clones

So I finally saw Attack of the Clones. My full review (which is not pretty) is after the next Blatherphoto. There are spoilers in it, so only read that far if you've already seen the movie.

Attack of the Clones

I went in with pretty low expectations, so probably didn't dislike this as much as other people. Didn't love it, either.

What bugged me most about the movie was the wooden acting of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen. Okay, I know the Star Wars series isn't famous for its fine acting. But at least the earlier movies (before The Phantom Menace, that is) had a certain level of emotional honesty; you couldn't help but care about the characters. Luke Skywalker was naive and bumbling, but you found yourself rooting for him anyway. Leia's and Han's characters each had a strong enough personality to convey a fairly convincing love-hate romantic relationship.

It probably didn't help that Portman and Christensen had such a wooden dialogue to work with.

"When we're together, I'm in pain," he tells her in what is supposed to be a romantic scene by the fireplace in her summer getaway. In the movie theatre, I felt like yelling, "YEAH, ME TOO!"

I am a sucker for true love and romance. In books (no, I'm not talking Harlequin), music, movies. I'll be captivated by the sappiest television commercial if it has a moment or two of believable romance. One of my favourite commercials starts off with a woman bending over to give a casual kiss to her husband or boyfriend as he sits at a table. She smiles, he smiles back. The kiss itself is in slow-motion, but the shot is done so well that I can't help but feel a little heart-skip and sigh at the moment their lips meet. I think the commercial was for ham steaks or something equally as inspirational.

You can all stop gagging now. My point is that I'm one of the easiest people for movie directors to emotionally manipulate. Attack of the Clones, however, left me apathetic about the characters. Or rather, irritated.

There was utterly no spark of chemistry between Portman and Christensen, and no explanation about why her character would fall so heavily for such a whiny, immature Jedi-wannabe. If either of them had show more emotional depth, it would have helped. In Spiderman, there was no clear explanation (in the movie, not the comic) why Peter Parker fell so heavily for MJ, but Tobey MaGuire did such a great job at conveying the whole "teenage yearning angst" that I found myself believing it anyway.

Christensen's character shows some faint glimmerings of pre-Darth Vader bad guy darkness, but he has such a long way to go that I can't imagine how the third movie is going to get his character to the point where you could believe he becomes Darth Vader. I think the only way they could pull it off would be if they found another actor. Does anyone know if this is the case for the third movie?

The special effects and the scenery were spectacular, of course. I felt like I was in a highly polished and live-action Myst game, with one breathtakingly impressive computer-generated scene following another. For me, however, believeable and sympathetic characters are the most important.

Stuff I did like:

- Jedi arena fighting.

- Natalie Portman's costumes. To keep myself interested in her character appearances, I was more curious about seeing what new outfit she was going to wear in the next scene. I had no idea that galactic Senators had such extensive wardrobes.

- Seeing Yoda with a light saber! Woohoo!! Jeff can attest (with some embarrassment, I'm sure) that I actually did yell "WOOHOO!" during that scene in the movie.

Would I see this movie again? Nope, especially not at current ticket prices. It cost $27 for two tickets (!). Jeff used the automated machine at the Paramount to buy our tickets. When the total came up on the screen and said "OK?" he paused so long in shock (thinking, "No, definitely NOT OK!") that his session expired and he had to swipe his card again.

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Today's Blatherpics:

...were taken by Jeff during our walk/run late yesterday afternoon. I wanted to run, and Jeff wanted to get some fresh air, so we decided to combine our efforts. He walked super-fast, and I ran more slowly than usual; I said earlier that I ran at about the same speed as Jeff's walking, but I was either mistaken or I've sped up a bit over the past couple of months.

bureaucracy

My CCRA audit adventures continue. Apparently the CCRA wants some more information from me; my tax lawyer is going to call me this afternoon with details.

