Sloth: FORESTS @ Tarragon Theatre

Ok, so this is a bit opposite to SLOTH, but I have found myself once again with three jobs (not including my new business)... It's at Tarragon Theatre, and for those of you not familiar, it's a great company in Toronto that produces original works through aiding playwrights from the inception of their stories with workshops and staging of their pieces. The outcome is usually well-crafted Canadian theatre (whatever that REALLY is...), and I am happy to be a part of their final show of the season: Forests. I may only be doing the laundry and some wardrobe maintenance, but I like the space and the people and who doesn't love a little extra money? The play is written by the same playwright that did SCORCHED (which was also turned into the film INCENDIES), and seems promising. Come see it.

Sloth: Hanna

HOLY FUCK

What an awesome movie. This girl can fucking act - she takes on every role with such dedication, and rocks it. Hanna is a very well-done film in all production aspects I can think of! Acting, lighting, direction, framing, costumes, set locations, and the fucking music. Chemical Brothers always had a place in my heart, and it's grown since watching Hanna. What an awesome match to such an ass-kicking movie. I just want to watch it again. And then kick ass.

For When You're High: Charleston Mirror

Sloth: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I & Megamind 3D

Awesome. I have been enjoying the Harry Potter series for a few years now (both the films and the books), and I must say that they are great examples of what creativity and craft can produce in the fantasy genre. Up to this point, I found the films were a great way to escape into another world for a couple of hours, dive into the magic and watch a couple kids run around a school with magic wands. This one gets a little more serious now that the troupe has left school to battle the most evil dark lord imaginable!

I'm always blown away when a film can integrate CGI and computer effects seamlessly, and the Deathly Hallows has achieved this. Not only are special creatures added to the live action, there are changes in atmosphere that just appear too real to the eye. Another film that does this brilliantly is District 9 with their PRAWNS (GOD I LOVE THIS FILM) and spaceships. Aliens aside, wizards and witches can do no wrong in the film world with this movie.

The story continues to progress, friendships and relationships and all the other ships are tested, and the underdog always comes out on top. Otherwise, what kind of kids movie would it be?? Regardless, it's great to watch if only to see a great team come together to produce some quality big-budget cinema.

Meh. Megamind 3D was just another reason for a big animation company to produce another good vs. evil children's film using the latest 3D and computer-generated technology. The characters are not very memorable, and it's hard to get caught up in the action when you've got Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell yelling at you from in front of your flimsy plastic glasses (I didn't mind David Cross though... that guy is hilarious in whatever he chooses to do). If these productions could support lesser-known actors with talent by giving them big roles like these, I could probably get into the movie more instead of thinking about how blue is not Will Ferrell's colour (I do realize it would make the film a little less popular since some of the draw for people lies in the big names behind the animated faces $$$).

Voices aside, the animation was decent. What usually gets me is the production studio's inability to reproduce FABRICS and clothing that actually look and flow like the real thing. Megamind did it! More or less only in his stunning cape, but it's enough to impress me.

This one is not worth your moola. The story is bland, the characters are pulled from basic stock and you can see the ending from the beginning.

Sloth: Unstoppable & Due Date & Eclipse

Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 was really.. oh, sorry, I mean Unstoppable was really suspenseful the whole way through! Yes, they have the same director (Tony Scott) and lead actor (Denzel Washington, my third husband), but I couldn't help thinking most of the way through that these films are incredibly similar. Each director understandably has their own style, and Scott's is perfect for the genre he seems to pursue quite often, but it was too much of the same thing to go unnoticed. Denzel Washington plays some blue-collar, middle class guy with a family, who has been working at the same job long enough to be a little bitter, and is put in a situation that requires him to save the motherfucking day once again. And there's a train.

Chris Pine offers a bit of distraction from Denzel's repetitive role, but it's not enough to keep the storyline fresh and I find myself wondering why directors and writers always have to return to the same plots and twists. I did enjoy their bantering, and Scott has mastered the art of keeping suspense and tension at such high levels for really long periods of time. Check this one out if you like TRAINS and sexy family men, and feeling like you're going to burst into a million pieces from so much suspense for the entire two hours. Good fun! P.S. Rosario Dawson is adorable.


