Today’s post was written by my good friend Dave Chevalier. Dave is a former advertising executive who put down the pen and picked up a tourniquet, choosing instead to patch people up as a Registered Nurse in a very busy Emergency room while maintaining his off-colour alter ego in the real world.
I’ve heard it said before that what makes a cult movie so damned good is that almost nobody knows about it. But it must be worth watching – if not, why did someone tell you about it?
Far too often, movies in the last 20 years have been made and re-made from previous stories; in many cases, only minor details are changed for the remake. For example, James Cameron’s multi-billion dollar movie Avatar…this is not new material. It’s Dances with Wolves in space, with blue Indians. Give me a break; at least TRY to be original, Jim.
Some movies, though, thrive on the fact that they’re re-treading the tire…the classic spoof film. Some names are spoken with reverence (Spaceballs) while others go a bit too far (Don’t Be a Menace II South Central While Drinking Juice in the Hood). In fact, one immortal line from spoof film “This is Spinal Tap” states that “there’s a fine line between stupid and clever”, and one film that sits squarely on this line is the soon-to-be-legendary Black Dynamite.
Barely a year old, this blaxploitation spoof manages to hit all the right notes as it satirizes the genre from which it was spawned, while brazenly stealing all the little bits that made blaxploitation films so fun to watch. Michael Jai White (Spawn, The Dark Knight) co-wrote and starred as the titular character, who manages to take on The Man and save the day for just about everyone in just under 90 minutes. The clothes, the music, the out-of-focus camera work is utterly pitch perfect, but it’s the dialogue that truly sets this film off. Any film that can work in the line “your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!” without skipping a beat is a force to be reckoned with.
All the hallmarks of the low-budget poorly-produced blaxploitation films are present here. Characters have names like Cream Corn and Chocolate Giddy-Up, there’s kung fu elements sprinkled liberally throughout, flashback scenes are rampant – there’s even a scene with a visible boom microphone that actually hits the actor with an audible ‘boomp’ off his Afro. The ending of the film, however, arrives far too rapidly after a long build-up, and it becomes so over-the-top that it almost breaks the magic…almost.
I’ve watched Black Dynamite three times in one week with different groups of people, and every single person enjoyed at least parts of the film, which is more than can be said for the latest Hollywood special effects blockbuster. Black Dynamite plants a tongue firmly in cheek at the very start of the film and keeps it buried there throughout. The film never takes itself seriously, and Michael Jai White is both unabashedly badass and effortlessly droll. He’s back and he’s bad, he’s black and he’s mad [note: thank you, Lethal Weapon] and he’s worth the time you spend watching him kick ass and take names. Dyno-mite!
A little while ago I was looking for some new comedies to watch that I’d never seen before so I googled “Top 10 Greatest Comedies” or something to that effect and one movie that was mentioned over and over was the 1959 classic Some Like It Hot. I went into the movie knowing nothing except that its stars were Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.
Of course, because of Grumpy Old Men I knew and loved Jack Lemmon and I recognized Tony Curtis, but I had never actually watched anything with Marilyn Monroe–which is crazy, right? Well, there are things you know and things you understand. I have always known that Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful celebrity and huge cultural icon, but I never understood why. I mean, she’s beautiful, but there are a lot of beautiful people. Beauty doesn’t mean you should be a celebrity.
I generally don’t watch old movies (old meaning anything before the 70s usually) because they depress me. I sit there and obsess over the fact that everyone in the film, while looking so young and vibrant, is probably dead or really, really close to death. In this case, all three of the leads are dead. Usually I start spiraling in to a full blown existential crisis (that can last for days), but I’m glad to report that this did not happen with Some Like It Hot–because I was instantly infatuated with Marilyn Monroe.
Well, perhaps not instantly, but that’s only because Marilyn doesn’t enter the film for the first (I can’t entirely recall) 20 minutes or so. I kept watching all the women because I wasn’t sure if I’d notice Marilyn or not. And now you see the level at which I truly did not understand. And then she arrived–on screen and directly into my heart. It’s not just her beauty, but her charisma. She’s intoxicating. She plays a “dumb blonde” but at the same time you know she’s so much more. I’ve never had a crush on someone postmortem. I briefly considered building a time machine. I mean, wow. The only person who might’ve even come close to Marilyn’s charisma (though in a different way) is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
And so, as you’ve probably begun to imagine, Marilyn was the revelation for me in Some Like It Hot. Jack and Tony were fine. I could see how the movie and comedy might’ve been somewhat scandalous in the 50s, but it was pretty tame by today’s standards. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It didn’t make me pee my pants with laughter, but it was a lot of fun to watch and to be taken back 50 years and see what made my dad’s generation laugh. And also I couldn’t stop trying to imagine what Marilyn Monroe looked like naked, so that was fun too.
