The New Wall
Sep 29 2003 - 8:55 p.m.

Here's a shot of Unstoppable Yellow Wall from our first game, on the 21st:

And for those keeping score, we lost yesterday's game in a 2-1 heartbreaker. Having a lot of fun, though... in spite of two too many shots to the balls.

Hellcat
Sep 29 2003 - 6:58 p.m.

This is an utter abomination:

"Patience Price" my ass. Two words: SELINA KYLE. I can just hear the Sharon Chursky-isms. "I'm not a rat, I'm a cat!" Excuse me, I'm going to go buy a Michelle Pfeiffer action figure.

Begin Again
Sep 29 2003 - 4:31 p.m.

Suffering some CHF (congestive heart failure) after visiting CHF (Centre Hi-Fi) and buying... a brand spankin' new video camera! I spent about $300 more than I'd planned to, but then, I got a lot more camera than I'd planned to. It's not quite the fit-in-your-back-pocket palmcorder I was shopping for, but it's definitely fit-in-your-shoulder-bag-and-take-it-everywhere, which was the original intent anyway.

Here she is!

Unfortunately, mine didn't come with the ethnically-ambiguous baby. Pretty, though, huh? I love the blue detailing!

So, I'm going to fool around with it for a few hours. I'll be back with the first movie soon.

Other important movie news of the day: The Return of the King trailer is finally up, not the bootlegs of the weekend, but the real deal, right here. I quote TheOneRing.net: "Go...download! Destroy someone else's bandwidth for a change!!" And by the way, for anyone who hasn't checked out the Matrix Revolutions trailer that was released last week, get thee to a nunnery. Cool stuff.

Desperado
Sep 28 2003 -10:15 p.m.

Thank God Mark is my best friend. That's all I'm saying. If you're up there, God: Thank you. Check this out:

Yeah. It's a pig. Mark made me a piggy bank for my birthday out of paper maché! It's called The Matthew C. Brown Feature Film Fund and it's covered in relevant inspirational quotes from such luminaries as Tony Robbins and Homer Simpson. And even one from me, that I can't even remember saying: "It's like the Iron Chef: here's your ingredients, you've got an hour, GO." Oddly appropriate under the circumstances wouldn't you say?

Yes, talking in broad ambition doesn't get any easier, but fuck it, I've got a head full of steam now. I took another look at Bone Daddy tonight, I'm buying a new camera this week, I've got at least three shorts I want to shoot in the next month... fuckin' try and stop me people!

No triumph without loss.
No victory without suffering.
No freedom without sacrifice.
All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you....
Sep 27 2003 -10:08 p.m.

The Return of the King trailer actually made me cry.

Ho.

Lee.

Shit.

Monday.....

Apologize Please
Sep 26 2003 - 6:59 p.m.

True to my word, I am. I dropped off the TSFA DVDs at their office and then spent the rest of the afternoon fucking around downtown. I went to see Lost in Translation, at long long last. What a film. What a fucking incredible film. I've got way too much to do in the next four hours for me to even begin to organize my thoughts into a coherent review: but check the recent reviews bullet on my immediate lower left tomorrow sometime, it'll be up. Wow. What a film.

My time at the Silver Snail was exceptionally strange today. Christian Slater was there, for one thing. Just hanging out. I noticed that his foot was in a cast so at first I thought, that couldn't possibly be Christian Slater, why would Christian Slater have a busted foot? People like Christian Slater don't get busted feet. Then I remembered that he's a fuckin' wacko and all so who knows, maybe he could have a busted foot.

So I'm coping with that, but the real ignominy of the day came when Upstairs Alex - who has known me for at least two years - asked me to leave my fucking bag at the front counter! Can you believe that shit? I was like, I've been coming to this store since I was ten years old. If I wanted to steal something, I would have done it a looooooooooong time ago and I sure as hell would not be pumping thousands of dollars per year into this dump. I was severely affronted.

All was forgiven, however, and I bought myself a Goth dolly to celebrate. I wrote a scene last night that featured a trio of wannabe goths, who I informally refer to as the wannagoth brigade, and this little "Storm" doll fit so perfectly with that mojo that I just had to have it. Okay, it took me about three goes to decide that it was a must, since it's rather outside my collecting experience. But fuck I'm glad I bought her, I'm quite in love with her now and may make her do nasty things to my Ewan McGregor dolls later.

The Prince of Darkness picked up a spare and I raided the local shops for clothing and sundries, and bought the LiT CD because the music is just that good. By the way: I hate every one and every thing connected to the creation of security seal packaging for CDs and DVDs. Hate hate hate hate hate. I'm sure the creators of this tacky shit thought they were doing something to forward the knowledge of all manking, just like the bastards who were fooling around with nuclear fission back in the '40s. Well they didn't help mankind. They created a potentially planet-destroying weapon. Just like the security seal people. A potentially planet-destroying weapon. May they all burn eternally in the fires of Hades.

I was on the subway riding home when the driver came on with news of the conclusion of some ongoing system stoppage somewhere else on the line. Static soon overtook his voice and I could make out nothing I said, until the static cleared up just enough for me to hear him say "apologize please."

I refused, and sat sullenly reading my book in silence.

The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go
Sep 26 2003 - 11:15 p.m.

