Afterhours

VIFF - Oct. 15, 2009

I saw the last three yesterday, all pretty good.

Crackie I generally go to see films produced in Newfoundland, my home province, if only to see what's new. Usually it's a comedy, and a pretty good one. This one was more serious, and I found it surprisingly moving in places.

A crackie is a Newfoundland term for a small, yappy, snappy dog, and indeed, there was one such in this film. Yet the term could be applied to the main characters as well – the heroine and her grandmother. An interesting tale following a few generations of parental neglect and its inevitable consequences.

Today is Better Than Two Tomorrows A documentary that follows two Laotian boys on their way to becoming Buddhist novice monks. Engaging, and with magnificent scenery. An impressive film, especially since it was made made without a film crew.

Letters to Father Jacob Well acted and not a bad story, though I found the revelation of Leila's story a bit contrived and a little unconvincing somehow.

That's it for this year. While I saw more films than ever this year, oddly and gratifyingly, fewer of them turned out to be duds – I must be getting better at interpreting the advertising verbiage printed in the film guide.

VIFF - Oct. 12, 2009

Three pretty good films today.

Nora's Will Funny, with the humour coming from both the characters and the plot.

An Education. Funny and witty, with some choice comments on the purpose of education.

The White Ribbon. A somewhat grim story (in black & white) on the theme of social repression in Germany pre-WWI. A bit slow paced, but engrossing.

Three more on Thursday; then that's it for this year.

VIFF - Oct. 8, 2009

Todays films:

The Damned Rain. Strong plot, sympathetic characters; altogether an engrossing film. Worth the time spent watching it.

Unmade Beds. In contrast to the first film, boring, unsympathetic characters, little or no plot. A waste of time - I left before the end, as did many others.

The State of Old. Eight shorts about being old (more or less). Some were memorable (Danzak, A Glorious Morning, Invisible Old People, Irene); the others not.

Cow. The best of today's viewing. Very funny despite the extreme violence (which, in the context of war, did not come across as gratuitous). Definitely recommended.

The next three are on Monday (Thanksgiving).

VIFF - Oct. 3, 2009

Four films today:

Excited. A not bad story about a guy with premature, er, "excitement". Funny, and some good characters (the mother, especially).

Castaway on the Moon. Mostly funny despite the somewhat unbelievable premise and plot. The best bits are the main character's attempts to find enough to eat, and his fantasies of noodles with black bean sauce.

A Cargo to Africa. The best of the four by far. Good story, sympathetic characters and unforced humour. Definitely recommended.

Cooper's Camera. The dud of the day. The idea is good – a family Christmas from hell – but the film is vastly overblown. Basically, everyone gets drunk and yells and screams at each other. The humour, which could have been drawn more subtly from the characters and the usual tensions surrounding Christmas, is instead raucous, exaggerated slapstick based mainly on drunk gags. Still, the audience appeared to like it, judging by the laughter.

That's it until next Thursday.

VIFF - Oct. 2, 2009

Just one film today: A Shine of Rainbows. A disappointment, really. No believable conflict, no real character development or even real characters to start with. Predictable plot: as soon as it's hinted that the mother is ill, we know she'll die and her husband will have to come to terms with the kid. Nielsen is unbelievable as a mother and Quinn is not much better as her husband – the kid (John Bell) is a better actor than either. A sugary, feel good film, but not much else.

VIFF - Oct. 1, 2009

Saw three pretty good films at the Vancouver International Film Festival today.

Tales from the Golden Age. A very funny collection of stories from Ceausescu's Romania. The best of the three.

The Maid. Again, very funny, in a grim sort of way – a really good study of both character and class relations.

Jermal. More a study of characters than anything else, and well-done, if a bit slow in places.

The first two were "would see again"; the last, probably not – but then, I was a bit sleepy by the time I saw it, so ... .

Another one tomorrow, and 18 altogether in the next two weeks.

Vacation 2009

Well, I didn't blog my holiday on a day to day basis, but here are a few photos and some of the highlights.

First of all, food. I ate too much, of course, and now have some extra pounds on, in addition to the pounds I gained while writing the comps. Let's see: there was caribou sausage, seal sausage, fish tongues, fish cheeks and other varieties of cod, salt turbot, lobsters, seal flippers, moose(?), crab, mussels and a bunch of other delicious stuff I've forgotten. And blueberries: my sister Sharon and her husband Paul picked lots. Here are the results of one of several trips, and the baking that ensued.

