More Shorts

Why aren't short films more popular?

It's the World Wide Short Film Festival here in Toronto and I attended a screening last night of Official Selection 5 What You See is Not What You Get. Overall the quality was good, some were better then others with the top ones in my opinion being Top Girl, The Kinda Surtra and Section 44 - all very different but all very good. But the screening wasn't even half full. Now I must admit that this is my first time attending the festival so I have no idea if this is the norm but I have attended the shorts program at TIFF and they were packed. Is it just that TIFF is bigger and can attract more viewers? I enjoyed the shorts last night more than I did the ones at TIFF so I don't think it's a quality issue. Or is it just that people aren't that interested in watching shorts? As someone who is making some short films now this question intrigues me.

I think overall the film industry could do more to promote the short medium. When I was in Ireland the Irish Film Institute would couple a feature and a short together at every screening and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Perhaps we could start that here, sort of like what they do at festivals but do it for every film.

Sore Red Palms

I saw Robert Lepage's Lipsynch on Saturday and was blown away, yet again by this man. Lipsynch explores the human voice and it's a nine act play featuring nine actors that lasts about 9 hours - including breaks.

What a fucking show.

There are some ridiculously beautiful moments. The incredible staging and shear theatricality had me audibly gasping. Some parts were stronger than others but I'm sure the weaker ones will tightened and honed as they continue to work on the piece. I've read some reviews of earlier production and it seems like a fair amount has changed since those incarnations so I think it's safe to assume the piece will continue to grow.

Even now though, the highs far out weigh the lows. If you get a chance go and see it but be warned you'll walk out with sore red palms.

Am I illiterate?

It's Hot Docs time in Toronto and, while we've bought tickets to a few films, we've only seen one so far. It was Peter Greenway's film Rembrandt's J'Accuse. The film is a forensic like investigation into Rembrandt's painting Nightwatch.

It was an incredibly interesting film, told in a sort of essay style with Greenway's own floating head narrating. I'm still amazed by the opening sequence, which you can see here (and also get an idea of what I mean by floating head).

Through this investigation Greenway argues that people today are visually illiterate. The layers of information included in something like Nightwatch is lost on the average viewer. It's an interesting concept, especially considering the shear volume of images we are bombarded by everyday - which is a likely cause of our illiteracy. Of course, not all (hardly any) of the images we see daily are going to have the depth of a Rembrandt painting, and having the time and resources to fully explore the context, history and motivation behind the painting is an incredible asset (luxury). But I've personally stood in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of images and only taken a cursory glance.

I need to read (the image) more.

Two Months in a Row.

I like you GQ. I really do. But I won't buy you when your cover look like this


or this


I'm not sure how old, or what gender, you think we are but you better make it up to us next month.

Ottawa and a Dragon

A couple of weeks ago I took my first trip to our nation's capital. It was a pretty fantastic weekend. The Parliament buildings were impressive and the market area was pretty cool. We had dinner at a great restaurant called Play.

It's a tapas style place, or at least that's what we had. This is scallops on the left and salmon on the right.

For dessert I had bread pudding but their apple cobbler (below) looked just as good.

Actually it was so good we went back the next day for their brunch. Delicious.

The whole reason for the trip though was to see Robert Lepage's The Blue Dragon at the NAC. What a fucking show. I'd never seen Lepage's theatre work live before - although I did see Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour, which blew me away - and he didn't disappoint. This show is one of the best pieces of theatre I've seen. The acting (in several languages), the set, the projections, it was all truly awe inspiring.

Robert Lepage and Marie Michaud.

Tai Wei Foo and Robert Lepage

Marie Michaud and Robert Lepage

If this show comes close to you go and see it.

Whistlers and Bird.

Usually I hate whistlers. I find it annoying when someone is just whistling away on the subway, or something. It's intrusive. That might be because I'd never heard someone as good as Andrew Bird. We saw his show on Friday and were competely blown away. I really like his music so I was expecting to enjoy the show but not as much as I did. The way he loops the violin and his whistling to build the beginnings of songs is really quite something.

With his last name being Bird maybe he was destined to be such a damn good musician.

The winner is...

The search for a new messenger bag has come to an end. Well, actually it came to end back at Christmas when I received this wonderful gift.




It's from Banana Republic, and I must say it's pretty fantastic.