this) but I don't think my insurance will cover another operation within a mere six months of the last one. I don't know whether its possible to get a freebie either; if I'd want one. Maybe I'll just wait for the sensitivity to go down and then just get it fixed with a new dentist in March. Does anybody know a dentist who can give some advice?

Today I'm going to Casa Loma, but predictably, unexpected and unlikely events and my temporary position have conspired to make my schedule tighter than it should have had to have been.

Return to Castle Dracula

I didn't exactly have all that interesting a Halloween. There was a haunt at the old Power Station in Ebiticoke, but it was kind of too far away for me. I missed out on a late midnight show at the Lightbox because I mistaken assumed that 12:30AM Sunday was Sunday night instead of Saturday night. I missed out on another Lightbox showing on Friday. The classic Cabinet of Dr. Caligari presented with a live orchestra. But when I read the email alter about it, (Sent on the same day of the performance) I had already purchased tickets to the final home game for the Toronto Argonauts.

Regarding that, I know unfortunately have the opportunity to see the Argos lose three different ways. This time was the kind where the game slips through your fingers. There was an exciting ending featuring a missed field goal but the end wasn't in doubt:



I was situated on the 200 level this time which was a different experience from the end zone in the other cheap seat section. The view of the field was excellent, though I was further away. The concrete supports and nearby walls did block my view of some of the rest of the stadium. You can't really see the fullness of the stadium and crowd from where I was. Also, most of the closer endzone was obscured. I think partly this was due to being in the back rows of the section instead of the closer rows. (The consequences of buying late I assume) There was a television monitor nearby since I couldn't see the big screen, not that I really needed to. I noticed that the concourse on the 200 level is not as stylin' as the lower bowl's. Smaller bathrooms, less stores and more concrete. I guess that's because all of the lower bowl seats share the same concourse, while the section I was in is just cheaper seats.

In both games I've been to I've found it odd that there always seem to be a couple of people who stop by and sit down for a while, then disappear at a break never to return. As if people are brought in for the show but only temporarily, or have free reign to go wherever they want.

My experience at going to sports events so far has a poor record when it comes to crowd pleasing wins. The home team, (Whomever they may be) is 1-4 when I'm there. If I were a coach, I'd be sacked.

Sacked!

I had the opportunity to see the north building for the St. Laurence Market, which I hadn't even known existed some of the times I'd been over there. I wasn't missing anything. It seemed like a mostly abandoned grade school gym with a couple of tables and loading doors. Some produce and candles too.

As a late Halloween style experience, I have scheduled a visit to Toronto's own crazy mansion, Casa Loma for an adaptation of Dracula. (Not unlike The Turn of the Screw show I saw downtown last year) Of course as good as that show was, I suspect a mansion may be more inspiring than just a regular period house.