Category: Reviews

Here is a guest review by my friend Sena.

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Sunday afternoon movies are highly under-rated. You can be entertained, toddle home for dinner, and generally take it easy and get to bed at a descent hour – even with the impending doom of Daylight Savings time. Such was the scene for my viewing of The Lives of Others last Sunday.

The Lives of Others takes place in Communist East Germany, where the Stasi (the secret police), are out in full force. The movie follows the lives of an artist, his girlfriend and various other characters that get caught up the Stasi scene of paranoia.

Nobody ever thinks they’d ever snitch on someone, but the change of heart and who betrays who winds up to be surprising. Many characters seem to be walking a tight-rope of “truth”. One wrong move and they’ll wind up in a prison, where it’s not the violence that does people in, but the psychological torture designed to do things like damage an artist enough so that they will never paint or write again.

On an interesting note, Ulrich Muhe, who plays the central Stasi agent actually grew up and started his acting career in East Germany. He found out after the Berlin wall fell that the Stasi had a file on him and his (now ex-) wife and other theatre actors were spying on him.

There are few movies that I would see more than once. This is one of those foreign films, like Amélie, that crosses the ocean from Europe for all audiences to enjoy. I give it 4.5 stars out of 5.

People, don’t be like Sophia and miss this film ‘cause you have to do your laundry instead. I forego-ed doing laundry last weekend in order to see this film and have never been happier. But I guess this depends on how many pairs of clean underwear you have in the rotation – it’s a personal choice.

Palmer’s Comments: An excellent review which urges me to go see this film! I echo Sena’s sentiments about doing laundry when you can go watch a movie. There is no excuse for doing laundry ESPECIALLY if your laundry machines reside at your place of residence. If it’s the laundromat, that’s a different story. That’s a valid excuse.

Also, if you do not have a blog (or have one and it sucks), feel free to pass on any worthwhile wisdom that you would like me to post on my blog.

I checked out The Black Donnellys last night after hearing some hype and not to mention the debacle with the Arcade Fire refusing to have Rebellion (Lies) appear in the final minutes of the show. I figured I should see what this show is about.

Well, I wasn’t disappointed. I enjoy a good mob story and this has its roots in it – the Irish vs. the Italians. Now THAT’S a story.

The show follows the four Donnelly brothers and how they all differ from one another but are brothers nonetheless and stick together no matter what. You find out that Jimmy gets into trouble all the time whereas Tommy is the good brother – the one who is going to university. Then the other two brothers are there and…well I don’t know what they do yet. They are supporting characters so far.

So they are the Irish side of the equation. But then you have the Italian side of the neighbourhood who (of course) don’t really care for the Irish ruling part of the neighbourhood so there’s always people going back and forth trying to keep the peace.

Anyhow, something goes wrong with the peace and basically…well, hey you can watch it for yourself.

This was an excellent pilot episode. It gives a taste of all the characters so you automatically know who you are interested in the most and it sets up the story for the remainder of the season (if not the series). Much like how the first episode of Voyager has them being whisked off away from home and they have to spend the whole series trying to find a way back.

For those of you who watched the show (no, I won’t spoil anything here) but the Arcade Fire’s song was to happen where Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open occurs at the end of the show. Supposedly you can go on Youtube and watch the Arcade Fire version. I hear it flows better. I enjoy Eyes Open as a song but can see why Rebellion would have been a better fit.

Anyhow, that’s that. Catch this show. Heck, even my Dad had heard about it and asked if I had watched it. Clearly this is an indication that it’s getting some street cred.

Hey, while we’re at it, why don’t I run down my list of shows I’m watching right now and see if you agree with what’s going on? I was talking about this very topic with the boys and girls at lunch.

– Heroes: Pretty well my fave show of the year. Awesome plot of course and hey, it involves superheroes. You can’t go wrong. It isn’t slowing down.
– Prison Break: I still enjoy the show even though it’s taken a 180 degree spin from the original premise of the show (aka breaking out of a prison). I still enjoy the story though. Reminds me of a high scale version of The Fugitive.
– Lost: I must admit that the third season is starting off VERY SLOW. However, now that it’s back on the air for a straight run I think it will be a killer season. I personally enjoyed Season 2 more than Season 1 as it opened up the story quite a bit. I can only imagine this will happen in Season 3. Prediction: Lost will end by Season 4. They don’t want to pull another Alias.
– Smallville: Honestly, this show just keeps giving. Season 5 was kind of a letdown, but Season 6 is killer. They introduced the Green Arrow who could stand on his own as a series (at one point I thought I WAS watching the Green Arrow show) and have some good developments with Lex Luthor. This is the year of Lex and we’ll see him shine as the bad-guy he is supposed to be.
– Greys Anatomy: I still enjoy the show and cannot complain about too much. It isn’t overly amazing to me, but it isn’t overly bad either. I enjoy watching it. That’s what counts.

