do you mind.

Hey Jude - Wayne Gratz

Happy daylight savings!

I finally put in the next movie off the list. Waking Life. The movie brought me back to Professor Anthony Falikowski's philosophy class at Sheridan. I really love hearing the different concepts and perspectives of life. The movie made me reflect quite a bit afterwards.

The views and theories from some of the discussions in the movie for the most part, aren't new to me. I've read about them and learnt them in class, and different books. And I think that's why lately, I've been so self-aware, when I'm not caught up in the moment, caught up with emotions. But it's nice to get a reminder to keep my mind open to these things instead of living unconciously through life, going from one trend to another, one fad to the next.

As I was reflecting on the movie afterwards, something else came to my mind. Nothing that relevant to the movie, really. This holds true for me, but I don't know about you: Isn't it strange how much we look at ourselves in the mirror every day from our childhood until now, and yet, if we try to remember a moment when we looked at ourselves in the mirror when we were young, we really can't see that childhood face, what it looked like outside from what we've seen in photos?


Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
— Albert Einstein

movies for the artistic soul.

Locked In A Room - Oren Lavie

Two weeks ago, I had mentioned to my co-worker Karen, the copywriter, that I had never seen The Big Lebowski before. I guess that was a big no-no in her books, as well as everyone else's in the creative department. So then she asked me if I had seen Tron. I don't recall having seen it, but maybe I have. There are a lot of movies I've seen in my childhood that I may not remember entirely; just little flashes here and there. Anyway, I haven't seen Tron either...

She flipped out and asked if I had seen Citizen Kane. And well, no, I haven't. Toni, the art director sitting across from me overheard this and flipped out on me as well. I thought maybe it was a culture thing, seeing as I come from Quebec. But Toni is from Croatia. So Karen ruled that one out...

I thought that having seen movies like Robocop, Terminator, Ninja Turtles, Batman and such was enough to keep in the loop of pop culture; and that movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Science of Sleep would be enough to keep in the world of artistic films. I guess not, haha...

So for the next 30 to 45 minutes, Toni and Karen crowded around me desk, throwing movies at me. I ended up making a list of movies to watch based on their suggestions. And then last Friday, Toni brought over a stack of DVDs for me to borrow and watch. So that's my homework for the next little while.

The stack included:
• Fargo
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
• Trainspotting
• Bladerunner
• Waking Life
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Anyway, I watched The Big Lebowski a couple of weeks ago, and watched Fargo tonight. Both great movies, though I found The Big Lebowski was a bit overhyped. Maybe I was expecting it to be so epic due to everyone's reaction and disbelief when I told them I hadn't seen it yet. As for Fargo, it was amazing, though a bit too much blood for my liking. I think Waking Life will be next.

why so serious?

dark knight
went to see dark knight monday at first markham after work. rushed uptown to try and make the 740 show. sold out. so we went for the 1010. packed. but oh my god. amazing movie. solid story, intense action, outstanding acting, just pure awesomeness for 2 hours. wanna see it on imax now... heath ledger's acting deserved a standing ovation. him as the joker, untouchable... but as christine mentioned afterwards, if it wasn't for jack nicholson's first joker, ledger probably wouldn't have done as good a job. you can see some influence from nicholson. but i was shocked nonetheless. i won't spoil the movie. if you haven't seen it already, go. NOW!! it's sooo worth it. oh and i noticed that edison chen made a cameo in the movie too, if anyone cares.. haha.

cn tower on a foggy day
my aunt from van city came down for the weekend. took her out around town and went up on the cn tower on a foggy day... it was pretty bad, cause the rain was on and off and it was really cloudy out. but i still managed to get some decent photos. i hadn't been in the cn tower since high school, when i came from kingston to toronto to check out the autoshow. i barely remember that visit. the interior of the cn tower for some reason really reminded me of the rochafeller centre in new york. weirdest thing. check out the photos.

oh my god. shoes. again.
new shoes!! lacostes from townshoes at eaton centre. they're kinda like my old lacostes, but a lot nicer! i love em! so fresh and so clean clean!



progress on spidey
still working on it, but here's another preview of what spidey's been up to on his free time...

bike hike 2008-1: lakeshore west

a few weeks ago, I started to bike again. mainly to and from work, which is only a 20 minutes walk. the first day of biking proved to be quite a challenged. by the time i got in to work, i was all sweaty, my lungs were burning, my legs were aching, my heart was pounding and my head spinning. it made me think. we really need a shower at our office.

last weekend, because of the ttc strike, it killed my plans to go uptown for the day. there had been a lot of things clouding my mind, so instead i biked for 4 hours or so sunday to get to clear my head. i went to christie pits to get ice cream and people watch, then i biked southwest to lakeshore and lansdowne and stopped to rest by the lake. i enjoyed the solitary moments watching the waves hit the sand and the seagulls hover over the water. then i biked all the way to park lawn rd and lakeshore, and then turned back to head home. it was a really nice ride. i wanted to take pictures my biking adventures, but i had forgotten my camera at home. boo.

my goal is to be able to bike uptown to richmond hill before the end of june. it will be a challenge, especially since the north end of the city isn't the most biker friendly areas. but with a bit of research, i should be able to find trails and biker friendly streets to get to my where i want to.

on other non-biking news, they were filming a movie around the corner of my condo at lakeshore and bathurst last friday night. i took a few pictures from my balcony of the scene. saw them blowing fake snow onto the ground, with all these rusty cars there. according to this discussion board from torontojungle.com (post #2), they were filming max payne the movie. imbd says mark wahlberg will be playing max payne. that's pretty hot. he's perfect for the part. now, off to montreal for the weekend. cheers!