the pod bay door

:: Michael Moore‘s new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, debuted at the Festival de Cannes today. Oddly enough, I cannot locate the movie’s official web site. Reviews of and commentary on the film are already in, from sources such as: BBC, Associated Press, Time, and The Hollywood Reporter, which reports a 15-20 minute standing ovation for the film after its screening and offers a review. A definite must-see film for 2004.

An expansion of this list is on my post at Blogcritics.com.

:: The third episode of the 5th season of The Sopranos tonight was a good one (but no Lorraine Bracco for the second week in a row, and no Edie Falco in this one either). I also watched the debut episode of David Milch’s new western series, Deadwood, based on the mid-1870s history of the real town in South Dakota. Deadwood’s local magazine, called, oddly enough, Deadwood Magazine, has a feature on the new series in the Mar-Apr 2004 web edition. The HBO website has a page called “The Real Deadwood“, which gives more background about and history of the town in South Dakota.

David Milch has been around for a while, having worked on Hill Street Blues in the 80s, and co-created NYPD Blue. He also co-created one of my favorite series of the past few years, The Big Apple, set in an NYC FBI office. The series only lasted a few episodes.

If you saw the first episode, you may have been caught off guard by the language – needless to say, the profanity spews forth with such rapidity and volume that I thought for a moment I was watching Oz. But Milch insists this is how the residents of Deadwood spoke of and to each other in 1876.

:: Saw four movies this weekend: The Corporation, Dawn of the Dead, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and Spartan.

:: I’ve been working on changing a few eating habits. I discovered recently that I enjoy snow peas, which are selling at a low price at the local grocery stores. Mixed together with grape tomatoes and low-fat mozarella cheese, it’s healthy and tasty.

:: A colleague at work sent me an e-mail, pointing to a site called musicplasma, which “maps” artists of similar musical styles to each other. The idea is, you search an artist you like, and the resulting map will list artists you are most likely to also like, because of similar styles. I searched Steely Dan, and the artists listed as closest to Don & Walt’s sound are Cher, with Annie Lennox and Celine Dion not much farther away. Methinks the program creators don’t much like our boys from NYC. The site is interesting, but there isn’t much explanation as to why it even exists, what the colour scheme represents, etc.

In the same e-mail, however, was a link to Geist, a Canadian magazine “featuring the best in Canadian fiction, non-fiction, photography, comix and what-have you.” Check out Caught Mapping, which features thematic maps in .pdf format. The maps are quite good, but don’t translate well into a .pdf frame. Try these maps: The Erotic Map of Canada, which includes Hump Island, Bare Butt Bay, The Nipples, The Buttocks, and Lac du Pénis de Caribou. However, the funniest collection of names belongs to Newfoundland.

There is also The National Beer Map of Canada, The Doughnut Map of Canada, The Philosopher’s Map of Canada, and many more.

:: The 76th Academy Awards were nice, friendly, predictable, funny in parts, and came in well under four hours. New Zealanders were happy with the results, as well as with Keisha Castle-Hughes’ appearance as a nominee for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for Whale Rider. Her family in NZ was very excited for her. She wore a special whale pin in her hair. Megan Gibb, reporting for the NZ Herald, provided a moment-to-moment commentary as the evening progressed. Another reporter took the NYTimes to task for describing Jackson as a “bespectacled Australian”.

:: The 2004 IFP Independent Spirit Awards were announced on Saturday night in Santa Monica CA. The awards are given the night before the Academy Awards. “The Spirit Awards is a celebration honoring films made by filmmakers who embody independence and who dare to challenge the status quo.” Lost in Translation was the big winner, taking Best Picture, Best Director, Best Male Lead, and Best Screenplay.

:: The 2004 IFP Independent Spirit Award Nominations have been announced. The awards will be presented on February 28, 2004, the night before the Oscars.

:: Things are little out of whack lately, as I sort through this and that in my life. It happens. I’m spending an inordinate amount of time agonizing over a lecture I’m giving in an engineering design class next Friday, trying to settle on what to highlight in the 50 minutes, and in what order. My house is a mess, and I’ve got a number of small tasks that I keep putting off, like writing a few letters, sending cards, getting some info to my Dad for a painting he’s composing, etc. I know this will sort itself out. Plus, it’s early February, and already I have events scheduled through to October, which for some reason, I find bothersome. No big deal, I suppose.

:: Among the increasing number of annoying catch-phrases and doublespeak that we hear on television and radio, and read in newspapers and magazines, I detest the habit of sportscasters who use an amount of money to describe the time left in a sporting event, when said time left is under two minutes. “Vince Carter, with a “buck twenty-two” left in the game, slam-dunked a decisive basket, leading the Raptors to victory blah blah blah…” Is this usage supposed to be cooler than saying “a minute and twenty-two seconds?”

I’m also weary of reviewers using the word “twee” to describe music or some other art form. Although I must admit I didn’t know that “niminy-piminy” is a synonym for twee. Whatever…

:: Interesting to note that the two entries below with photos of my father in 1945, and my mother in 2004, both feature them with casts on their right arms.

:: I saw The Triplets of Belleville and City of God this weekend, two Oscar-nominated movies. Both are excellent. Triplets is a bizarre, spaced-out 80-minute animated movie about a grandmother and her grandson, who competes in the Tour de France, but is kidnapped by the French Wine Mafia. There is little dialogue, so no subtitles are needed. And the song, “Belleville Rendezvous“, nominated for the Music (Song) Oscar, is infectious and catchy, making you want to start boogeying in your theatre seat.

City of God is about a young Brazilian boy, growing up in the middle of incredibly violent gang warfare, in the slums of Rio de Janeiro in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. His best friend turns to drug dealing, but he resists the criminal life, and instead dreams of becoming a photographer. It is captivating, sad, and compelling, and deserving of its four nominations.