Whoa. Now, for the first time in my life, I'm wondering if the above title is the punchline to the joke that starts with "A clone, a monk and a Ferengi decide to go bowling together..." Probably not, cuz it's clone, not clown, and there's no mention of a gorilla suit at the start of the joke, but.... well, this isn't what I was posting about.

It's cold. Beautifully, wonderfully, autumnally cold. Nipple-hardening, penis-shrinkening, tea-chillin'ing cold. Yep, my cup of tea chilled down to lukewarm before I even got it to my mouth. Then, I tend to procrastinate with that sort of thing. But god I love this time of year! Pull on your Roots sweatshirt and drag out the Raiders jacket, you're gonna need it. And I said it last night but I'll say it again: woo-hoo E.R. It wouldn't be fall without some new med students to kick around.

I formally declare this a day in which I will do nothing constructive whatsoever.

Open War
Sep 26 2003 - 10:44 a.m.

Hasbro released a bunch of pics of new product today, right here, and while it's all very exciting, I can't help but see it for what it really is: an act of genocide against the customizers. Yup, of the three basic figures shown here, I've already made two, and was in the (admittedly, long-delayed) design stages of the third. They're killing us a piece at a time!

Here are my beauties:

But yeah, it's pretty cool that they're dong an R1, given that I'm one of only six people in the world who knows what an R1 looks like. And yay for J'Quille! I don't know how I was ever going to do that one.

Platinum Play
Sep 25 2003 - 11:00 p.m.

I finally got a Game Cube! My parents gave me one for my birthday. It's shiny, new, and silver. I've got Simpsons Hit & Run to go with it and think I'll be bagging F-Zero next week. And Quidditch World Cup is out at the end of October. Wheeeeeeee!!!

Thank god Parminder Nagra's on E.R. now. She does much to ease my discomfort at watching the emergency room get completely gutted and redesigned - vintage, vintage, vintage for me. And great stuff with Kerry tonight - rapidly becoming the only character who still amuses me.

Oh, and speaking of Parminder Nagra: got Beckham on DVD at last!

Agony
Sep 25 2003 - 10:44 a.m.

That's it: I am exactly one straw away from developing a gigantic, debilitating Master Replicas addiction.

Horrible, horrible news: Amazon's listing Buffy Season Six as not coming out until fuckin' July. That's no good, man, no good at all. Instead of speeding up they're slowing down!

Further to my review yesterday: Underworld 2 and 3 going ahead. Zowie.

Who wants to watch a bunch of stupid boys play anyway?
Sep 24 2003 - 10:57 p.m.

Boy this is going to piss some people off: my Underworld review.

In spite of my rant on the subject last week, I've figured out what binary reviewing scale I could use: "DVD-worthy" or "not DVD-worthy." It allows for some nice shades of grey wherein some bad flicks are worth buying on DVD for the extras, and some good ones aren't worth buying cuz you'd never watch them more than once.

Out of the mouths...
Sep 24 2003 - 12:27 a.m.

Tonight I got into an elevator with a mother and her blonde little girl. The doors wouldn't close properly, kept opening and shutting, and the little girl said: "Maybe it's a monster!" and then, with awestruck, wide-eyed realization, "Maybe it's JESUS!!!" Because Jesus is a monster with nothing better to do than fuck around with elevator doors?

BUCKLE UP
Sep 23 2003 - 7:51 p.m.

At long last: the Return of the King trailer hits the internet on Monday. It's playing with Secondhand Lions over the weekend but nobody's going to go see that, are they?

Plundered
Sep 23 2003 - 7:09 p.m.

So I had this gig making up the DVDs of the Forecast Dinner from last week and I figured it would take all of about three hours and it ended up eating the entirety of the last two days. Mother. Fucker. I hate it when that happens. So the result on the whole has been that I haven't been able to scan these pics until right now:

Click 'em, they get bigger.

Here's the funny story. They are, of course, pics of our boat from the whitewater rafting trip of a couple of weeks ago. These are the ones that the resort takes of you while you are desperately fending for your life amidst a whirlpool tide that's constantly threatening to take your head off, so they're always funny. Anyways, I saw them at the end of a long day and decided not to buy them.... which I of course regretted the next day. So then, Mer and Steve - completely independent of one another, mind you - both called the resort and had the prints sent down, and framed them up nicely to serve as my birthday presents. So now I've got not one, but two big honking pics of me and my friends conquering the river to hang on my wall. Rockin'!

And speaking of that wall: I own it for another year. Signed a new lease today.

Surprise/Innocence
Sep 23 2003 - 11:14 a.m.

Autumn's a great time for watching Buffy. Whoops: NO MORE BUFFY!!

There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling. Oh wait, yes there is:

So I watched "Innocence" yesterday which really rocks the kasbah, and "The Yoko Factor" which is equally rockworthy in a completely different way. Still not sated, I plundered the internet this morning and came upon some really good news:

Everything sure is coming up Buffy in the toy world this month. Not only is Moore back on the bandwagon with the 6" action figures, but Sideshow Toy has released that lovely photo up there of their next wave of 12" Buffy figures. It's Angelus from "Becoming" and Buffy from "Graduation Day." I already have a 12" Buffy (from "Hush") but those two are looking pretty sweet.

But that's not even the best news.

Are you ready for the best news?

12" Spike and Faith in the new year.

Oh baby.

Ohhhhhhhh baaaaaaaaaaaaaaayby.

Sounds Like...
Sep 22 2003 - 10:56 a.m.

