Month: October 2006

Last night I popped in a movie that Mike had rented and said was pretty good. I hadn’t popped in a movie in awhile (what’s wrong with me? I think it’s my mass television show watching that takes up my time nowadays) so I figured if I wasn’t into it, I would just shut it off.

Well, was I in for a surprise. Lucky Number Slevin has everything I like in a movie. Intriguing characters, not your general storyline, and good dialogue.

At some points I even though the dialogue was reminiscent of our favourite Tarantino movies. Not really having to do with much, but amusing nonetheless.

The movie revolves around Slevin, who shows up in town to stay with his buddy Nick Fisher but when he gets there, he is nowhere to be found. Unfortunately for Slevin, he is mugged on the way and has no ID, hence when some thugs come looking Nick Fisher to pay back some gambling debt, Slevin can’t prove he isn’t Nick Fisher so he gets brought to the ‘boss’. The boss wants him to do something for him to remove his debt and then chaos ensues.

While this may be the setup of a serious action flick, it’s really a dry humour comedy. Josh Hartnett’s (Slevin) repartée with everyone is amazing and I wish I had his aloofness. He claims he has some condition called adorexia where the person doesn’t worry about anything. So it’s pretty funny when this ‘boss’ comes to him asking him to do some pretty major stuff and Slevin really doesn’t get concerned about it. He just shrugs and tells them that they have the wrong guy but realizes resistance is futile.

Big, big, big actors in here – Sir Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Josh, Bruce Willis…you can’t go wrong. Man, I love Bruce Willis in these roles. He’s the laid back guy who just has this air about him.

For anyone who has seen this film, I had a feeling I knew what was going on since the flashback in the beginning of the movie. Call my bullshit if you will, but I had the feeling. Not like when Mike thought about something that happens after the credits in X-Men 3. He totally checked out the spoilers on the Internet for that thoughtstream.

Two big thumbs up for this flick. Catch it and you won’t be disappointed. I send this post out to cousin Shawn as he and I have similar taste in movies and I thought about him while watching it.

On Friday night, Vero, Mike, Claudine and I headed out to Hull to check out a play Vero’s friends were in. The play was called ‘La Soif de l’or.’. We arrived at le théatre de l’ile which is right across from the hotel I swim at. It was a very nice theatre, but I swear I could hear the airplanes going overhead through the log roof.

Anyhow, the story revolves around a mining town where something has gone awry (aka, someone getting killed), as well as talks of the mining company shutting down some jobs in the area. All in all, I really enjoyed this play and I recommend people go to it if they have the chance. I had a good laugh when I realized who Vero’s friend was as she had changed her hair colour. She was the token ‘lady’ of the streets in the play which was funny considering she was dressed up the same way I saw her the last time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the last part of the play where they revealed the big plot twist. The reason of this is due to Mike, or should I say, Mike’s spicy sausages for dinner. Right near the end of the play where the most dramatic part is about to come up, there is silence, there’s no music, someone is whispering and then it happens.

Mike’s stomach grumbles in what sounded like a a fart. In a silent theatre, it sounded like the cry of a wildebeast, or more appropriately (for Maren), a coyote howl.

As I had visions of remaining calm and respecting the actors on stage, I let out a little snicker. That started the cavalcade of laughter between Vero, Claudine and I. You know when you’re trying not to laugh because you’re in a quiet room and not trying to disturb anyone so all you do is have this silent laughter and once in awhile your vocal chords let out a little girl laugh? Well, that’s what was going on. I felt bad for the people in front of us having to deal with our laughter.

The problem was, it was one of those times in life where I couldn’t stop laughing. No matter how much I tried, it just came back to me. As I type this three days later, I am still laughing. Anyhow, I had to leave my seat to not bother anyone else. But then the play ended thirty seconds later so in hindsight, I should have just stayed there.

Anyhow, I’d like to put a shout out to Mike for giving me one of the best laughs in awhile. Claudine even commented that she hasn’t laughed like that since she was a kid.

After the play, we headed over to Carrie’s and Holly’s place for a little get-together which was great. We brought over a portable record player and put on a record that Danny had found at a garage sale. All it has on the cover is a naked woman and some German wording. So we figured we would ask Philipp what it was all about. Hilarily enough, when he saw it, he was having a good laugh as the entire album was some sort of pornography record from the 70s. We all had a good laugh listening to it with Philipp translating. Not a bad purchase Danny! We even went onto Ebay to see how much it was worth and found it for $10 in Yugoslavia. That album gets around!

Good times were had at Carrie’s and Holly’s – got to check out Holly’s new bed, walked around in a lab coat for awhile and witnessed the marvel which was Carrie’s new remote control farting machine. That thing was great, but not as great as Mike.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been reading an autobiography of Stompin’ Tom Connors, whom if you don’t know who he is, check yourself out the door as a Canadian and remind me to call up Citizenship and Immigration Canada to change their immagration tests to include a question about the Stomper.

Stompin’ Tom is a country singer born and bred in Canada and is the stuff of legend. Hitchhiking across Canada dozens of times, living on scraps, he came to know 2300 songs by heart, hence a performer was born.

The book is based on his recollections of the time spent in his youth before becoming famous. I’m about 50 pages from the end so I figured it’s a good time to give a review. The book is amazingly funny as he gives you a glimpse of how it was hitchhiking across Canada literally dozens of times between the age of 15-30. There are quite a few good stories along the way and here’s a teaser.

One day a gentleman from Ireland was in Saint John New Brunswick and couldn’t figure out a way to Montreal where his family lived due to no money on his person (remember, these were hard times.). Tom Connors decided to offer up the services of showing him how to hitchhike to Montreal. Along the way, they usually took turns knocking on people’s doors asking for a bit of food. One day, Tom was walking up to a house and out of nowhere two pies were placed on the window sill, straight out of the oven to cool down. Tom thought about it and made a run for it with these pies, giving one to this Irish buddy and the other to himself. When his buddy was about to chuck the plate across the street, Tom said “Now listen, this lady was nice enough to give us some pies for free, the least you can do is return her plates in good condition.” He agreed and took back both of their plates. Well, the front door open and he got a frying pan to the head! Cursing and swearing and chasing him away, the Irish lad didn’t know what was going on! Tom was rolled over in the ditch laughing until his sides hurt and the Irish lad was pretty peeved.

Anyhow, the hilarity continues throughout the book, but also there are some sombre times when Tom recounts tales of not eating for days on end which, I can’t really even fathom how people functioned. Also, the entire outlook on hitchhikers and the drifters is a fascinating one as nowadays, people seem to disregard these people who are down on their luck, but really, the majority of them are just like you and me – but they have run into some bad luck.

You don’t even have to be a Stompin’ Tom fan to enjoy these stories! Just know that you’re reading about a Canadian icon!

All in all, I really enjoyed this read as it’s just stories from the road. It’s also funny to see him talk about places I know, such as Timmins and Kapuskasing. If you’re into biographies, or just plain old good stories, I highly recommend picking this up! It had me laughing out loud on the bus many times. Thanks to Dad for suggesting this to me.