Films at the Metro Cinema

I've now gone to a couple of films at the Metro Cinema, "devoted to the exhibition and promotion of Canadian, international and independent film and video in Edmonton".

Tonight I went with some friends to see Christmas in August (1998), a Korean film. It shows how the owner of a photo shop copes with the knowledge of his impending death, and develops a relationship with a meter-maid who is his "best customer", yet never tells her about his illness - she is left wondering what happened when he is hospitalized and later dies. I thought it was very well done in showing the emotions in a mostly subdued way.

Last month we went to see Mirror (2002) by Hakan Sahin, almost a local filmmaker. Set in Zama City, Alberta, a tiny hamlet about 900 km northwest of Edmonton, this film tells the story of an immigrant who takes a job in a convenience store in Zama, filling in so the proprietor can go on a vacation. “The Student” meets a number of interesting characters living in Zama, from oilfield workers to truckers to the bored kids, and it was interesting to see what life is like in such a remote location.

The plot synopsis talks about how he is trying to deal with his brother’s death – it would probably have helped if the flashback segments in Edmonton that were in Turkish were subtitled into English. Neither I nor the friends I was with really understood how the brother’s death fit in …

We were unsure at the end whether “The Student” actually was killed by the hunters, or whether the showing of a mirror shattering was symbolic of something else (“the death of the self-reflective consciousness” as a friend put it).

Overnight snow...

...'nuff said (there was no snow on the railing or deck yesterday as Ed shovelled the deck last weekend and the rest had melted).

Update 1:45 pm - 17 cm says Ed, when he shovelled (thanks!), and still snowing lightly. It's days like this when you really wish that Edmonton didn't have a policy of not plowing side streets, this is going to get really messy if it melts and refreezes into ruts...

Update 11:20 pm - 25 cm they said on the late night local news, we even made the national news ;-)

Even shorter snappers (film reviews)...

I made a bunch of notes when we were away on vacation in January, about films that I had seen recently, but obviously haven't yet got around to posting anything about them (except Wired to Win). So, here's my transcribed short-form notes on a few:

Overcoming (2005) - film about the Danish pro cycling team CSC managed by Bjarne Riis, during the 2004 season which was the first for Ivan Basso with the team (he came 2nd in the Tour de France that year as well as in 2005). It would be good for cycling fans, as it showed an indepth look behind the scenes (especially on the DVD special features), but it jumped around a lot such that it was really hard to determine the sequence of events (even I was confused, I can't imagine what non-cycling fans would think - or maybe they wouldn't be watching in the first place). The pace was slow at times, with not a lot of action, but I found the focus on Riis's team theories and strategy quite interesting (especially since I was reading an article about it in Cycle-Sport magazine at the same time). The best part though had to be the comment from Jens Voigt in one of the special features about his routine when he gets to a hotel room, turning on the TV is one of the first things he does and if there's a German channel then "life is great".

(I have notes on at least 5 others, maybe if I try to put up one every few days I'll get around to them all eventually - and I watched a few more films on the weekend too...)

Ben Mulroney as an example of Canada's "Productivity Crisis"

The Globe and Mail had an article this week about Ben Mulroney (click on the link from Google, can't link directly as it comes up subscriber-only that way), on the occasion of his 30th birthday:

In short, Benedict Mulroney (his full name) is someone who has been groomed, at an expense of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and Canadian dollars, to take his place in the highest echelons of the post-NAFTA Canadian establishment...

Simply put, Ben Mulroney doesn't seem to be pulling the weight he was intended to pull. And now that he's 30, Mila and Brian need to invite him down to their digs in Palm Beach for a heart-to-heart tête-à-tête to ask: "What's it all about, Benedict? Is it just for the moment we live?"

Which is kind of what I've always thought (though I don't seem to find him half as annoying as so many others) - you need a law degree to host Canadian Idol?

UK Girl Guides shed church image to attract minorities

Thought this British news article was interesting - not sure that in Canada Girl Guides has really had much of a "church image" lately (at least around here, most groups seem to meet in schools or community halls, though some are in churches), but GGC certainly is trying also to expand membership amongst ethnic minorities.

(I think the church image is fostered by the fact that Scout groups, to my understanding, have to be "sponsored" by someone, which often ends up being a church or other religious group ... not the same for Guides).

Bits and Pieces...

I've been busy working for a change, so haven't had much time to post here (not that there's actually tons of people reading ;-) ).

Last week Ed and I went to see Colin James in concert. I think only I saw him before at the Folk Festival, in one of his blues phases - Ed saw him (and drove him to the concert, and got his autograph) when he played at our Jazz City festival a number of years ago, not sure why I didn't go. He's one of those musicians that I've always liked but haven't been a super huge fan, so I wasn't really sure what to expect at the concert. Especially since I'd listened to his new CD in the car a few times, and while it's good it never really excited me.

The fact that he's been adaptable enough to go through so many musical phases or genres (CanCon rock/pop, blues, roots, swing/big band) has always impressed me. And second row at the Winspear Centre is always good for any concert though, so that was promising. We weren't disappointed...