Here's how it went down:

On Friday I dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow and went to the Red Lobster in Barrie with Courtney by my side as Elizabeth Swann. Courtney was also quite instrumental in my costume, as she made a brilliant wig that really saved the outfit, and also provided many bangles and jangles to adorn myself with. Fun was had, booty was plundered, shrimp was consumed. It was all good.

Then we went to Matt & Leah's cottage, ostensibly to decompress from our week of film festivallilng. Our only real concession to this motive was watching Cinemania, which was.... eye-opening. Otherwise it was just crazy charades and Epic Duels and lots and lotsa hangin' out chatting. Oh: and rum. Lots of rum. Possibly too much rum.

On Sunday, I captained my very first soccer game. Because life is built on compromise, we both won and lost. Won, in the sense that we kicked their asses 7-5 (thanks in large part to an unbelievable scoring run by Dave - he got five of the seven). Lost, in the sense that we were defficient in our number of girls on the field so we forfeited the game. But it was great to get back into it, man, lots and lots of fun.

Guess what: I'm going to see REM next week! This is also thanks to Courtney who rocks. It will be my very first concert. How silly and wonderful is that!

Many thanks to everyone who made the weekend a great one. Now I'm having Monday blahs. Blah blah blah...

Stories
Sep 21 2003 - 11:00 p.m.

He's about ten years old, I guess, based on his height. He's dressed in nondescript clothes, riding a nondescript bike. His face lacks the angelic simplicity of most blonde 10-year-old boys: it's oddly malformed, somehow; even at this age he's one of those people who looks completely different in a mirror. His most notable feature remains his eyes, the first part of him I saw even from thirty yards away as he rode lazily toward me. Crystal blue, they offset his pupils like a stone in a setting.

He says hello, asks about my day, and reports upon his, all in the half moment it takes for him to ride past me. Around here, they talk to you - I've already passed two men walking, both of whom inquired after my day. I'm used to it now so I reply to his queries openly, cheerfully. He's past me. He's gone.

He's back. "Isn't it nice here?" he asks. There's a laziness to his drawl that matches the ruin of his face. His mouth doesn't keep up with his words, making pasta out of them.

We chat about why we're here - his Grandma's cottage, my friend's cottage. He tells me that his grandmother is sixty but his other grandmother is a hundred and three - and that she's given him her age in dollars every birthday since she turned 20. By his hasty calculation this eighty years of beneficence has led to an accumulation of over a thousand dollars in his savings account - although, of course, his mother won't let him spend it, at least not until he graduates from grade eight. "Yeah, moms are good for that," I say with a grin.

We talk about Nintendo for a few minutes, the resilient common ground for all earnest men in these parts between the ages of ten and thirty. He asks me if I'm a big time gamer. Uh-oh: he's caught me. I admit that I haven't been for ten years but that I want my parents to buy me a game cube for my birthday. He seems satisfied with this and whips a shiny red Pokemon cartridge out of his pocket to show me.

I tell him that I build websites for a living but that they're all boring, just sites for bankers and stock brokers and analysts. He tells me that he built a website once, but his father didn't like it. I fall for the bait: "Why not?" I ask.

"Because it was all pictures of naked girls," he says with a cake-eating grin. He pumps the air with his fist and describes how the girls were all jerking off the guys.

"How old are you?!" I exclaim. He says he's ten. I tell him that I've just turned 27 yesterday. "Cool," he grunts. And he's off in a new direction, saying that there are so many people in his family that it would take him a week to list them all.

In spite of these claims to an innumerable assortment of relations, he's obviously out here all alone. His whoppers get bigger the closer we get to the beach, where he knows he can no longer follow me on his bike. I don't blame him. He's a brilliantly imaginative liar as all children should be. He's far better at it than I was at that age. It was my best friend Geoffrey MacDonald who was prodigiously gifted in that respect. Geoff, whose father was in the secret service, whose cousin was a ninja, who ended up with all my toys in his basement because he'd seen them at my place and asked his mother to buy them all for him. A genius.

My new best friend is halfway through telling me about the cries of the offspring that came of mating his dog and his cat when we reach the edge of the beach. I shake his hand - half a handshake, half a high five. And he's gone.

-- mcb
september 20 2003 at four in the afternoon

Send up the colours
Sep 21 2003 - 5:45 p.m.

Happy 4th birthday, Tederick.com! You've come a long way baby.

Happy autumn, everyone else! Yay autumn with your many, many hues. And a surprising number of Hughs.

Do not visit this Stupid Link if you are even slightly high and/or drunk: The Man Project. Sent shivers straight to me timbers. Thanks to April for the link.

So much to talk about that I choose instead to stand mute. Also: tired, rum-hungover, post-soccer stinky, tired, and tired. But right now is an ideal time to drive past my house: my bay window currently displays the Jolly Roger with striking insouciance.

Thar she blows
Sep 19 2003 - 3:05 p.m.

Happy birthday Hermione! She's 23 today, assuming she survives Books VI and VII.

And everybody remember to Talk Like a Pirate today. Avast: I'm sailin' north to the port of Tortuga to eat the sea's bounty (at the Red Lobster in Barrie). Arrrrh.

I was born for the storm
Sep 19 2003 - 10:41 a.m.

