Cough, Sweat, & Sniffle

Nope, not a Canadian rock band from the 70s... it's my current state. Fuckin' hell. On Canada Day, a day off work, too. Grr.

Art vs draftsmanship

Interesting discussion here.

Say it ain't so, Jon

As the prospect of a longer director's cut of Watchmen looms, bloggers are again talking about this awful film.

A quick note to those who say it's faithful to the graphic novel: Learn to read.

Recession? Depression? Hyperbole?

I don't really believe we are in a recession, much less a depression. In neighbourhoods across Toronto, restaurants appear to be as busy as they usually are this time of year.

The late 80s early 90s recession made Toronto look like a ghost town. This one, apart from a few brokers bitching to each other on the Rosedale bus, feels like it either isn't going to hit, or hasn't really hit yet.

What a crock!

Today, beside an overflowing public garbage bin in my neighourhood (Rosedale), I saw a good-sized pile of discarded crockery. Think about that: crockery! Is this really what you need to be throwing out during a garbage strike?! "Well, Mavis, this crockery's gone right off. Starting to smell. We'd best chuck it now, garbage strike or no."

People are fucked. And selfish. And did I mention fucked?

Transformers... LESS than meets the eye

The movie I'd wanted to see wasn't playing when I'd got to the theatre last night. I must have misread the listings. So we decided to see something--anything!--since we were there and in the mood for a film. So in to Transformers 2 we went, thinking "fun summer blockbuster".

Well, the phrase "absolute shit" does not begin to describe this thing. I mean, I know it's a kiddie-flick so I didn't expect high art, but nor did I expect such a homophobic, borderline racist, ugly piece of cinema. Imagine if Jar-Jar Binks had been split into two characters that were transforming cars. Shades of Step 'n' Fetch!

The pacing is dreadful. This thing is on par with Nightwatch. I couldn't tell where one act ended and another began, and I think there were four acts. There was no build towards climax. It was all climax. The effects were overwrought and over-designed. How the Transformers transform is never simply shown... it's all closeups and fast edits to hide that fact that the modelers never figured out how Car A could plausibly turn into Robot A. Um... they did it for the toys. It actually was physically done.

Also, when the robots are robots or vehicles makes just as little sense. Case in point... Optimus Prime needs to talk to Sam on the hush-hush. So he shows up near Sam's college as... gigantic robot, Optimus Prime! WTF?! Why not drive up as the truck, have Sam get in, have a conversation with him? Robots in disguise, anyone? Throughout this film, fast and loud trumps plausible. Robots transform to vehicles mid-battle and back again microseconds later. In fact, every damn thing is constantly transforming. Toasters, blenders, R/C cars, motorcycles, dumptrucks, planes... it's too much. Even hundreds of ball bearings transform into needlessly complicated little machines, for gawdssake. It's too much of everything, and it ends up just being a long, noisy mess.

Oh, there are humans in this film but you wouldn't know it. Megan Fox dresses slutty for the boys. Shia LeBeouf does his best "it's my destiny" gaze, reminding us he's now ruining two franchises (not that you could really ruin Transformers). John Turturro looks like he's regretting his trip to the Pyramids, but does contribute the only decent voice-acting for one of the Robots, sounding sort of like an octegenarian Alan Moore. Ramon Rodriguez plays a tough talking college boy who turns into a shrieking coward everytime something blows up near him. Which is often. Think Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element and you're getting close to how annoying this gets.

Two final thoughts. (1) This is a film about robots for kids. I challenge any kid to draw the robots. (2) this is a film to sell toys. Why then do the robots in the film not resemble the toys? Talk about a poor marketing plan.

If this is what popular entertainment has become, the robots can have the planet.

I Love You, SONY... but...

Bought a Walkman MP3 player last evening. Like the Walkman products of old, the venerable cassette Walkmans (Walkmen?), the quality is outstanding. As far as mp3 players go, the sound quality on this little 2G player (the now-discontinued NWZ-B135) is far better than that of any other player I've owned so far (and I've had a few). Better than the iPod Shuffle? Check. Better than the RCA Lyra? Hell, yeah. I bought and returned a Lyra about a year ago because the sound quality was so flat and tinny. Not this little SONY baby, though.

But, SONY, oh SONY, why do you insist (why does anyone even make?) in-ear headphones where the cable to one of the earbuds is shorter? I guess the assumption is that you will put the longer cable around the back of your neck. But I don't wanna! I hate wearing headphones that way! What's wrong with the nice, symmetrical pairs you still make and sell separately? Why package sub-standard headphones (I'm talking design, not sound quality hear) with your players? A bit of creative splicing/soldering is in order.

Overall review: a great little machine for $59.99. Not bad at all when you consider I paid $212.99 in 1987 (or the about 1/4 of my university tution that year, or nearly $400.00 in today's dollars) for a compact cassette Walkman which I must have played for a couple of hours every day for nearly 2-1/2 years. Another nice feature is the rechargeable battery on this new device. I don't even want to contemplate how much I spent on AAs for the cassette Walkman, nor how much mercury I've put into the landfills and the water table.

The Lap of Luxury?

May I present the Petiole Hammock... only $35,000.

I dunno about you, but I think sleeping on a huge pile of money would be more comfortable.

NIGHT(not)WATCH(ed)

I tried watching NIGHTWATCH, the "Russian Matrix" as it's been called. Terrible. Twenty-five minutes in I ejected the disc and that was the end of that.

It looked like it was made by someone who'd never seen a film in their life, and was full of all sorts of stupid, stupid details. Example. A guy starts his truck. Zoom into CGI of the crankshaft and ignition and the drive train as the motor turns over. What the FUCK?! That's not cool. That's just bad filmmaking. And the fight scenes I saw were edited to the point of being incomprehensible. Whatever happened to a few well-composed shots and some solid fight choreography?! (That's what the new STAR TREK had going for it in spades. The story and the cinematography were clear and uncluttered. There wasn't a billion things onscreen at once or confusing closeups or cut-aways. This was real filmmaking.)

Needless to say I won't be watching the sequel, DAYWATCH. Thankfully they were loaners from a friend. I'm glad I didn't waste money on renting or buying these.

A Wolf Loves Pork

Awesome!