Opening act was Colin Linden, good solo blues show and Ed said to me that it alone was worth the price of admission. Then came James and his band (including Linden), and I realized what an excellent live performer James really is ... recordings generally can't capture that aspect very well. The best example would be when he played "Keep On Loving Me Baby", a song that I always thought was very insipid and unoriginal (can listen here)- but very entertaining and dynamic when played live, I found out. Ed and I talked about how best to categorize or describe him overall, and came up with "bluesy rock" - there was lots of thanks, from both James and Linden, to CKUA radio for supporting the roots music scene in Canada (I'm sure the concert sponsor K-ROCK loved that, though as a listener-supported station it's not as though CKUA is taking ad revenue, or even likely listeners, away from K-ROCK).

Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening.

The week before, I went with some friends to see a play at the New Varscona Theatre in Old Strathcona (aka Fringe central every August). Live theatre in a small space can be really captivating when it's good - and this was a Stewart Lemoine play/Teatro La Quindicina, so it was good. Called "The Velvet Shock", it was about an opera singer in Vienna for a performance, with some intriguing twists and turns. So now I'm thinking I have to make more of an effort to get out to see some Fringe shows this summer...

International Women's Day

I was looking for a new quote for my signature line on an internet forum, because "The nights were cold and dark and scary, can we live through February?" from a Dar Williams song isn't really applicable any more now that it's March (and besides, February actually wasn't too bad weather-wise until the last few days when we finally got snow that seems to be sticking around for a while).

I found this one by Louise McKinney, which seemed relevant given that it will be International Women's Day on March 8:

The purpose of a woman's life is just the same as the purpose of man's life—that she may make the best possible contribution to the generation in which she is living.

McKinney became the first woman elected to any government in Canada in 1917, when she won a seat in the Alberta Legislature after women gained the right to vote (although they were still not considered "persons" until 1929). I was the recipient of a scholarship named after her as an undergrad student at the U of A.

An observation at uni

Seeing as when I was a university student, the cool thing was to sling your backpack over one shoulder only (rather than wear it properly using both straps), I have found it interesting to notice that pretty much all the uni students these days do in fact wear their packs properly. I guess they've been indoctrinated in school into avoiding shoulder/neck/back pain from carrying unbalanced loads ...

"Monte's all grown up...

... and has left the blogosphere to become a cabinet minister" (in the words of Warren Kinsella). Which is too bad, because Monte has a nifty folksy style of writing and an interesting attitude, which I always enjoyed reading (even if I didn't always agree with his party's platform, and I could never relate to his getting up so incredibly early in the mornings).

I have no comment about other political happenings this week other than being disappointed ...

February Update

We have a new Prime Minister (as of tomorrow), I started working again 2 weeks ago, and I have had my appointment at the Fertility Clinic now and some follow-up testing done. So I figured I should probably do a more personal update rather than all the politics - I'm sick of politics at this point. All I want to know tomorrow (swearing in ceremonies) is whether my MP makes it into cabinet or not... (of course I stayed up way too late on election night to follow all the results, and have been paying for it ever since).

I started working again 2 weeks ago, a walk-in clinic mainly for university students, so it's a nice change of pace. I'm quite relieved to find myself enjoying it (mostly), so I know that it wasn't a case of hating medicine entirely, just that I wasn't in the right situation with my previous job. I'm just struggling to get out of my bad habits of staying up late at night to e-mail/chat with other cycling fans in Australia, seeing as I can't sleep in any more.

I'm very stressed about my follow-up appointment tomorrow at the Fertility Clinic - last week I had a hysterosalpingogram (HSG), and learned that this test is not a pleasant one. I knew that already beforehand, but I thought I was tough - yeah right it's like "discomfort like severe menstrual cramps", this was pain, not cramps ... at least it didn't last long. It's kind of a good news/bad news scenario all at once, whatever the results are - I don't really want there to be something wrong (a blockage of the fallopian tubes is basically what this test looks for), but on the other hand it would probably be better to find something that hopefully can be fixed... but the pain of the test made me think about how far I'd be willing to go in our quest to get pregnant.

Revenge of the Hockey Moms...

I thought that this election campaign summary, by Warren Kinsella, a former Chretien adviser (ie. Liberal), was interesting.

...With everything they did, the Tory campaign was all about the revenge of the hockey Moms and Dads.
It wasn't about Left versus Right. It wasn't about Urban versus Rural. It wasn't about East versus West. It wasn't about French versus English.
It was about us (the people at hockey rinks, holding cups from Tim's or Coffee Time) versus the elites (the ones who have never been on public transit, and who read the Sunday Times at Starbucks).

So I'm not sure where that leaves me - I dislike Tim's coffee, ride the LRT to work starting tomorrow, but enjoy reading the Sunday Times (I think he means London, but there's also the Sunday New York Times) online on occasion ...

As an aside, it's interesting how Tim Horton's is frequently used as an analogy for "regular everyday people", from Monte Solberg's blog, to the unnamed coffee shop on the Royal Canadian Air Farce sketches (much less frequent since John Morgan's departure).