The Powers that Be gave me three birthday presents:

1. A Blackout.

I'm watching Attack of the Clones at around 11:00 last night. It's getting good; the Coruscant Chase is going full speed and I'm happy as a clam, and then POP. Deja vu, all over again. This particular rolling blackout lasted about two hours, so I watched my birthday rollover on my watch via flashlight.

2. A Centipede.

I've never seen a single bug in this apartment - I don't know why that is, but I ain't complaining. Then last night (by flashlight, mind you) I'm brushing my teeth when a centipede streaks out of the bathroom and into the hall. Big one, too. Size of your thumb. A couple of years I would have chopped it into tiny pieces with a carving knife but now I consider them good luck, so here's hoping this means that 27's going to be a hell of a year.

3. A Big Fuckin' Storm.

Let it never be said girls don't come calling on my birthday: Isabelle is banging repeatedly on my door like a demented Girl Scout trying to fill her cookie quota. Of course, I don't mind; I love rain a lot, grey skies a lot, and torrential downpours the most of all. Vive la deluge!

The Forecast will be Televised
Sep 18 2003 - 10:15 a.m.

Let's have some nice, fat, illegal, copyrighted images today.

Here's the first real still of Anakin in Episode III, looking all windswept and badass:

And yeah, surprisingly Hamill-esque. Too bad you can't see his Vader glove from here.

And here's Lana making gooey eyes at Clark in the season premiere of Smallville, c/o the good people at Kryptonsite:

Smallville's currently the series I've been craving the most, more so even than Survivor, which of course, starts tonight. I won't be doing the weekly picks this year, it's just no fun being right all the time. I've already said who will win. I can say definitively, however, that plans are in the works to resurrect SURVIV.ORg if and when Lex is included in the All-Star lineup for next spring. (Ideally, Lex & Richard, but I'll play that by ear.)

So last night we had a gig videotaping the Forecast Dinner of the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts, which is basically a bunch of financial masterminds telling a room full of thousands of people what's going to happen to their stocks in the next year. Here's the crucial bit of market-playing strategy I gleaned from my experience:

"Buy low, sell high."

Cool. The evening also served to underscore the fact that my poor GL-1 is nothing more than a sinking ship and it might be time for me to stop thinking of its lifespan in terms of years, and start dealing with it in terms of minutes. So, I'm thinking of getting into the market for a low-end cheapie, a 1-chip palmcorder. But the truth is there's this couch I really want, in the same price range... Yes, I am actually being forced to choose between Art and Sofa.

Opee Rider
Sep 16 2003 - 11:23 p.m.

Keisha Castle-Hughes has been cast in Episode III, playing "a regal leader," which we can only assume means she'll be the latest girl to sport the split-lip lipstick of the Queen of Naboo. Some people have all the luck. Or, all the talent, I begrudgingly guess.

Went to see Matchstick Men tonight; it made my biological clock go BOOM - BOOM - BOOM until it pulled the rug out and I got all peeved off. No rug pulling! Rug pulling unfair.

The end of Kenobi
Sep 16 2003 - 1:10 p.m.

Ewan McGregor has filmed his final scenes as Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the last ever Star Wars movie ever.

[moment of silence]

COBRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Sep 16 2003 - 12:07 p.m.

It's finally happening: a live-action G.I. Joe movie is in development alongside the live-action Transformers movie. This is a shame, because the only person in the world who could make a really, really good G.I. Joe movie is... me. How many people know how Snake Eyes was involved in the death of the Hard Master? How many people can tell you who the mole was when Cobra destroyed The Pit? Who can describe with alarming clarity the exact trajectory of the arrow that Zartan had to use to assassinate Serpentor? To quote Agent Smith, "Me, me, me!"

Well anyway. I went to see Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night and it must have really tired me out because I slept for eleven hours. That was a new one. I never sleep like that. And I've been sleeping pretty well the past four days in spite of the Midnight Madnesses... so.... I dunno, maybe I've got some weird narcoleptic thing going on?

Shameless
Sep 15 2003 - 11:29 a.m.

Just goes to show, you leave a camera running and leave the room, and anyone will mug for it.

So, to the Star Wars Kid, I say: Dance boy, dance!!

In Conclusion....
Sep 14 2003 - 2:36 p.m.

Closing the Uptown was a far bigger deal than Undead itself was... and I don't even like the theatre! Still, it was a neat send off for the place. Nobody did any pillaging or plundering which was a shame... except me of course. (And Joson, via a proxy with incredibly low literacy skills.) But I didn't get that THX sign.

I really enjoyed the festival this year, or more accurately, the process of the festival this year. I saw four films that I would rate outstanding (Jeux d'Enfants, Le Temps du Loup, The Five Obstructions and Antenna), only two that I would call lousy (Testosterone, Good Bye Dragon Inn), a few that were decently respectable and then a few that were just "meh." That's a pretty good year. And what a gorgeous time to be out and about in the plague-stricken city of Toronto. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and everything seemed cinematic.

Chasing Sleep
Sep 13 2003 - 1:26 p.m.

Yesterday destroyed me. I couldn't even write about it when I got home, except in my journal, where I concocted four paragraphs of flowing, stream of consciousness prose. The process of doing this - slamdancing with the Fest - is wearing me down in surprising ways. Surprising, as in, like a band-sander on naked skin. The result is red and raw and sticky. Emotional control seems to be out the window (somewhere my inner Spock is screaming while my inner T'Pol is taking off her shirt again revealing those gigantic, artificial sacks of silicone).

