Raven's View

What a great film - quirky, funny, some what noir. Parker Posey is fantastic, IMDB lists her as being in 65 films since she started 16 years ago - a career that earned her the title from Time Magazine of Queen of the indies. 

I enjoyed it with dinner and conversation with some friends at their place - and the hostess even stayed awake for most of the evening.

I've a few things I'd meant to blog about:

• there was an article in The Citizen a few weeks ago about a spirit medium in Zimbabwe who had convinced the government to give her about $3.4 million (Cdn) in return for her solution to the country's ongoing fuel shortage. Her gift, demonstrated to them, was that she could strike a rock with her staff and have oil bubble up out of the ground. Shades of Jed Clampett, but in her case the police claim she also discovered an abandoned tank truck of diesel fuel, abandoned in the civil unrest of the 70's. Made me think of the reports from that continent in the 90's of genital theft.
• Those cell phone headsets seem to be everywhere now -used for a hands free link to your cell via a Bluetooth link. it's weird though, when then person next to you in a crowd suddenly starts talking as they walk along -letting the world hear their half of a supposedly private conversation. It's fun to start replying right away to them, especially if they look offended and say they are talking to someone else. Then you can look around and ask if they mean they can see ghosts?  But if you are one of those people that often talks to yourself in public, get a headset, it's great cover.
• Now that the nights are cooler, it seems sound travels further -maybe because the smooth snow surface reflects better. At any rate, it's nice to lie in bed late at night, with the window open a bit for fresh air, and listen to a train whistle on the Gatineau side of the river.    

I rented "2" last night, only saw the first one a few months ago and loved them both. Quentin T described the first one as the setup, and this as the real story. I loved it - great characters, beautiful photography, hot Uma. My new favorite hot actress actor- I hope Susan Sarandon doesn't hear of this, but I had to drop her. The movie was on DVD - such a joy to watch. Yes, the letterbox looks a little strange on my TV, and there isn't the great theatre sound, but there were no annoying people behind me explaining the plot over and over to each other, and if I needed to stretch my sore back, or get some wine, or go to the bathroom I could just pause. Plus there was some great background by Quentin and several of the actors. And finally, IMDB has some great trivia on both this, and the first one.

Also caught a neat movie on Space the other night, eXistenZ. The story opens with a reality game designer testing her latest creation with a focus group, when an assassin attacks her, damaging her organic game pod, and the only copy of the game. She escapes with a marketing intern, and then tries to see how badly the game is damaged by entering its world with her sidekick. They start playing the game, with occasional breaks back to the real world - or is it the real world. They're never really sure, and neither are you.

I met with her and some friends to take in the latest by Tim Burton, The Corpse Bride. We both love his work, have a copy of Nightmare Before Christmas and sing along to it. We liked this one too, but not as much as the other. Maybe because it was fresher in 1993? Music wasn't as good, but the voices were great - especially little touches like a maggot sounding (and looking) like Peter Lorre. Same style of animation, with exaggerated figures with impossibly long skinny legs. Good for kids, but lots of subtle references for the adults - keep an eye out for Sammy Davis Junior.