Category Archives: Watching

Do I watch a lot of film and television shows? Does a zombie go down when it’s shot in the head?

May 24 2010

I once was LOST, but now am found (I think).

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Up un­til last night, I was a LOST junkie. I prob­a­bly will be for a few more days. Then my ad­dic­tion will sub­side un­til they is­sue the com­plete DVD col­lec­tion. Anyways, I would ven­ture to say that there are some who are dis­ap­pointed by the se­ries fi­nale. And those who never watched the show (or aban­doned it early on) will say I wasted the last six years of my life. To which I say, go eff your­self. Until you’ve watched every episode, you have no say. Besides, I never lived it 24 – 7; it only took up a cou­ple of hours of one night a week of my life. But what a night that was.

LOST was a truly unique show — it made you ques­tion your be­liefs on life, death and re­demp­tion. LOST was also a smart show — it in­cor­po­rated time travel and physics, and lit­er­a­ture that stretched the imag­i­na­tion. It made you want to search out the au­thors it ref­er­enced, whether it was through the char­ac­ters’ names (John Locke and David [Desmond] Hume, who were philoso­phers) or the books it would ref­er­ence through care­fully placed cover shots (Watership Down, any­one?)

The best thing about LOST was that it was open to in­ter­pre­ta­tion. The fi­nale gen­er­ated many dif­fer­ent the­o­ries, and all of them will be right be­cause they are per­sonal. They re­flect our own be­liefs in death and re­demp­tion. And since no one is ab­solutely cor­rect in their as­sump­tions of the af­ter­life (be­cause let’s face it — you’ll only know for sure once you’re dead, all re­li­gious texts be damned), then all the­o­ries are valid.

Here’s mine, for what it’s worth.

Continue read­ing »

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Aug 7 2009

“I can’t be­lieve I gave my panties to a geek.”

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John Hughes passed away yes­ter­day and the news made me sad and a lit­tle melancholic. You see, I was in my teens in the 80s and watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles in the movie the­atres when they were re­leased (when ad­mis­sion was only $4!). Hughes’ char­ac­ters be­came very per­sonal to me; some­how, this 30-something adult male man­aged to ac­cu­rately cap­ture the angst, en­nui and joy that lived in every teenager. I re­mem­ber cry­ing when Andie had her heart bro­ken by Blaine (“Blane? His name is Blane? That’s a ma­jor ap­pli­ance, that’s not a name!”). I re­mem­ber how hard I laughed at Ferris Bueller, that right­eous dude. And I al­ways wanted a Jake to call my own. (Where art thou, Michael Schoeffling)? 

Hughes was one of the defin­ing film­mak­ers of the 80s, and I say that with­out a hint of sar­casm. His cin­e­matic legacy may not stack up to that of Hitchcock, Wilder or Allen but his in­flu­ence was just as large. Think about it — ask any per­son over 35 what their favourite John Hughes movie is and you will get a de­fin­i­tive answer. Hell, you can ask a 20-something the same ques­tion and they’ll tell you their favourite, too. 

When I get a mo­ment, I will watch Pretty in Pink on DVD (with the al­ter­nate end­ing where Andie chooses Duckie). I will also un­earth the sound­track (which I still have on vinyl) out of stor­age and cre­ate a lit­tle al­tar to pay my re­spects to the man. Surrounded by six­teen can­dles, of course.

Posted via web from bonsmots’s pos­ter­ous

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Jan 20 2009

A Change is Gonna Come

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Barack Hussein Obama, an African-American and son of a goat-hearder from Kenya, was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Read that sen­tence a few times and savour its de­li­cious­ness as it rolls off your tongue. In a coun­try whose iden­tity was shaped in large part by slavery, racism and a blind fear of the different, this is truly a mo­men­tous and his­toric occasion. Only a cold, cold heart could not be moved by the events of the past three months or tear up dur­ing the in­au­gu­ra­tion ceremony.

Is the hype jus­ti­fied? I think it is. Since his election, Obama has shown more con­cern to­wards the prob­lems af­fect­ing his coun­try than George Bush, Jr. has in the last year of his pres­i­dency. “Dubya” didn’t care any­more, and it showed.

No one in their right mind be­lieves Obama can or will af­fect change right away. He in­her­its a coun­try crip­pled with debt, rid­dled with de­spair and des­per­ate for change; he def­i­nitely has his work cut out for him. What tran­scends all the promises he set out dur­ing his cam­paign and in his in­au­gu­ra­tion speech is hope. A hope that things will improve. Because frankly, they can’t get any worse.

As a Canadian, I watched with envy as a na­tion joined to­gether in wel­com­ing their new President. Next week, our Sleeveless Leader, who treats the coun­try like his per­sonal fief­dom, will un­veil a bud­get that will more than likely lead to a third elec­tion in as many years. (My math may be off but that’s ex­actly how it feels.)

So, to my friends south of the bor­der — con­grat­u­la­tions! I hope you don’t mind our star­ing - we just want a lit­tle hope of our own.

REUTERS

Photo: REUTERS

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Dec 12 2008

The Notorious Bettie Page, R.I.P.

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Bettie Page, fifties pinup queen and sex­ual pi­o­neer, passed away yes­ter­day at the age of 85. She wasn’t as hugely pop­u­lar as Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield or other sex sym­bols of her gen­er­a­tion, but still man­aged to de­velop a huge cult-like fol­low­ing, de­spite giv­ing up the busi­ness in 1959 to de­vote her­self to God.

I’ve been a fan of Bettie since my early 20s. My ad­mi­ra­tion and de­vo­tion to her wasn’t as manic as what I felt for Marilyn in my teens. Perhaps it was be­cause I was older and could bet­ter ap­pre­ci­ate what Bettie stood for. Unlike Marilyn, Bettie rep­re­sented a strong, po­tent fe­male sex­u­al­ity — un­bri­dled, un­abashed and fun. Looking at her cheesy pinup pho­tos or bondage shots, it was clear she en­joyed her work and took great pride in it.

“I never thought it was shame­ful. I felt nor­mal. It’s just that it was much bet­ter than pound­ing a type­writer eight hours a day, which gets monotonous.” — Bettie Page, Playboy in­ter­view, 1998

If Marilyn was the fragile, bruised child, Bettie was the ag­gres­sive, con­fi­dent woman. Marilyn was the woman men wanted to take care of and pro­tect. Page was the one they were slightly afraid of; she knew how to wield a rid­ing crop.

I’ve al­ways as­pired to be a Bettie, rather than a Marilyn.

Celebrity deaths tend to at­tract a new group of fol­low­ers, cu­ri­ous about this now-faded icon they are too young to re­mem­ber. I hope a lot of these new ad­mir­ers are young women who see in Bettie what they want to see in them­selves — a con­fi­dent woman, com­fort­able with her body. In this age where Barbie doll star­lets with plas­tic breasts and body dys­mor­phia are held up as stan­dards of at­trac­tive­ness (hey Hollywood — since when is a size 2 “curvy”?), Bettie (and even Marilyn, for that mat­ter) rep­re­sents a time when an hour­glass fig­ure was some­thing to be ad­mired and drooled over.

Bettie, we’ll miss you. I think God’s view just got a whole lot better.


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Aug 18 2008

Could life get any better?

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It has been an­nounced that Tina Fey and Steve Carrell have been cast in a movie to­gether. My two favourite tele­vi­sion stars! In a movie to­gether! Let’s hope it’s bet­ter than “Baby Mama” and “Evan Almighty”.

From Variety:

Carell, Fey ready for “Date Night”

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