My favorite French heist films are all showing at Cinematheque this month. Must-see movies for caper film fans:
- Pickpocket (dir. Robert Bresson)
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 6:30 PM - Rififi (dir. Jules Dassin)
Wednesday, July 14, 2004 8:45 PM - Hand's Off The Loot (dir. Jacques Becker)
Saturday, July 17, 2004 6:30 PM - Le Samourai (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
Friday, July 23, 2004 8:30 PM - The Red Circle (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
Saturday, July 24, 2004 8:15 PM
2004 Jul 01 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Things That Scare Me" by Neko Case And Her Boyfriends
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It's Free Comic Book Day today! What are you doing sitting there reading this when there are free comics to be had? Go get some.
2004 Jul 03 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "19th Nervous Breakdown" by The Rolling Stones
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I have an affinity for both motorcycle touring and post apocalyptic tales, and so I read the account of one woman's two-wheeled trip through the ghost towns near Chernobyl with keen interest.
It's unsettling stuff, and I am suitably unsettled. But like a too-quickly mixed glass of Kool-Aid—or a person with too much media exposure—I settle again soon enough. More's the shame.
2004 Jul 03 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Jane" by The Barenaked Ladies
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I was delighted when I read that Sony has announced a new "iPod killer" called the Network Walkman NW-HD1. (What a catchy name.)
Why was I delighted? It wasn't the impressive 30 hours of battery life or the ample 20GB of storage. It wasn't the tiny 4 ounces that it weighs, either. No, it was the fact that the player doesn't support MP3 or AAC or even that ubercrappy WMA format: it only plays Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 format that's rife with Digital Rights Management restrictions and will make the player awkward to the point of being useless. Yes, you can use Sony's software to convert your files into ATRAC3 format. No, you won't bother.
Sorry, did I write “delighted”? I meant “laughing at a bunch of asshats who Just Don't Get It.” I mix those up sometimes.
2004 Jul 03 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Beautiful Blue" by Holly McNarland
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I'm in The Amazing Spider-Man! Well, okay, it's not actually me so much as a rendition of a poster that featured me with three other web cartoonists. But still, pretty cool, no?
A while back I attended the Fallcon convention in Minnesota where I met up with Tom Brazelton, Mitch Clem and Zach Miller. We decided to produce a poster to commemorate the event. We each drew ourselves in the style of our own webcomic, mine being the oh so easy to sketch Movie Punks style. That's me on the right:
Yep, I'm the one with the bat. Mom would be so proud. (A no-prize to anyone who spotted the Tank Girl reference.)
With me so far? Well lookey what turned up on page 5 of Amazing Spider-Man #509:
Ain't that just the coolest thing ever? A big thanks and shout-out to Mike Deodato, penciler of the amazingly amazing Amazing Spider-Man, who really made my day. (A big shout-down to Zach for being the only one of us smart enough to draw himself squatting so he wouldn't have his head cut off in the comic—who knew looking like he was poohing would pay off?)
And since I'm sure I'll get e-mail asking this: yes, I will be bringing back Movie Punks for a brief run in the not too distant future. But shhhhh: that's our little secret.
2004 Jul 07 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Get Born" by Jet
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Oh, so there you are. I was wondering where you'd gotten to.
Wait, it was me that was missing, wasn't it? I get us confused sometimes. I think it's the haircut.
Let's ease back into our blogger-bloggee relationship with a recap of last weekend's Canadian Filmmakers' Festival fun:
I attended the Canadian Filmmakers' Festival. It was fun.
(Hmmm. I think it might take me a few posts to get back into the swing of this.)
The festival is the mad idea of Bern Euler and his wife Deana Beltsis. I'd met them both before, and even sat with them through a recent Digital Gun Awards short film festival. Good people, definitely. They both have an infectious charm that just makes one want to hug them or buy them candy.
Bern told me quite a while ago about his plans to put together a new film festival to showcase Canadian films, and he's succeeded wildly. Oodles of people talk about starting up festivals or making movies or buying this damn bar and keeping it open all night. Few ever get it done. Bern's one o' the few.
Most of my festivalizing was spent alongside Paula Kaye and Roger Fredericks. She's the actor who leant her voice to the character Nicki in the kids' show Ricky's Room, and he's a multiple Gemini winning comedy writer, so they're both bundles of laughs and a joy to hang around with.
I don't have a shot of Bern or Deana to share, but here's a photo of Paula being photographed by Olga Krywy (who interviewed Paula for her “Schmooze Buzz” radio show).
Paula's shown standing beside one of the filmmaker's from Quebec who insisted that not only did his film not look “Canadian” but that he didn't even watch Canadian films. Yet here he was submitting his film to the (*ahem*) Canadian Filmmakers' Festival. I asked if he'd stayed to watch any of the other filmmakers' offerings. Nope. And he also didn't have a problem with asking a Canadian audience to watch his own film or asking a Canadian festival to promote it. Quebec logic, perhaps?