Due Date is a load of crap. Like most flicks of this genre that have been coming out recently (the Hangover, Role Models, Dinner For Schmucks, etc, etc), it tries to push our boundaries of funny while giving us bang for our buck. I realize I mentioned earlier in this post that directors and writers continue to use the same plots and twists (Due Date seemed to be a tribute to/rip off of Planes, Trains & Automobiles), but this one fails to hit the nail on the head. It tries to show us a bit of twisted comedy, but each time seemed weirder and weirder, until it got to the point of not really funny, but desperate instead. Robert Downey Jr. even manages to punch an 8-year-old kid in the stomach.

So much more could have been achieved with this film if the creators weren't focused on catching up with the new generation and giving them a new kind of funny they could relate to. Like keeping Ethan's (Zach Galifinakis) father's ashes in a coffee can (Big Lebowski, anyone???)... on a different note, Jamie Foxx is useless, but Juliette Lewis is wonderfully cute. One part of the film I did enjoy is when Robert Downey Jr. says he SWEARS he has never done drugs before. Ohh, so funny.

Twilight Saga's Eclipse delivers everything you could ever want from a hot, steamy teen drama/action/fantasy film with vampires and werewolves. If you consider the genre, the books the screenplay is based off of and the technology available, this one is fantastic piece of cinema (I have read the books... they are very similar to the films so you can imagine the amount of teenage angst and young love that had to be translated over). The CGI wolves are pretty cool and the wide shots of the West coast are gorgeous!

The creators managed to get most of the book in the film, and they worked around the classic stories of vampires and werewolves rather well, keeping parts of the traditional creatures while creating entirely new parts of an old genre of fiction. The choreography in the fight scenes aren't bad and you can tell they didn't leave any of the budget out when they made this one. The wigs even look kind of real, except for Victoria's (Bryce Dallas Howard), which was a hot fucking mess the entire time.

What I would like to see for the finale of such a strange series is the same quality of production, with maybe a little less breathing and lip-biting from Kristen Stewart and a little less eyeball from Robert Pattinson. Can't wait!

Sloth: Being Entertained During a Bout of Sickness

I've been down with a nasty cold for a couple of days now, with no sight of it lightening up (oooh, why not morph into an eye infection on top of it all? Sounds great, right?)... Aside from having to work on a couple of my other jobs due to deadlines, I've managed to get a couple of necessary days off from the full-time. During the brief moments between trying to cough up both lungs and sleeping so much it's almost a clinical coma, I've had a bit of time to fill with nonsense and entertainment. Maybe when all this is over I can post a shitty survival guide to the common cold... too bad I'm not exactly surviving. Below is a list of the different things that can keep you entertained when there is nothing to do but drink hot liquids and try not to infect the whole building:

#1 Get a list of BLOGS to read (the best are those that publish posts at LEAST once a day)

Dear Girls Above Me
This one is written by Charlie: he's a guy that lives beneath two young girls that happen to be extremely daft in a building with very thin walls/floors. Hilarity ensues!

Design*Sponge
A well-maintained blog of Do-It-Yourself projects and Design features (in mostly Interior Design and Graphic Design); updates more than once a day.

Sleep Talkin' Man
This poor guy talks in his sleep, and his wife records it and posts it every day in their blog. He's extremely vocal about his dreams and sometimes it's just too crazy; a post every day.

Three Fashion/Style Blogs that post at least once a day:
Style/Clicker
Jak & Jil Blog
The Sartorialist

Fantastic blogs of my friends:
Guise by Jennifer Burland
I GUESS I'M FLOATING by Rhea Da Costa-Clark
TOO RUDE Mag by Erin Pea
Gramma Jones by Graeme Maitland

#2 Get some good tunes going to keep your spirits up; here are a couple sites that have streaming capabilities:

Grooveshark
Search for your favourite music (great amount of selection, just don't look for the Beatles 'cause you won't find 'em), or listen to their narrow selection of "radio" stations.

