Tuesday 31 December 2013

American Hustle Review

One of the things I love about Christmas vacation is doing normal people things, like sleeping in, staying up late and eating chocolate for breakfast. When your days are spent in an office from 8-4, it's easy to forget that there is a whole other world out there! Mom gave us movie passes that expired today, so it felt like playing hooky when we took off for the theatre last week. We had planned to see the only showing of non 3D Thor: The Dark World, but got there just too late. The Mister has a lazy eye which means 3D turns into headache vision.

But we were just in time to watch American Hustle, and after a quick check of Rotten Tomatoes, we sat down with a feedbag sized popcorn. Sometimes the best movies are the ones you know nothing about (I didn't even recognize Christian Bale) - and it's easy to see why American Hustle scored so high. The movie is drenched in the sights and sounds of the late 70s, and the cast is just superb in this fictional retelling of the ABSCAM scandal. If you like heist capers, you'll love the convoluted and complicated world of Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his partner/mistress, "Lady" Edith (Amy Adams), as they play federal agents and politicians, and each other too.

Overall, American Hustle felt like a toned down version of Goodfellas or Casino. There's very little violence for a crime caper, and I enjoyed the relationships between the characters. It's also very funny. There's a kind of beauty as the characters want to believe things about themselves and others - and convince others to do so as well (Edith is not British, but from New Mexico!). Irving's friendship with the mayor of Camden, Carmine, is surprisingly touching, and gets complicated when Irving realizes he's never had a real, sincere friend before. My favourite moment had to be a big reveal about Bradley Cooper's FBI agent, Richard DiMaso's personal life that I won't spoil here. Really, American Hustle is easily spoiled by the smallest details, so just get out there and see it :-) You won't regret it.

A lot of the acting was improvised, which showed - the acting was surprisingly real, adding another layer to the whole real/fake theme. Jennifer Lawrence was amazing as Irving's neglected and unstable wife, Roslyn. She was really channelling a spurned woman, and you just know that it's coming from a very personal place. After being confronted by Edith in the ladies room when the two accidentally meet, she plants a big kiss on Edith. There was no faking Amy Adams' shocked reaction! The crazier the scheme gets, the more stressed Irving becomes - and I was even beginning to feel stressed from watching Christian Bale.

My only complaint about the movie is that the ending wraps up a little too neatly after all the messiness, but at 138 minutes, it just ran out of time (as almost did my bladder). We definitely want to see it again, as there were a few places where all the plots, double crosses and characters left us trying to remember how it all connected afterwards.

Saturday 21 December 2013

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

I was pretty sure there would be something Christmas themed in our collection - no luck. Not even a cheesy kids book where Santa saves Martian reindeer or something like that. But I did remember a cheesy kids Christmas special from the 70s. Hint: trivia ahead!

It's all too easy to link to the fabled Star Wars Christmas special (just like that!). Truly an awful, unwatchable show. The one part of the special that is often praised is the cartoon that introduces Boba Fett. Han Solo's squished in face aside, do you know why it's the best part? Because it's Canadian! The ten minute short was made by Nelvana, a studio notable for producing lots of service cartoons like Babar, Care Bears and more in the 1980s. But as I said before, there won't be a groovier time again like 1970s, when creative people had incredibly free rein. There's no other way to explain the existence of...

A Cosmic Christmas



There's no Santa, but there are a trio of intergalactic wise men who come to Earth to learn about the meaning of Christmas. Rendered in mostly black and blue, it's not very festive, it's actually kind of strange, but at least the sweet voice of Sylvia Tyson chimes in for a couple of short songs. I didn't watch it enough to feel nostalgic about it as an adult, but if it weren't for YouTube, I would have thought it was something I just totally imagined as a five year old!

Saturday 14 December 2013

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

Today we have another on the cusp book, from 1968 that I just couldn't pass up (and for 60 cents, who wouldn't!). Let's look at...

The Planet of the Blind


Eyes to see with...

Eyes to flee with...

