Boom Goes The Dynamite, Part Three

My nephew, Johnny, has autism. He’s an incredibly good looking 5 year old boy, with a ton of energy and, once he gets to know you, a smile that lasts forever. Ever since he’s been born, I’ve had a soft-spot for stories that relate to the autistic. In fact, I’ve been interested in autism since university when I learned about it when I was an undeclared psychology major.

This story got me choked up when I first watched it. Then, when I called my wife in to watch it too, I welled up and cried tears. Something I don’t do very often. It’s one of those feel-good stories.
Check it out, why don’t you.

The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool Reminder

Since it’s getting closer, I thought I’d once again post the link for you to go to enter The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool.
It’s as simple as clicking on the radio buttons of the films you think are going to win each category.  And the joy you’ll receive in winning will be immense.  Hell, even the joy you receive in coming in last will be worth it.

So, click this link, and make your picks.  Click send and I’ll receive your list.  It won’t be as good as my list, but I’ll tally it anyway.

Here’s who’s entries I already have:

DaveS
Paella
Fraser
Kris
My Own
Elvira “I know popcultured sucks” Kurt
Tracy

Surely you can make better picks than these losers.  Give it a try.

Leave Your Ones At Home, Bird

Johnny Cash sings a child-friendly version of “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town” on Sesame Street. You know, taking out the guns and the killings and such. Because, well, it’s for kids.

RIFF 4 Shorts Review

I went last night to see both screenings of Reel Shorts at the Reel Island Film Festival.  That’s a lot of sitting in those City Cinema seats, I’ll tell ya!
Here, then, are my opinions on what I saw:
Pete Murphy’s “The Olde Christmas Spirit” was shown first.  Frankly, this was a rough piece of work.  Pete, I think, has an interesting eye, but this film (as well as the few other films of his I’ve seen) suffers from poor acting, worse sound and lazy editing.  The story and script, too, could have benefitted tremendously from a prudent editor.  
The acting in the first scene was, I’d have to describe as, plodding.  Very slow and deliberate.  Couple that with languid edits and the film starts off at a less than energetic pace.  And slows down from there.  The main trouble with the acting of the lead actor is that he tries too too hard to act Angst and tries to play “Cool guy” too much.  His acting gets in the way of his, well, acting.
I could go on, I suppose, but I have to live in this town.
Next up was “Snowbird” The Search for Lonestar” by Scott Parsons.  An interesting, but slightly flawed, docu-drama on the origins of Gene McLellan’s song Snowbird.  I say flawed because of too much reliance on voice-over narration to tell us what is going on.  It results in too much telling us the drama rather than showing us the drama.  The story is about this woman trying to find out about a guy named Lonestar, a former lover, who apparently co-wrote a song about her with Gene McLellan.  She’s trying to find out about the song.  Turns out the song is Snowbird.  Little things bugged me.  Like when we flashback to the woman’s younger days, when she’s with Lonestar, she’s wearing the same short denim shorts that she’s wearing in “present day”.  And there was no attempt to make her look younger in those flashback scenes.  Maybe that was a conscious decision, but to me it belied the reality of those scenes where she was supposed to be a teenager.  Especially since her “youthfulness” was supposed to be the thing that sets of the rest of the story.  Small complaints, really.
Third was Louise Lalonde’s “Courir la chandeleur”, a re-enactment of an old Acadien soiree, performed by Birchwood Intermediate French Immersion students.  This was an enjoyable film.  Yes, the acting of the junior high kids was pretty amateurish (and some of their French Immersion french was pretty rough), but their energy and enjoyment of the experience kept me interested.  Probably could have shortened the amount of time we see them dancing to a tune, though.  That seemed to go on a bit too long.
Speaking of going on a bit too long:  Jeremy Larter’s “A.J.” was a film that I absolutely hated and couldn’t wait for it to be over.  Basically, this was a masterbatory piece of shit, where one guy, Jeremy Larter, points his camera at another guy (forget his name) who plays A.J. who may or may not be mentally handicapped and gets him to do “funny” stuff.  What a piece of crap and a waste of my time!  Scene after scene of this guy doing stupid, barely interesting, things.   There was no apparent attempt at structure.  Just random scene after scene of boring “look at me and how car-aaazy! I am” bullshit.
Thank goodness for Joey Weale’s “Flagwar”.  Basically, this film documents an elaborate game of capture the flag on the streets of Charlottetown.  Very well done, it kept me interested and entertained for almost its entirety.  I say “almost” because my only criticism is that it may be a few minutes too long, and a couple of times I wanted the action to move along, rather than showing me, yet again different versions of basically the same scene or idea.  The film employed a lot of still-photos to further the action, and at first I was worried that such a technique might bog the film down.  Nobody likes a slideshow, right.  But, to his credit, Joey made it work beautifully.  He used all kinds of tricks and techniques (without making them feel simply like tricks or techniques) to keep the action moving forward and to keep the audience engrossed and it worked wonderfully.  It’s apparent that a great deal of thought and effort went into the production of film, and I was very much impressed with the whole thing.
Of the first round of Reel Shorts, Flagwar got my “viewer’s choice” vote.