The festival took place at my favorite reparatory theater, the Royal, also pictured above. The third snapshot is of Dragon Lady Comics, across the street from the Royal. After the first evening of movie gawking the remarkably friendly fellow working at Dragon Lady re-opened the just-closed shop to let me go in and pick up a copy of the Amazing Spider-Man issue that featured my bottom-half … though maybe the slinky dress Paula was wearing that evening had just a tiny bit to do with him unlocking the door, you know, just maybe.
At any rate, he was the friendliest comic shop employee in the history of the industry. He mentioned that he didn't want to be “that comic book guy” and there's no worry about that. We all talked about comics (natch) and old time radio shows and Terry And The Pirates and pre-code horror mags and movies and … well, we nerded out, basically. Much fun. I can't recommend the place enough.
I've got more fun to share, like how a picturesque laundromat caused my car to be towed, but I'll save that for tomorrow. See you in the funny papers.
2004 Jul 24 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Games For Boys" by Television Personalities
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I looked into an empty coin-op laundromat and the rows of open doors caught my eye. I thought it would make a nice snapshot for my blog:
There was something about it that stopped me, the way a painting in an art shop window sometimes does. At first it was the symmetry of the open doors, but then I noticed the way the ceiling steps down as the lines of machines step outward, as if a gain in one direction required a loss in another. I liked the way the overhead lights seemed too bright but the room itself still felt dark. I liked the way there was a little pile of dirt in front of each machine, like some janitor was making a statement about ineffective cycles. Yeah, I think about those things. The whole thing had the feel of something staged, more like an art installation than a functional laundromat.
Whatever the reason, the image grabbed me and held me long enough to think about it and take a picture.
Which was, coincidentally, also long enough for someone to tow my car.
2004 Jul 25 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Work (Will Make You Free)" by Planet P Project
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I've added “live off the grid” to my list of things to do before I die. I'd love to be self sufficient electricity-wise some day. I think that's important.
I suspect it would be a Really Good Thing to limit how beholden I was to a number of big companies and conglomerates.
2004 Jul 26 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Underwhelmed" by Sloan
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I read Steve Martin's latest book, The Pleasure Of My Company. It was excellent. It features an obsessive-compulsive narrator who is as charming as he is flakey.
A fantastic book full of gentle humor and grace. It's probably the most enjoyable little book I've read this year so far. Highly recommended.
2004 Jul 26 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Black Coffee In Bed" by Squeeze
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I'm thinking of dropping voice mail from my home telephone line. I know it's a convenience for other people, so they can tag me as “it” and stop calling, but I've grown increasingly disdainful of the feature.
True, incoming calls would ring busy if I were on the phone. On the other hand, I dislike having to pick the phone up again after a long call to check if I have a message.
The past few weeks I've received multiple phone-spam messages dropped directly into my home voice mailbox by Ma Bell. I don't know what the spam was selling because as soon as I'd hear “Hello, my name is Marsha Annoyingvoice, and I represent—" a quick press of double-7 would delete the message.
Note that these aren't telemarking calls I've missed. These are recorded advertisements dropped right into my voice mailbox. Bell charges me for the voice mail feature, then sells ads to place into my mailbox. I resent that, and even though I'm sure there's some hoop I could jump through to opt out I think I'm simply going to drop the feature altogether in protest. I vote with my wallet.
The twist is that I don't think I'll replace voice mail with an answering machine. The vast majority of the time when I call somebody else and get shunted to voice mail I don't bother to leave a message. And as often as not I delete my own messages unheard because I'm too lazy to listen to them.
What you call rude, I call eccentric.
2004 Jul 26 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Voices Carry" by 'Till Tuesday
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Tonight I performed an exercise in futility. The plan was this evening, and for the next two, I'd do bunch of grunt work at my family's business. It would require me to work nights, basically 8PM to around 1AM—in addition to working all day, mind you. Essentially, I'd be doing 16 hour shifts instead of the usual 10 to 11 hours.
(I think the fact that I don't sleep is something I should have kept to myself.)
Anyway, tonight I got nothing done. Not an electronic sausage. Instead of accomplishing the mindless monkey-job, I struggled with a piece of faulty machinery until after midnight then gave up and came home. That means I'll have to fix it tomorrow, pushing everything back a day.
It is very frustrating to work from 9AM to midnight only to drive home knowing that by giving up “so early” I'll have to work this weekend as well.
There is a good thing that comes with doing such grunt work, though. I've been listening to some excellent courses from The Teaching Company on my iPod. This evening I listened to five hours of a literary criticism survey course called “From Plato To Postmodernism.” For a book nerd like me it was a delight, and it turned the time spent doing brain-free labor into something of value.