And then I saw Le Temps du Loup.

This movie tore me down as thoroughly and completely as three days of virginal snowboarding. When I left, I no longer had any sense of self, any sense of purpose - I was a vacant lot, waiting to be filled. Fortunately Courtney was along for the ride and so I filled the vacant lot with the longest sustained Jack Sparrow impression I've ever run, which dragged me nicely out of my funk but lead to some rather unusual consequences for my fellow Midnight Madness goers. Consequences such as, "why is that guy in the back row shrieking about rum?"

Last night's midnight rocked, one of the best midnight's I've ever seen at the festival. I considered making it my final film of the fest (except Undead, of course) but I think I'll try for Zatoichi today after all.

Here's yesterday's coverage:

Testosterone, a thoroughly misguided gay obsession flick that makes just about every tonal mistake you could possibly make in a situation like this;

The aforementioned Le Temps du Loup, which, even as I'm writing this, I have no idea how I'll review;

and Save the Green Planet, a spectacular Midnight Madness sci fi fantasy that transcends its own festival placement.

Tonight, of course, is the final showing at the Uptown. I've got my own ticket, although precious few do. Losing the Uptown isn't hitting me as hard as it's hitting everyone else. I mourned for the York; I mourned for the Eglinton. I even mourned when they turned the facade of the old University into the front of a fucking Williams Sonoma. Those were my grand old movie houses growing up - I didn't start going to the Uptown with any regularity until I was well into my teens. And looking back, I don't think I've seen a single life-changing film there in all the time it's existed.

Still, it sucks to lose the last authentic theatre in the city. It's amazing that all week, we've had countless film luminaries in town - Ridley Scott, Francis Coppola - and all the festival directors have spoken at length about how much they'll hate to lose the Uptown, yet no one thought to bring all these wealthy people into theatre 1 for ten minutes, and ask them to pony up a massive festival contribution. Okay, it's a pipe dream anyway, one of those things that would never, ever happen. But you can bet your ass that if it were ten years from now and I was one of those luminaries, I'd buy the whole fucking thing lock, stock and barrel. And then I'd convert it back into a single-screen theatre just because I can.

I am, of course, tempted to bring my camera along and make my own Good Bye Dragon Inn. I would, of course, rectify the small matter of the original film sucking, by having ... oh, I don't know ... something happen.

(Yep, I dragged that flick out of the cellar just to kick her around a bit more.)

And of course: now that the fest is winding down, it's time for you to check out Jason's reviews at FilmFest.ca. He saw a lot more flicks than I did... but like Gimli with the axe, I'm catching up.

Oh and one last thing: I've, as of now, officially overflown my top ten list for films this year, which means that no matter what happens through December 31, we're getting a top ten for 2003 instead of a top 5 like 2000 and 2001. And a couple of honourable mentions.

One last note: David Letterman's gonna be a father!

John Ritter
Sep 12 2003 - 11:22 a.m.

John Ritter died yesterday at the far too young age of 54. A personal favourite since I was very young, from Three's Company to Ally McBeal (and Buffy, of course), he will be missed.

I'm not festing until much later today, which is good, because I've got a lot of work to catch up on and I'm exhausted to boot.

Good news: Christian Bale is Batman.

Bad news: Enterprise still really, really sucks.

Three and a Half
Sep 12 2003 - 1:59 a.m.

Today something happened that hasn't happened for an age: Entmoot. Which is just a fancy way of saying that I walked out of a film.

The flick was Gozu, tonight's midnight madness. I really didn't like Ichi the Killer so I was just... okay, itching... to dislike Gozu. Well, I didn't dislike Gozu... nor did I find myself able to keep my eyes open. So, the hell with Gozu. I took off.

Other than that, today was a great viewing day. I rush-lined for Young Adam but failed, so I actually ended up coming home and watching two of the best episodes of Angel I've ever seen - "The Trial" and "Reunion" - before heading back to festland for four screenings in a row.

Jeux d'Enfants was not only the best film I've seen at the festival so far, but will undoubtedly end up highly placed in my top ten films for 2003.

Prey for Rock and Roll wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. It did, however, confirm that when Marc Blucas and Gina Gershon share a movie screen, I spend more time salivating about him. Go Riley!

The Five Obstructions has a horribly preventative title but otherwise has me (and Daniel, who was there) all rarin' to go in adapting the concept for FORP. The FORP Obstructions will involve a panel of Obstructors forcing each member to remake one of his films with various trips and catches in place to mess things up. I look forward to making VCR Obstructed.

And then I walked outta Gozu at the 42 minute mark.

One last pirate reference: on my way into Jeux, I quite innocently joined the ticket-holders line midway, as it was already starting to go in and I just merged with the crowd. A woman behind me became belligerent about this. I turned around, in a full Jack Sparrow impression and said (with hands floating about appropriately): "I tell you what. If when you arrive in the theatre I am sitting in your seat, I shall move." And then I strutted away.

Moonraker
Sep 10 2003 - 11:53 p.m.

