what i did on my summer vacation day three: movie time!

we usually make a trip up to the highland cinemas in kinmount to see a movie during our cottage week, and this year we saw pixels.

this was the kid's choice, clearly.

and the kid enjoyed it.

the grownups, on the other hand, thought the crude language and endless sexism was a bit off-putting, especially in a kids' film.

the plot was incredibly predictable. the special effects were fun (turning everything into pixels makes cg easy!) and the kid was happy to see giant pac man. but adam sandler is getting a bit old to pull off this kind of juvenile stuff. and i am so very very bored with the trite "ugly guy gets hot chick" thing. blecch. no thank you.

feh. i have many annoyed opinions on the hero genre, which this falls into. generally, the hero does absolutely nothing but sit around picking his nose or lurking in his lair until the world is almost about to end, and then he swoops in at the last possible moment and everyone thinks he is so very amazing, although in fact he (and it's pretty much always a he, isn't it) is a lazy slob until he rouses himself in the nick of time, and no doubt goes back to being a lazy slob after the credits roll. is it any wonder we have a generation of permanent adolescents, no doubt waiting for an asteroid hit so they can show off their mad skillz? stay in your basements, heroes. the rest of us are busy doing the real work of keeping the world from going to hell in a handbasket.

okay, off soapbox now!

peter dinklage was great as a badass with a badass mullet (and andrew bambridge, playing his childhood self, was also pretty amazing), and i wish we'd seen more of jane krakowski as the first lady. the others were just phoning it in for the most part, playing the version of their own selves that they usually play.

in other news, i got more cement, and did some work with a handsaw cutting a cedar 4x4 into short lengths to brace the corners of the raft frame.

and, i got started baking the best chocolate chip cookies. or at least starting the dough, which wants to rest in the fridge overnight or up to three days.

there are many steps to this recipe, but just the typical ingredients.

a movie about a hat

we have watched a lot of movies (and tv, and cartoons, and who knows what) over the course of the recent sickness. too many, even. actually, mostly it was the kid watching movies, with me trying to ignore them. but we did watch paddington together.

they really tried, with this one. it looks gorgeous, all-star cast, a zillion cameos (including almost the entire cast of horrible histories, it seemed), a ridiculously evil villain and wildly dramatic plot, and so many zany, quirky, whimsical touches, it made me want to scream "stop with the whimsy already!" gratuitous carousel horses as decor! flowering trees painted on the walls! teapots that doubled as model trains! there's even a quirky group of street musicians - just about the only non-white people in the film - that pop up here and there to contribute to the "fun" atmosphere. just stop.

one of the big focal points of whimsy was the mother, mrs. brown, played by the lovely sally hawkins, dressed like the middle-aged version of the most manic manic pixie dream girl ever.

but i must confess, i did like some of her clothing. i just wouldn't have worn it all at once. here, she's wearing a flowered tie-neck blouse, red cabled sweater, and heavily embellished cardigan. is it really that cold?

production design is important. wes anderson is the obvious master of sublime production design - but it is always in support of the story. it never takes over. paddington must have been so much fun for the set decorators and wardrobe (they reeeeeeally love knitwear) and props. it's almost as though a bunch of designers got together and came up with a "look" and then looked for a story to prop it up, and chose paddington somewhat at random. a classic, a longtime favourite, it's actually surprising it took them this long to get around to it. only, i kind of wish they hadn't, in a way.

unsurprisingly, director paul king has some tv credits behind him (he's a mighty boosh alum), but not much else. i dimly remember his only previous feature - bunny and the bull - as being so whimsical we were unable to finish it. there's a certain vein of "but the english are supposed to be eccentric, the more eccentric the better" that sometimes pops up in both film and tv, and generally leads to massively self-indulgent and unwatchable absurdity. meh.

still, i have some red yarn in need of a project, and i think i might make this hat (one of at least five hats she wears in the film).

here's what i've swatched so far:

and i can see making this cardigan for the kid at some point (i was actually cahrting up a different squirrel the other day). but i won't expect him to wear it over two pullovers in the bath.

thumbs down: downton abbey

am i the only one who doesn't like downton abbey?

admittedly, i've only seen the first three episodes. maybe something amazing happens, the writing gets better, the characters become interesting. i know it is a soap opera, not "high art" in any sense of the phrase, so perhaps my expectations were simply too high.

it is interesting, however, as an object lesson in the brits' fascination with class, their love-hate relationship with the underpinnings of their culture, half self-congratulating, half self-flagellating. the earl of grantham is a greedy snob who married only for money. but he's a likable chap who did the right thing by falling in love with his rich wife after a while. he's helping the poor by giving them a job polishing his cufflinks. what a lovely man. or not.

