Sweet like nothing at all

Hug-A-Harper-ite

2011-04-15T07:59:00.000-05:00

Surprisingly, Harper supporters are just like human beings.

This may be difficult to understand, as they possess many negative elements. They get really excited by minuscule tax cuts. They think that building more prisons and imposing mandatory sentencing will reduce crime rates. And they'd rather base their policies on ideology than accurate statistics.

You may ask, how can a beautiful thing like humanity ever be associated with something so warped? So twisted? So evil? No one notices an extra 100$ on their tax return when they need to pay an extra 500$ in tuition/medication/transportation. Everyone understands that mandatory sentencing and prisons are a reactive solution, not preventative. And who doesn't love StatsCan? They make each Canadian feel uniquely relevant!

It's impossible, you must be thinking. No human being could ever support Harper. He is so cruel, so obtuse. So utterly devoid of logic and common sense. And he has beady little eyes.

Ah, but here's the thing. Just because we human beings have been blessed with a beating heart does not mean we should fault those who were born without.

Thus, I am proposing that each one of you seek out and adopt your very own Harper-ite! Show them how their lives can run on warm fuzzy feelings instead of cold bitter rage. Give them a great big hug and tell them "I know there's a Lefty SOMEwhere deep down in that cavernous shell you call a body."

Who knows? The warmth from your hug just might raise their reptilian body temperatures and bring their humanity out of hibernation.

Then maybe, just maybe, they'll vote Liberal (or NDP/Bloc/Green/Communist-Marxists/Indy/Pot/Rhino/etc...)

Eli - proudly supporting A.B.C.

Hi United States. Who is Arcade Fire? WE WILL TELL YOU.

2011-02-14T21:10:00.002-06:00

http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/

THEY ARE A BAND.

THEY SING SONGS. THEY PLAY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

If you haven't at least heard of them, then you know nothing about music. But that's ok, you don't have to know everything about everything. Such things would be impossible. As we see it, in order to move passed this anger, you have two options. Either:

a - Accept that your life is pitifully devoid of all things amazing, relax, and enjoy your top 40 playlist.

OR

b - Get OFF your lazy, cottage cheese ass, get ONTO this thing called the INTERNET, and figure out who ARCADE FIRE is!

Seriously. David Bowie knows who they are. U2 knows who they are. Kanye West knows who they are.

They are not a Quebecois conspiracy. They are not criminals. They are simply better than Bieber, Gaga, Perry, and your precious Eminem.

Get over it.

Eli

"Small and focused, but resonates far into the night"

2011-01-14T22:45:00.002-06:00

Only Ian McEwan could cobble together so many words with commas, and end up with such mellifluous truths!

From Ian McEwan's 1992 novel "Black Dogs"

"He was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as multiplicity, a near infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than any one could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions... each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of postwar reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling - all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silence and, later, a question: what possible good could come of a Europe covered in this dust, these spores, when forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture?"

Sweet Potato Mac 'n' Cheese

2011-01-10T21:24:00.003-06:00

So today we decided to undertake this strange variation on a classic family recipe. "We'll just make a small serving of it" we thought, "just to see what it's like". We were (are?) clearly delirious, since the words "small serving" to an Italian have absolutely zero context. Nevertheless, this delirium forced us onward, and we proceeded with the following recipe:

1. Finely chop an onion and caramelize the bits in a frying pan with a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, and stupid amounts of butter. Rosemary/sage/oregano can be added here too.

2. Meanwhile, skin and slice (thinly) two small sweet potatoes. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the slices till they are shmoushy. Do not plop the potatoes in the boiling water, or you will splash boiling water everyone, including your hands (as we learned). If you do splash burning water on your hands, curse till the air is blue, then run your hands under cold water.

3. Drain the potatoes but SAVE THE WATER! You will be needing to cook the pasta soon, and why waste all that sweet-potato-watery goodness?

4. Mash the potatoes and stir in the caramelized onions.

5. Boil the sweet potato water (with a little more water added) and dump (carefully!) your macaroni (about 300g) into the water.

**At this point we looked at the proportions of onion/potato/pasta we have just started to cook and realized there would be nothing small about this concoction. Sigh**

6. Make your cheese sauce - everyone has their own way of doing this, but here's the right way. Alternate three spoons of margarine with about 5 spoons of flour in a large pot on low heat, stirring continuously. Add milk, a little at a time while still stirring, to thin out the sauce. Then GRATE YOUR CHEESE-OF-CHOICE LIKE A CRAZY PERSON (thanks to our cousin for the advice) and add it to the sauce.

**Don't forget to check on your pasta! No one likes overcooked pasta. Make sure you are good and ambidextrous before embarking on this madness as now you need to be continuously stirring multiple things.**

**Also, at this point, you should preheat your oven to 350.**

7. Once everything has melted into a gooey-cheese-mess of yumminess, stir in the sweet-potato-and-onion mixture till its even.

8. Take the hot mess off the heat. Drain the macaroni and stir it into the cheese sauce. Cover the top in bread crumbs. Pop it in the oven until the cheese bubbles.
9. Consume immediately.

Ok, so this makes TWO CASSEROLE POTS worth of mac 'n' cheese. We cannot eat this much mac 'n' cheese. We will TURN INTO a pot of mac 'n' cheese. Does anyone know if you can freeze mac 'n' cheese?

Fail. (But not in taste - its SCRUMPTIOUS!)

Eli

PS - We used a 300g package of mild cheddar, and about 150g of Gouda. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

On All Things Kitchy And Kitcheny...

2010-12-30T20:57:00.001-06:00

We do not understand this habit (trend? craze?) of kitchen items that are shaped exactly like their designated use. Observe:
- Garlic pots shaped like a clove of garlic.
- Juicers made to look like lemons or oranges.
- Something called an Avocado Slicer with suspiciously avocado-like colours.

Is this mimicry supposed to be functional, or cute? We can't really see how a garlic pot shaped like a clove of garlic holds more garlic, then, say, a mason jar. And we can safely say that an orange-shaped juicer is not only redundant, but exclusive. Does one need to purchase a different-looking juicer to make lemonade? Do grapefruits get sent to the "back of the bus", so to speak?

Is this instead an economical decision - saving the cost of producing accompanying user instructions? Without the green and yellow colours, would one pick up an avocado slicer and say "what the bleeding holy cannoli does this thing do!!?" Possibly.

Is this simply a new way to trick the consumer into purchasing something "clever"? Or do the designers think such designs are, in fact, clever? Such things are anything but! What, we ask, is creative about a cheese grater shaped like a block of cheese? Not one bleeding thing, that's what.

Upon some intense google-image research, we find that some precious individuals have already moved beyond this cheap mimicry. Behold, a paper-clip heater! A strawberry-shaped mouse! A swan-shaped kettle!

We would like this to be taken one step further. We would like to push past the anarchy of objects-shaped-like-objects-they-are-not, and into the chaos of objects-shaped-like-objects-they-are-absolutely-not. Kettles shaped like toasters! Rolling pins shaped like carving knives! Spatulas shaped like fly-swatters! Can you imagine the hilarity of someone dumping their pasta into a colander, only to realize that they've dumped it into a lettuce spinner SHAPED like a colander? We can, and we want to live in that world. We want our oven to resemble our fridge, and our table to have a fake built-in sink. Brooms should be mops, and mops should be standing lamps, and standing lamps should be painted onto the wall. There is no end to the potential madness once one begins to travel down this glorious path.

Happy New Year everyone. May your days be filled with blissful chaos.

Eli

AVATAR

2010-03-07T15:07:00.000-06:00

Shiny fluorescence = pretty.

Nominated for:
Cinematography - Mauro Fiore
Direction - James Cameron
Best Picture

Also nominated for:
Art Direction - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
Film Editing - Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
Music (Original Score) - James Horner
Sound Editing - Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
Sound Mixing - Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
Visual Effects - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

Okay. So.

This movie is very... pretty, in a shiny, cartoony, little princess kind of way. I think is the most expensive child's movie ever made. It will be interesting to see what will be done with all this new technology when placed in more creative hands, but its a shame James Cameron is too egotistical to hire someone who is actually a talented writer. Maybe then this movie could have had some depth instead of just a pile of pop-spirituality and a whole lot of stock, gender-stereotyped characters...

And the voice-over narration... Sweet Jesus, why oh why must there be voice-over narration?!

That said, I do want a floating mountain and once of those big red flying things that swoop out of the sky and snatch up other, smaller things.

Best Picture? Absolutely not, but it will probably win anyway.
Best Directory? Please refer to the previous statement.
Cinematography? No. CGI is not cinematography.

Check out how many Avatar toys you can buy.

Eli

The White Ribbon

2010-03-07T15:03:00.000-06:00

Children are creepier then I ever imagined.

Nominated for:
Cinematography - Christian Berger

Also nominated for:
Foreign Language Film

This creepy, quiet little German film is the latest from Michael Haneke, infamous for other such eerie and violent flicks like Caché and Funny Games. The film as a whole is unsettling, to say the least. It's good... not sure if it is something I would watch again (yes, it's that creepy...) but I don't regret watching it.

Not for the faint of heart, thought there never actually is any violence on camera. I still feel a little ill after watching it, and while this may be due to the half pint of lemon sorbet I've just consumed, I'm going to pin that on the movie.

I'm a little put off by rotten tomatoes having this weird show thingy, but it pretty much sums up the piece.

Eli

Invictus

2010-03-07T10:36:00.001-06:00

Nelson Mandela harnesses the power of rugby to solve all of South Africa's problems - epic cheering scene ensues.