Another haul has been slated for blueberry wine. The early and plentiful blueberries and dogberries (mountain ash to the rest of the world) are supposed to be a sign of a hard winter, as are the large buds on some of the trees.

Next, the kids, my great-niece and -nephews.

Jacob (five and a half) learned to his delight that pigeons will eat from you hand if you hold it steady. (The seed was actually meant for the park ducks, but the pigeons know a good opportunity when they see one.) Note the cool yellow-dyed bangs from his "ready-for-school" haircut. Jacob started French-immersion kindergarten last week, and, by all accounts, loves it.

Laurel (three and a half), his sister, is bright and articulate, and will probably give him a run for his money in a few years.

And Jack, their cousin (three and a half), is "all boy", and heavily into dinosaurs at the moment, and the Ninja Turtles. He goes to "ninja school" (a.k.a. kiddie tae kwon do).

They're all great kids, and lots of fun to talk to and play with at that age.

The rest of the family (well, a few of them, anyway). My mom is shortly moving into a great assisted living facility, and is looking forward to the change. They help out with the physical needs of seniors like her (she's 85); her mind is still as sharp as ever (she wiped out my brother in poker while I was there). Here she is with her three children.

My sister and her husband have put a huge extension onto their house, and will finish the inside over the next winter or so. Paul likes to build things, and was working on the new deck while I was there - notice the classy rails.

The main living area is about double in size - great for family visiting and bunking - and there's a basement now, too. Yet it still has a comfortable cottage/cabin feel to it, despite the mod cons - lots of nature around, trees, lake and so on.

What I did while I was there (beside eating): goof off, mostly, and just relax. Barge cruising and swimming in the pond (Newfoundlanders call a lake a pond).

Having fun with family. Making pipe cleaner insects and paper bats with glowing eyes to hang along a trial in the woods after dark for the kids to find with flashlights (my sister's idea - the kids loved it).

And just sitting around the fire outside late into the night telling jokes, and other stuff.

All in all, a great holiday.

Holidays and new beginnings

Well, the comps are over - a few weeks over, in fact. I've been spending the last few weeks getting caught up on stuff; mostly household stuff that got neglected over the past year. Early tomorrow, I'm on a plane eastward for three weeks of non-thinking and otherwise relaxing with family.

I'm looking forward to September already – the academic in me still looks at September as a time for new directions and rethinking and changing old directions. This next year, I'm planning to do some more directed reading on certain topics in cognition and building Flash widgets to illustrate some ideas I have. And somehow come up with a research proposal for my dissertation, I suppose, though I'm not in any hurry for that.

I'll probably picture-blog a bit of my holiday, if only for my own records/memories.

The latest Star Trek movie

I saw it this evening. I hadn't planned to, but I was in the mall on errands, and I only had to wait 20 min., so ... .

God, it was boring!! Flimsy to non-existent plot, cardboard characters only pale reflections of their original TV series counterparts; little but non-stop action and explosions from start to finish. What a come-down from the original TV show! While its story-lines were often silly and its special effects laughable by today's standards, the TV Star Trek managed to maintain audience interest with a relatively low level of action, and that action furthered the plot and developed the characters instead of replacing plot and character – ditto for the earlier Star Trek movies. The Trouble with Tribbles had much more substance than tonight's excuse for a story.

The replacement of plot and character by action and explosions seems to be the accepted method of generating box-office receipts nowadays; the Harry Potter series has also gone in this direction. Constant action appears to appeal to the current generation of kids who seem to need it to remain interested at all – I'm probably just too old to appreciate movies like this one. Give me and other old fogies like me a film like Cherry Blossoms any day.

In Memoriam

They cut down my third-favourite tree today. On my walk to the Skytrain, I noticed an unexpected piece of sky where there wasn't one before, and discovered a carnage of logs and branches just about to be carted away in a truck. I was told that the tree had been a danger to passers-by, old and leaning over the fence as it did, and was removed for safety's sake.

The tree was one of the first harbingers of spring around here. Long before other trees produced any sign of new life, its net of fine branches showed a subtle thickening from masses of barely incipient buds. The cloud of pink blossoms that followed a few weeks later snowed wispy drifts of petals beneath the tree.

A shame, really. Humans who get old and bent over are supplied with walking canes and other supports for their old age – trees just get lopped down. Every spring, I'm going to miss this one.

The tree in March 2005.