the entire premise is one peer's excuses masquerading as apologia.

it's also interesting to see how the show panders to modern sensibilities. i was marvelling at how downton presented the hunt with such glorious imagery, considering the protests which have met the hunt in recent years, when lord grantham (the nice earl! look how nice he is to his valet!) mentioned the family that doesn't tolerate hunting on their grounds. hat tip, 21st century values.

the writers are apparently aware of how unrealistic much of the dialogue is, in that they occasionally call themselves out in the script. it's a classic, over-used technique - you can't accuse me of fill-in-the-blank if i accuse myself first! well, actually yes you can be accused of phony dialogue when his lordship et famille sit down to the dinner table to discuss a chambermaid's purchase of a typewriter. it simply would not have happened in 1912. and having the dowager countess point out the incongruity doesn't excuse it. their words sound wrong, and their voices sound wrong. the whole show rings so false i sprained a muscle rolling my eyes.

it is pretty to look at, though. the lovely decor and dresses and gardens are simply wonderful, although they do of course fall prey to the impulse to modernise a few things to match contemporary fashions (the eyebrows, the young turk's flowing hair). if i watch another episode, it will be with the sound off. while re-reading hoare's biography of stephen tennant.

i think part of the problem is having watched it too soon after watching brideshead revisited, a much more accurate and affecting piece of television, even thirty years later. julian fellowes is no evelyn waugh.

review: the adventures of tintin

the kiddo and i just took in the adventures of tintin. whoa.

rule number one with 3d movies: arrive early so as to avoid getting stuck in the front row aisle seats. at times i was taking my glasses off to avoid a feeling of nausea, and things get distorted at that angle - more than once i wondered why captain haddock's nose had changed shape. and, the gratuitous 3d showoffery (like dust in a sunbeam, rain, etc.) was annoyingly in our laps.

the look of the thing was spectacular though. the opening credits set the mood with classic 2d drawings rendered in 3d, to the sound of an accordion. the level of detail in the tintin books was always part of their charm; a few years ago tg and i caught an exhibit of herge's notes and sketches from his travels (in peru with tintin at the musee du civilisation in quebec city), and were astounded at the level of detail and accuracy in his imagined cities. so it was wonderful to see that the film stayed true to the books in that sense.



of course, writer steven moffat certainly has earned his stripes in the reverent-treatment-of-favourite-childhood-adventure-heroes department, and peter jackson's tolkein stuff tells all you need to know about how much he cares about visuals, so it is unsurprising that the film had a gorgeously authentic look and feel, and a script full of the expected tintin-style jokes with thomson & thomson (simon pegg and nick frost, doing an excellent job of being funny without slipping into their usual roles), haddock, et al, and a few clever tricks on the way to solving the mystery. spielberg contributed one of his standard the look/the awe/the reveal moments of course.

the problem was that there was so much going on at such high speeds at some point that it was impossible to really see or appreciate what was going on (tg made the same complaint about a transformer movie which i never bothered to watch - so much going on that it turns into a blur, and you don't see any of it. there also seemed to be a fair amount of playing up the 3d by making some foreground and background elements soft-focus, like all of those cupcake photos on flickr. especially at the angle we were at, the difficulty in just actually seeing the film was enough to take me out of it at times. i kept hoping i'd settle into it, which has happened eventually with other 3d films, but the film wouldn't let that happen - it was too busy showing off it's hi-tech effects. (it was nice seeing the stitch-definition on the sailors' sweaters though. naturally i was thinking "which of these sweaters is the kid most likely to wear if i knit it for him" throughout much of the film - i think tintin's classic yellow cabled vest would not fly, but haddock's royal blue turtleneck with anchor might.)

i think it even put the boy off a bit. (that and having to go pee.) he never seemed to react emotionally the way he usually does in movies - not scared, not edge-of-his-seat, not cheering, not laughing. by the end, he was just getting bored. although he was highly engaged on our walk back to the car, by an led screen showing the lotto draw ("they got two 3s! a match! i saw it!"). no accounting for taste.

still, there were some nice performances throughout. and tintin himself, jamie bell (aka billy elliott), did a q&a after the screening and proved to be surprisingly articulate and passionate about the whole thing - the original books, herge's writing style, modern hollywood ("you can't make a movie without making three these days, they're like buses that way"), motion capture (or as he called it, "performance capture"). he out-charmed revolting "host" ben mulroney by about a million lumens.

overall? it was enjoyable, but i think i should have insisted tg go instead of me.