Nominated for:
Best Actor - Morgan Freeman
Best Supporting Actor - Matt Damon

This could have been so much more than your standard sports movie, but it isn't. The acting nods are completely unwarranted, unless looking stoic for two and a half hours is considered to be talent nowadays...

Like so many other movies I've had to watch during the last few weeks, this one has fallen victim to convention. The climax of the film teeters on the will-they-make-it cliche, even though the outcome of the world cup match is a matter of historical record. It's especially disappointing that not much else is explored, given the wealth of stories that could be told about such an incredible time in South Africa's history. Nope - this movie goes for the least interesting bits of everything. The camera work is generic, the writing is uninspired, and the acting is flat. Dull, dull dull.

I will say one good thing though, Morgan Freeman recites the Invictus poem way better then this creepy dude.

Eli

The Messenger

2010-03-06T01:19:00.000-06:00

War really fucks you up.

Best supporting actor - Woody Harrelson
Writing (original Screenplay) - Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman

The film is a nice appendix to The Hurt Locker. Both take on their subject using a "realistic" approach, and this most definitely does the topic justice. The Messenger does its bit to lend its voice to the anti-war protest without getting too preachy or over-bearing.

This is an emotional roller coaster, and surprisingly understated given the amount of attention paid to grief stricken relatives. The whole film is very matter-of-fact in its presentation of grief, sadness, and post-traumatic-stress. It's very well written, and the acting is magnificent, especially Samatha Morton's middle-America Wal-mart army wife character (sheer-brilliance).

In whole, this movie should be seen by many people. Best writing? Sure. It was very, very good. Best acting for Woody Harrelson? I suppose, but I found him to be the weakest actor of the three main roles. Ah well.

Not that you can really tell that its here, but here's Samantha Morton being REALLY creepy.

Eli

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

2010-03-04T23:45:00.000-06:00

Life can suck A LOT.

Nominated for:
Best picture
Directing - Lee Daniels
Best Leading Actress - Gabourey Sidibe
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique
Writing (adapted) - Geoffrey Fletcher

Also Nominated for:
Film Editing - Joe Klotz

There are a lot of good things about this movie. Both actresses do a bang up job, and my money is on Mo'Nique winning the supporting Actress award. She miraculously brings a tiny shred of humanity to a seriously flawed character and avoids turning her into a caricature.

The film's ridiculously long title is not one of the aforementioned good things.

Narratively, the file suffers from the same issues that most adaptations encounter - a meandering story line with too many plot peaks. But much like Mo'Nique's character, the film never falls into melodrama or caricature, which I suppose justifies the Best Picture and Directing nominations.

This is not an easy film to watch - by any means. However, if you're in the mood for an emotional toughie, then this is the one for you.

Mariah Carey - respectable actress?

Eli

A Serious Man

2010-03-04T22:48:00.001-06:00

The book of Job set in 1960's-ish middle Jewish America... Coen Brother's style.

Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Original Screenplay - Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

This file is amazing. Its incredibly frustrating to watch, but if you've got even the tiniest hint of masochism in you, then you will appreciate this sublime bit of cinema.

It should be nominated for so much more. The lead actor, Michael Stuhlbarg of Broadway fame, was amazing, along with the cinematography, sound design and art direction. Obviously, the Coen Brothers themselves should have gotten a directorial nod along with their writing nomination, but what can you do?

All around, this is a winner.

Eli

Julie & Julia

2010-03-04T22:22:00.001-06:00

Butter is awesome.

Nominated for:
Best Supporting Actress - Meryl Streep

This movie isn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it's quite entertaining. Simple, focused, sweet and honest. The drama in the lives of the two main women never distract from the real star of this movie - the food. And let me tell you, you better damn well eat a fine meal before watching this flick or you're stomach will be growling louder than a grizzly bear being hit by a golf club.

As for Meryl's performance, she is solid as always.

Check out Julia Child's cooking show pre-FOOD Network glitz and glam.

Eli

Nine

2010-03-03T06:56:00.001-06:00

See Fellini's melancholic masterpiece 8 1/2, now Americanized, with more signing, dancing ... and lingerie!

Nominated for:
Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz
Art Direction - John Myhre, Gordon Sim
Costume Design - Colleen Atwood
Best Original Song - Take It All

There is no raison d'etre fore this movie. It basically is a dumbed down, westernized version of 8 1/2. Except, since there isn't really much to 8 1/2 to begin with, the dumbed-down version has nothing at all worth watching... except maybe Penelope Cruz in her lingerie.

This movie tries too hard to be a replica of Chicago and forgets its purpose. It may be more enjoyable with the sound off, since the songs are dull and stupid, but the dance sequences aren't very interesting either.

Basically, this is expensive, over hyped eye-candy. No awards for you!

Here's the opening sequence to 8 1/2 - no words or music needed to express the same thing as Nine's opening dance number.

Eli

Crazy Heart

2010-03-01T23:05:00.000-06:00

The Wrestler Part II: Gone Country

Nominated For:
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges
Best Supporting Actress - Maggie Gyllenhaal
Best Original Song - The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)

This movie is about as generic as they come. There isn't anything particularly offensive about it, but there isn't anything very exciting about it either. I suppose if you like country twang there might be something in this for you, since there is a lot of singing. But if you are going to name your protagonist something like "Bad Blake", you gotta at least inject a bit of controversy into the mess. Basically, everything about this movie made me think "yeah, ok... but The Wrestler did that better".

I love Jeff, and Maggie, but not in this movie. They've done better, and will do better, in other, more interesting movies.

Eli

A Single Man

2010-03-01T23:01:00.000-06:00

A man grieves over the sudden loss of his lifetime partner. Lots of pretty colours fade in and out of focus.

Nominated For:
Best Actor - Colin Firth

This movie is a work of out, one of the best I've seen all year. Literally, took my breath away.

Colin Firth should win this award. I may even put money on it.

I can't imagine why this didn't also pick up nods for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Directing as well/ James Cameron may have lots of money to hire a pile of programming geeks, but I'd like to see him try and create something as beautiful and sublime as this. Everything in this movie was 10 times more enthralling then anything CGI could ever invent.

Mr. Tom Ford (director), I hope you continue to make films, as this one has reminded me why I love them in the first place.

Eli

The Last Station

2010-02-27T18:14:00.000-06:00

People REALLY love Leo Tolstoy. Some of them disagree on who loves him more.

Nominated for:
Best Actress - Helen Mirren
Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer

This movie plots out the final months in Tolstoy's life, in which his wife battles with his followers over who should obtain the copyrights to his life's work - his family or the people. Paul Giamati plays the creepy-but-sort-of-well-intentioned fanatic. James MacAvoy plays the nervous innocent who learns to love and all that other stuff.

None, however, are quite as magnificent as Helen Mirren.

I love Helen Mirren. And she is amazing in this film, just like she is amazing in everything she's ever done (check out her badass-ness in BBC's groundbreaking police drama Prime Suspect). Christopher Plummer put on a good performance as well, all though he was much better in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and probably should have gotten a nomination for that instead.

Overall, the first 45 minutes or so are extremely engaging, but unfortunately this movie swerves from its ironic, quirky beginnings into a blah period-piece melodrama. Still, I suppose it was better then some of the other crap on this list.

Eli

In The Loop

2010-02-26T00:24:00.001-06:00

Politicians are all incompetent and/or insane.

Nominated for:

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche

I hope this movie wins the one little award it was nominated for, since the whole thing is miles better then almost anything else on this list. There isn't really much more to say about this, except that it's solid.

Thoroughly entertaining and choc-full of British wit... A++

Eli

An Education

2010-02-26T00:21:00.000-06:00

A 16-year-old girl and her parents are seduced by a creepy dude with a lot of money. Girl learns school isn't really all that bad.

Nominated for:
Best Actress - Carey Mulligan
Writing Adapted Screenplay - Nick Hornby
Best Picture

I left the theater after seeing An Education perplexed, and a little grossed out, which was a shame, because I really wanted to like this movie.

The acting was fabulous. The dialog and story arc are quite lovely (as I would expect from my dear Nick Hornby). And the glamorous early 60's dresses that the ladies wear are fabulous, so why was I bored for most of this movie?

Ultimately, the film was just dull. The camera work was textbook generic, the lighting was uninspired, and the music was that shlocky, melodramatic orchestral crap meant to boss your emotions around (feel sad HERE, feel glad HERE). The editing was dull too, and this film could definitely have used a little bit of non-linear scrambling to add some intrigue.

All these things seem to have been ignored by the filmmakers, so why its received a Best Picture nomination is beyond me. I guess its worth watching if you want to convince your teen-aged daughter to stay in school and NOT get married to a handsome creep-o with lots of money. The movie doesn't really paint schooling in any kind of favorable light, which makes the moral of this tale something like - go to school and be alone for your life, or get married and be a bimbo.

Best picture? Nope. Best Writing? Nope. Best Actress? Possibly.

Maybe I would have enjoyed the movie more if Ben Folds (lyrics by Nick Hornby) had done the music...

Eli

The Lovely Bones

2010-02-18T00:38:00.001-06:00

A Young Girl gets murdered. Then gets stuck in a limbo land plagued by CGI. Then a lot of things happens that don't make much sense.

Nominated for:
Best Supporting Actor - Stanely Tucci

Ok so the good news is that my initial concerns about this movie adaptation (that Peter Jackson would create a revenge thriller instead of a story about grief and loss) proved to be false. The bad news is that Peter Jackson had no flipping clue WHAT this story was about, so he created... something... drenched in CGI beyond-this-world limbo nonsense about a murderer (Stanely Tucci's role).