Today’s post was written by Rhett Soveran. Rhett is a writer and the Web Editor of WestJet’s up! magazine. Check out his blog (and upcoming podcast): Bailing Bucket.
So here I am in the middle of February and I’m only just now posting about the first book I’ve finished in 2011. Clearly I’m not going to reach 95 books, but I’m still confident that I’ll finish more than I did last year, especially now that I have my Kindle.
The first book that I’ve both started and finished this year is the third in Robert Kirkman’s series The Walking Dead. I’m sure a lot of you have heard about it since some of it was turned into a show on AMC that is, by all accounts, great if gory.
It’s kind of weird to talk about a book that’s partway through a series I haven’t reviewed before, but here’s the deal: The Walking Dead is about a group of people who are trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. But unlike most zombie fiction, there’s no end in sight to the zombies; this is life for them. The cast numbers are constantly fluctuating as survivors join the group or are killed by zombies or the various pitfalls of life in a post-apocalyptic setting.
In this particular book, the group has come across a prison. There are benefits to living there once the zombies are cleared out, namely that it has a good sturdy perimeter and space to grow food. However, there’s a catch: how will they live with the four prisoners who were already there, holed up in the cafeteria?
I really liked this one. It’s brutal and dark and excellent. If you liked the first two, you’ll like this one. But do I feel bad that my first book of the year is a graphic novel? No, because I have plans to read some tomes this year (Atlas Shrugged and Ulysses, I’m looking at you).
Shortly before the turn of the new year, Sona put an excellent post on her blog about making outrageous commitments. You can read the post for the full explanation, but the high points are that an outrageous commitment:
Isn’t bound to any time frame.
Comes from deep within.
Is surprising, even to those who know you best.
Is a commitment you only make for yourself.
And while I applauded the idea and Sona’s own outrageous commitment to become a yoga instructor, I didn’t feel like it was something for me.
You can make an outrageous commitment when you least expect it
Those of you who are keeping up with this blog already know that I’ve been working with a fantastic nutritionist since last July. Working with Leanne has been instrumental in helping me change my relationship with food so that I can be passionate about creating delicious, yet healthful, meals.
What I didn’t anticipate was how much a single cookbook would also change my views of food. After receiving a Chapters giftcard for Christmas, I picked up Mark Bittman’s The Food Matters Cookbook. Apart from providing 500 phenomenal, yet simple recipes made with whole food, it also opened my eyes to some of the problems associated with eating a largely meat-based diet (and if you’ve read Sona’s review of Food, Inc., you’ll know this is on the minds of a lot of people these days). I didn’t know that it costs two calories of energy to produce one calorie of plant-based food, versus forty calories of energy to produce one calorie of meat-based food. I also didn’t know that the majority of grain raised in the US goes toward feeding the meat that we consume at our dinner table every day, and that if we took some of that meat off the table we could help eradicate some of the world’s hunger issues just by giving that grain to people.
That said, I know that I need to eat some meat to feel healthy, so my outrageous commitment is this: I am going to consume meat in much smaller quantities, using it as a garnish as Mark Bittman suggests, and trying to only have it once a day. Also, not only am I reducing the amount of meat I’m cooking with, but I also want to ensure that the meat I’m eating is both raised and killed ethically. To that end, I’m going stop buying factory farmed meat and buy it from a local butcher.
I understand that this may not seem outrageous to some people, but for me it’s huge. I’ve always been a big-time meat-eater, and this represents a major shift in the way I will be purchasing, cooking and consuming food going forward. It won’t happen overnight and I don’t think it will be easy, but do I think it will be rewarding, since I know it will help me to improve my health and will be more sustainable for the environment.
And why am I putting it out here? I want to be accountable. So go ahead and ask me how I’m doing from time to time. I hope I surprise both of us.
I’m not really a stand-up aficionado, but there are some comedians I love so much that I try to watch and listen to any of their work I can get my hands on. Louis CK is at the top of that list, and right next to him is Patton Oswalt.