Wired to Win - new IMAX movie

(a variation of this was previously posted to the Daily Peloton forums)

One week ago, we had a stopover in Vancouver between the Greyhound back from Whistler and the airport - much better than spending an extra hour at the airport was walking across the street to see this movie at the "Telus World of Science" (we have one of those now in Edmonton too, but most people still refer to it as the Odyssium or even its previous name the "Space and Science Centre", just as I'm sure Vancouverites still talk about the "Expo Dome").

As a 45 minute IMAX film, using cycling to transition into explanations of brain function and chemistry, obviously they can't go into incredible depth about the cycling or the 2003 Tour de France - but both my husband and I thought they did a good job of explaining the basics of the Tour (eg. the different jersey competitions and that Baden Cooke's goal was different from Lance Armstrong's). And there were a number of oohs and ahs from the high school students on a school trip at some of the cycling shots and the comments in the film like "going downhill at speeds of 100 kmh" - cycling might actually pick up a few more fans.

The IMAX cycling shots were amazing - they did a lot of panoramic shots and distance shots, as well as stationary ones showing the point of view of a fan as the peloton goes by - that really conveyed the speed of the peloton (better than the usual TV shots from a car/motorcycle/helicopter going at the same speed as the cyclists, where you can't blame non-cycling-fans for sometimes thinking that they aren't really working hard/going fast). They used some non-IMAX footage as well (eg. Armstrong going down after catching his handlebar on a fan's bag - and coming back to win the stage, which in the film's context was an example of the power of the brain...). And of course there had to be a panoramic shot of the peloton going through a sunflower field ...

(and I usually find the TV shots when they go over the Tour route maps to be a bit dizzying - imagine the whole tour route done like that on a huge screen with zooming in and out)

For Tyler Hamilton fans (the movie was originally going to focus on him until he ran into legal trouble regarding alleged blood transfusions before racing, his case is still before the Court for Arbitration in Sport), they still had a few good shots of him (but didn't comment or mention who he was) - the main shot they showed of him was on a climb with his jersey open, shoulder/collarbone bandage visible, the voiceover was talking about working through pain but I think only cycling fans would understand the implication (he had broken collarbone yet still finished 4th overall in that Tour) as I'm not sure how obvious the bandage/evidence of injury would have been for others. And they gave special thanks to Tyler in the credits. (There was also a list of featured cyclists as well, that flashed by - prominence to Jimmy Casper and Baden Cooke but it looked like they listed everyone who was clearly identifiable in the cycling shots).

As for the 2 main featured cyclists, it was interesting to see shots of Casper abandoning (and about to have an MRI to rule out brain injury after his crash); and there was a sequence with Cooke in front of the team bus looking really depressed and unmotivated after losing the green jersey to Robbie McEwen... but then the power of the brain that he was able to win it back in the final sprint.

I was impressed with my husband that he was able to pick out as many cyclists as he did (I probably annoyed him with my whispers of "there's Ullrich", "there's Vino", "there's Robbie" etc )

As for the scientific/brain stuff, it was well done from the IMAX point of view but I can't really comment on how educational it was - to me it seemed incredibly simplistic, but that's likely because of my background (prior courses in biochemistry, physiology, neurology, neuroanatomy ...)

Anyway, if you get a chance to see it, I'd recommend it for the cycling shots in IMAX if you're into that sort of thing (but not if you want an in-depth look at the Tour).

My yearly brush with the elite ...

When I was in my 3rd year of undergrad at the U of A, I won an award called the Peter Lougheed scholarship (named after the premier of Alberta from 1971-1985, who is said to be one of Alberta's greatest leaders for his foresight in establishing the Heritage Savings Trust Fund and for his stand against the federal government's National Energy Program, among other achievements). Every year, there is a luncheon at the Faculty Club to honour the new scholarship recipients and they invite back former recipients (like me).

So, today I ate lunch sitting next to the Dean of Arts and one of the university's senior fundraising officers, with the Honourable Peter Lougheed and new university president Dr. Indira Samarasekera also at the same table (this is only the second or maybe third time I've been seated at the same table as Mr. Lougheed). It's always interesting to hear his comments. There was also some interesting political discussion with the election in only a few more days - overall an enjoyable lunch.

"We did not make this up" ...

or variations thereof seems to be the new Canadian catchphrase... there's Paul Wells's variation I linked to in my prior entry, and lots of mock ads going around as well, such as from Dose (via Canoe):

"Stephen Harper likes to wear black. You know who else liked black? Darth Vader. We're not making this up."

And the gang at This Hour Has 22 Minutes had their own take as well.

Like high school student council...

Rick Mercer compares this federal election to student council elections in this week's rant ... lol!

And I just had to link to Paul Wells's description of his encounter with a soldier, "In our cities. In Canada. " (because I'm sure everyone has seen the Liberal ad that didn't air, except of course on all the newscasts and transcripts in all the papers. Oh, and CTV archived it, you can find it here, click on "Liberal attack ad about Harper and military presence" on the right side under Video).