The book is not great to begin with, from a literary perspective, but the author does a phenomenal job of creating believable character with visceral emotions. The most compelling element to the book, however, is the young (and dead) girl's narration. However, in the film version, most of the girl's narration is about the murderer (not about being a 14-year-old girl), and the murderer's emotions, and the murderer's motivations (warning: massive rant up ahead).

By making the murderer the focus of the film, the otherwise introspective story about growth, and sadness, and emotional pain, becomes a voyeuristic spectacle on par with Crime Porn shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, Law & Order SVU... According to stories like these, women are always victims of man's all-powerful lust for sexualized violence. Women are helpless, and the more helpless they seem, the more tragic and perverse the crime. On top of it all, audiences are invited to observe, and delight, in all this horror.

Murder is not glamorous, or romantic, or seductive, nor is the constant victimization of women. And maybe I'm a little over sensitive, given the recent arrest Col. Russell Williams, but I'm beyond sick of watching murder presented as mindless entertainment, and that's what comes across the strongest in this movie. All the other characters EXCEPT the murderer himself get lost in this Creepy-Killer-Show/CGI-heaven, which is a shame, because if the focus had been on any of the other potentially wonderful characters, this movie may have turned out alright.

Best Supporting Actor? No. Tucci was miles better in Julie & Julia, playing a normal, intelligent human being. But you don't see any nods going his way for that, do you?

There is one good thing, though, about this crap-sack, and that's Brian Eno's score.

Eli

And the tally is...

2010-02-16T07:17:00.001-06:00

Here's where I'm at in terms of films viewed:

Julie & Julia (Best Actress)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Cinematography)
District 9 (Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
Up (Best Picture, Writing Original)
Inglourious Basterds (Best Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Original)
Up in the Air (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress x2, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
A Single Man (Best Actor)
The Hurt Locker (Best Actor, Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Original)
The Last Station (Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress)
The Lovely Bones (Best Supporting Actor)
The Blind Side (Best Actress, Best Picture)
An Education (Best Actress, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
Nine (Best Supporting Actress)
In the Loop (Writing Adapted)

Which leave the following to view between now and March 7th:
1. Crazy Heart (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress)
2. Invictus (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor)
3. The Messenger (Best Supporting Actor, Writing Original)
4. Precious (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
5. Avatar (Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture)
6. The White Ribbon (Cinematography)
7. A Serious Man (Best Picture, Writing Original)

Stay tuned!

Eli

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2010-02-16T07:09:00.001-06:00

A teenage boy plays with his magic wand. A lot.

Nominated for:
Cinematography - Bruno Delbonnel

This movie is entertaining, but the book is better.

In terms of cinematography, I suppose it deserves some credit. I fact, I think the look of this movie is what made it actually bearable, aside all the Harry Potter geeky-goodness.

This version, however, is mind-blowing.

Eli

District 9

2010-02-14T21:34:00.002-06:00

A rascists corporate shmuck in Johanasburg, South Africa gets what’s coming to him… and then a whole lot more. Teaches us that Aliens are humans too, except with cooler weapons.

Nominated for:
Best Picture
Writing Adapted Screenplay - Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

Also Nominated for:
Film Editing
Visual Effects

This clever little social commentary packs a ton of information into each frame. I kind of wish the whole thing hadn’t turned into a sci-fi action flic by the end but what can you expect from something with Peter Jackson’s name attached to it?

Aside from the obvious commentary on the ever-present racism of South Africa, I think the best thing about this movie is the main character and his thoroughly un-likeable personality. He is a whiny, wimpy, weasel in a tie, and he makes you want to reach into the screen and smack his annoying little face. He’s not an anti-hero, he’s a NON-hero. Except he still comes off as sympathetic, which is not easy to pull off and that deserves a round of applause.

Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay? I don't think so, especially since it dropped the social commentary angle about 3/4 of the way through and went instead for an alien-weapon shoot-em-up.

Here is the original short film, if you're interested.

Eli

UP

2010-02-11T23:05:00.001-06:00

A grumpy old man ties a lot of helium balloons to his house and pursues life-long dreams of adventure. Picks up along the way a fat, annoying child, a loud bird of unknown origins and a dumb dog obsessed with squirrels. Learns to let go of stuff.

Nominated for:
Best Picture
Writing Original Screenplay - Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

Also nominated for:
Best Animated Feature
Music Original Score
Sound Editing

Some moments in this latest from Pixar are touching. Some are annoying. This is a good children’s picture that also deals with some adult themes. The comedy is mostly slapstick, and the writing is forced. Most of the movie I was thinking “ok I see why they have to make that obvious for children, but I’m not a child”. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the fat kid fell off the house mid-air, and the bird got eaten by the creepy dogs with voice boxes.

UP may be at the top of the kid flicks list, but I’ll be just fine if I never have to watch it again.

Best Picture? Certainly not, especially since its also nominated for Best Animated Feature. If any animated movie released last year should get a best feature nod its Fantastic Mr. Fox. Best writing? No way. Pixar has done better – this movie was sloppy.

This interviewer talks really frickin' fast.

Eli

The Hurt Locker

2010-02-11T23:02:00.000-06:00

Dude disarms a lot of bombs. Finds it stressful.

Nominated for:
Best Actor - Jeremy Renner
Cinematography - Barry Ackroyd
Directing - Kathryn Bigelow
Best Picture
Writing Original Screenplay - Mark Boal

Also nominated for:
Film Editing - Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
Music Original Score - Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
Sound Editing - Paul N.J. Ottosson
Sound Mixing - Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

This movie is solid. I wasn't sure while I was watching it, but its got its meaty claws hooked into my brain. I'm haunted.

There is barely a narrative in this film, and its brilliant. Its relentless. Its banal and its horrifying simultaneously, and I'm not really sure how that works.

I doubt this movie will win as many awards as it should, but I would be totally ok if it picked up the award for directing, cinematography, and original screenplay. And since it probably won't, I'll settle instead for directing. Bigelow needs to stick it to the man... Particularly this man.

Eli

Up in the Air

2010-02-09T23:42:00.001-06:00

Some dude flies on A LOT of airplanes. Realizes he is lonely and that firing people kinda sucks.

Nominated for:
Writing Adapted Screenplay - Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Best Picture
Directing - Jason Reitman
Best Supporting Actress - Vera Farmig and Anna Kendrick
Best Actor – George Clooney

This is a solid movie. If I could watch George Clooney till the end of the world, life would be just grand.

Jason Reitman handles job lose in Corporate America with just the right amount of humour and sincerity. This film is miles more mature then anything we’ve seen from him so far. The self-imposed isolation of the protagonist almost bleeds off the screen, and I can’t remember the last time I saw George Clooney look so vulnerable. This movie kind of broke my heart a little… in a good way.

So far, this film has my approval for all of its nominations (except maybe the double supporting actress nod). I say so far, because I have yet to view most of the competition, but this film had so much poise and class that it should get as much attention as humanly possible.

Here's a live performance of the title song.

Eli

The Blind Side

2010-02-08T20:58:00.002-06:00

White people learn that Black people can be fixed if you spend enough money on them... as long as they’re Christian.

Nominated for:

Best Actress - Sandra Bullock
Best Picture

I learned the following from watching this movie:

- It’s ok to take strange homeless kids into your home as long as they are really dumb, so they won’t know what to steal.

- If you are a homeless kid, you should only get into a stranger’s car if they are rich and white and Christian. And Republican.

- Christian private schools have no problem taking on charity case students who are way below grade point average, as long as they write grammatically-incorrect-but-heartfelt essays about respecting authority like a good little soldier.

- If you are a good person and work hard, God will bless you with a lot of money, and no psychological problems whatsoever.

- All black people are dumb and/or drug dealers.

- If your mother is a crack whore, just close your eyes while “bad stuff” happens, and eventually you’ll turn out alright.

This movie is pure schlock. I probably would have vomited all over myself during this viewing if I hadn’t been so goddamned bored (20 minutes in, I was checking my watch). The writing is terrible, worse then that Paul Haggis crap.

Don’t ever watch this movie. In fact, all you’d need to watch is the trailer, since its a lot more exciting. Sandra Bullock can do, and has done, much better. Everyone else involved in this movie should go jump off a bridge.

Best Actress? NO.

Best Picture? Please.

Sandra Bullock in her glory days.

Inglourious Basterds

2010-02-07T13:29:00.000-06:00

A lot of muscular Jews slaughter Hitler & Friends. Some women try to help out – and get killed.

Nominated for:
Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz
Cinematography - Robert Richardson
Directing - Quentin Tarantino
Best Original Writing - Quentin Tarantino
Best Picture

Also nominated for:
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Film Editing

There are many enjoyable parts to this movie. Most sequences are well crafted, choc-full of nail-biting suspense and Tarantino’s trademark dialog. A feast for the eyes. A pioneer in the revenge genre. Christophe Waltz is a stellar psychopath. And you gotta give props to a movie that plots out Hitler’s fictional murder.

Here’s the problem. I’m all for a slow-burn storyline, but Tarantino has this nasty habit of blathering on about nothing relevant to his story just for the sake of proving how cool and clever and super non-dweeby he is. Which is bad. Which means he doesn’t know how to tun to someone and say “Gee, have I gone too far with this bit here?” Maybe he’s surrounded himself with too many Yes men, Speilberg-style. Regardless, there are way too many irrelevant sidebars in this movie, and that's all on Tarantino's giant ego.