Meanwhile, I also got a call from another area of the government saying that I owe a tax return for the empty shell of a corporate account that used to be Inkspot. I sought legal help about this earlier in the year, and was told that since the company was completely inactive, I could just let it expire without penalty, that closing it would be way more hassle and cost than it was was worth. Well, turns out that this advice wasn't quite accurate, and though the woman on the phone was soft-spoken and polite, she also made it pretty clear that if I didn't file returns and officially close the account, that Bad Things would happen.

Remember what I said about asking friends to stomp on my head with cleat boots if I ever mentioned selling a company again? I hereby give them permission to pin my eyelids open Clockwork Orange style and force me to watch back-to-back reruns of Temptation Island and Big Brother for an entire week as well.

What bugs me most about this whole experience is that all along, I've just tried to do the right thing in the right way. I've put a lot of time and money into hiring experts to interpret legal docs and help me do the right thing. Yet somehow, things end up biting me in the backside anyway.

Some days I feel like asking Jeff if he'd mind if we moved into the northern wilds and carved widgets for a living. I'd grow tomatoes. We'd read by candlelight. It would be romantic and adventurous and fulfilling and...

Ah, who am I kidding. I could never live anywhere without high speed Internet access. :-)

Today's Blatherpic:

A drawing of Sara, by Annie.

andy

In my WordGoddess collab posted earlier this month, I said that I was going to post the answer to the food question in a separate Blathering. Well, here it is. Thanks again to Sasha for the question.

Using food ingredients/dishes or terminology, describe your personality and character.

Appetizer: Shrimp cocktail. I have a secret weakness for shrimp cocktail; I have been known to hoover down an entire plate if left unsupervised. I get sick afterwards, of course, but it's worth it.

Main course: A stirfry. The exact ingredients change each time, depending on my mood and what's in season, but overall it would always some kind of stirfry. Not something you'd serve at a fancy restaurant, but is filling just the same. I used to use pretty bland seasoning when I first started making this dish, but have gotten more experimental with spices over the years. ;-)

Dessert: A plain glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut with a glass of milk, and a small dish of chocolate truffles. I know I haven't actually tried a Krispy Kreme yet so my imagined KK dessert is fashioned more from over-inflated expectations and stubborn optimism, but I figure that's pretty appropriate here anyway. Thanks to Joey Shoji, by the way, for pointing out this great Krispy Kreme cartoon. :-)





Cathy and I had dinner at Masquerade in BCE place last night, then went to the Hummingbird Center to see the Erik Bruhn ballet competition. Erik Bruhn was a well-known dancer and teacher at The National Ballet of Canada, and also served as Artistic Director from 1983 until he died in 1986. In his will, Bruhn left part of estate for a prize for one male and one female dancer between the ages of 18-23.

This year, the competitors were from American Ballet Theatre, The National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Danish Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet. The competition reminds me of the figure skating competition in the Olympics, with the costumes, music, and tension of possible mistakes.

One thing I really like about the competition is that the audience is much more enthusiastic in their response, much more emotionally involved. They gasp when dancers almost fall, cheer wildly after a particularly well-executed technical move. We all pick out favourites and root for them.

I've always admired the grace and physical beauty of ballet. I think that almost all little girls dream about becoming a ballerina at some point in their lives. I used to do part-time work as a pianist for a ballet school in Toronto; it was fun watching the youngsters in their pink tights and ballet slippers, struggling to get through their pliés without falling over. During the lesson, I'd practice the steps on my own as I sat waiting at the piano, my legs hidden from sight.

And since Sara's adventure at the ballet, I've had a special fondness for the National Ballet of Canada.





I was delighted to see the Blatherchat postings about my weird food combo Blathering. I was told that my horseradish/steak and wasabi/shoyu combos weren't so weird after all.

Fascinating to see the other unusual things that other people eat, too. Here are just a few:

Christo: Toast and margarine with Marmite/Yeast Extract on one half, marmalade on the other. He always starts on the marmite half.

Amanda Snyder: Ketchup Pizza -- "one flour tortilla, smear with ketchup, top with grated cheddar cheese, fold and eat cold." Also puts salt on her watermelon, blue cheese dressing with her fries, goat cheese and apricot jam on toast. And like me, she enjoys pineapple on her pizza (yay!).

