I have to admit I was going quite reluctantly, but an awesome time was had last night at the Montreal Bloggers meeting. Then again, any evening that involves lots of table dancing to 80s music is a winner for me.

Bill the Bodacious was in her usual entertaining form, and it was a real treat to finally get to sit around a table with the people whose blogs I read daily, namely Julie, Marc and Dave. I’m really looking forward to the next one in September, where hopefully we’ll get Toast, Marmalade, Martine, Blork and Paul to join us. But we should really get together before then. Maybe a LOTR screening or I’ll organize something at my place… At the very least, if all goes well I should (hopefully) be throwing a housecooling party sometime next month…

Just goes to show, Montreal is a great city teeming with great people.

Till next time, get down and move it all around…

(damn, that’s not eighties is it… I need coffee)

What was I thinking? I had decided not to buy the Lord of the Rings DVD when it came out this month, preferring like many to wait for the box set with all three movies. Which comes out in 2004.

Then I remembered, The Lord of the Rings is the best book ever written, and the Fellowship, my favorite movie. And oh yeah, I’m lightspeedchick. Incapable of waiting.

Well, cowabunga guys!!! It’s out at last! Off to Wal-marde I go.

(I might not make it to Yulblog tonight… or to work or swing for a while)

Pippin for prez…

The first time I saw Signs, I thought, “This I’ve GOT to see with Dad”. So last night, we went together. Lightspeeddad is one of those extremely jumpy people, and it was highly entertaining to watch him get tense, bite down his very last nail during the movie, and let out shouts at every surprise moment in the film.

When Lightspeeddad mows his lawn, the neighbor likes to sneak up on him and shout to make him jump. One time when I went over to visit unannounced, I let myself into the house only to find him vacuuming, his back to me. I didn’t want to make him jump, so I didn’t shout a Hello over the noise. I kept quiet until he turned off the machine, but he still didn’t become aware of me then. I wondered how to get his attention, knowing that even if I said “uh, Dad?” in the softest possible voice, I’d give him a heart attack. So I just stood there wondering what to do. Seconds later, he turned around, saw me there and jumped a foot in the air, letting out a huge yelp.

A teacher once told me this is a vestigial response linked to survival. We go into full adrenaline mode when we see something that isn’t supposed to be there, in order to deal with a potential predatory threat.

Thing is, it’s always so hilarious when it happens. I’m even laughing as I remember the vacuum incident. Has that ever happened to you? Why are some people more prone than others? And why is it so damn funny?

Sunday night, I was happily concluding an uneventful weekend by defrosting my fridge, when adventure struck. Using my Ikea vegetable knife as an ice pick, I hit the freon conduit. A white cloud of foul-smelling gas under pressure immediately hissed out into my tiny kitchen. Ever the brave defender, T took a quick survey of the situation, and, drawing upon his remarkable crisis management abilities, opened the back door and flew out the front one.

Meanwhile, I pulled the stove out (something I’d hitherto been unwilling to do because of the ick factor), and pulled the fridge’s plug. With images of a spark, the gas, a blast and my fridge door flying past me through the living room, I googled “freon toxicology”. Satisfied, I returned to the disaster area and confirmed the demise of the cooler.

No, really, it was quite exciting when it happened…

On Saturday night, I saw the movie I was looking forward to the most this summer. After Spiderman and Episode 2 anyway.

I can hardly be blamed for having high expectations; after all, this is by the guy who made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. It’s a good movie, but I had a lot of problems with it.

Anyway, this movie is about an alien invasion, as seen on CNN from a boarded-up country house. Shyamalan’s talent for slowly creeping out the audience and keeping them on edge is as sharp as it ever was in The Sixth Sense. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. Overall, I was a little disappointed however, because I expect more than just easy thrills and suspense from Shyamalan.