Case-in-point – let’s take a look at the scene with “Winston Churchill” and Mike Meyers. The majority of this segment has nothing to do with the plot, and any relevant information that is revealed could have been relayed in about 10 other ways without affecting the story line, except to shorten this movie’s ghastly length by about 10 minutes. The only reason to keep such pointless frivolities is because the filmmaker thinks they are "wicked-cool" and "awesome", which annoys me.

Another case-in-point – the sequence towards the beginning of the movie in which we are introduced to The Bear Jew and his war-weary baseball bat. Why are we forced to spend so much time setting up this awful baseball bat business only to NEVER SEE IT AGAIN throughout the rest of the movie?! The sequence itself was extremely well constructed, which frustrates me more then anything. When all these beautiful, disturbing parts just vanish within the film, I have to ask myself, what was the point of putting that whole bit together if it was only going to be thrown away? And "because its wicked cool and awesome" is not an answer to that question.

So does this geeky little Basterds deserve an award for Best Picture? Absolutely not. Cinematography? ‘Tis nomination worthy. Best Original Writing? No. Best Supporting Actor? Possibly, but the actress Melanie Laurent was miles better. Best Picture? Over my dead body.

Tarantino, partner up with someone who can reign in that ridiculous imagination of yours with some proper storytelling skills, then we’ll talk.

Also, in case you are under any delusions (and I’m sure you are), you aren’t black, or a hip hop artist. Put down that goddamned popped collar and take off your sunglasses.

Eli

And the nominees are... oh shit.

2010-02-02T19:28:00.003-06:00

Jesus, what have I done? Why are there so many? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?!?!?!

So I've already seen the following:

Julie & Julia (Best Actress)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Cinematography)
District 9 (Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
Up (Best Picture, Writing Original)
Inglourious Basterds (Best Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Original)

Which means that between now and March 7th, I will need to watch the following:

1. Crazy Heart (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress)
2. Up in the Air (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress x2, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
3. A Single Man (Best Actor)
4. Invictus (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor)
5. The Hurt Locker (Best Actor, Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Original)
6. The Messenger (Best Supporting Actor, Writing Original)
7. The Last Station (Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress)
8. The Lovely Bones (Best Supporting Actor)
9. The Blind Side (Best Actress, Best Picture)
10. An Education (Best Actress, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
11. Precious (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Directing, Best Picture, Writing Adapted)
12. Nine (Best Supporting Actress)
13. Avatar (Cinematography, Directing, Best Picture)
14. The White Ribbon (Cinematography)
15. A Serious Man (Best Picture, Writing Original)
16. In the Loop (Writing Adapted)

Not including the actual day of the Oscars, this gives me 32 days to watch 16 movies and write 21 reviews. And of the 16 movies that I will need to see, three have inspired rage upon sight-of-trailer. (The Blind Side actually induced retching...)

My wallet and debit card have already started picketing in protest. My Soul may join them as well.

Here goes nothing...

Eli

The Oscars Pledge

2010-02-01T22:53:00.001-06:00

At 8:30am tomorrow morning, the nomination for this year's Academy Awards will be announced.

Oh yes. Stand witness as the best movies from last year are snubbed in favour of flashy, splashy, melodrama! Bend your mind around the ridiculous clothing that passes for fashion! Bask in the almighty ego of James Cameron!

Lucky for you, dear readers, Masochism is my middle name (not really), and so, for your enjoyment, I pledge to watch all of the films nominated for the following awards:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor and Supporting Actor
Best Actress and Supporting Actress
Best Original Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography

I'd also like to get in Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Documentary, Best Animated Feature, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

I'll stick to The Oscar Pledge and report back dutifully on the various merits and detriments of the films in question. I may go broke, and I may become bloated from popcorn consumption, but all this is of little consequence, since I will finally have obtained enough information to confidently cry from the rooftops "I HATE THE OSCARS! DEATH TO AWARD CEREMONIES ONCE AND FOR ALL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Such a noble quest, no?

Stay tuned for updates. Wish me luck!

Eli

Eli gets mad at stuff, then is distracted.

2009-05-04T23:56:00.003-05:00

Eli’s been cheated.

Eli’s been cheated by the god damned hippies. They preached all that love bullshit and then moved to the suburbs, bought a couple SUVs and started voting Conservative. Now they float in their in-ground pools and bitch about the lack of tax breaks available to them while they suck back their imported alcohol and puff on their fancy cigars.

Eli’s been cheated by her government. They took her tax dollars and she seriously doubts any of it will be going to into renewable energy (not the fucking oil sands)/free education/free health care/AIDS research and prevention/arts funding/peace keeping/ anything that matters at all.

Eli’s been cheated by the new generation. They are all bloody annoying and obnoxious. Their clothing is too small, their voices are too obnoxious, their music is too terrible and they swear too much.

Eli’s been cheated by the music she used to like when she was in high school. What the hell, high-school-music? You got her through some rough times, but now you fucking suck. What gives? You fail.

Eli’s been cheated by the memories of older generations. Those rosy memories do not match up with the bitter day-to-day of now, and therefore were probably never accurate to begin with. Those who are now and those who once were are not the same, which is fucked up and troubling.

Eli’s been cheated by her eyeliner. It ran out this morning. Booourns. Lipstick is all gone too.

Eli’s been cheated by her body. Things are expanding and jiggling that never have before. Goddammit.

Most of all, Eli’s been cheated by her brain. Her brain said everything would be alright, and its not. Its clearly not, it never has been, and it never will be.

And in the while writing this nasty little “fuck the world” blurb, Eli has become strangely enchanted by Peaches and some of her truly disgusting antics. Rock on, Peaches. Rock on.

Click here for some serious hair growth

Eli finally finishes "Les Miserables" and feels empty

2008-11-05T20:26:00.008-06:00

Alternatively titled: Books are malevolent creatures

It's finished, over and done with. More beautiful and tragic then we could have possibly anticipated, melodrama done RIGHT.

But what are we to do now?

We've been left high and dry. Another closed book to sit on our shelves, another book to mock us. Oh yes, and mock us they do. We see them looking at us with those smirks, we hear what they whisper to each other when they think we're asleep. They say:

"Oh there she goes again, getting her heart broken."
"You'd think she'd have learned by now not to fall for something destined to end. You'd think she'd remember the despair, the emptyness-"
"-The gaping hole-in-your-heart pain hidden in the final words of each and every one of us?"
"Oh yes."
"QUITE."
"Well, what does she expect to happen?"
"You know, a lunatic IS defined as one who repeats the same actions yet expects a different outcome."
"Well I think that fits her to a tea."
"Oh yes."
"QUITE."

Those bloody books. They beckon to us, they do, we've seen it happen. They seduce us so that we forget about the inevitable end, getting closer with each turn of the page no less. "Just one more chapter" they breathe "just one more". And we follow along all contentedly until WHAM!!! no pages left. The cover slams shut and the only sound in our wasteland of a soul is faint, cruel laughter.

And then sometimes we go back, desperate to rekindle that first spark, the one that drew us in to begin with. But even though we may not remember the details, we still know what's coming, we know how it all ends, and nothing is as compelling as that very first time.

Now, just as we knew it would, it has happened again. We can feel the despair setting in.

They truly are malevolent, those dastardly novels!

Oh, what's a poor girl to do?

elielieli

Let's be clear about this...

2008-10-14T23:58:00.004-05:00

Title to continue as possibly:

- Harper is a soulless robot monkey who will never be defeated.

- Dion is a pussy.

- Mustachios unite!

Bloody conservatives get a stupid advantage - they merged all their craziness into one party, forcing left-wingers to split their vote between pussies, mustaches and miscreant hippies. We are pissed (angry, not drunk), and it's time to sling some mud.

Mr.Dion - YOU ARE AN OPPOSITION PARTY. This means that you must OPPOSE the party in power. Stating in your acceptance speech that you will be working WITH the Conservatives does nothing for your image as a giant, gapping fuck-hole. Although, why are we surprised, when you've done nothing BUT enable Harper and his ridonculous policies over the last 2 1/2 years? Dion, you are a smart man. Please step down as party leader and let someone with (metaphorical) balls take over. Please. We don't want to see you try to play hockey again. Just... go away.

Mr. Harper - You and your entire cabinet sicken me. I refuse to recognize you as the leader of my fine, fine country. You are a fat, blubbery monkey who is incapable of looking his debate-mates in the eye, let alone say anything that goes beyond the party line. You're behavior as prime minister has consistently made me ashamed to share a nationality with you. I hope you meet your demise in a bitterly ironic accident involving a oil rig run by incompetent foreign interests and a 14 year-old artistic violent offender.

CBC - TWITTERS????!!!!!!!! Fuck you.

Since this election seems to have been one giant, expensive exercise in futility, we are forcing ourselves to look on the bright side, though "bright" might not be the appropriate term...

- NDP in the house! Props to Outremont for electing Quebec's first NDP riding leader. Proud to say that we have a relative in that riding who happened to pin Mulclair's boutonniere on his suit this morning, therefore we obviously have an intense, spiritual connection to this victory.

- Congratulations to the ABC movement for shutting the conservatives out of Newfoundland/Labrador. You know you've done something wrong when your own MP spearheads a movement in his region named Anything But Conservative.

Well... We can't really think of many more positive aspects to discuss. We're pretty fucking ticked off. We almost lost it when CBC aired John Baird's acceptance speech. In terms evil henchmen, he's way up their with Rumsfeld and... let's say Odd Job. Since we seem to be getting a little loopy, we are going to stop this ranting madness, after this one last point...

To all you supposed Canadians who didn't vote today: Hide your faces - you should be ashamed of your sorry, pathetic lives.

