A painting of me
  • The Road to Geekdom 

    You don’t have to be a geek about everything in your life—or anything, for that matter. But if geekdom is your goal, don’t let anyone tell you it’s unattainable. You don’t have to be there “from the beginning” (whatever that means). You don’t have to start when you’re a kid. You don’t need to be a member of a particular social class, race, sex, or gender.

    Word.

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  • Life Through a Leica. 

    “For nearly 70 years, Art Shay kept two things by his side: The love of his life, Florence, and a camera.”

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Inside Llewyn Davis

   11 January 2014, late at night

I watched Inside Llewyn Davis at the Lightbox. The film is the latest movie from the Coen Brothers. It stars Oscar Isaac as a starving artist folk singer who is both down on his luck and a man who makes terrible choices. He may be down on his luck because of his poor choices. He is moving in a circle going nowhere. This film is depressing and beautiful. I loved the cinematography. Everything is lit and shot perfectly. I’m not a big folk music fan, but the music in this film is excellent. The acting is superb. This movie was featured in a lot of best films of 2013 lists, a well deserved accolade. You should watch this movie.

Update: I’ve been thinking about this movie for days now. It’s probably one of my favourite films by the Coen brothers, which says a lot: they’ve done a lot of really great films.

The official Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack.

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Bridesmaids

   9 January 2014, late evening

Bridesmaids was on Netflix. It’s always strange seeing a movie that seems too new or popular showing up on that site. The film is excellent. As the title suggests, the film is about bridesmaids. Kristen Wiig plays a women having a rough go at life. Her friend, played by Maya Rudolf, gets engaged and requests Wiig be her matron of honour. Hilarity and hijinks ensue, as she competes with another bridesmaid for Rudolf’s character’s affection, and tries to move forward with her life. It’s a very funny movie. The supporting cast is all hilarious. It’s directed by Paul Feig of Freaks and Geeks fame, and was produced by Judd Apatow. Wiig wrote the script along with Annie Mumolo. They had an A-Team working on this film, and it shows. Maybe i’m the last person on Earth to have seen this, but if you haven’t you should go watch it already.

Read (better) reviews of Bridesmaids on Rotten Tomatoes.

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  • Run Run Shaw, Movie Mogul Seen as Creator of Kung Fu Genre, Dies at 106. 

    Besides producing their own films in Singapore, the brothers imported foreign movies and built up a string of theaters. Their business boomed until the Japanese invaded the Malay Peninsula in 1941 and stripped their theaters and confiscated their film equipment. But according to Run Run Shaw, he and his brother buried more than $4 million in gold, jewelry and currency in their backyard, which they dug up after World War II and used to resume their careers.

    That’s before WWII. This guy lived quite the life.

    To ensure that his films were amply distributed, Mr. Shaw’s chain of cinemas grew to more than 200 houses in Asia and the United States. “We were like the Hollywood of the 1930s,” he said. “We controlled everything: the talent, the production, the distribution and the exhibition.”

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  • The unborn do deserve political attention. Just not the kind they're getting - The Globe and Mail 

    On Sunday, Industry Minister James Moore was asked how Canada should address the fact that one in seven children currently live in poverty: his answer was to spout platitudes about how wealthy a country this is, then let out a chuckle while asking “Is it my job to feed my neighbour’s child? I don’t think so.” It’s not hard to figure out the real priority of Conservative motions on the unborn – and ensuring that the country’s fetuses grow into healthy babies and happy children is not it.

    It’s easy to forget if you aren’t paying too much attention that the Conservative Party in Canada really is staffed by a bunch of full-on assholes.

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Moon

   17 December 2013, lunch time

Moon stars Sam Rockwell as an astronaut working in a power plant on the moon. He’s been living there for almost 3 years, alone except for a robot assistant (voiced by Kevin Spacey). This sort of isolation has made him a little bit crazy. As he prepares to return to Earth things start to get a little weird. Moon was an enjoyable movie. Sam Rockwell is great. I don’t want to discuss his performance too much, as it will give away part of the story, but suffice it to say it is varied and interesting. This is some proper science fiction with a small tight focus: it’s a film about loneliness and what it means be human. (Like so many movies, I suppose.) Rockwell is the only actor we see for much of the film. I loved how it ends.

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  • When Dungeons & Dragons Turns 40. 

    Many sources, including Playing at the World, assign to Dungeons & Dragons an initial release in January 1974. Our best evidence comes from contemporary notices like the one above, a letter written by Gary Gygax late in 1973 that foretells the imminent release of the game. Now, with the fortieth anniversary nearly upon us, a burning question arises: when exactly should we celebrate?

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