More fest madness. God my feet are killing me. As you'll recall, I busted my ankle on Sunday, and the resultant change in my walking pattern has brought about a big mother blister on the ball of the opposing foot. So standing in rush lines all day wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered. But fuck it: I got to ask a question of Jim Jarmusch. He stood up to say a few words after the screening of Coffee and Cigarettes, and being the quintessential nerd that I am (concerned as always with how film technology converges with artistic intent), I asked him how Cate Blanchett accomplished her scenes for the film. You see, she plays a 7-minute dialogue sequence against herself, often in split-screened 2-shot, a virtuosic double performance that is all the more breathtaking for just how fluid it is. She eats her opponent's lines, responds wordlessly to the other her's dialogue, and gives just about as solid a performance as anyone ever could in a special effects situation. So, I asked if she was playing off a monitor of herself in the other persona... and was stunned when Jarmusch answered that the entire performance was just a monument to how skilled an actress Blanchett is. She did part of the work with pre-recorded audio being fed to her through an earwig, part of it with a stagehand reading the lines, and part of it just from her own intuition of how she would play the opposing role. In Jarmusch's words, it was "like playing mental / emotional chess with herself." Pretty fucking cool.

I saw three films today, and click on through for the reviews:

Coffee and Cigarettes is a gem of short comedy anthology, with some movie-stealing performances that are not to be missed.

Flyerman (from York alums Jeff Stephenson and Jason Tam) is surprisingly versatile and emotionally resonant, given that it's about a yokel who hands out flyers.

Easy is too easy, an amateurish fem-pop flick that needed another few runs through the spin-cycle to things up to snuff.

Sighted: Atom Egoyan, sitting behind me for the entirety of Coffee and Cigarettes without my noticing it. This would have been fine, had I not followed my every guffaw with the words "Fuck Atom Egoyan, fuck him hard!" Also: I saw a girl yesterday who was the spitting image of Keisha Castle-Hughes but I can't imagine why she'd actually be here, so it might have been a professional Kiwi impersonator.

Okay, now I'm off to soak my feet in murtlap essence. And drink rum.

"She didn't finish?! She didn't finish being NOT EVIL???"
Sep 10 2003 - 2:57 a.m.

My first full day at the film festival, and what a hoot it was. Somehow, the four flicks that I caught today all fell under one word: "haunted." Sure, they ranged from a man haunted by the demons of his failed marriage to a traditional haunted house movie, but I'm up for syncronicity in anything, and today had it in spades.

It's quite a bit of fun, this festival thing, and I'm glad I'm doing it. I cruised the downtown area for several hours in the early afternoon, as my first screening wasn't until 3. I hung around with my patron, Colin Geddes, the real mack daddy if there ever was one. And you can't beat the rush of seeing four completely different movies in a 10-hour period.

Here are the flicks, click through for the reviews:

My first screening was Alexandra's Project, a surprisingly effective thriller/drama that nonetheless forces me to question its motivations.

I had a ticket for Brown Bunny in my hand but chose instead to go see a flick getting a lot of good press, Good Bye, Dragon Inn, and to my immense displeasure, I emerged from the film wishing I'd seen Bunny instead. At least then I would have seen a shite film that everyone's talking about, rather than a shite film no one's ever heard of.

Antenna was the best of the day, a tough, challenging picture that transcends itself through a couple of amazing sequences.

And we closed it out with The Grudge at Midnight Madness, an unabashedly manipulative horror movie.

So, read the reviews. I'm not up at three o'clock in the morning to have you not read the reviews.

More tomorrow? Not sure yet. There's that little matter of having a job.

I'm Disinclined to Acquiesce to your Request
Sep 9 2003 - 10:35 a.m.

I won the lottery! I won the fucking lottery! I'm outta here! So long, suckers!! Me and my hard-earned ten bucks are making a break for May-hee-co, where the tequila is cheap and the ladies are cheaper! MWA HA HA HA HA HA

Apparently my cat really wanted to watch some 3-D entertainment last night because while I slept, she went to the trouble of tracking down my 3-D glasses from Spy Kids, dragging them out from their hiding spot, and carrying them into the living room, where she set them down in front of the TV. Cats, huh. Weirder than people.

I've got about an hour of work to do this morning, and then with any luck, I'll be festing it for the rest of the day. Who knows, I might even publish reviews in a vain attempt to get Tederick.com accredited for next year.

Cruel Summer
Sep 8 2003 - 1:11 p.m.

I think my biggest problem in this life is that I spend so much time in the city. Rural Ontario is becoming a drug for me to a degree it hasn't been since I was about five years old. The more I'm out there, the less I want to be back here, watching buses trundle noisily down the sea of concrete outside my window. I need the real air, I need the trees and the earth and the sky and the water. Food tastes better, music penetrates deeper, I read faster, sleep harder, and notice things I'd never see in my (admittedly beloved) hometown of T.O.

So there I was yesterday, shooting down the Ottawa River in a 12-person boat, and fearing absolutely nothing. I jumped out of the boat at one point and ended up getting sucked under it by the current and still I feared nothing, because as my parents used to say when I was a kid, I might just as well have gills. I live for water.

We were under the guidance of a Matt Damon lookalike named Ryan who took us on a magnificent 5-hour trip downriver, shooting five sets of rapids. He spent a good twenty minutes building us up for the most complicated rapid of the day, which concluded in a ripping rollover called the Bus Eater. Supposedly, if you hit it in anything but the perfect position, the boat goes flipping end over end for about an hour while your vital organs are scraped along a cheese grater shaped array of rocks on the riverbed. This thing was evidently so complex that Ryan had to bring a second river guide, a Robet Rodriguez lookalike named Jim. Jim was to sit at the front of the boat with me and Steve to help navigate. Well, we shoot through this thing and are coming up on the Bus Eater when suddenly Jim turns around and screams "RYAN WHERE HAVE YOU TAKEN US?!?!" and then throws himself headlong down the center of the boat in what could only be described as a blind panic. An outstanding bit of comedy, brilliantly played. Mark and I in our heyday couldn't have done it that well.