The second round of Reel Shorts was basically a display of the talents of Fox Henderson.  Five of the nine shorts were either “all credits by Fox Henderson” and one other (Jack and The Mud Queen) utilized his studio and talents (to the point where I thought it was another by him, but in fact was directed by Devon McGregor).  Rather than go through each of his films, I’ll offer a general opinion of his work.  First of all, it’s obvious that he’s a very talented guy and so much of his work is impressive.   Last year, he had a few animated films entered in RIFF 3, and my criticism then was that his films were technically interesting but failed on the story, editing and acting fronts.  This year, all that improved dramatically, and I was very impressed with practically all of his work.  Dan Caseley was very good playing Mr. Death in a couple of very funny silent movies.  One aspect of his work that I don’t care for is in his choice to re-record the dialogue in a controlled environment (just like the big movie-makers do).  While I understand the desire to want to control the sound, it can really adversely affect the performances if the actors aren’t up to the over-dubbing task.  This was most apparent in my least favourite of his films “They That Did Dream”.  The dialogue-audio re-dubbing was very intrusive to the enjoyment of the film.  But, since I didn’t like the story at all anyway, I doubt that better audio would have helped much.
I was very much impressed with the look of Jack and The Mud Queen, and the acting of the lead actor was good, but, like other films presented, this story needed to move along a lot more quickly.  Once again, plodding direction gets in the way.
Onto the non-Fox Henderson films of Reel Shorts 2:
Daniel Arsenault’s “Music Has Family Roots” was a trifling bit of music video.  Basically a single-camera, one shot thing showing two live musical performances of Michael and Robert Pendergast.  Apart from a slightly interesting projection effect, there wasn’t much of interest in this, as a film.  The music performances were good, though.
“This and That” by Richie Mitchell was a film that I ended up not “getting”.   I think it was about a guy who desired to be a gay thief, but wasn’t because of a priest in a car who followed him around.  In one reality he has a companion who may or may not be his lover, and they steal some money from a store owner.  In another reality, he is alone, with no companion, and rather than steal from, is given an envelope by, the store owner.  He then gives the envelope to the priest.  When he sees his alternate-universe companion crossing the street, he gasps, but the priest shakes his head “no”.  ???  There are also some shots of a woman walking down the street.  She has been shopping.  I didn’t like this one very much.
And the other non-Fox film was my very own, Christmas Lights.  This film, of course, is brilliant, and above criticism.  Seriously, though, I am very proud of this film and think it’s a pretty good piece of work.  It’s a tight, compact, funny piece of tragic-comedy.   The audience seemed to like it quite a bit.
I do think (not really), however, that a conspiracy was hatched to confuse the audience (perhaps in an attempt to keep me from any chance of winning “viewer’s choice”?).  First of all, on the website, my film was shown as being directed by Jason Rogerson.  That was later corrected.  Then, on the Viewer’s Choice slips of paper that each audience member was given, Driving Lights was shown as being directed by Rob MacLean.  And, the title on the actual film is “Christmas Lights” not Driving Lights, but I think that one was an honest mistake.  All the rest, though, is an obvious attempt to confuse the audience.