What would happen to an intelligent, sighted inhabitant of Earth marooned on a planet inhabited by unsighted people with a technology equal or superior to his? Further, let us suppose that this man heads a world organization that controls the now expanding field of tests and testing - Mr. Test himself. How would he fare on this PLANET OF THE BLIND? This is the story of Dr. Thur Stone in just such a situation.



Unfortunately the writing is just as stilted as the back cover copy and I didn't get far into the book despite it being a quick read. Dr. Stone is roaming around the universe in his spacerover for some rest and relaxation when he lands on Grenda. He quickly discovers that the people are blind - but animals are not. Convincing the Grendans that he's not an animal is going to be tricky!

Once he discovers his predicament, he realizes how flawed his own testing methods have been. He's the director of Terra-Testing, known as Mr. Test, with the power to determine the fate of others with his testing methods. Having the tables turned on the doctor should make an exciting adventure, but the rambling, stream of consciousness style cries out for an editor. And while this book is Corey's first science fiction novel, it wasn't his first book at all. He is best known for a series about farming in Iowa called The Mantz Trilogy.

Nothing is ever produced in a vacuum, however, and the cover suits the book well. Psychological testing and abstract art were pretty new and interesting back in the 1950s and 1960s,and just like space, another realm to explore!

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Tea for Tuesday

Yup, definitely a snow day today! And what better way to spend a snow day than with 24 ounces of hot tea. I bought this fabulous mug last week from David's Tea while waiting out the weather at a mall near Mr. Potenti's workplace. It's far more fun to hang around the mall for a couple of hours than being crammed on a bus.

Love love love the pattern and colour - it will look great any time of year. Let me tell you too, 24 ounces of tea is a lot - you could eat cereal out of this thing :-D

Thursday 5 December 2013

Welcome to Winter!

Well, you now have my permission to believe every stereotype about Canadian winters you've heard. A blizzard passed through town on Monday, dumped three or four feet of snow (unevenly, mind you) and went on its way, leaving chaos behind. It's taking two hours to get to work and two hours to get home. Thank goodness a delicious beef roast waited in the slow cooker on Monday, because we've been nibbling away on that all week. Tonight it's going to "feel like" -39 C. This is not a time for the furnace to fail either :-D


 That north west wind goes where it wants! Source: Gord Gilles

The blizzard reminded me that I should get a move on and finish a story I'm working on for the next batch of stories. It's tentatively titled "A Cold, Cold Country". It's based on my experience during a flash spring ice storm that I was ill prepared for. The storm came in so fast that the street I was walking on turned into ice instantly and visibility was poor. Naturally I was walking because twenty minutes earlier the bus I was on had become stuck at the top of the hill. Three years later, I can't remember what made me walk to find another bus route - it was a foolish decision because I lacked winter clothing and the neighbourhood had almost no stores or restaurants. Almost none, except for a little pizza joint where I waited six hours for Mr. Potenti to come pick me up. If I recall right, a half hour drive took him almost four hours due to accidents. Anything is possible when Mother Nature has a mood swing.

The freshness of the memory has come back every night that I wait for a bus that doesn't come, and trudge home in the dark. Last night I couldn't get a bus into my neighbourhood. Normally it's a quick little walk from the main drag to our house, but it was agonizing as my feet plunged into the soft snow. Ice crystals stung my face as I was forced to walk into the wind. Every moment was excruciating because my fingers froze despite warm, double lined gloves. Once inside I stripped everything off and made some tea, stat!


Drifts are deeper than they appear...this goes up to my knee!

Winter is really no joke in Canada. My granny's first husband succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning when his truck became stuck in a snow bank way back in the 1960s. This knowledge forever colours how I perceive winter, because all it takes is a slick road or forgotten house keys to get into real trouble. It's said by literary scholars that Canadians have a garrison mentality "that fears the emptiness of the Canadian landscape". When you're in the middle of nowhere, with snow drifts making every feature and landmark indistinguishable, nothing but purple sky all around - that fear becomes very real. Now I just need to put all those things into a finished story :-)