I jumped off a cliff, twice, which was great, but lead to my only injury of the day - I was scrambling up the rocks in my wet sneakers for the second go, and heard my ankle go "POP" rather insistently. So I'm a bit hobbled today. But otherwise I'm happy as a clam. I had a great moment that involved two girls and a hot tub, I played a game of Giant Chess with Daniel (and actually won, in spite of having conceded defeat ten moves earlier... god I suck), I got to know Brigitte a lot better, I hung out with my man Steve for the first time in ages, and I learned conclusively that Mer has got my back, far better than most of the guys in my life. Oh, and I talked smack to a river. "Is that all you got motherfucker? You ain't no river you're a goddamned babbling brook!!!"

Aspirations of going to New York be damned, we couldn't have had a better time. Immense thanks to Dan, Mer, Steve and Brigitte for a great, great time.

Now I've got to get my film festival week sorted, but I'm not sure if I'll get out to a film today. I'll try to get tickets to Flyerman but I won't do the rush line for this one. There are a couple of things I want to see tomorrow, and some more stuff later in the week. In the meantime I'm content to hang around the house, dig myself out from under the mountain of work that materialized in my inbox over the weekend, and watch Angel, which, with Darla back, is fucking great.

Lost in the Rush Line
Sep 6 2003 - 2:33 a.m.

So I did not make it into Lost in Translation in spite of a hefty 2hrs-plus in the rush line. Very disappointing; made more so by the fact that there was another flick I wanted to see and I didn't go to it because it was getting no press coverage and no buzz and I had no idea whether it would be good or not, but was interested and should have just gone with that. I bought myself a vintage R5-D4 and the original novelization of Return of the Jedi to make myself feel better. Then I went to see Cypher which wasn't exactly the most auspicious beginning to my festival viewage this year, but... well, whaddayagonnado.

I know: I shall shoot rapids.

(Do rapids shoot back?)

(Fuck it: let 'em. I can dodge and weave with the best of 'em.)

Ben Covington Break
Sep 5 2003 - 4:59 p.m.

So ends another work week. And this one went screaming by. I mean I know it was a short week but jeez, my brain still thinks it's Tuesday. That's fast.

I had a luverly day. It's gorgeous outside. I went to get my driver's license renewed, and the fifteen minutes I stood in line in that hot, hot office was a veritable sociological study in human behaviour. Then I went downtown to pick up some shit for a job we're doing in a couple of weeks. On my way back, I read The Man Without Fear in a sunlight park down at Bathurst and King. The book rocked, rocked, rocked, rocked, and rocked some more. Oh sure, Elektra kinda looked like the Baroness on steroids. But still. Rockage. Cool.

And on the subway, I assisted a pretty british boy, and was breathtaken by an astonishingly pretty non-british girl. The subway is truly fascinating.

I'm also swimming with a genuine, honest-to-god new script idea which sprung to mind Wednesday, from a funny anecdote that I'd heard. It ties nicely into the world of subculture, which is going to have to get a name transplant real soon, but thankfully I can therefore write them simultaneously. After this weekend, of course. Me no be here this weekend. Me go rafting. When me talk about rafting me talk like cave man. Me no know why.

Haven't started with the festival yet - I really wanna see Lost in Translation tonight but my odds are slim and none. Might do Midnight Madness, might not. Might try to find something else in the 9-ish timeslot, might not. It's an endless field of open possibilities.

4:59... day's over... beautiful!

Oh Brave New World
Sep 5 2003 - 11:13 a.m.

Dude, my computer can do 3-D.

My computer can do 3-D.

Holy crap.

Night of the 3-D Centipedes! Stanley's 3-D Life! Bone Daddy and the Third Dimension! Crikey.

Back in Action
Sep 4 2003 - 4:44 p.m.

So I'm sitting here watching the third episode of the second season of Angel. Wesley is wearing the outfit that was going to be the basis of his action figure, the one that was cancelled along with the rest of Moore's Buffy and Angel lines back in July. I'm moping a little bit because Lorne is in the episode and so is Darla, and I'm like, why Lord why don't I get my Darla action figure???

Then at that exact moment, Chad calls with the best news of the day: Moore has "re-evaluated" their decision, and the action figures are coming out after all! Forget my previously spare tour through only the better elements of the line; I'll buy every single figure they put out from here on in. Well, except for that wonky pink Willow.

The Return of Captain Tightpants
Sep 4 2003 - 10:28 a.m.

This just in - Joss Whedon has finally inked a deal for the Firefly feature film, which will roll into production next year for Universal, with the godlike furry man himself at the helm, and the series cast back in their familiar roles. Now I really want that Firefly boxed set. Yay Joss!

Into the Wild
Sep 3 2003 - 5:11 p.m.