Of the second round of Reel Shorts, I voted Christmas Lights as my “viewer’s choice”.  If it wasn’t in the running, then my vote would have gone to Fox Henderson’s “The Last Days of Death: After Life”.  It was a very funny piece of comedy and my only criticisms of it are that it is too long and the joke doesn’t go anywhere.  Each scene is merely a different version of the same joke.  It is only too long because it’s one-joke retold again and again.  And again.  I wanted each scene to build on the previous scenes in some way, but they didn’t.  As a result, the joke didn’t have a conclusion.  It just ended.

In the past, I’ve railed against the Reel Island Film Festival for showing films that I didn’t think were good enough to be shown.  I complained that RIFF’s eyes were bigger than its stomach.  Meaning that the festival was too big for the amount and quality of films it screened.  This year’s event, due to a lack of funding, was very much paired down compared to previous RIFF festivals.  Whereas in the past, they might have tried to have two evenings of shorts screenings and would have had to “water down” the overall quality in order to fill up all the slots, this year’s festival, I think, benefitted by the single night (of shorts).  The result was an evening with a pretty solid lineup of shorts.  An impressive variety of films.
I do think they need to be careful, though, with the potential problem that the RIFF could turn into the Fox Henderson Film Festival.  Nothing against Fox, and his work is definitely worthy of being shown, but ideally, I would have liked to have seen a couple less entries from Fox and a couple more entries from other people.

Mythical Super Hero Anne – Chapter 5 (of 5)

And now the conclusion of Episode 21 of The Adventures of Mythical Super Hero Anne:

5.

            Mythical
Super Hero Anne, now back in her Toshomiko costume, kneeled beside her fallen
adopted parents, and best friend. 
“Oh, my friend, Diannakiro,” she said, with tears in her
eyes.  “My adopted father,
Matthewsan.  And my adopted
father-sister, Malirra.  How I grieve for
the loss of you all!”  But what was
this?  Miracle of miracles!  They were reviving!  All of them, alive!  “Oh, thank heavens!  You’re all safe.”

            Matthewsan
rose to his feet, and helped Malirra up as Toshomiko helped Diannakiro
rise.  “What happened to us?”
asked Matthewsan.

            “My
mind is all out of shape,” said Diannakiro, rubbing her bum where
Gilzilla’s rock had hit her.

            “My
friends,” said Toshomiko, “Gilzilla knocked you unconscious.”

            Matthewsan
gasped.  “Gilzilla was here?!  Are you okay, Toshomiko?”

            “Yes,
I am fine, thank you to you.”

            Matthewsan
looked about the apartment, surveying all the damage the great battle had
caused. “Mythical Super Hero Anne, the mythical super hero girl, must have
come and destroyed Gilzilla before he had the chance to finish us off
properly.”

            Malirra
rubbed her head and said, “Malirra say, ‘Now we suffer from amnesia, and
cannot remember a thing about the ordeal.”

            “Malirra
is wise and correct,” said Toshomiko, going to her to comfort the wise old
woman.  “The three of you do have
amnesia.  Yes, Mythical Super Hero Anne
was here, and she did ward off Gilzilla in a great fight.”  All three of Mythical Super Hero Anne’s human
friends gasped as they tried to imagine what surely was the immensity of the
battle.  “But he is not dead,”
continued Toshomiko.  Further gasps, this
time of fear and dismay.  “While you
were unconscious, Mythical Super Hero Anne searched for him, but I fear she did
not catch him, as he went back to the sea. 
She hopes to catch him soon.”

            “Ahhh,”
said Matthewsan, nodding his head, “that is why she did not stick around
to check on our injuries.”  He
picked up some paper mache that used to be part of the wall between the living
square and kitchen square, and studied it, trying to figure out the role it
played in the fight.  “I only wish
that I could have seen the battle, or at least could have met Mythical Super
Hero Anne.”

            “That
is true,” said Diannakiro.  “I,
too, wish that I could one day meet the mythical super hero, known as Mythical
Super Hero Anne.” 
Toshomiko/Mythical Super Hero Anne looked at Diannakiro, waiting for the
knowing wink that, before the battle, would have accompanied such a
remark.  But none came.  It
seems they all really do have amnesia.

            “Yes,”
said Toshomiko.  “I hope I can see
her one day, myself.  But I as well, was
knocked into a state of dizziness, and so her identity must remain a
mystery.”  Toshomiko looked around
the room at her injured loved ones. 
“But now we are all tired and injured and we must rest.  Come, Malirra, we must go to bed.”