Let’s backtrack. The Arcade Fire’s Funeral album is amazing.

Let’s get back to the present. Neon Bible is the Arcade Fire’s second full-length release and the world is anticipating what they have to offer. The Arcade Fire has shot to super-stardom and we’re proud to say they are from Montreal.

I have given the album a few quick listens and am impressed with the album, but must admit that it doesn’t have nearly as many tracks that are dedicated to the frantic change in tempo of songs that Funeral had. This was one of the things I fell in love with. Am I disappointed? Heck no. I’ve only given it a few listens and am not denouncing it. I think a few more close listens will let me know if this album is worthy of the Arcade Fire monicker. Does that sentence even make sense? They made the album, it’s their music, so I suppose it IS worthy!

I enjoy the direction they took with recording some old church organs and going to Budapest for cheap labour orchestras and choirs. I’ll have to remember that when I want some on my album. Budapest – the cheap route for good music.

Of more interest is the production stories surrounding an album, like how Neon Bible was recorded out of a church that the Arcade Fire purchased and made their home for a year. They constructed bedrooms, had a cook and lived in Nowheresville, Quebec for a year to record the album. Everything (except for one track) was recorded on old-school analog tapes. A rare feat in these times where digital is the way to go.

All in all, it’s a decent album so far and I am excited to see them live in Montreal with Mike.

I’ve also realized that it’s kind of silly to write a review of an album before really getting a good listen to it. 😉

One of the cooler events of the weekend occurred when Eric and I brought his two nephews – Alex and Mathieu, out to Ray’s Reptile Farm. Eric had been to it before but I had not so I figured it was a good time to go and check it out.

Note: I haven’t been hanging around kids all that much in the last few years but I just realized how they are in the car. Feelings of car-sickness, ‘are we there yet?’ and wanting to go for some fast food was the entire ride. Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for my youth. 😉

All kidding aside, they weren’t bad at all, and were cool to hang around with.

When we get to the reptile farm, Eric graciously pays my way in and we check out the wares. I must admit it was pretty cool considering I haven’t seen 75% of these animals in real life before. They had giant turtles, snakes, tarantulas (!!!), crocs and alligators. Very cool! So after meandering around for 20 minutes, you are asked to go back to this room where they have a presentation and someone brings out actual reptiles for us to hold.

The first such creature was some flying squirrel that just wouldn’t stay still so she had to bring it back into its cage. Nothing exciting there.

Then she brought out this rose coloured tarantula. Eric was the only one who held the spider in his hand as both his nephews and I were deathly afraid of tarantulas. I had more reason to be afraid after something spooked the spider and it enabled its defense mechanism on the handler. Supposedly it shot out hairs from its body all over the womans arms and neck and then she was itching profusely. Not a deadly touch, but an annoying one, nonetheless.

Then she brought out this huge snake that wrapped around her body. The kids gathered round and held the snake up – I would say it was at least 3 meters long. I felt it’s skin. Pretty rough actually. Never touched snake skin before.

Oh yeah, I can’t forget the giant turtle they brought out. He started walking towards the exit and Eric yelled out “Quick, he’s getting away!” We all had a great laugh at that.

There was a break of 15 minutes so we meandered around the souvenir shop where we heard someone ask if they had seen (mumble mumble, couldn’t catch the name of the species) because one had escaped. Eric and I just looked at each other and wondered what adventure we were getting ourselves into. Visions of one of the nephews wrestling a crocodile came to mind.

When we returned to the presentation, they had a feeding demonstration. They had some toads eat cockroaches which was neat in the fact that they told us how toads don’t have throats so when something is in its mouth, they use their eyes to push the food down into their stomach. Coolness!

Then there were snakes eating mice. Nothing exciting there.