the aviator

last night the husband was out so i did a little knitting on the secret holiday gift. whee! i thought i'd watch a movie while i was at it, and settled on the aviator. it had long been on my "watch this one day" list both because i love the era, and was intrigued about howard hughes. obviously i know who he was, when i was a kid he was always in the background as the billionaire with the long fingernails, in roughly the same category as the bermuda triangle. but i never really had a clue who he was or what he did, i have to say.

so, the film was interesting on that front. and, what eye candy! gorgeous sets, gorgeous costumes, gorgeous everything. cate blanchett was wonderful - i wasn't sold on her performance in the first scene - it was much too "look, i'm doing hepburn!" - but once she settled in she really inhabited the role. and i got a lot of knitting done. i kept thinking "ack, how late is it? but it can't be that late, i started watching at seven-thirty." but eventually i just felt like i was dully staring and waiting for it to be over. waiting and waiting. i have nothing against long films - if they're filled with stuff. magnolia or doctor zhivago i could watch over and over. but the aviator? there just wasn't any there there.

the highlight for me though: spotting this guy! as kate hepburn's brother, the painter. no lines, sadly, but what a kick to see lovely joe cobden dining with blanchett and dicaprio!

kind of relating to this guy right now

i wish i was a bird instead of the office right now...



super short film by bruce mcdonald (yes that bruce mcdonald of roadkill and trigger fame). i can't say much because i don't want to spoil the ending (it is only 2 minutes of your time!) but i will say that i honestly gasped when i realised what was about to happen...

eta: i just noticed that a lot of people are suddenly arriving here by searching "jamie travis on greed" and "butter on your bagel" - another short from the same seven sins project as bruce mcdonald's envy. that one won't be available till the broadcast on 25 may, but i will most certainly post it then!

in other news, i have picked up the craxiest project i've ever taken on again, a spring dress (yes, dress) knit in fingering in a complex lace pattern. well it's not all complex lace, but the bottom foot or so of the skirt is, and that's what i'm working on right now. gah. it takes me about a half-an-hour to do one round. maybe it will be ready for next spring? not this one!

where i've been for the past week...

there's a reason i haven't been posting; i've been far too busy at work! on wednesday we launched our new show in short, an exploration of the seven sins. and with it we launched a new youtube channel featuring all the short films in wednesday's ep. why youtube? well our old player was somewhat buggy, and of course it was only flash so useless for ipads and iphones. now youtube takes care of the software/format schmozzle for us.

we've also launched planet sin a website of true confessions, but also (better?) the reporting and shaming of others! for those who like pointing the finger.

so i've been ignoring my own blog and crafts and stuff and instead been working like mad on those two things.

there's one big project that ties it all together: a series of 7 short films, one for each of the sins, which are rolling out one per episode, and going on line at the youtube channel and planet sin at the same time. my favourites are envy by bruce mcdonald, which literally made me gasp when i realised what was about to happen, and the stylish mini-musical greed by jamie travis, although i have now had the bagel song stuck in my head for weeks and it is driving me crazy. i also suspect that "do you like butter on your bagel" may be a euphemism for something, but i'm afraid to google.

envy airs this coming wednesday 11 may on bravo! at 10pm ET/7 pm PT. greed is on the 25 may, same bat time, same bat channel.

dark

yesterday we saw two films - light of the river by tetsuo hirakawa and heathers. fortunately there were numerous hours of different activities between the films, or my head would have been spinning.

it's been years since i saw heathers, and i had forgotten just how dark a film it is. i checked the rating - did we really go to see this in the theatres when we were kids? yes, we did: it rated 14A in canada, although when it came out on video it changed to 18A. maybe it's only because i am a parent now, but i was kind of shocked by the amount of swearing and violence in a teen film.

of course when i was a teenager, i thought it was awesome.

taking aim at high school social politics, bitchy teen queens, dumb jocks, clueless parents, self-help theories and publicity-hungry teachers, this is the story of veronica (played by winona ryder, hard to remember that she was so young once, even though we're the same age), a girl who wanted to be popular but finds she's not that keen on the popular girls once she's infiltrated their clique.

the school is run by a trio of girls all named heather, each pretty and popular and evil to varying degrees (one of whom is played by a pre-90210 shannen doherty), and they are not approving of veronica's boyfriend, new boy in town j.d. (christian slater, perfecting his jack nicholson impersonation). after accidentally-on-purpose killing the ringleader, veronica finds the situation at school gets worse instead of better, and the downward spiral begins. the story pulls no punches. violence, eating disorders, sexuality, underage drinking, and the ever-popular suicide are all held up to examination and mockery. there are a few shocking moments, and a lot of guilty laughter.