            “Malirra
say, ‘Bed is the place for sleep and fun. 
Fun for two, and sleep for one.”

            Everybody
laughed at Malirra’s joke. 
Toshomiko/Mythical Super Hero Anne breathed a sigh of relief that
everyone seemed to be in good spirits after their ordeal.  She breathed another sigh of relief that now
no one knew her true identity, which would help her protect them in the
inevitable future battles she would have with Gilzilla.  And this time she would try extra hard to
keep her secret.

            “We
may be injured and have amnesia, Toshomiko,” said Diannakiro, still giggling.  “But at least your adopted father-sister
is still wise and witty.”

            “She
is wise and witty,” agreed Toshomiko, “but we are all more
tired.”

            “Malirra
say, ‘We are all tired and injured, but not so tired and injured that we will
not work tomorrow.”

            Everyone
nodded.

            Toshomiko
looked at everybody, happy that they were all safe.  “And Mythical Super Hero Anne will work
forever!”

            Everybody
had another laugh and then went to bed, Matthewsan, Malirra and Diannakiro
resting themselves for tomorrow’s workday, Toshomiko/Mythical Super Hero Anne
resting herself for tomorrow’s workday, and for future adventures.

 

The End

 

[Join Mythical Super Hero Anne and all
the gang next month for another exciting chapter, Part 22,  “Gee, I’m Glad I’m No One Else But
Mythical Super Hero Anne”.  ed.
note.]

T-Dot Doesn’t Want Us

We just got word that we won’t be attending that CBC sketch comedy special in Toronto.  The producers picked another group from the Atlantic Provinces.  That’s the bad news.
The good news is that they didn’t pick any of the other groups that performed that night in Halifax.  That would have been hard to take, since I thought we were the best of the bunch.  They picked a group from Newfoundland, a group that sent in a demo tape since they couldn’t make the voyage to Halifax to perform.  That’s too bad, that they got to submit what I assume to be their best material, while the rest of us were judged on what we did on that night.  I wonder if we would have had a better shot if we had just sent them a DVD of our material?  Probably not.
Anyway, ahead we go, writing sketches for another summer show here in PEI.

At least Charlottetown audiences love and or hate us.

Sci-Fi With My Little Eye…

Here’s a link to a short essay on The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed.
A pretty accurate assesment of what went wrong, story-wise, with some of the biggest Sci-Fi movies, what should have been done instead, and/or what movies should have been made but haven’t and won’t be.
Usually I stick my nose up at people who toss off their opinions of what’s wrong with things because their annoying personalities get in the way of their points, but this guy, David Wong, sticks to the business at hand and offers an exciting alternate universe of what might have been.

Every Cup Tells A Sad Story

The new TV ad for T** H*****’* puzzles me.  Puzzles me in why they chose that (based on a true) story as the basis of their ad.

Here’s the story:
Kid plays street hockey and father tells him that he should be spending time on things other than hockey. Kid is forced to come in and stop playing street-hockey.  It’s obvious that the kid doesn’t like his father telling him not to play hockey.  The father, based on the inflections of his voice, seems lile something of a disciplinarian.  He rules the roost.
Kid grows up, and is nothing like his dad, because he encourages his son’s hockey career by going to the rink and watching him play.  Kid gets surprised at the rink to see his father arrive and sit with him.  Father gives son a coffee (double double).
“Why are you here, Dad?” asks the surprised son.
“To see my grandson play.” says the father, coldly.
“You never came to watch me play.” says the son.  It’s obvious that this has caused him some sadness in his life.
“Yes I did” says the father
“What was the name of my team?”
The father doesn’t answer (because I believe he doesn’t know) but offers a picture as proof that he at least knew that his son played on a team.
The father, still emotionally cold to his son, goes on to cheer on, and show pride in, his grandson.
Through flashbacks, we realise that the father secretly came to the rink to watch his son play, bringing coffee each time, we assume, for himself and a janitor.  Only the son didn’t know this.  All these years the son thought his father disrespected the son’s decision to continue playing hockey.
All these years, the son must have born resentment to his father for his stubborn attitudes towards his son’s desire to play hockey.
In the end, though, the son smiles and thanks his father for coming.  We’re led to believe that, from now on, father and son will be closer.
I understand that this is supposed to be touching.
My wife cries when I watch it, and I know of others who’ve stated the emotional impact of it.  To me, though, I see the father as something of a prick.  Why couldn’t he have acknowledged his son’s passion for hockey before now?
What kind of sad, pathetic home life did the son have growing up?  Obviously loving the game of hockey, but not receiving any encouragement for it from his father.
Why did the father need to keep it a secret, all these years, from his son that he watched him play?  Stupid pride?
The only sentimental moment of the ad, for me, is when the son decides to forgive his father.  When he says “thanks for coming”.  He could have said something like “you old prick!  Do you realise how hurtful it was, everytime I played hockey, to look into the stands and NOT see you?  Do you have any idea how many times my heart was broken a bit more by your absense?  And now you come here, with a dish-water detergent tasting luke-warm coffee and expect me to be glad you’re here?”
He could have said that.
Now that would be a great ad.  That would be a cupful of story.