Then he brought us to the Nile Crocodile where he fed some rats to them. Overall, I was semi-impressed as he jumped in the air for one of them, but the handler mentioned that they are usually more hungry than this and are just getting used to the new cage. He also mentioned how the Nile Crocodile (or perhaps all crocs?) are the only reptile who actively pursue mammals. So if you were going for a swim at the same time every morning, it would be smart enough to detect the pattern and attack you one morning. Insane! He also mentioned how alligators don’t attack humans. There have been 18 reported cases of injuries in the past 65 years and they usually deal with people who are making movements above the water so the alligator thinks “Hey, what’s that?”, takes a chomp out of the arm and then realizes it’s nothing it’s interested in. Granted, it still sucks for the guy who lost an arm but it’s good to know that alligators are our friends (generally).

All in all, I was impressed with the reptile farm and would recommend it to anyone who wants an fun activity to do during a morning/afternoon. Eric said the last time they went, the giant python ate a whole (dead) chicken. Now THAT would have been cool.

Two very enthusiastic thumbs up for Ray’s Reptile Farm.

Before I start this, I suppose I should tell Mom that when she called last night and I said I did nothing all weekend, it must have slipped my mind that I had a packed weekend except for Sunday. So when Sunday night came around and I was talking to her, I was zonked from being inside and cleaning all day long that I could not recollect anything of importance that happened in the past weekend. Sorry Mom!

But there were good times to be had on both Friday and Saturday. After work on Friday we headed out to Darcy McGee’s for an after-work pint which turned into a taster platter from Ireland. Awww yeah. I highly recommend buying it wherever you can. It’s good to get a taste of different beers.

Once I hit home around 8PM, I entered just in time to catch Babel on the television, which Mike and Carolyn had rented. Bonus!

All in all, the movie entertained me but I wouldn’t say it was mind-blowingly amazing. I enjoyed the storyline, the characters, the character development and how they tied together in the end. I definitely recommend the movie to everyone but I just can’t see why it was nominated for many Oscar’s. Big celeb Brad Pitt makes an appearance in the film which I hope for his sake that his white hair on the sides isn’t his real hair. Man, that dude looked old!

I’ve noticed that lately in films the big thing is having parties walking around the film and then the audience finds out how they are all connected at the end. This drives the audience wild! “…and then you find out that the post woman was really married to the eccentric millionaire who lost his stuffed bear when he was 7 and it ended up in Antarctica where Tito digs it up while fishing out ice for Apu!” WOW! I must admit that I am also amused when I see a movie that has connected characters in it (but don’t meet within the screen-time) but it makes me wonder what the big fascination with the six degrees of separation is all about.

So…two thumbs up. Check out the film. Supposedly it is part of a loose trilogy of movies where other characters show up in other films. I’ll be checking out the others also.

On separate occasions, both Maren and Sara indicated that I would love this film called Pan’s Labyrinth. I decided to approach it like I did The Blair Witch Project – know nothing about the film upon entering the theater and hopefully be blown away by its sheer awesomeness.

Little did Vero or I know, it was a Spanish film with subtitles! That threw me for a loop. I really didn’t know anything about this film! The film is by Director Guillermo del Toro.

Taken from Wikipedia:

The story cuts to post-Civil War Spain in 1944, after Francisco Franco has come into power. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl often absorbed in fairy tales, travels with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet Captain Vidal (Sergi López), Ofelia’s new stepfather. Vidal is a brutal fascist devotee stationed at a countryside mill, where he has been assigned to seek out and eliminate a rogue Republican militia.

So the film revolves around this story of how Captain Vidal is trying to deal with the guerrilla warriors. This, on its own, is a decent story, but nothing earth-shattering about it.

What REALLY sets the film above the bar is how they incorporate a second storyline where Ofelia meets a fairy which leads her through a labyrinth to meet a faun. For those who are not in the fantasy knowledge realm, a faun is a half man, half goat creature.

In meeting this faun, he reveals that Ofelia is actually a reincarnated Princess and she must complete three tasks to allow her to open the portal back to the underworld where her father, the King, is waiting for her after all this time.

The imagery from her little quests around the area blew me away. I am attaching a picture of one of the creatures, the Pale Man, who has his eyes in his hands. This moment in the movie was creepy, fantastical and just jaw-dropping. It actually reminded me of the colours and elements used in films like The Cell, or the imagery used in Titus. Titus, man, that is a great film. Watch it, it’s the darkest Shakespeare there ever was.

I have read that Pan’s Labyrinth has received worldwide recognition, and even the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes has a 96% rating for it.

