It’s been a while since I watched a movie in a cinema. Actually the last mainstream flick I saw was Sweeney Todd, and I had nightmares after that one.
Anyways, I saw an advertisement for the upcoming Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie The Forbidden Kingdom at a bus stop today so I *had* to view the trailer once I arrived home tonight after salsa class.
So I checked out Dave’s Trailer Page (great site if you haven’t already been there) and found some trailers for a few movies I’m keen on watching when they are released. Because I’m in Canada chances are I’ll see these movies before they get released in Sydney, so that’s one benefit of being in this part of the world.
On to the movies…
The Forbidden Kingdom - legendary martial artists Jet Li & Jackie Chan’s first ever movie together - this is history in the making, and if you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and/or Hero then this is a MUST.
Get Smart - actually looks really funny and it’s got THE ROCK in it.
The Dark Knight - Heath Ledger in possibly his finest work. I loved Christopher Nolan’s direction on Batman Begins.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull - Once I heard the theme music playing I knew I had to watch this. I trust it will be better than the latest Terminator, Rambo, etc.
Saturday night the Couchsurfers (aka. my Toronto family) got together at the Crown & Tiger pub on College St to bid farewell to one of our all-time favourite Germans Nicole.
I met Nicole at my first CS event on Dec 16th 2007 (it was also her first event) and we’ve been best of friends ever since. Along with Neesa, our Nepalese Russian energiser (seriously you have to meet this girl to even begin to understand what I’m referring to), the three of us have pretty much been inseparable over the past few months.
I would have liked to have spent some one on one time with Nic before Sat night, just to chat about things like we oft did and to wish her well on her journey ahead, but it was not meant to be. So I put it in a card and asked that she not read it until she was on the plane. She asked me about that at the party and I simply said “just do it”. Truth is I wanted to offer her some time to reflect, just as I had, and remember all the great experiences - the laughter, the challenges, the love, all of it and I figured it wouldn’t be until she was on the plane that she would have that peace and quiet.
So it’s with a knowing that we will encounter each other again in the future, and an excitement for what’s in store for Nicole that I wish her safe and happy travels.
Oh yes, I just wanted to mention that I was not a fan of the food at the pub at all (the Caesar salad was not too great). On the plus side the pub did participate in Toronto’s first ever Earth Hour, and contributed to the city exceeding its power savings goal for the night so kudos to them for that.
Last week was L’Oréal Fashion Week here in Toronto. A classmate from my Digital Capture 1 photography class suggested that we go check it out so I registered online for an industry pass (even though I don’t work in the industry I figured that I could fudge it) and on Wednesday night I made my way to Nathan Phillips Square for Night 3 of the event. The industry pass cost $50 and could be used all week. It also allowed entry to the photographers’ area, also referred to as “the pit”.
Walking into the registration tent I wondered if the staff would ask me for credentials to prove I was actually in the industry but to my surprise they did not. I even managed to help my classmate Chris get a pass (we claimed that he worked for me) so score! It still cost him $50 and there was a risk that we couldn’t get into the 8pm show because from what we were told, with eight minutes left until the scheduled start, it was packed.
Chris and I entered the main tent and were met with the world of glitz and glamour. Everybody had their game face on. Here you were either somebody or you wanted to be somebody, and it was clearly evident with all the gorgeous and well dressed people walking around. Chris and I sported our cameras and our industry passes around our necks so we easily passed as photographers.
Being our first time at the event we didn’t know where to go to catch the show and see the runway. There was a large congregation of people towards the back of the tent, and we guessed that the runway was nearby but we couldn’t see it. At first it seemed that we had no hope of getting to the front. So we stood at the back of the queue for a good fifteen or so minutes before I noticed some blue lights coming out of a tent in front of us. I pointed Chris to it and suggested that maybe that was where the runway was. The girl next to us then mentioned that with our industry passes we could bypass the queue and go right in! So we did just that.
The only official public holiday for Easter here (booo!). After the extremely late night/morning I woke up around 11am or midday and decided to head down to Little Italy to catch the Jesus Christ procession being put on by St Francis church group. For the record I’m not religious in any way, I just thought that it would be interesting to witness.
The plan was to check out the procession, then head to High Park (I discovered that it’s not “Hyde” after some googling) for a bit of nature in the city, and then head to Innis College at UofT for a free movie screening of The Mirror.
I arrived 30 mins later than I had planned to College Street (Little Italy) and ended up missing the procession as they hadn’t reached College yet. Furthermore Nicole and Jose were already at High Park, our next destination. So Nadja and I took the train to High Park and seeing as I hadn’t had any real breakfast yet our first stop was the restaurant where Nic and Jose had been waiting for the past hour. Judging by the way that Jose was passing out on the table inside the restaurant I guessed that walking around the park at this point wasn’t a good idea. It was also freezing outside, and Jose hadn’t brought any gloves or a warmer jacket.
So we were soon on our way to Innis College to catch the free movie. Inside the theatre, once the lights were turned down it was mine and Nic’s turns to drift off. It didn’t help that the film made absolutely no sense. At first the novelty of reading subtitles on the screen for this Andrei Tarkovsky Russian masterpiece kept me awake but soon the randomness and lack of clear plot lost me. It was just too weird for me.
When the movie finished we met Marie-France from Montreal, my surfer for the weekend. I was worried when she hadn’t contacted me an hour after I had given her directions to the cinema but she had found her way to the cinema and caught the movie from the beginning so all was good.
After bidding farewell to Nadja - Nicole, Marie-France, Jose and I headed to Jose’s new place. It was the first time I had seen it and it had been weeks when Jose first told me about it. I could smell the “new place” scent the second I walked through the front door. The place had recently been renovated. I loved the polished floor boards immediately. It was a nice place, a bit removed from the centre of town (it’s actually closer to where I live) but it was a good choice.
We talked, laughed and at pizza. Jose’s jeans/denim covered couch also made for good entertainment. I forgot to take a pic though, doh!
After a long day Jose dropped Marie-France and I off at home. It was around 2am when I crashed.
Thurs, the night before Easter - I skipped out on studio time at uni with some classmates to attend the final day of L’Oreal Fashion Week being held inside tents at Nathan Philips Square.
Following the show (which we didn’t really see because it was packed!) I headed over to unofficial Couchsurfing Toronto ambassador Garry’s cinema (basically his back room with a projector projecting the movie onto a large back wall) for a movie night. I arrived around 10:30pm and the small group had yet to commence the movie watching. We ended up watching 1979 film Being There which featured Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine.
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television. After a run in with a limousine, he ends up a guest of a woman (Eve) and her husband Ben, an influential but sickly businessman. Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider.
It turned out to be a pretty interesting movie. Sellers’ performance as Chance earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor the following year. I can totally appreciate why, he was great.
The movie night then went off on totally different tangent when the next DVD to inserted into the player was Madonna: Truth or Dare. It was two or three in the morning and I spent the entire duration of the movie juggling between karaoke and grooving (whilst lying down on the couch with Nicole, Nadja and Jose mind you) and trying to catch bits and pieces of sleep. Just imagine… it’s 4am and blasting out of G’s apartment is Madonna singing “If we took a holiday, Took some time to celebrate, Just one day out of life, It would be, it would be so nice!” I was amazed that none of his neighbours had raised a complaint yet.
We left around 4:30 am and an hour or so later my bed finally hit my pillow in my comfy bed at home.