Goodbye, Rabbit

I’ve known Urban Carmichael for almost two decades.  I didn’t know him well, but well enough to stop and talk with him and share stories and jokes.  I considered him a friend, as did, I assume, a whole host of people in the PEI arts community.  Yesterday, our friend Urban died after a long battle with cancer.
One of my earliest memories of Urban was when we were both in a play that Dave Moses wrote, The Kelly Murder.  An historical drama based on the murder of a black man in Charlottetown.  It was a large-cast affair, and both Urban and I had small parts.  Urban’s character was one of the first to appear on stage, and in the blackout of that first performance, as we all waited for the show to start, Urban uttered a noise that could be heard by all.  I believe it was “rabbit” that he said, but that was up for debate.  To this day, I don’t know if Urban’s utterance was intentional, or if it came from nerves.  For many of us in the nervous cast, his Rabbit cut through our nerves, made us laugh and allowed us to relax a bit.
From that point on, whenever Urban would see me, his “Hi” to me would invariably be:  “G’day, Rabbit!”  and I’d repeat it back to him.

I was fortunate enough to see Urban perform a couple of weekends ago at Madly Off In All Directions, and spend some time with him backstage.  I was very much impressed with the quality of his humour that night.  While his presentation was a bit off (not much), due, no doubt, to his frail state of health, the material was sharp and funny and poignant and personal.  And current.  As a writer of comedy myself, I envied Urban’s ability to write jokes.

A couple of years ago, I had created a character, Moe Gorman, who is an honest but untalented local singer/songwriter.   Moe’s voice kind of emulates Urban’s unique, high-pitched lilt.  I was always a bit worried that because Moe’s voice was Urban-esque, that people would think that I was making fun of Urban and commenting negatively on what I thought of his talents.  Of course, I wasn’t.
I don’t think Urban ever saw me perform as Moe, but I would have liked him to see it.  I think he would have appreciated Moe. 
Next time I perform as Moe, I’ll be dedicating it to you Urban.  I am proud to have called you a friend.

Goodbye, rabbit.

Perry O’Grady All Over Again

One of the more popular posts I’ve made is called “Why I Hate That Canadian Tire Guy“.  The post isn’t really about the Canadian Tire Guy.  It’s about when I was in grade five and a drawing I made was mistakenly credited to another person in my class, Perry O’Grady.  So it could be used as the cover of our school’s newsletter, he had traced the drawing I made, and attached his name to it.
I was a little bit heartbroken when I heard some of the parents comment positively on the lovely drawing that Perry O’Grady made.

Now, it may be happening again.  A video (Driving Lights) that I wrote and directed for this past summer’s Sketch22 show is being presented at next week’s Reel Island Film Festival.  I was looking at their website and see on the Screening page that they have Driving Lights as being directed by Jason Rogerson.  Thing is, he submitted it on Sketch22’s behalf, as a Sketch22 video.  I assume since he submitted it, the assumption was made that he directed it.  I don’t know.
Trouble is, I directed it.  Meticulously.
I wouldn’t mind so much if it was some other video.  But I am really proud of the video, and it’d be nice to have it properly credited.

Sigh.