Category: Entertainment

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Têtes à claques

I spent New Years in Montréal with Eddy, Dave, Amy and Aaron. While I was there, Eddy pointed out this hilarious Québécois website. I’m not sure how to describe it: puppetry? Animation? Performance? Basically, one of the inventors had unusual, mockable dental structure, but has discovered a way to turn it into massive entertainment.

You don’t have to understand Québécois to follow the videos, but it definitely adds a lot. This is probably most entertaining to a European francophone, I suspect. (See the section in the FAQ where the authors explain what a pop-tart is, for the benefit of the French.) You should definitely start with Hallowe’en and maybe try Les cadeaux de Noël next.

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Music 2006

And another list for the new year: the albums I’ve discovered and enjoyed this past year.

Like last year, I’m still digging through a large collection of albums alphabetically, although the pace has slowed considerably. This year I made it through S and T, and nothing more. Mostly, I enjoyed long-acclaimed albums that I’d never got around to hearing: Tortoise, the Smiths, Stereolab, and finally a few Sonic Youth albums that I found accessible. Sufjan Stevens was a surprising and intriguing find, though, and Tyson put me on to a fantastic Buck 65 disc.

Why the slowdown in new consumption? Well, the shift from a computer science job to transit took its toll: I’m no longer spending hours in front of a computer with the headphones on. Instead, most of my listening this year took place during my two hours of commuting to work. The iPod was helpful there – I mastered the fine art of listening to music while biking Vancouver’s back streets. (The one time I tried using my isolating earbud headphones was scary, though – I couldn’t even hear a truck pulling up next to me. Apple’s original headphones are thankfully very poor at isolating the sound.) The sound quality while biking was so poor that I couldn’t really experience new music, so I stopped trying.

The CBC Radio 3 podcast was another excellent find this year. While they don’t have much on electronic music, they cover some very interesting rock groups.

As for concerts, I saw a few good ones. We Are Wolves were entertaining enough to justify watching twice more, RJD2 was great, and Art Brut was entertaining. Electronic shows really aren’t doing much for me these days, though… I was quite disappointed by DJ Shadow.

So there we have it. On to the next year’s music.

Great Albums (8/10)

  • boards of canada. the campfire headphase. ambient.
  • broken social scene. broken social scene. rock, pop.
  • buck 65. talkin’ honky blues.
  • herbie hancock. v.s.o.p.: the quintet. jazz.
  • sufjan stevens. michigan: the great lakes state. folk, pop.

Good Albums (7/10)

  • rae & christian. anotherlatenight. downtempo, soul, hip hop.
  • smiths, the. the queen is dead. rock.
  • sonic youth. daydream nation. rock, postrock.
  • sonic youth. goo. rock, postrock.
  • sons and daughters. the repulsion box. rock.
  • spiritualized. ladies and gentlemen we are floating in outer space. rock.
  • squarepusher. ultravisitor. drum & bass, experimental.
  • stefie shock. le décor. chanson, pop.
  • stereolab. emperor tomato ketchup. pop, downtempo.
  • stereolab. transient random-noise bursts with announcements. pop, downtempo, rock.
  • stone roses. fools gold (the remixes). rock, downtempo.
  • stone roses. the stone roses. rock.
  • sufjan stevens. illinois. folk, pop.
  • sufjan stevens. seven swans. folk, pop.
  • sweet trip. velocity : design : comfort. glitch, ambient.
  • swollen members. bad dreams. hip hop.
  • tortoise. it’s all around you. rock, jazz.
  • tortoise. millions now living will never die. rock, jazz.
  • tortoise. tnt. rock, jazz.
  • tubbs. good days, better nights. acid jazz.
  • u.n.k.l.e. sounds big brother is watching. big beat, hip hop.
  • we are wolves. non-stop je te plie en deux. rock, français.
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Films, 2006

Okay, this post is mostly for my own reference, just so I can remember what films I saw in a given year and recommend things to friends or to rewatch.

My favourite film this year was Caché – interesting both stylistically and politically. The other highlights were Grizzly Man, C.R.A.Z.Y., Thumbsucker and Hard Eight.

  • casino royale. uk, 2006.
  • blood simple. usa, 1983.
  • tenacious d and the pick of destiny. usa, 2006.
  • a history of violence. usa, 2005.
  • borat: cultural learnings of america for make benefit glorious nation of kazakhstan. uk/usa, 2006.
  • manufactured landscapes. canada, 2006.
  • boogie nights. usa, 1997.
  • zoolander. usa, 2001.
  • shaun of the dead. uk, 2004.
  • miami vice. usa, 2006.
  • the iron giant. usa, 1999.
  • x-men 3. usa, 2006.
  • cars. usa, 2006.
  • the proposition. australia, 2005.
  • thumbsucker. usa, 2005.
  • sabah. canada, 2005.
  • dancer in the dark. denmark, 2000.
  • mission impossible iii. usa, 2006.
  • the big sleep. usa, 1946.
  • beowulf and grendel. canada / iceland, 2005.
  • the inside man. usa, 2006.
  • walk the line. usa, 2005.
  • c.r.a.z.y. canada, 2005.
  • oldboy. korea, 2005.
  • kaze no tani no naushika (nausicaä of the valley of the winds). japan, 1984.
  • hard eight / sydney. usa, 1996.
  • scarface. usa, 1983.
  • the three burials of melquiades estrada. usa, 2005.
  • waco: the rules of engagement. usa, 1997.
  • grizzly man. usa, 2005.
  • munich. usa, 2005.
  • capote. usa, 2005.
  • water. canada / india, 2005.
  • the new world. usa, 2005.
  • caché (hidden). france / austria, 2005.
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Flotsam & jetsam from the web

I’m finally relaxing again, and that includes catching up on the backlog of blog reading. (I could coin a new term “backblog”, but 188,000 google hits beat me to it.)

  • Torontoist had a hilarious picture of a mounted police officer collecting parking tickets, courtesy of torontogal on flickr.
  • Spacing Wire had a post on a video projection by Xavier de Richemont at Nathan Phillips Square. It sounds like a well-executed, simple piece of public art: project onto the facade of an interesting building (Old City Hall), and turn the building into a cartoon version of itself – like colourizing an old movie. It’s got the hallmarks of good public art: dramatic, clever, simple, and easily understood.
  • Both of these blogs referenced Santarchy, who I saw milling around outside the Gypsy Co-op (sorry, “Gypsy and the Hooch”).

  • Former city councillor Gordon Price wrote about a Katrina moment in Vancouver following the recent windstorm, and the CBC also had a story on the impacts to Stanley Park.
  • Gordon Price also posted a funny video showing what happens when traffic calming fights back…