One night a few weeks ago, Neil suggested we watch The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie on Netflix. All we knew was that Patton Oswalt would be in it with some other comedians, but that was enough for me. What I didn’t know until we started watching it is that it’s a documentary, not a comedy show. Sure, there are sections of comedy shown within it, but that’s not the bulk of it. This is a look behind the scenes of Oswalt’s tour with Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford and Zach Galifianakis.
The excerpts of their stand-up are great and most moments where they’re interacting are also well worth watching. Unfortunately the documentary is cut weirdly, with in-between montages and moments that are overly long and seem to serve little purpose. That isn’t enough to make this movie fail for me, but it brought the experience down from where it could have been.
Is it worth watching? I guess that depends on how interested you are in seeing behind the scenes of a comedy tour. If that’s your thing, then by all means check it out because there is plenty of that in there. But if you’re really just looking to see stand-up by any of those four comedians, then I would recommend passing on this and just looking for one of their specials or, even better, try to see them live.
Like the famous inspiration for Blade Runner, The Cosmic Puppets drops readers directly into the universe without explanations, leaving us to figure out the world for ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s too short to be a novel and the story that’s there isn’t satisfying.
While driving through Virginia with his wife, Ted Barton feels an uncontrollable urge to stop in his childhood hometown. Except… it isn’t really his hometown. Everywhere that he looks, things are completely different, and he finds out that Ted Barton didn’t leave town when he was nine years old, he died of scarlet fever. No one remembers him, and when he tries to leave town, he can’t. And it all comes down to the classic struggle of good vs evil, where children control everything.
Unfortunately, unless you have a goal to read every book by Dick, I can’t recommend this one. It’s not worth the time it takes to read it, even if it doesn’t take a lot of time. There are other books, films or TV shows (like Lost) that cover similar themes and do it so much better. Take a pass on this one and reread Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? instead.
I didn’t know King George VI had a stammer until I heard about The King’s Speech, but it wasn’t until I saw the film that I learned just how crippling the defect was. The film opens with the then Prince Albert (Colin Firth), about to deliver his first speech in 1925 at Wembley Stadium. His father has sent him to do it, he doesn’t want to, and his panic is clearly showing. He was right to be afraid: it’s a disaster, and heartbreaking to watch.
This experience is followed by scenes of him visiting speech therapists, including one who makes him try to speak with a mouth full of marbles because it helped Demosthenes many hundreds of years prior. The Prince refuses to see any more therapists, but his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) wants to check out one more, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian failed actor turned therapist who comes highly recommended despite his unorthodox methods.
When meeting privately with Logue, Elizabeth lays out the rules even before revealing her husband’s identity. Lionel has a couple of his own: her husband must come to him and they must be on a first-name basis because their equality is crucial to the process. Even when he finds out who his new client will be, he won’t bend the rules, calling the Prince by the family nickname “Bertie” when he does finally start treating him.
The movie spans almost 15 years, moving past the Wembley incident quickly into the 1930s. His father, King George V (Michael Gambon), dies and his brother King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) takes the throne and abdicates within the year so he can marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. This leaves Bertie exactly where he doesn’t want to be, having to take the throne and become King George VI. Kings have to give speeches, but he can’t speak. The film ends brilliantly with his speech at the outbreak of WWII.
Alongside Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech is the best film I saw in 2010. The performances from all three principle actors are fantastic, but Colin Firth really stands out with his sensitive portrayal of the king and his struggles to share his voice and make himself heard. And more than being a movie about overcoming adversity, it’s also a powerful story of friendship.
Thankfully Canada smartly rated this PG. In the United States it was given an R rating for language because there are a couple of scenes, one in particular, with a few strings of cursing (and to say that The King’s Speech deserves the same rating as the Saw franchise is ridiculous). I think this is a film that would be great for anyone to see over the age of 12 or so and I can’t recommend it enough.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in 2008, Karl Rove wrote about how he and George W. Bush used to compete to see who could read the most books, claiming that in 2006, Bush read 95 books despite being President of the United States. Fast forward a little to the beginning of 2010 when I agreed to join a group of intrepid readers on the quest to read 95 books by the end of the year. Surely if George Bush could do it, so could we, right?
Well, I couldn’t. Like I said in this post back from May of this year, it didn’t work out for me. I felt the pressure of reading two books a week like a huge rock on my chest, especially since I felt the only way to keep up was to read small books, mostly poetry or painful weird short ones like Bear. It wasn’t fun, so I stopped doing it and went back to reading occasionally.