8-Tracks
I like this one because it's user-based and allows anyone to create a themed playlist and publish it with streaming music for free. They're based on various categories, seemingly endless. Careful, some of them are just complete shit, but I find it's mostly 30% shit and 50% good and 20% brilliant. Happy Hunting!

SoundCloud
User-based, allows musicians to upload their own tracks, add tags for a category search, and the ability to add comments throughout the track from the musician and anyone that feels the need to chat about it. Check out my buddy Blue Neptune (aka Minhaj; his website) for some ambient, techno, progressive house and progressive trance beats.

#3 Visual Stimulation is KEY; videos and movies galore!

Ted
What a mind-blowing site. This place is a great organization that hosts lectures from the most up-and-coming scientists, innovators, teachers, inspirational speakers, entertainers; stellar talks on important topics, or just some awe-inspiring acts from musicians and actors. I don't know why I'm spending so much time on this post when I should just be broadening my mind with this bad boy.

Vimeo
One-stop shop for user-based videos that aren't shit; think YouTube with class. I suggest EXPLORE>HD VIDEOS for an all-you-can-watch buffet of beauty and creativity.

TV Shack
Feel like being a pirate? Your basic streaming website for current flicks and past favourites, TV and Movies alike. I suggest watching An Idiot Abroad; a new series produced by SkyOne about a guy that doesn't enjoy traveling, being sent out by Ricky Gervais to visit the Seven Wonders of the World. Hilarious and you get to see the outdoors from your indoors!

Movie Trailers via Apple
Watch the latest trailers streamed in high-quality from the Apple website; this one sometimes posts some great International trailers.

#4 GAMES, that are FREE and can be quickly ended if you need a fast nap or to puke in the toilet.

Yahoo! Games
I've been playing these bad boys ever since my glory days in High School when I would spend 30% of class time at home being "sick" or "tired". Pool is fun!

Neopets
WHAT! Yes, it's still around. Yes, I still have my old account, with my shop and my little Neopets. But the REALLY great part about this website is their collection of Flash games. Sure, they're made for kids, but holy shit they can take up a lot of your day and they're super creative. You have to sign up for an account, but once you've quickly done that it's smooth sailing from there. I like playing National Neopian, but that's only because I win lots of NEOPOINTS and can buy food for my Neopets, things for my shop, etc, etc... now I must seem pretty lame. Oh well... I have more Neopoints than you.

Shockwave
Lots, and lots of weird flash games. Not much else needs to be said about this one.

#5 Travel the World

Google Maps is brilliant. I really don't think I need to explain much since everyone knows about its capabilities; but just think about how you go to Street View to see if your favourite restaurant downtown is close to the subway, and then take that and go to PARIS. Or EGYPT. Ok bye!


If you're still bored and aren't sick enough to be entertained by all of this crap and should put some clothes on and get your lazy ass to work.

Feel better!

Sloth: Morning Glory

This film was actually more enjoyable than I could have ever imagined it being! Mark this day in history: I loved a movie my sister probably would have liked a lot. Even though it's filled with more cheese than a danish, it's surprisingly lovable and I didn't feel like anything was being shoved down my throat. I was expecting the lead roles to be extremes of their characters, and for the sappy music to play at precisely the right points (which it did...but in a good way), and to be sitting in a theatre watching a screen, but instead each character was believable (mostly... except for the weatherman, played by Matt Malloy) and I was sucked into the world of morning news shows the whole way through.

Rachel McAdams knows how to play sweet, innocent and persevering roles extremely well, even if she is battling some fairly hideous hairstyles throughout the first half of this film. Harrison Ford also managed to pull through on this one (I am mostly doubtful every time of his acting abilities), but he squeezed himself into a couple of suits and can do a grumpy, cantankerous old guy with some finesse. Diane Keaton is amazing in pretty much every sassy, older woman character she plays, and she looks great doing it.