Do you realize that you are privileged to be allowed to participate in your government, without fear of retribution? Do you realize that there was a time not-so-long ago that, should you have not been a member of the social-elite, you would be physically prevented from casting your vote? Something that you obviously deemed to be so inconsequential and unworthy of your precious time used to result in riots and revolts - it used to represent your membership of this country.

If voting is so inconvenient to your hectic schedule, please feel free to emigrate to a country where such a burden is not place upon its citizens. Just don't expect to enjoy the same luxurious human rights laws as Canada is so fortunate to possess. God forbid you take half an hour from your day to make a mark on a piece of paper. Christ - is television really that good right now? What else are you going to do on a random Tuesday night?

Eli needs a drink. Eli needs to sleep. Eli needs to not be doomed to another Conservative government. Tonight, we go to sleep dreaming of coalitions...

Elielieli

PS - This election had the lowest voter turn out in our history. Who do you non-voters think you are, American?

Harper: one of the damned?

2008-08-30T09:44:00.004-05:00

We all know that Harper is a slimy cocksucker, but could it be that he is actually a child of the damned? Let's look at the evidence:

Dead souless eyes...

Dead souless eyes!

OMG its true! Run for your lives!

Wait, what was that last business?

2008-06-06T00:40:00.002-05:00

We actually had things to say, and then the tampon/food baby thing got us side tracked. Dammit - hate when that happens.

HERE! Sit on this and spin, John Baird. You know it's important when the Quebec and Ontario government TEAM UP and AGREE on something. Hopefully, this will compensate some for Baird's and Harper's ridiculous, shameful representation at the Bali climate change conference.

On a completely different note, where the frick did THIS come from? Seriously? We can't handle many more shitty franchise blockbusters. We're still reeling over Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of CGI Vomit (SPIELBERG! WE WILL GET YOU!), and Sex And The Never Ending Storyline - plus we're gonna have to deal with the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, which is really just going to make us cry... We can't be flashing back to X-Files geek-dom as well, the brain just won't be able to process it all.

Don't you wish that sometimes you could just bury your head in a giant sand pit? The city should provide some kind of communal sand-pit for such an occasion. Wonder what that would resemble...

You really shouldn't bother reading this...

2008-06-06T00:08:00.003-05:00

There's a heap to get off our chest. Also, the keyboard's gone a bit wonky, so there may be some typos. Also also, there has been alcohol consumption...

Today we roamed the streets of Montreal with the Mad Artist herself, who decided after being back for only a few short weeks to turn around and head off to Laurentians. THANKS for leaving us to deal with the crazy tourists and summer drama. OH WELL.

we will greatly miss our roaming sessions, which always seem to yeild interesting results. There's nothing quite like being greated by someone who mimes "MY VAGINA IS BLEEDING" in the middle of De Maisonneuve to brighten up your day. It's nothing if not impressive. EQUALLY amusing is walking into a pharmacy and loudly discussing the multitude of feminine-hygiene product options, effectively scaring away all the boys in that aisle... of which there were surprisingly many. Tampon-shopping just won't be as much fun the next time we go, since we will have no one to laugh with as we run down the aisle, waving a tampax box above our heads and shouting "WOOT WOOT".

Side note - "Feminine hygiene"? What an ugly term. As if women are especially dirty, in need of special care. Like boys aren't just as gross - just ask about the "Condom/Laundry" story.

You know when you eat too much and then you have a food baby where your stomach used to be? Have you ever eaten so much that your food baby started to grow its own food baby, and then you started to worry that you were going to start popping out food-baby-pregnant food babies? No?

Eli.

I LOST MY LEEEEEEEEEEEG!

2008-03-17T22:48:00.002-05:00

Oh happy st-fuhckin-paddy's-day to the lot oh-yous!!!!!!!!!

are ya shippin' out to boston?

Irish carbombs FUCK YOU

even though we didn't doo them. Our friends did, and we watched, and we watched as the car bombs curddled for those who didn't drink them fast enough. Do you know what jameson and bailey's looks like when it cruddle's? We do. We know what happens, inside your stomach. It's gross.

Check out the pics from the parade, it somes it all up.

Another debauched parade gone by... HAPPY ST PADDY'S DAY TO YOU ALL!!

Elizabeth

Remembering while we can

2008-02-02T01:24:00.001-06:00

Our grandma made the best macaroni and cheese. None of our Italian relatives were big fans of it, but all the grandkids loved it because, common, it was macaroni. And cheese. Every holiday and birthday was marked by macaroni and cheese.

Our grandma asked us to show her how to program a VCR so she could tape her soaps. We spent an afternoon, going over the whole thing, step by step, so she'd get every last melodramatic drop.

Grandma taught us to play Go Fish, then Crazy 8's, then Rummy, and we loved it all.

Grandma used to loved brushing our hair when it was really long. Because her birthday is on April 1st, one time we called her up and told her we'd cut it super short. Then, when we saw her next, we tucked it into our coat so she would think that it was short, and we fooled her, for April Fools!

Our grandma used to sit next to us on the piano bench while we'd practice our lesson and follow along, making sure we kept the right beat.

Our grandma baked cookies, pies, our favourite cakes.

Our grandma was a secret smoker, at least to us grandkids.

We'd sit on her balcony and talk about new things, eat our grill cheese, and gossip.

Grandma...

Our Grandma doesn't remember we don't live with our parents anymore. She doesn't remember that we've finished school.

Our Grandma doesn't remeber how careful she'd be to spend special time with each and every one of us.

Our Grandma doesn't remember that she was the one who took care of everyone else.

And now whose supposed to do it?

We know the internet isn't forever, but its a damn well longer then our memory. And maybe if we get it down here, it will last a little longer in someone elses. Or maybe if we just say it, over and over again:

Mac n'cheese, VCR, Cards, Hair, Piano, Smokes and Cake...

But it desn't mean anything when you say it like that.

Traipsing through snow from St Henri to NDG

2008-02-02T01:11:00.000-06:00

High step, One Two, cuz the sidewalks haven't been plowed yet. Although, they are in the midst of being plowed - we narrowly avoid being sandwiched between two plows hiking around that corner where Ste. Catherine's becomes Claremont. Our boots only go up to below our knees, so any snowbank beyond that is unmanageable - that means we've got to walk in the street. A perilous feat at this hour.

The street... the street that is empty, save only for the snow plows, those drastardly snow plows that are trying to run us over. It wouldn't be nearly as stressful, walking home at 2am, if there wasn't such a need for "cleared streets". Because if no one had to be anywhere, to GET anywhere, then there'd be no point in clearing the streets on a Friday night, and we'd be able to walk home though the gorgeous snow, in prefect peace and tranquility.

But no, the motors of the cabs, and plows, and buses, and cars that INSIST on cutting up our winterscape whiz by us on every side, making us paranoid and forcing us to look over our shoulder at every moan and groan.

And if it was all empty, would we even be walking this way?

What do we know? We're blitzed.

EliEliEli

Snowballs in the rain - Dr Phil, Cronenberg and Harper are shitlisted - Ian McEwan, Johnny Depp and the Cohen Brohers are not

2008-01-08T00:13:00.000-06:00

MOVIE UPDATE

So we saw a couple decent movies of late, and a couple disappointments. Here's the short version:

1. Juno - Enjoyable, because how could anything with Micheal Cera be anything else? Worth the money, and guaranteed to make incredulous parents go "but they're only teenagers!" Ellen Page is good, everyone else is good, its just all around good. Kinda like Saved, if Saved hadn't pussied out.

2. Atonment - Fabulous, and this is coming from someone who hates epics, despises love stories and becomes positively rabid at the mention of an epic love story. We really wouldn't call it an epic though, since despite the wide time span of the story (the second part focuses on the British troops at Dunkirk) it remains squarely focused on the connection between the three main characters, never deviating from their perspectives. And, now that we mention it, we wouldn't really call it a love story either, since it is not about some intangibile, fantasy notion of love, but the difficult task of atonning for one's mistakes (hence the title). So ha! We win! Ian MacEwan spins a beautiful, heartbreaking tale, and this is a fantastic adaptation.

3. The Golden Compass - Decent, until the end, which they changed from the book. Or rather, they decided to end the movie on a high note leaving out the final, devastating climax of the book which essentially fuels the protagonist's journey through the following sequels. So while it looked absolutely stunning, and while the Armored Bears (not Ice Bears, like in the movie) were totally bad-ass, and Lee Scorseby was everything you could hope him to be, this movie still crushed our childhood dreams, proving yet again that big budgets don't make good adaptations.

4. Sweeney Todd - Devilishly delicious! Throats were ripped open, blood gushed, spurted and sprayed all over the place, and Johnny Depp sang love ballads to his straight razors. This movie should have had the tag line "Oh yes, there will be blood", not that stupid, torture porn movie Saw II (and it didn't even have that much blood, not in comparison...).

5. Eastern Promises - Fuck you, Croenenberg. Learn how to create a proper woman character, for once. We aren't all mothers or whores, you know. And your villain needs more motivation than the old "I have a major boner for my chauffeur but daddy would never accept me for the big flammer that I am, so I must do outrageous, immoral things" excuse. Don't insult our intelligence. Go penetrate something, get it out of your system.

6. No Country for Old Men - No words can describe it. Just brilliant. It kinda just makes us flail and moan. Its beautiful, intelligent and terrifying. The Cohen Brothers rocked our socks.

NEWS UPDATE

Dr. Phil is going to cure Britney Spears of crazy. Aren't you relieved? Don't you feel so much better about the whole situation, now that Dr. Phil is on the job? What the shit is this all about? We didn't really like the guy before, but now he's on our list (as Stephen Colbert would say). He's right up there with Donald Trump. Media Whores, both of them. Trump should lend Phil his toupee!