I want to try again in 2011, and this time I have a couple of plans around it:
I want to mainly read sci-fi and fantasy. I haven’t read much of it, and I’m finding that I’m really enjoying them when I do. That doesn’t mean I won’t read anything else, but really, I’m choosing books I want to read, not just books that will help me get to a magic number.
I’m considering 95 to be my stretch goal. My more realistic goal is to read anywhere from 25-50 books this year. That would put me firmly ahead of what I’ve read in 2010, and it’s really just about reading more than I do now anyway.
That’s basically it. I still have a few books left to review from this year, and I’m not counting those toward the 95. I’ll be sure to note things properly for anyone keeping count at home.
I’ve been using my brand spankin’ new Kindle for a little over a week now, so I figure it’s time to share my thoughts on it.
Why I didn’t (and then did) want an ebook reader
The whole concept of ebooks made me nervous. Since before I can remember, I’ve always loved books and I was an avid reader in my youth, so the idea that physical books could go away was scary, not to mention that it was also scary to see that Amazon can remove books from users’ Kindles (although I appreciated the irony that they were erasing copies of 1984 and Animal Farm). The technology also felt too new to be proven out and I didn’t want to get stuck with the latest incarnation of the Betamax or laser disc player.
Unfortunately, my body didn’t really care about any of the issues I had with ebook readers. Reading very long books like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell became both difficult and painful because it hurt my hands and wrists to hold the book open. Not only that, but sometimes even reading books with small type would become a chore because it would hurt my eyes to read for longer than half an hour or so. There had to be a better way or I was going to have to switch to audiobooks or give up reading for good.
Which ebook reader to get?
In November I finally came around to the idea of buying an ebook reader since I’d rather be able to read easily than wait for the technology to prove out. But with a host of options available, how’s a person to choose?
I approached one of my awesome cousins who has a Kobo to see what she thinks of it and she pointed me in the direction of this article. That narrowed it down to four choices:
1. iPad
The iPad is great for many reasons, and when it comes to ebook reading there are some great options. You can download the Kindle app to read ebooks that you can buy through Amazon.com or you can read EPUB files that you can borrow for free from the public library or buy from any number of sites that sells them. I immediately crossed the iPad off my list, however, for three reasons: it’s much more expensive than any other ebook reader, it’s backlit so it won’t help with preventing eyestrain on marathon reading sessions, and I wouldn’t want to get an iPad until at least the second generation (we all know there will be some pretty amazing bells and whistles on the next one since it’s only out in its first generation right now).
2. Sony Reader PRS-650
Redditors seemed to like this one better than the Kobo, but with its $250 pricetag, I didn’t look too much into this one (although it does look pretty and if someone were to give me one, I’d probably use it).
3. Kobo
This is the ebook reader that Chapters sells here in Canada. It also supports EPUB files and it comes in at a much more reasonably priced $149. Some people on reddit advised that it’s not the best ereader if usability matters to you, so between that and the fact that I haven’t been a library patron since I was in gradeschool, this didn’t make the cut for me. I will say, however, that it was a close second.
4. Amazon Kindle
I ultimately opted for the 6″ wifi Amazon Kindle. After doing lots of reading on reddit and elsewhere, I saw that it’s the most usable, the fastest, and the most fun to use out of the dedicted ebook readers. The big strike against it was the lack of EPUB support (motivated by Amazon’s clear interest in users buying from them, not borrowing from libraries or buying from other sellers), but because I don’t go to the library and buy around 85% of my books from Amazon anyway, it was a no-brainer for me. Despite the occasional cock-up like the Orwell issue or the recent Macmillan fiasco, I’m loyal to the Amazon brand because I’ve always had excellent customer service from them.
That said, I’ve been recommending Kobos to other people if I think it fits their needs better than the Kindle.
The verdict
I love my Kindle. It’s very easy to use and reading on it feels surprisingly natural. I’m finding myself reading for a few hours at a time, which is something I haven’t done for ages. It’s also great for reading a few minutes at a time, and because it’s small and light, it’s very easy to take anywhere with me.
The other thing I’ve seen in the time since I’ve had it is that ebook reading doesn’t need to be an all or nothing thing. Having a reader doesn’t mean I’m done with physical books. There are some books I’ll be buying twice because I’ll want a copy to loan out, and if I find a beautiful rare book that I both want and can afford, I’ll be buying that too. The Kindle just happens to be my reading device of choice at the moment, and I’m excited to see what the next step in technology will bring.
