Category: Film

In a Lonely Place

So….. Once upon a long time ago my favourite song was a song I couldn’t identify.  It was on a mix tape DJD made for me back when I was 50 pounds lighter and random menfolks still occasionally mentioned the fertility quotient of my ass rather than its powerful ability to block the sun.   I knew that it was a band called Joy Division.  When the movie about Joy Division. Control came out I got to hear it again in quad sound, which blew my lights out because that drum riff MAKES ME NUTS.  It’s so ominous and amazing. While I was googleriffing the song, which turned out to be called “In a Lonely Place” I read a Criterion Collection review of the movie “In a Lonely Place” and it sounded SO frickin’ awesome I asked Jeff to rent it.

It turned up scant days later and Jeff and I were BLOWN away.  I mean, apart from the soundtrack, which is standard ish 50’s swelling strings and stuff that doesn’t really fit the mood, the movie approaches perfection. Humphrey Bogart is so good in this movie it beggars description; Gloria Grahame is magnificent, and the script is so uniformly excellent…. just rent the damned thing and be amazed.  Oh, it’s Noir.  Very, very noir.

So that’s my In a Lonely Place story.  I’m not in a Lonely Place…. Katie’s here, and in about five minutes I’ll finish making brekkie for the three of us.

Butterflies

We arrived safe in Victoria yesterday afternoon and repaired to the home of my folks with Katie in tow.  We have today been for a drive in the remarkably snowy back roads and we have also visited the Butterfly House and I hope to post pics after I get home. I figured out how to get butterflies to sit on me, and entertained a number of small children with my new knowledge. Might come in handy if I ever have grandchildren, sigh.

Yesterday I inspected baby Bean, Lady Miss Banjola’s offspring, who’s two months old more or less.  He meets all criteria for cute and normal; being who he is he could hardly miss the cute, but the normal is almost worrisome.  Katie got to cuddle him for a bit, and Lady Miss B stuffed him into his knitted yellow duck feet, which are squee-renderingly adorable.

I am looking at the facsimile of the journal of my great great grandfather Henry Thomas Wake.  There has been a terrible railway accident, 15 dead, and I am very very happy to see that my ancestor spent money on beer.

Having a lovely time.  Also, saw this, and loved it, highly recommended.

There’s a meme on twitter right now, #lessambitiousmovies

I came up with these in less than 25 minutes.

The Good, the Meh and the Ugly.

Tin Shotglass

Ben Hurt

Black Snake Groan

Tipping the Velveteen

12 Irritated Hipsters
The Most-Reposted Story Ever Told

Who’ll stop the Drizzle

St Elmo’s Zippo

Hay Dogs

Attack of the Shrew Men

The Scavenger Hunt for Red October

Weekday of the Dead

The King’s Off-the-cuff Remarks

Adequacy in the Grass

Cherubs in America

The Humming Detective

The Hills have Compound Eyes

The “Just Friends on Facebook” of Eddie Coyle
Concern and Mild Distaste in Reno

Ants

We has ’em.

Thursday, off to Lexi’s to meet up with my cousin Darcy and her charming offspring; Saturday, off to the church Board retreat.  (Yes, knowing that was coming up got me off my ass to get sussed out by the RCMP).

Went and harrassed Tom, one of my all time fave activities, to do something about Ziva’s subwoofer.  Ziva is suddenly getting better gas mileage; the only thing I can think of which would account for such a thing is that I’ve finally burned off all the sludge that was sitting in the bottom of the gas tank, because I’m getting 30 more kilometres out of a tank and believe me I have not changed my lead footed driving style.  Anyway, Ziva’s subwoofer has a crack. Jeff wants me to make the subwoofer removable so he can get his bike in the car (the bike would only fit with bungees last Friday when we met up at Swiss Chalet).

Tom gave me celery.  If I find a good place to grow it I’ll grow it next year.  I am already planning a hosta bed under the dogwood in the back corner.  Right now that part of the yard is just a cluster of bluebells and weeds, mostly nightshade, so something to improve it’s appearance and remove grass would be nice.

The quit-by-pictures girl was a fake.  O well.

I tried contacting the JetBlue attendant’s public defender to offer support but nobody is answering the phone there.

Got to get to work…. don’t want to move, although I’ll be fine when I get there.

Watched a simply marvellous movie called The Straight Story last night.  If you want a clean, sad but uplifting story that is full of kindness to strangers, check it out.  At one point Jeff and I said to each other that Richard Farnsworth’s wattles have more acting talent than Keanu Reeves’ whole body, not that we hate Keanu Reeves or anything, we do like him even if woodpeckers do land on his head.

I wish I’d taken a picture of Miss Margot guarding the rat Eddie killed.

[EDIT by Jeff] Ask and you shall receive:

Margot guarding the rat

The weekend’s over

Well, this was certainly a movie rich weekend.  Besides Inception and the inevitable True Blood episode, there was Growing Op and Numb, both hilarious Canadian films with American TV stars thrown in for extra visibility.  The notion of the guy who plays Hodges on CSI playing the paterfamilias of a marijuana farm in the suburbs is brain bending, and he delivers one of the best lines I’ve ever heard in a movie… no, really.  Ask Keith, he was there. Definitely worth seeing. both of them.  Both of them had F8CKING AMAZING soundtracks.  Seriously.

We got the mower back from the lawnmower place (unfixed, may they achieve decomposition in a quiet place) and Jeff mowed the lawn while I edged things and watered the peas and quinoa and whacked weeds.

This weekend we also managed to get Granny’s stamps to the dealer, so between the weed whacking and carrying all the boxes upstairs my back is unbelievably sore.

I read Plantinga’s Breviary of Sin, which Ontie Mary gave me last I was in Victoria.  Very Christian but brilliantly written and very quotable.

I’ve started taking my musical instruments to work so I can practice at lunch.  I am now practicing every day, and I have the callouses to prove it.

Lightning – the Diving Horse.

Friday night falldown goes mobile

Last night me and Jeff and Paul and Keith and ScaryClown went to the Peak for dinner and then to Inception at the Dolphin afterwards.  We could have gone to see the Blue Meenies at the John B Pub afterwards but it was 9:30 when we got out of the theatre and I was ready to go home.  I dropped ScaryClown off at Brentwood and headed home in the lovely cool dusk.

Inception is not a classic movie – by me – but it sure is visually stunning and challenging, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Just in case I neglected to mention…

Jeff is a genius.  He re-edited (for personal consumption, ONLY) the film Memento so that it was in chronological order.  I liked the movie the first time, even though it weirded me out, but the real outcome of the edit is that it proved what an amazing film it was to begin with.  And Jeff handled a lot of very interesting technical problems, mostly to do with audio sync, in the process, and I have to say I am impressed as hell.