While I did enjoy the movie, I did feel that I would rather have seen a lot more fantasy elements to it. Vero noted that the fantasy elements, although they are probably the coolest scenes we have seen, only accounted for 1/4 of the film. So most of the time I was just waiting for another fantasy scene to come into the film.

I am unsure if I fell victim to ‘the hype’ as we all do when people proclaim ‘best movie ever!!!’ as I tend to do. It somehow increases expectations. I can’t say that this film blew me away…but I think if the entire film was just the fantasy sequences, then most definitely.

You know what? I think I have to see it again. I did enjoy the war story that went along with it. Captain Vidal was a fearsome man and the violence was pretty crazy in some scenes so it really made you hate the man. They did a good job portraying him as a man to be feared.

All in all, I would say that the fantasy scenes were worth the price of admission alone. Guillermo del Toro is able to create a fantastical realm which I would hope we see more of in the future.

Last night Mike and I watched an excellent flick called Suicide Kings. An older movie (if 1997 can be considered old) which stars Christopher Walken, Denis Leary, and that dude from Six Feet Under. The crazy brother guy. You know who I’m talking about.

Anyhow, the story revolves around Christopher Walken being a retired mobster (shocking, I know) and four guys kidnap him so they can use him to foot the bill for a ransom of $2 million bones to get back a sister. But then they also have Denis Leary (who is Christopher Walken’s driver) hunting down his chief which is hilarious on its own. I love Denis Leary. It makes me miss his old cop show.

Anyhow, the movie was amusing seeing that Christopher Walken is always a good time. Here he is acting calm while being kidnapped and trying to reason with these four guys. There are some classic funny moments in the film (the Fish Boots) and overall, I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys an easy going flick.

iplaying: Under My Senses – Matt Mays …When The Angels Make Contact

After witnessing the horror which was Caravan of Courage I returned home to a pleasant treat. Mike and Carolyn were about to sit down and watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This is a really beautiful film if you think about it terms of when it came out. Early 70s is when the prototype to your favourite slasher films appeared on the big screen with Leatherface taking a piece of flesh from every character in the movie.

The movie is crazy just for the sheer brutality of how Leatherface just comes at you with this sledgehammer and them BLAMO! You’re down for the count.

My particular fave scenes are when he’s running through the woods with the chainsaw. There’s nothing worse than a chainsaw-wielding maniac running after you at night through the woods.

Also, the twist near the end just makes the film even more enjoyable.

I highly recommend this film to everyone who is a horror buff. Just think about it – there would be no Freddy, Jason or Mike Myers if there wasn’t Leatherface.

iplaying: Breath – Breaking Benjamin (Phobia)

Hey, Star Wars is cool and all, but is the Ewok movie just as good?

Hmm…well if you like to watch a movie where Ewoks just walk around and try and recreate the Fellowship of the Ring, then yes.

Otherwise, LAME!

Thanks to Eric for allowing me to spend some time watching this with him.

Huh, for some reason the pictures won’t upload lately. Makes for bland entries.

Last night Krista and I used up our free movie passes from our screening of Casino Royale (which could be compared to a person going temporarily insane from all the screen flickering and projector problems) to go see Smokin’ Aces. For some reason, Krista wasn’t too keen on hitting up a Palmer-type flick in the form of Pan’s Labyrinth. Actually, I don’t know anything about that movie but Maren suggested I would enjoy it so it’s on my list.

After a tasty treat at Montana’s in the form of a hunk of cow on a bun (along with a slice of ham! Yummers!) and some Scene It trivia cards (which I kicked ass in of course…alright, perhaps it’s a tie?), we headed to the South Keys Cinema to catch the previews and settle in for a ride.

Smokin’ Aces has a slew of actors we all know and love so that’s always a bonus. The story revolves around a hit out on a Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel who is rumoured to make a deal with the FBI to divulge a slew of information on the Italian mob as he is affiliated with them. This puts out a $1M bounty on his head and a slew of bounty hunters enter the picture which is hilarious on its own because of the sheer dynamics that occur with all these different bounty hunters converging. Take a little FBI action at the same time and you have a rip-roaring time.

The action and the interaction with the characters were spot on. All the characters were interesting…and you know what makes them interesting? They follow the Bond villain theory, where if you give a character one distinguishing feature, people will remember them. Take Oddjob from Goldfinger with his slicer-dicer hat. So it was entertaining to see these oddball bounty hunters all over the place.

Two thumbs up. The plot…nothing too overly crazy about it, but that’s what’s beautiful about this movie. It’s about the characters and the interaction.