Do you have any thoughts on ebook readers? Let me know in the comments because I’m dying to discuss.
It’s been a weird holiday season for Neil and I, and until yesterday the only Christmassy thing we had done so far was go to my workplace’s Christmas party.
Okay, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. In August we paid for flights to visit my family in Ontario, and then last month I ordered most of the gifts for our families off of Amazon.ca or Amazon.com. We also picked up our own gifts early (we have a system: rather than each of us try to guess what the other wants, we set a dollar amount and then just get ourselves whatever we want).
But we didn’t listen to Christmas music and, because we weren’t going to be in town for Christmas and because I was afraid our two little dogs would knock it over, we didn’t put up our tree. My parents’ home is always decorated enough for two houses anyway, so being with them for the days leading up to Christmas would help us get in the holiday mood.
You can’t plan for everything
It was a good plan, but it all got derailed this week when Neil got sick. Our flights were set to leave at 7:00 am on Monday, but Neil got really sick on Sunday. As if the vomiting and headache weren’t bad enough, he ended up with a fever that was so bad I started to get afraid. He was in no shape to travel and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him. It was hard at the time because I didn’t know what would be the right thing to do. If it was a 24-hour bug he would probably be okay to fly–do I cancel or not? The customer service agent I spoke with from Air Canada advised deciding in the morning, but I spoke with Neil’s mum who wisely said that if I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to travel, I should just go ahead and cancel and get a good night’s sleep.
She was right. I got my sleep and in the morning Neil’s fever was gone, but he was still in no condition to travel. I was relieved that I had made the right decision and that I had my family and godson’s gifts delivered to my parents’ house so everyone would still have their gifts for Christmas morning. So I took a few hours, mourned the loss of my trip and time with my family, and moved on. Neil and I would still have 12 days off in a row together, and there’s no reason why we couldn’t enjoy them.
Neil remained sick for another 4 days or so, which meant two things: I made a big batch of purple soup (I really should have peeled the purple off the carrots before throwing them in the pot with the rest of the ingredients!) and we watched a whole lot of Netflix. I left the house once to go to Planet Organic, but other than that we didn’t go anywhere until yesterday when we came to Neil’s parents’ place.
A Calgary Christmas
When it became clear that we wouldn’t be heading to Ontario, I said I wanted to stay over with Neil’s parents. We’ve spent the last two Christmases with them and I love waking up at their house and heading down to the main floor in my pyjamas for present opening and bacon rolls. If I couldn’t be with my parents at Christmas, this was the only other place I wanted to be.
The house is beautiful with both trees up, but it still didn’t feel quite like Christmas. We had a lovely dinner together and settled down to watch Whitechapel. It was excellent (review forthcoming), but after watching all three hours of the first season, I don’t think Diana or I were ready to go to bed–I know I was a little afraid of dreaming about serial killers. So the two of us then tucked in on the couches with some duvets, got a whole bunch of chocolate at the ready and set down to watch White Christmas.
The Christmas movie I needed
And that’s what did it. Watching White Christmas finally made it feel like the holidays. It’s long been my favourite Christmas movie, and growing up it was probably one of my top 10 movies. My paternal grandmother got me interested in musicals (I think I was the only six year old in the 80s who demanded to watch Betty Grable movies), and this was one of them, so watching it last night gave me a connection to home that I needed.
It’s hard to predict the way things will go sometimes, which can mean it’s hard to know what will make Christmas feel like Christmas. But sitting back and watching that movie made me feel like a little kid again and reminded me that Christmas is about family, whether near or far, alive or dead. And that means that even if I’m missing Ontario this Christmas, I’m grateful for my Calgary Christmas too.
Barely a year old, this blaxploitation spoof manages to hit all the right notes as it satirizes the genre from which it was spawned, while brazenly stealing all the little bits that made blaxploitation films so fun to watch. Michael Jai White (Spawn, The Dark Knight) co-wrote and starred as the titular character, who manages to take on The Man and save the day for just about everyone in just under 90 minutes. The clothes, the music, the out-of-focus camera work is utterly pitch perfect, but it’s the dialogue that truly sets this film off. Any film that can work in the line “your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!” without skipping a beat is a force to be reckoned with.