Because I absolutely love leaving things till the last minute, I only today began looking at the programme for this year's film festival, and selecting flicks I can hopefully con my way into over the next eleven days. Disappointed to find that the Ridley Scott and Francis Coppola "Dialogues" are both this weekend, when, theoretically, I'll be shooting down the Ottawa river wearing nothing but a wetsuit and a smile. I'll also be missing Van Sant's new film, which is a shame given how much I enjoyed his presentation of Gerry last year. But hey, How To Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass is playing on Tuesday, so I'll definitely get a chance to see that.

I bought Angel Season Two today, which (thank god!) is the last DVD I'll be buying until well after my birthday. (Beckham comes out on September 30th.) My poor, overextended debit card.

Speaking of which: I got my camera back today, safe and sound, good as new.... FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS TO REPAIR. Ouch. But I can place no price upon my art, can I?

Finally, here's something extraordinary: my birthday just happens to be Talk Like A Pirate Day. What an amazing coincidence, I was planning to do that anyway! Going to see Pirates for the fourth time tonight...

Camel-Toeing the Line
Sep 2 2003 - 3:29 a.m.

Yep, it's back-to-school season all right; the Catholic schoolgirls are migrating en masse through the streets of my quaint hamlet. How so many students can be both in school and on the subway at the same time is a mystery to me; that ain't the way we did it in my day. But then in my day, North Toronto was a badass school.

The first work day of every month is politely known as "Hell" around here cuz it's the day I send all the invoices, report all the stats, renew all the domains, and deal with all the other administrative claptrap that has built up around my ears. Every two months, as well, I get to back up all of our web sites... all 37 of 'em. As this takes quite a bit of time and my computer is basically useless meanwhilst, I usually just sit back and read a book. So I read Coraline from cover to cover. What a story! If this had been read to me as a small child I might very well have thrown myself out my bedroom window in fright. But fabulous, fabulous stuff for me now. And what a movie it would make, better than Nightmare Before Christmas. It would be huge. Monstrous even.

Of course this put me in a hardcore Harry Potter craving so, with about 20 domains still to back up, I think I'll blow through another half dozen chapters of Order of the Phoenix...

Rebecca Would...
Sep 2 2003 - 9:48 a.m.

Well, here I am on my way to high school for the first time! Boy I hope it's fun and all the other kids like me.

It's Like, You Know...
Sep 1 2003 - 10:58 p.m.

With rather eerily perfect timing, we held our final My So-Called Life screening tonight. Since "In Dreams..." is actually my favourite episode, I was in hog heaven. I know the episode so well by now that I, of course, know which is each character's last scene. So, when Danielle disappears out the door as Graham is on his way to the restaurant I'm like, "Bye Danielle!" and when Mr. Kotimski drops off Angela and you can see half of Rickie's head in the passenger side window of his car I'm like, "Bye half of Rickie's head!" It's always a very profound and complicated experience.

Of course, none of this ever would have happened without Lise's extraordinary generosity, enthusiasm and organizational skill, so let's raise a glass to her.

Today I finished Glue, which I found kind of slackish in the beginning but which picked up a rather appreciable heft and enjoyable-ness as it went along. Next up: Coraline. It's got a Phillip Pullman quote on the cover!

Today's dar moment: broke my key off in the deadbolt lock! Which is fine, cuz we have a whole other lock here, but man alive if my neighbour hadn't been home to let me in I'd be wandering the streets right now begging for change. If my camera was back from Canon, I'd do a neighbour movie about the incident. I'd call it A Whole Other Neighbour Movie.

So all in all I've had a rather nice Labour Day weekend. The Back to School season was always kind of exciting to me when I was a wee lass, and I still feel it. I love autumn. It always starts with my birthday. Well, kinda.

Blunder
Sep 1 2003 - 3:38 p.m.

God dammit! The poster that Willam is staring at in Mallrats isn't a sailboat at all, it's a bunch of fucking spheres! Now I'm completely fucking tortured.

Fear Never Dies
Sep 1 2003 - 11:11 a.m.

Every once in a while I bring The Storm out of retirement and kick it around a little bit more. Last night I kicked it around to the tune of 35 new pages! I had mad delusions of just pressing on and writing a whole draft in one night, a feat I haven't attempted since the summer of 1996, but by 1 in the morning my hands hurt so I stopped. But yeah, it's hard to believe I've been tossing this script around for five whole years now and still can't quite shake it.

I call this the "sex n' violence" draft. Which, as those who have read previous drafts know, is really saying something.

Anyhoo. I was at my cottage yesterday. I would have loved to stay longer - in fact, I'm beginning to think I would have loved to stay forever - but that autumn chill is definitely in the air. So we split after sundown and I spent the whole evening in the car pre-writing the script, which is always a fascinating bi-process of driving on poorly lit highways.

Also: I participated in the spreading of ashes yesterday, making yesterday the third whole time I have "buried" my grandfather. Now that Beth and I are completely convinced that he's inhabited our bodies from beyond the grave, the act had special significance. I mean, I've got cottage cheese and blueberries in my fridge right now. I used to bloody well hate blueberries!

But the best thing about visiting my cottage is rapidly becoming just lying in the hammock and listening to music. Or in this case, reading 200 pages of Order of the Phoenix just because I can. I miss Harry.

Well, happy day of Labour, everyone. I'm going to rip the air conditioner out of my window and watch Kevin Smith. I realize that we are almost certainly in for a (non-denominational word for aboriginal inhabitant of North America)'n summer, but I just can't help it: I want some fresh air.

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