Most good mystery movies reveal facts and clues little by little, and you gradually put the solution together, along with the main character. Shyamalan’s trademark is to give you little hints and false leads throughout, and then reveal a lot in one clever, hugely satisfying moment at the end of the movie. One of the two big problems I have with Signs is that we find out what is going on about twenty minutes into the movie, so you get neither the gradual solution nor the typical Shyamalan moment of truth. Once the mystery is revealed, nothing is really surprising after that. Creepy as hell, but not surprising. The story just takes its natural course from the moment we find out what has caused the crop circles to appear. Not bad, but not what I expect from Shyamalan. My brain wants a little something to play with. Don’t just fray my nerves.

The second big problem I have with Signs has to do with the central theme of the movie, which is religious faith and the questioning thereof. This is an interesting issue and there are lots of questions that could be raised in original ways, especially by someone as gifted as Shyamalan. The matter is dealt with in SUCH a simplistic and straightforward way it’s hardly believable he wrote that whole arc.

Minor problems: first, you could argue that the music, the mood, the opening credits and the director’s little acting part are an homage to Hitchcock. However, it’s so precisely Hitchcock, so little adapted, that you have to call it a ripoff rather than a tribute.

And let’s talk about Shyamalan’s acting part. The SMC said it best, and it’s exactly what I thought: his part is too big in this one. He does a good job of an emotional role, but it’s distracting to see him in it. For a moment you’re meta-watching, stepping out of the movie and thinking about how this is the director, and “boy, he gave himself a big part this time”.

This is regardless a good movie. Shyamalan is still an incredible director. I guarantee your skin will crawl many times while watching the movie; I found myself cutting off circulation to T’s arm more than once. Someone in the audience actually screamed. All the actors, including the children, do incredible jobs and Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the “guy we relate to”, is simply phenomenal.

I think this is a movie that might grow on me with the watching, and I will see it again. I also will look forward to his next one, and gladly see it on opening weekend. Shyamalan has done something that is still him, but a departure from his previous stuff, and that’s fine. The unfortunate thing is that it’s not different in a way that is at all new or original.

I understand places being named New York, New Jersey, New England and Nova Scotia, because I am aware of places named York, Jersey, England and Scotland.

Something occured to me yesterday while I was watching the commonwealth games: if there’s a New Zealand, where’s the hell is Zealand?

Any of you Montreal bloggers going to the meet next week? Still wondering whether I should…

You know, I understand kids who see Top Gun and want to become fighter pilots. Sure, they get blown up, but they drive fast motorcycles, win at beach volleyball and date Kelly McGillis. Now when I think about the submarine movies I’ve seen in my life, I wonder who actually chooses to work on one. I mean, people on subs are always cramped, stressed, half of them usually die, and there’s not a chick in sight. Have you ever seen a happy sub movie?

This weekend I saw K-19: the Widowmaker. Well, I really wasn’t expecting much from this one, and I’d have to say the same thing about it that I said about Black Hawk Down (a better movie): it’s a great movie I never want to see again.

Based on real events that occurred during the cold war, this is the story of a Russian submarine whose somewhat soft, fatherly captain (Liam Neeson) has been replaced by a less charismatic, more task-oriented leader (Harrison Ford). Casting those two well-known actors of similar caliber was a very clever way of maintaining the tension that develops between them as they struggle for control of the crew, when all hell inevitably breaks loose.

Of course, K-19 includes the mandatory stress scene you find in all submarine movies, the one where they dive really deep and the structure creaks under the increasing pressure, rivets pop, leaks develop and beads of sweat roll down the crew’s tense brows.

But otherwise K-19’s a relatively atypical sub movie. It’s not a movie about trying to be quiet and anticipating torpedoes, in fact it’s not even a war movie. The problem they are dealing with is a melting nuclear reactor that spews radiation into the boat (the effects thereof are shown in horrendously graphic, but not gratuitous detail). A dilemma ensues between accepting help from a nearby American destroyer, and exposing Russian technology to the enemy, or risking a nuclear explosion, which in the context of the cold war might trigger WWIII; between obeying the orders of the appointed leader or the advice of the loved one.

It’s an excellent movie. I was disturbed and engaged throughout. It’s a grand film for both Neeson and Ford, and they needed it. You’ll even forget the Irish lilt and the American drawl that seeps into their strange, affected Russian accents.