Bhutto was murdered, more soldiers have died in Afganistan , and Kenya is trying to clean up itself up.

Oscar Peterson passed away . He was been married four times and had 7 children (6 with the first wife). That old scoundrel.

Steven Harper is a Douche (with a capital D). Tell him what you think of him: pm@pm.gc.ca

THE END

Eli

PS - That wasn't the end. THIS is the end:

Tonight we had a snowball fight in the pouring rain! We must say, there really isn't anything quite like tearing down Bishop street, leaping over massive puddles and firing off nasty snowballs. Here's to hoping that nothing freezes over night (an appropriate concern, given that it is 10 years since the ice storm)!

Fighting through the cesspool for the good of the bru!

2007-09-27T23:51:00.000-05:00

Here we are, trudging along the cesspool that is Montreal's (in)famous Ste. Catherine's Street.

We're in the tourist part, the west part, the part with all the brand-name shops and family chain restaurants. The part with the strip clubs that you can kinda not notice if you aren't paying attention or if you've lived there too long, like we have. The part before it gets reaaaally interesting, the part before what most people would call a cesspool, but what we call degenerate-paradise.

(Degenerate is now a word that degenerates have re-appropriated to be all empowering. Like queer, or cunt. We feel totally empowered now. Being a degenerate isn't a choice, its an honour. Fuck yeah!)

Anyway, Ste. Catherine's West is a cesspool of bewildered tourists, greasy strip club pushers, and a bunch of locals who really just want to get the fuck outta there. You can spot the tourists a mile away, even if they don't have the typical khaki shorts and fanny pack (why, why, why, WHY do so many middle aged tourists wears khaki shorts and fanny packs? Why? It's a fashion nightmare. We refuse to buy anything khaki, just out of fear of eventually evolving into what we dispise). They all meander along the sidewalk looking lost, overwhelmed and bewildered. "This is it?" says their wide, wide eyes. "This is the Montreal that everyone raves about? This branded pornographic strip mall?" And they'll snap pictures of the things the tour book says are important, and when their friends and family ask them about the city, they'll say "Oh it was great!" just to fit in with popular opinion. Even though they never really saw the city at all.

There are puddles everywhere tonight, and the bottoms of our pants are dragging along the wet cement because of course we couldn't have been bothered to hem them. No, we'd much rather be angry at the clothing manufactures for being so bloody pigheaded about their exclusive clothing sizes (a wider waist line does not guarantee a porportinately longer pant leg, dickwads...) then take five minutes and spare ourselves the misery of cold, wet ankles. Alas, we are ridiculously stubborn.

So we trudge along through the cesspool, miserable cuz our ankles are getting wet and we didn't think to grab a jacket upon leaving the house that morning, so we're starting to shiver a little too. Plus the toursits are offending our eyes, and the pushers are offending our ears (maybe not offending... some of those strip club innuendo calls are ingenious!). But we get to the bar (finally) and its cozy inside, and there's delicious beer, and we can forget about the fickle, fiendish weather for a few more hours while we get trashed on a thursday night. Woo.

Hey Preacher Man!

2007-07-12T00:32:00.000-05:00

December 23rd?? DECEMBER 23?????

How can it be that the last time we ranted and moaned and threw all our viscous head-nasties into cyberspace was half a year ago? What have we done since then? Read some good literature (so much pleasure from shoving your nose in a book) and watched many movies (some of them actually entertaining, which made up for the rest of them). Listed to music and saw a few concerts (Arcade Fire! White Stripes! TV on the Radio! ..... Could we be more indy? So gross.) Hosted a birthday party, finished educating ourselves (apparantly) and got ourselves a "real" job. Was a good thing too, since the old job gave us the boot.

OOH OOH We went to London. That was wonderful. We left our hearts in London. Our hearts and our money. Sweet Jesus, that place is expensive. We saw as much of the city as we could in six days, and capped off the whole trip by stalking our favourite rock star through the West End. To Mr. Carlos Barat, formerly of The Libertines: We sincerly appologize for our squealish and relatively hyserical behavior that other night, but you really only have yourself to blame. You can't expect to walk around London looking the way you do and NOT get slightly molested.

Let's see, what else... lost a roommate and gained another, mended some broken ties, gained a few pounds around the waist, cut the hair, paid rent, cooked some new meals, slept....

We're about up-to-date now, right?

We waited in line at Fantasia and wrote:
The line snakes around Concordia all the way up to Sherbrooke, filled completely with horror junkies, like ourselves, waiting to get our fix of gorey death scenes and cheap scares. There's a preacher man standing next to the line, on the outskirts, standing on his litte plastic crate and preaching to us, us decadent siners, the word of the mormons. We can't tell what he's saying - he's speaking in french, even though he's obviously english. A shame, really, mabe people would be listening to him more if he could actaully speak properly. He's telling us his life story, how he's struggled and fought and taught himself multiple languages (ah, that explains it), all so he could preach the word of the lord to as many people as possible. He's handing out free Mormon bibles (which are shockingly different from the ones the rest of us are used to) and apparantly there is a new prophet named Gordon. We think Gordon Lightfoot, Gord Downey, Gourds, Gouda, anything to keep ourselves from looking at the strange, sad man standing on his plastic crate in front of us. No one is looking at him - he's two feet, if that, from the closest person, and everyone is suddenly occupied, pre-occupied, distracted. No one can bear to look at him. He truly believes in what he's doing, while we decadent sinners busy ourselves waiting in line for a gorey movie.

Eli

Bah, that was a bit of a preachy note (ha! irony) wasn't it? No good no good. The real end of the story is that the guy was a little locco, since he leached himself onto any of the few curious souls who asked him for a bible, asking for all their personal contact info and what not. Montreal's got all types!

Top Ten Fuck Yous of the Year!

2006-12-23T10:41:00.000-06:00

To counter this seasons overwhelming sense of cheer and good will, we have compiled a list of the top 10 things/people to which/whom we would most like to say 'fuck you'. And so, we begin with...

1. Fuck You Global Warming

Rain? At fucking Christmas time? You've got to be kidding. We don't have waterproof shoes, gives us a break for crying out loud.

2. Fuck You Fergie

Your song, Fergalicious? Worst lyrics ever. Even worse than K-Fed. Anyone who sings about how great they are deserves to be shot. This 'song' makes our ears bleed, ho-bag.

2. Fuck You Christmas Shoppers

Yes, we all hate them. And we aren't talking about regular people shopping at Christmas time. We are talking about the obnoxious, stressed out, ugly loud-mouths who feel they must buy the absolute best gift for every person they've ever met, and who charge through the malls in a panic with no clue as to what that absolute best gift actually is. You people make us sick - you are all capitalist whores who believe materialism is a good thing. You will get lumps of coal for Christmas.

3. Fuck You Public Transport

They got us good this year. There are just too many things to begin. Just think of the thing you hate most about buses/trains/metros and scream 'Fuck You!'.

4. Fuck You Random Pot Belly

When your goddamn pants don't fit anymore, it only means one thing - you've got an infestation of pants-shrinking gnomes.

5. Fuck You Westmount

Ok, we are sure that there are nice, kind hearted people who live in Westmount, but for the sake of brevity; fuck you. You know who you are...

6. Fuck You Tabacco Industry

They always get a fuck you because they kill people.

7. Fuck You Wal-Mart/Shell/McDonald's

The top 3 conglomerates that rule the world. They also kill people, or rather, they kill souls. Behold, the face of evil.

9. Fuck You School

We are tired of being graded on how accurately we can regurgitate whatever knowledge a so-called teacher has jammed down our throats. Grades are relative and pointless - you simply cannot summarize the entire extend of your knowledge into one letter grade. The human psyche doesn't work that way, so why is our entire society based on fucking letters and GPA's?

And last, but not least...

10. Fuck You Donald Trump

You heard us, you ignorant, sexist, toupeed slimebucked. Now, while Rosie O'Donnell is most definitely irritating beyond belief, that is no excuse for what you have said. Calling someone fat, ugly and stupid is what 9 year olds do, not supposedly accomplished laywers. If beauty was a requirement for television success then you and your hair would have shriveled up into a pathetic puddle of goo a long time ago. And you know that trophy wife of yours, who's young enough to be your granddaughter? Yeah, we banged her last night. Seems like your shriveled nubbin of a penis just isn't doing the trick anymore. When you die, we are going to make sure every lot in the graveyard within a mile of your resting place is filled with fat lesbians. Then we'll spit on your grave and write 'Here lies a man eaten by a rodent which was mistaken for his hair piece' on the tombstone. You sir, are a horrible, sickening individual.

Did we miss anyone/anything? Additional recommendations are highly welcomed.

Eli

What? Why? Where? How? ... What?

2006-12-06T01:17:00.000-06:00

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Drunk, stoned, whatever, just gone. Stupid kareokee Comms Party. Ran into so many people we know/don't know. People sang ridiculous songs and they sang then in ridiculous fashions. Garrrrrrr... alcohol, you will pay for what you've done to our mind! And we broke a nail.

Things are spining.

The other day, whilst waiting for the 211, we tilted our head towards the heavens and recieved the holy sacrament of snowflakes. First official snow fall of the year and we got to stand in the middle of it. If everyone took the time to just look upwards during a snowfall, there would be no war and pestilence.

This song made us cry today.

On our way to the night bus, we talked with a metal head boy, who is very sweet but unfortunately has completely different taste in music from us. Because we were/are drunk, we cannot remember the exact conversation. But we know it was lovely to talk to someone of a different opinion.

In other news, Callum's puppy is adorable.