Allison: "My mother's apple pie and a slice of really good aged cheddar. Yum. Desserts do not get better."

Dave Weingart: Likes wasabi peas (yum, I like these, too).

Jim Poltrone: Peanut butter and vanilla ice cream, French onion dip on baked potatoes, Gatorade and vodka.

Luisa: White spaghetti and ketchup - "You fry up some onions and garlic and perhaps anchovies in a good amount of olive oil, add it to cooked spaghetti and throw on as much parmesean cheese as you have in your house. Really yummy. My brother hated it, so he would put ketchup on it. And slowly, everyone in the family started to add ketchup."

Scott Snyder: Puts salt and pepper on his cantaloupe, sugar on tomato slices. Also "Peanut Butter and X sandwiches, for very broad values of X. Some of the things my dad and I have tried (in various combinations, but all including Peanut Butter) are: Onions, potato chips, sweet pickle relish, banana slices, apple slices, anchovies, honey, coconut, cheese (cheddar, swiss, jack, jarlsberg), and other things that I'm sure I'm just forgetting. I especially like the Peanut Butter and Cheddar Cheese on Toast - then heat the sandwich JUST long enough for the PB to get soft and the cheese to JUST start to melt. YUM!!!!"

Joey Shoji: "My grandmother used to cook pieces of chicken with the fermented soybean paste called miso and we would eat it with hot rice. It would keep refrigerated fairly well so she'd make a big batch at a time. My mom still prepares it in small batches from time to time and I still love it. Another item to learn to make."

Martin GK: "I did get accused of going through university entirely on sandwiches made of white plastic (cheap) bread, red leicester cheese and blue cheese dressing. It's an unwarranted slur - it was only the last eight terms..."

Dave Henry: He eats his sandwich in a circular pattern around the edges, "so that after each complete revolution I am left with exact copy of the original sandwich, albeit a somewhat smaller version. This drives my wife nuts. The other 'sandwich' obsession involves Smarties, those little flavored sugar disk candies. I don't know when or why I started doing it, but I always eat Smarties as sanwiches, taking two of one color and placing a third of a different color between them. My favorite Smarties sandwich is cherry on banana. Conveniently, the number of Smarties in a roll is a multiple of three and it is very rare that I encounter a package that does not lend itself to being eaten entirely as a series of sandwiches."

This is making me way too hungry.

I think I'm going to snoop through the fridge for unusual things to throw together and stuff in my face...

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Today's Blatherpics:

are all of my friend Andy (who writes as "aiabx" or "Lord Hellpus" in Blatherchat sometimes), over a span of about 20 years. The photo at the top, for example, was taken back in '82 or '83 on the University of Toronto campus.

horse radish

Jeff and I went to his mom's place out near Orangeville for dinner to celebrate JBR's birthday; the whole Ridpath clan was there except for Brittany, who was with her father yesterday. Pork chops and ribs with asparagus and roasted potatoes for dinner, apple pie and birthday ice cream cake for dessert, with slices of cheddar available for those who wanted it with their pie.

I had never come across the cheddar and apple pie combo until I hooked up with Jeff's family. Initially I thought it was pretty weird, but found it wasn't so bad. I still prefer my pie sans cheddar, however. :-) Anyone else out there have interesting food combination traditions?

On our last visit to the cottage, I had dinner with Jeff and his parents; Jeff had barbecued some steaks. He looked at me aghast when I offered him some horse radish. "HORSE RADISH? With STEAK?" he said, staring at me as if I had just asked if he'd be interested in renting Notting Hill.





It made me wonder how many other dining combo quirks I have which would probably horrify culinary purists. Not that I plan to change any of my quirks, but I'd be highly interested in hearing if anyone else shares any of these preferences. :-) Anyway, here's a list of some of mine:

-- I like ketchup with my Kraft dinner.

-- I mix wasabi with my soy sauce at sushi restaurants.

-- I like blue cheese and/or horse radish with steak.