also, hair. hair! towering, teased, crimped, permed, gelled, moussed, scrunchied. and shoulderpads. and dialogue. coming after moon unit zappa's single popularized "valley girl" slang, it takes the lingo to a whole nes level with expressions like "f--- me gently with a chainsaw." it's a caricature of the 'eighties in all ways - the look and feel, the selfish attitudes of the characters.

heathers totally holds up over time. while on the one hand looking extremely dated, the satire is as biting as ever, if not moreso now given the events of the last couple of decades. could a film like heathers get the same distribution if it was made today? not likely.



review of light of the river tomorrow.

feeling critical today

the fuss goes on and on about black swan... but should the question be not "who did the costumes" or "who did the dancing" but "why did someone who basically spent 90% of the film in a stunned pout get an oscar for acting?" really, there was not a lot of acting going on there. or a lot of anything really. the whole jekyll/hyde dual nature schtick has been done so many times, there needs to be something spectacular happening in order to justify doing it again. this film, mind you, had more crotch-grabbing than most. it had a lot, actually. no one could keep their hands off of natalie's portman, including natalie portman.

i tend to find darren aronofsky a little too in love with his own cleverness and "depth" though.

it did pass the bechdel test, at least. i suppose there's that. and it's nice to see that winona got some work again finally.

ha ha!

more dispaches from the toronto international film festival:

yesterday afternoon i was talking to someone else who was at the botched tiff borat screening, and he told us that the replacement screening was going to be at the elgin, and we'd probably have a not-bad chance of getting rush tickets, since it wasn't hugely publicised, and a lot of the industry people would have other plans.

since the film we were seeing at 6 o'clock was also going to be at the elgin, we were perfectly positioned to investigate the line-up possibilities.

the 6 o'clock film was brand upon the brain! by auteur of the bizarre, guy maddin. it's the story of the childhood of guy maddin, housepainter, who grew up in a lighthouse where his parents ran an orphanage. but something is strange about these orphans, so the lightbulb kids, harpists and stars of the series of mystery books, come to investigate. it's a silent film, mostly black & white, and the screening was accompanied by an 11-piece ensemble of orchestra members, a few singers from the toronto children's chorus, and three foley artists. there were a few technical glitches (they didn't even let us in the building until more than twenty minutes after the film was supposed to start), but the film was so compelling, so filled with strange and wonderful inventions, that the tech problems didn't really interfere at all. trying to describe it to tg after, erin and i couldn't stop adding more details - the aerophone! the hamster-and-metronome! the nectarite ring! and on and on.

when we left the theatre, there were only thirty people in the borat rush line-up, so we decided - why not? other than the fact that i would probably fall asleep before we got in to the midnight screening (we lined up at eight-thirty - i should have brought my knitting!), and if not before, then definitely during. i haven't been one to stay up past ten o'clock at the latest since i got knocked up.

our seats were of course in the very back of the elgin theatre, but it's a well-designed venue, so our view was totally unobstructed. borat: cultural learnings of america for make benefit glorious nation of kazakhstan was... well, borat was borat. as erin described it, "slightly more shocking and slightly less funny than i expected." very shocking (you don't see that much full-frontal male nudity, among other things, in most comedies). but still very funny. it tells the story of borat sagdiyev, kazakhstani television reporter, who goes to america on a mission from his government to find out what americans are like and how they got to be the greatest country in the world, so kazakhstan can follow in their footsteps. this allows him to work his schtick. if you're familiar with borat, you know what to expect - he does the fish-out-of-water thing, plays with stereotypes and through his apparent innocence and ignorance encourages people to show off their worst sides: their bigoted underbellies. you either like borat or you don't; i like borat, so i found the film hysterical. as did the rest of the audience - i missed more than a few lines because the audience was roaring with laughter. and i didn't nod off once.

bon bad

once i've done totoro, i thought i'd make these slippers to take to the hospital in january (yes, i'm getting ahead of myself, be quiet). but, i am ashamed to say, i've never done a three-needle cast-off before. as luck would have it, there are great instructions at yarn magazine! it's a great source for other info, too. check it out:



meanwhile, another movie recommendation (being pregnant and sitting quietly in a dark room are two activities that go together well): bon cop bad cop.

normally i'm not a fan of the cop/buddy genre, but this one has some clever twists on the old genre. in this case, the odd couple is a french cop (patrick huard) and an english cop (colm feore) - guess which one is the wild child and which one is uptight. a body is found at the québec/ontario border - whose responsibility is it? this dilemma is decided in the most hilariously gruesome manner, which sets the tone of the film to follow. there's a lot of violence (it is a cop flick, after all), but all cleverly done and with humour. i can't remember the last time i laughed that hard at a film (or coughed that hard - i apologize to anyone who had the misfortune to sit near my sick husband and myself!).