In other other news, history students at McGill are pulling horrible all nighters. All nighters should be illegal. You should be able to sue a university if you have to pull an all-nighter. Stress is never condusive to learning.

Ow. Water. Now. Bye.

e

Le Nettoyage pt2

2006-12-05T13:52:00.000-06:00

Ok let's get this out of the way. Our messy virtual desktop is the fastest thing we can clean, so here:

What happens when cynical film students have 48 hours to make a movie about mustard

New Babyshambles!

Chapelle show! Chapelle show!

Terry Gilliam being his pompous, ridiculous self promoting his movie. Sadly, his film really did only last a week, at least here in montreal... :(

Can YOU laugh like this?

Elix3

La Nettoyage

2006-11-23T13:58:00.000-06:00

Cleaning off the desk top and found these:

Classic

Classic pt. 2

We think this needed a revival.

And in response to Miss. Pellicone's enthousiasm upon discovering she does not actually need to wear a bra: Goddamn you. Girls always talk about wanting bigger breasts... They are high maintenance! They are expensive, irritating, floppy bitches that get in the way of everything. So shut your mouth, Pellicone. Goddamned floozie.

Eli

Evil, Bad, NAUGHTY Lingerie

2006-11-13T19:31:00.000-06:00

Ok so we have a bone to pick with Blush Lingerie.

*ehhem*

WHERE do you get off designing lovely lacey corests and then sizing them as a grossely inadequate Small, Medium, or Large? You're corsets have CUPS in them, thus necessiting CUP SIZES. A corset isn't a goddamned t-shirt, and, even though this is something of which you should ALREADY already be aware, breasts come in a multitude of shapes and sizes. We very much doubt that many girls who are a C or more will ever be able to wear your designs. Shameful really, because they look quite lovely on the rack, but apparantly your definition of "large" is something that would barely hold a tangerine. Stop trying to jam the female body into your twisted perception of the average size and shape, you masoginistic perverts. Your company fails at life.

*to understand what we are talking about, take the escalators near the metro entrance up to the third floor in the Bay downtown.*

And now, to continue along this feminist train of thought, here's a lovely nighttime story (as sent to us by mummy dearest):

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat, contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle. The frog hopped into the princess' lap and said: " Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me. One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am and then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so. "

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sautéed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself:

"I don't fucking think so".

Angry Feminist Eli

You got tagged, downsized and... erm... informed

2006-11-03T16:04:00.000-06:00

First item on the agenda:

Don't anybody DARE tag us in those stupid facebook notes about leaving a comment with a memory about someone. Spam and junk is bad enough in our mail box and our inbox; we don't need to be harrased on fucking facebook. GRRRR.

Second Item:

Tis the season to downsize your employees! In two weeks time, we will no longer be working at this insanely huge department store. YAY! Well, not yay because we are loosing hours and others are loosing jobs, but christ it will be good to get out of here.

Third:

a) What the fuck is up with this? Snoop is only getting arrested now? The world has stopped making sense.
b) Continuing with fucked up rapper stories, this is something you'd expect to see on CSI. Don't be disrespectin, yo.
c) Now THIS is the stuff movies are made of. These women are hardcore, way more than stupid rappers who shoot people in the back.

That is all. We are going to the gar bar tonight (the GAY bar, GAY bar!). Wish us luck!

EliEliEli

Top ten THIS motherfuckers!

2006-10-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

Ok so this morning we heard on the radio that askmen.com had put out their anual list of the Top 49 Men. The top ten are:

10. Bill Clinton
9. Jorge Perez
8. David Beckham
7. Johnny Depp
6. Jerry Bruckheimer
5. Tom Ford
4. Lance Armstrong
3. Richard Bronson
2. Jay Z
1. George Clooney

An intersting list, we found. While it is dominated by the image of rich, hetero, and white, we find this list to have a healthy mix of politicians, athletes, and hollywood celebrities. There is the token black man (stupid Jay Z) and the latino activist (Jorge Perez), so obviously Ask Men has their bases covered with this. Then we noticed that there was a Top 99 Women list. Ninety-nine! we thought, Wow!

The top ten women listed are:

10. Eva Longoria
9. Natalie Portman
8. Amerie
7. Jessica Biel
6. Charlize Theron
5. Maria Menounos
4. Adriana Lima
3. Angelina Jolie
2. Sienna Miller
1. Jessica Alba

.....

Actress, actress, singer, actress, actress, host of Entertainnment Tonight, supermodel, actress, actress, actress.

Wow. All of them white (except idiotic, single-named Amerie), all of them under 30.

This hurts us, truly. Besides the fact that some of these women are downright ugly (cough*Menounos*cough), all of their pictures are taken in full red carpet splendor. Which is fine, as everyone wants to look their best, but CHRIST look back at the top ten men! They are 40+, wrinkled, saggy, and some of them are downright nasty*. Richard Bronson is obviously not as rich as everyone thinks he is or he'd be able to hire a proper hair stylist. And the same goes for you Jerry Bruckheimer! God, how we hate Jerry Bruckheimer.

ALSO, and this part really takes the cake, the criteria for getting onto the women's list was based on their 'desirability'. IS THAT EVEN A WORD YOU CHAUVANISTIC PIG FUCKERS??!?!?!?!?! The Top 99 Women were chosen based on those that were "collectively deemed the year’s most alluring" while, for the men's list, readers were asked to provide "the names of those men that you consider to be the best representatives of the male gender". So the men are listed according to some fictitious notion of manliness, while the women are listed according to fuckability. (Consequently, if one examines the numbers of the two lists, one will notice that there are two women for every man, with one extra woman... a wild card, perhaps?)

How many women on this list will be remember in one year? In five years? In ten? How many will be knocked off as soon as a few crow's feet sneak onto their faces, or their breasts stop being so perky? How many made it to the list because of their exceptional mental abilities? We see no female politicians, atheletes, producers or trillionairs, no mention of intelligence being attractive at all. And while we shouldn't really be suprised, considering the site itself, which boasts five million readers a month, is directed at men only, there are still five million men learning to condone the objectification of women! The sexism and predjudice here is more obvious than a twelve foot erection singing 'Yankee Doodle Dandee'. If we were Stephen Colbert, we would say 'AskMen.com, you're on our list!' Anyone who dismisses the idea of double standards is a twat and rapes donkeys.

So go ahead and drool over your precious Jessica Alba, while the rest of us, with our 'love handles' and 'stretch marks', contort our minds and bodies to fit into your ridiculous notions of beauty and sexuality. Despicable.

eli's wounded Soul

*We do not include Johnny Depp and George Clooney in this, as they are smart, talented, sophisticated gentlemen who are simply divine.

On Raconte about the King

2006-10-26T09:13:00.000-05:00

So last friday we trecked up St. Laurent to the Main Hall, which is a room at the top of an anonymous stairwell in the middle of fucking nowhere. We battled our way uphill, against the elements which have plagued this fair city in the recent weeks. The reason we made this journey was to see the Tiny Crazy Guitar-Playing Lady, known to everyone else as Kaki King. Our first thought upon arrival was "Yay! Tiny venue! No matter then, that we're at the back!" But then we remembered, Kaki King is tiny, hence our nickname for her. So we slipped up to the front, finding enough room for us to actually lean on the stage. Twas freakn' sweet. The lady herself arrive promptly and stunned us all with her charm and talent. We've decided to rename her Tiny Adorable Guitar-Playing Lady. Her music gave us goosebumps. A lovely evening, truly.

We are on a bit of a roll, concerning wonderful concerts. Last month we went to see The Raconteurs with a hope of glimpsing Jack White. To our sheer delight, we found ourselves three feet away from the stage, merely a few arm lengths away from the man himself. The band was brilliant, bombed our expectations (which were low, to be honest) way far away. And Mr. White, well... we love him. He's now on our list of rock stars we are stalking. He is le yummy.

Watch Kaki King!

EliEliEli

PS - In the second video, she is using a loop pedal thingy, which means she records a riff live, then loops it while she plays a new riff. During the concert, she played that, and then when she'd played all the riffs she could on the slide guitar, she ran across the stage, and started playing the drums. Was awesome.

Procrastination, our old friend

2006-10-24T19:12:00.000-05:00

Today we scoured the city for a Roger's phone booth that would revive our comatose cell while providing us with a temp phone , but a two hour search by metro, bus and foot proved fruitless, as no such place exists. Our shoes became a soggy, smelly monstrosity, our socks - a lost cause. We did, however, count a remarkable amount of sattelite dishes mounted onto the walls, roofs and balconies of the apartment buildings we passed during our travels. These flat gray disks that speckle our less-than-rich neighbors strike a strange note in our mind. One can find little clusters of them in some places, either huddled together for protection against the harsh climate, or shoving each other out of the way in competition for TV signals, depending, we suppose, on your own warped view of the world. Is this our new cityscape? Are these stupid dished to be forever peaking out at unsuspecting passer-bys from every nook and cranny? And will someone expalin to us the SIZE of some of these things? We simply cannot wrap our minds around these ugly beasts.

Now it's time to play "What is on Eli's destktop?"

Well, aside from a few webpages about gastric bypass surgery (for an article which we truly do need to begin writing...) we have found this, marking a sad day for underground punkers, and this, for those of you with an hour and a half to kill (The links to the next 8 parts show up once you're finished with the first one).

Now, we go to shove this blog in front of the facebook community.

Bye.

Confessions of a 2-for-1-beer whore

2006-10-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

Will this incesant ringing never stop???!!!