This one serves up exactly the dish you expect and hope for, chalk-full of petty emotional rollercoasters of a young workaholic, mixed with some pretty mild make-out scenes (WORTH SITTING THROUGH JUST FOR MCADAMS' FINE ASS IN TINY PANTIES), and two seasoned actors having some jolly good fun. Patrick Wilson might as well have been anybody since he's mostly bland and just acts as a brief distraction throughout parts of the film. Jeff Goldblum needs to be in more movies (gah, I just love the guy), and despite his small role in this one, he played it fairly well! Go see this movie if you are capable of slipping away for a couple of hours, riding the happy-go-lucky train, and coming out the other side with a big sigh of "AWWW"...because that is exactly what came out of my mouth the moment the lights came up, the credits started rolling, and that terrible song started to play. You know, the one from the previews... ugh, Strip Me by Natasha Bedingfield. Here you go, I hope you don't get it stuck in your head for too many days in a row:

Sloth: The Town

Last night I saw The Town with Wennie, and it was a fairly well-constructed piece of film! Nevermind being able to watch Ben Affleck for two hours running around the city with a gun...

Starting with a fairly substantial heist right away, Affleck dives into his style of some pretty shaken shots mixed with intense, slow-moving tight shots; it all sort of ebbs and flows like this throughout the film like a visual piece of Beethoven. He's also got the classic elements of a solid action-drama down pat: car chases, guns, explosions, money, women, etc. What he does add to the genre is his ability to really write a solid script with believable dialogue, not to mention offering his audience some great shots of Boston. His characters are realistic, and the acting abilities of the entire cast are pretty outstanding.

For some reason this film seemed to drag on a bit, especially towards the end. Possibly because the action sequences were well done and moved not-too-quickly, making the slow portions of the film seem very slow and the continuations between scenes seem like they took forever. Aside from the slower pace, it's a really great movie!

Sloth: It's Kind of a Funny Story & Red

Just saw a couple of films at the Cumberland and had a lovely evening with Irene (yeesh, we might as well get married already!)...

 This one had an overall warm and gushy feeling to it, left us in a do-good moment that kept us going for the rest of the evening. As serious a topic that it touches on (suicide and mental unrest), it manages to throw in some good laughs and quirky kicks (as the title suggests). I even caught a nod to the great Pixies song "Where Is My Mind" during the middle when they played an instrumental snippet as part of the score! Then they also mentioned the band in a list of those that the lead female enjoys (lame!). Her character was the only one I couldn't stand very much, but then again it might be due to some of my own past experiences in High School that came flooding back... and not so much of the good kind. At the same time it was very nostalgic; all of the tough stuff one has to endure during "those teenage years" when you really feel alone and on the brink of SOMETHING, not knowing what exactly. As a whole, the film really gave its characters room to develop, interact and share themselves with each other and their audience. Great sequences with artwork and music (despite the cliched Broken Social Scene doing much of the music for an "indie, angsty teen" type of dark comedy). One large part of the film that stood out was how unrealistic the Psych Ward was (although I'm sure it wouldn't be much of a comedy if it was true to life). The actual state of such a place is EXTREMELY different (I have visited a few... not as a patient...), most are not so lovely and the staff are of a different character. HOWEVER, it's worth catching at some point in your life, not sure if it's worth the $12 - I got to see it for free so I couldn't really give you an answer here.

You definitely get to see your money thrown back at you from the screen with this one!! Enough Pyrotechnics and weaponry to employ my entire graduating class and possibly more for the whole year! As an action film it had everything: hero, girl he falls in love with/willing to risk his life for but of course never has to, awesome side-kicks, the funny one, and an evil villain... WITH A TWIST AT THE END! WHO KNEW THAT ONE WAS COMING?? AND MORGAN FREEMAN. Need I say more? What a great way to slip away from reality for a couple of hours. The parts of this film I couldn't stand were the extremely out-of-the-ordinary super-hero type of sequences that left me unable to suspend my belief for very long (Bruce Willis casually walking out of a fast-moving AND SPINNING car only to shoot on target without getting hit... all the while, the woman in the car is left unharmed and it parks itself only a couple feet away from his spectacular exit - YA FUCKING RIGHT). Also, if a film makes me write a review in 15% capitals, it must have been at least entertaining enough to get me so excited! Go and see your money dance before your eyes if you have nothing better to do this week!