-- I like maple syrup on pretty much anything (fruit, ice cream, etc.).

-- I like a raw egg and soy sauce mixed with freshly-cooked Japanese rice (or at least I did before the whole salmonella scare).

-- I like ketchup with my scrambled eggs. I purposely didn't list this right after my ketchup and Kraft dinner quirk to keep you from thinking I have a ketchup fixation.

-- I like butter and pepper in my mushroom soup. This is a habit I picked up in university, when Sue Wong and I would get our lunch or dinner from the food vending machines near Robarts Library. Sue used to buy the pre-heated mushroom soup and add a dollop of butter meant for rolls, add pepper. I thought that was gross until I tried it, then got hooked.

Hm. I could go on way too long on this topic (or face it, any food-related topic), so I'd better stop now.

Speaking of food, we never did get out to the Krispy Kreme outlet this past weekend. The quest continues. Here's a recent Toronto Star article about Krispy Kreme vs Timothy Hortons.





Not sure what I'm going to do today (I had forgotten it was the long weekend). Jeff has to work, but I think I'm going to take at least part of the day off to do something frivolous. Cathy and I are going to the ballet tonight to see the Erik Bruhn competition. Hey, and she taped the last X-Files episode for me, yay!!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	JBR blowing out the candles on his birthday cake last night with the assistance of grandchildren Garrison and Olivia.
	My sister-in-law, Debbie Ridpath.
	My sister-in-law Larkin and her fiancé, Rick.

private space

Bill Sutton has written a moving tribute to Bruce Pelz in his Another QuarterNote Heard From column as well as an excellent comment on filking in general, for those interested.

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Did a 4.3 mile run/walk this morning, out to Coronation Park and back. Lots more tourists out in the area despite the relatively early hour; it'll be interested to see how crowded my route gets when the weather warms up.

In case any of you didn't know, Jeff and I live right in the heart of Toronto's biggest tourist area. I can step out my front door and see the CN tower, Roy Thompson Hall (home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra), the Skydome, and the Royal Alexandra theatre. Tourists are always stopping in front of our building and taking pictures. When the World Science Fiction Convention rolls into Toronto next fall, I suspect I'll be one of the closest residents (if not THE closest) to the main function space; the Metro Convention Centre is about a 3-minute walk away.

But before any of you get it in your heads to come crash at my place :-), be warned that Jeff and I don't tend to have a lot of houseguests during the year as a policy. Partly because we don't have a guest room, so a guest has to sleep on the pull-out couch in the middle of the living room (which means very little privacy space for the guest as well as Jeff and me).

But the main reason is because Jeff and I have had a somewhat stressful/hectic few years, and have become much more conscious about keeping free weekend time to spend together, and also just keeping time free. Even before then, we've never been the public "hey, anyone who's in the Toronto area should come visit! There's always crash space available" sort, which has probably caused hurt feelings in the past, I'm sure. We do have houseguests, of course, but they tend to be people that both of us know.

I'm also sensitive to the fact that Jeff is not a filker. He's met most of my closest filk friends and liked them all, but I'm also always aware that he would probably feel somewhat overwhelmed by a typical intense filk weekend. Likely the same way I'd feel somewhat overwhelmed by a typical intense computer techtalk weekend, I'm sure. :-)

I'd be interested in how many other filk-types out there whose partners/spouses AREN'T filkers (or similarly, when partners have strong interests and activities outside of couple activities). Personally, I think it's good for couples to not always be joined at the hip; as much as I love Jeff, I think both of us would go nuts if we felt we had to do everything together. Please post your comments in Blatherchat, thanks.





Still haven't seen the new Star Wars movie, but did see Spider-man again last night with Ruth. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Spring flowers in the Music Garden.
	Coronation Park sign.
	Another sign in Coronation Park. "Individual trees in this park were planted in 1937 to commemorate each unit of the Canadian Expeditionary Force: 1914-1918. Also the Veterans of the Fenian Raids 1866, the Veterans of the Northwest Rebellion 1885, and the Veterans of the Boer War 1898-1902."