We attended a party at one of those pubs that has a little hip hop club on their second floor. The music was loud and hip hop-ish, most of the people were strangers, and the lights turned into a massive, painful strob-fest. So now we rest next to our laptop with an irritating buzzing in our ears, a product of the shitty music that was too loud, and that forced us to yell into the ear of the person sitting next to us. Thus, ringing, pain, irritation. We need hummus...

POST HUMMUS

Four beers in 2 hours. Must be some kind of record. Hope this weekend (and week) passes in some kind of relative daze so that we can skip to the vacationy goodness that will be next weekend (mini break, as the brits say, to Quebec City!).

This sunday, we foolishly invited our family over for dinner. Was done in a moment of pride, to show how well we can support ourselves, but we have realized that our appartment is a) crooked b) in a sketchy neighborhood (well, sketchy to people used to the west island) and c) not clean. So we have to clean it, since its the only item on the a-b-c list that we can alter. But, that means cleaning, which has always posed a challenge. Goddamn.

It's hard to focus our eyes. Maybe we should get some water. Or vergetable juice!

POST VEGETABLE JUICE

We are drunker than we thought. Whilst attempting to shake our 1-Vegetable-Shot juice can, our wrist engaged itself in the most spaztic of spaztic movements we have ever witnessed. There was no quick back-and-forth shake up, only an epileptic fit that may or may not have knocked over the lamp in our living room. Tomorrow is the time to decide such things.

Hmmm, vegetable juice has helped with focusing problem. Maybe our coordination problem has gone away too!

POST GUITAR PLAYING ATTEMPT

Nope. No coordination.

brainheartsoul

PS - We will now vomit out all links currently saved on our desktop.

Proof that women secretly control the world

Proof that women still have a long way to go

Link to new Killers song that will soon expire

For all you Commies

For all you music geeks

A frighteningly accurate portrayal of what we talk about during most discussions at school

Presenting...

2006-09-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

The other day we saw a blind man leading a blind girl through the metro.

Today, we confused an old woman with Janis the ipod - her younger lady friend had to explain we were doing with the weird, black, glowing box in our hands. Imagine seeing something like an ipod and having no cultural reference to explain its purpose. What are earth are they going to have when it is we who are wrinkled and saggy? No wonder the elderly are so disoriented all the time. Technology moves on to bigger and better things and leaves behind us mortals to fade and decay.

Also there was a girl who started 'secretly' sketching us on the metro. We aren't sure why - we were trying to manage Janis, our coffee mug, a pen and our massive course pack with our pitiful 2 hands. Twas interesting. Perhaps it was our new skirt, which looks like its from Burberry, but actually cost us $2.50 at the Salvation Army.

And now ladies and gentlemen, we would like to introduce:

THE TERRIFICALLY TRAGIC DEMISE of SUSIE Q

One fine, sunny day, Susie Q encoutered the angriest girl she had ever met. Angry Girl was sitting on a bench, looking very angry indeed.
"What are you so angry about?" asked Susie Q.
"ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?!?!?!?!?!?!" she screamed, very loudly and angrily. Susie scratched her head. What a perplexing situation this was.
"Well, it's warm and sunny outside, and I'm wearing my new skirt. What is there to be angry about?" Angry Girl released a frustrated growl.
"THE WORLD!" she yelled. "THE WORLD has been taken over by STUPID SUPERFICIAL PEOPLE who MURDER each other over NOTHING and DESTROY the planet at the same time! The human race is DOOMED if they continue like this, but NO ONE CARES at all! I am the SOLE PERSON in this quest to HALT our IMMINENT DESTRUCTION!" She stopped, out of breath. Susie pondered the very loud, angry words she had just heard. Unhappy people bothered Susie, and she felt obligated to make them better again. She thought very hard, and finally she was struck by an idea.
"I know! I'll give you a makeover!" she cried, or at least she would have, had she not been simultaneously struck, and then crushed, by a rogue american satelite dish. The satelite was in no way concerned with the insignificant beings now splattered all over the sidewalk, because satelite dishes have no emotions.

What will be Susie's next terrifically tragic demise? Please, we are open to suggestions!

Raconteurs tomorrow! Full report to come.

Eli x 3

Take Comfort

2006-09-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

So we had all kinds of lovely, amusing links to post up here, for your amusment (even though you readers seem to be non-existant, or at least very shy), but then someone decided to walk into Dawson College and shoot people.
Take comfort, please, in knowing that you're mental health will never degrade to the point that you have to commit random acts of mass violence. Take comfort that you have friends in whom you can confide, and who will keep you in check when you start to feel a little crazy. Take comfort that you have your sanity, however frail it may seem at times.

Heart

Cheap. Ridiculous. Indigenous.

2006-09-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

We read a news bit, which we can no longer find, about basketball player Stephon Marbury. He seems to have endorsed a pair of sneakers, which he wears on the court, and is selling them for a ridiculous price of $15 a pair. The idea is to show consumers how little it costs to make a quality pair of shoes. Aparantly there are crazy lines ups at the stores that sell them, and pairs are limited to two per customer. Crazyness! Because 15$ is cheap for ANYTHING. Except for bottled water.

Ok, so many discussions have been popping up about this band called Wolfmother. The consensus (amongst the... 3 people to whom we have spoken) is that Wolfmother is a ridiculous name, but the music itself is fantastic. The other day we considered purchasing the CD, but the cover art was also ridiculous. Soul got insulted so we left.

There's nothing really to say... Time has slowed to a sluggish pace as we sit at our little counter, waiting to be yelled at by tourists. Someone asked us today if we had any Inuit souvenirs - they seemed so disappointed when we said no, and they kept asking us as if we hadn't understood the first time. This constant request for native american products confounds us, really. Because would indigenous products REALLY remind one of Montreal? Is there some sort of indian essence that we have missed our entire lives? Does one arrive in Montreal, arms thrown open wide, exclaiming "Wow what a place! I really need a pair of moccasins to remind me of this fabulous city!"

On to bigger and better things, i.e., not facebook. ... Okay maybe facebook.

Eli Eli Eli

In Whispered Tones

2006-09-08T23:37:00.000-05:00

Brain has officially gone mad. She seems to have lost all grasp on common sense and logic, opting instead for passion-fueled anger. Brain, when under the influence of alcohol, throws all restraint and poise out the window. Soul, of course, is no help, seeing as how she's always gone two sheets to the wind, which leaves tiny little Me to hold down the fort. Which is an impossibility. So when faced with the source of all our current rage, Brain thought it wise to speak up, take a stand, throw a little gas on the fire (because things were going much too smoothly, you see). And so Brain bravely marched forward, egged on by Soul's gleeful encouragements (Soul can be like a 5-year-old at Christmaswhen she feels a fight coming), and undeterred by my feeble protests. When the moment came, of course it went perfect, the reaction was priceless (if I'm to be perfectly honest). But as we were leaving, and as Brain and Soul high-five-ass-slsapped each other for a job well done, I was moaning. "You've made it worse, you ass-monkeys," I lamented, "what the fuck are we supposed to do next week?"
"Who cares?" screeched Soul, "Don't you feel relieved?"
"Well maybe for a split second, I did!" I shouted, my face red with rage, "but now everything is a million, billion, TRILLION times worse. Fucktards!" And that's when they rounded on me.
"Moments of blissful peace are few and far between - take 'em when you can get 'em," Brain stated, suddenly sober.
"Things were going to get worse before they got better," explained Soul. "We're just... just... fast forwarding the process".
They both burst into cackles. I've given up, and am now going to bed.
Until another time.

Heart

CHOM walks 10 miles barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways

2006-09-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

Sunday night was prom all over again, expect without the drama, puke, or irritating, squealing, emotional teenaged girls.

Lately we've been listening to this crazy brit band called The Horrors - think Sex Pistols meets White Stripes with a touch of epilepsie for good measure. They recently did a music video, directed by Chris Cunningham, for their song Sheena Is A Parasite, which was banned by MTV for being, apparantly, utterly disgusting. While we wouldn't say it was utterly disgusting (though it certainly is creepy and full of squidy grossness), it's definitely less offensive than any of the shit MTV plays and dares to call Hip Hop.

Also, while we're on the topic of large music institutions plagued by a giant rape-stick up their asses, CHOM actually had the odacity to say the phrase "return to a time when music mattered" in the promo for their weekly show "The Deep End". WHEN MUSIC MATTERED????????? "You fucktards!!" screamed Soul. To CHOM we say:

You are the embodiment of every single stuck up music critic and uptight authority figure that snubbed their noses at your precious Zeppelin, Hendrix, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC... Everything you play was hated by someone older than you when it was first released, and yet now, now that you are in a position to expose the world (or maybe just Montreal) to all kinds of wonderful, strange new sounds, you turn up your nose because it's not the same as your childhood soundtrack.

We become furious at the thought of ever having to listen to that station ever again. We propose a boycott - not that many of you readers (and not that there ARE many of you readers) to spread the word that CHOM is bad, wrong and senile. We propose that you head on down to the CHOM studio on Fort and Ste Catherine and throw your radio at their window. That way you can express your displeasure and incure some property damage at the same time. Kill two birds with one radio, we say.

Ok, class time. We now must attend a class to which we were very much looking forward, but that we must share with our cousins irritating friend (and possibly lesbian lover). Ta.

Eli x3

You said new love grows on trees

2006-09-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

A new blog for a new (school) year, filled to the brim with obscure musical references and pretty little HTML tricks. Spot them all and we will give you a cookie.

For the moment, we must go attack our kitchen sink with a plunger. The drain has been misbehaving.

More to come, our pretties.

Eli x3

PS - you should be listening to The Horrors and TV on the Radio.