Posts made in August, 2011
Separation Journal #2: Becalmed
This is the second in a continuing series of personal journal entries. If you don’t know me well you may wish to skip this and visit some of the other categories such as Technology & Society, Travel or Canada.
Steve Carell as Cal in the movie Crazy Stupid Love
Well, looks like I didn’t manage to keep to my two-week blogging schedule. I did start something two weeks ago, but it was getting long, and life got busy and I didn’t finish it. Still, here I am now, and four weeks is better than seven. I will try and keep it at two weeks next time.
Lately, people ask me how I’m doing and I say half-jokingly “Fine.. apart from separating from my wife”. But that doesn’t really describe how I feel. If I had to sum up how I’ve felt most of this month, in one word, I would say “calm”.
In my day-to-day life, I am happy.
Read MoreFantasia Festival 2011 Roundup
The Fantasia 2011 logo - the Cheval Noir, also the name and likeness for a new Fantasia prize, this year awarded to John Landis.
For the last three and half weeks, I have had the pleasure of watching some outstanding movies from around the world at the Fantasia Festival 2011. Ever since I first attended a few films at Fantasia last year I eagerly awaited this event, because the bar they set for the movies they show at Fantasia is so incredibly high.
With the never-ending stream of sequels and recycled storylines that Hollywood churns out these days, festivals like Fantasia are a breath of fresh air. They remind us that filmmaking is an art, that out there skilled and dedicated individuals are pouring their love and creativity into works of real quality. Movies for which telling a good story and taking the audience on a journey, perhaps even changing them a little, is what matters – not the takings at the box office.
If you love movies and have noticed the decline in quality of movies you see in the megaplexes you should really seek out and attend independent film festivals like Fantasia.
At this year’s Fantasia I was lucky enough to see 27 new movies, only one of which I actively disliked. I’d also seen a couple of the films showing before. So, now that the festival has drawn to a close, it’s time to look back at the movies I watched and share with you my opinions, recommendations and rankings. So here they are, arranged in order of how much I loved them, with a one sentence review of each:
Read MoreThis is your life
An inspiring message about how to live your life:
You can find this poster here.
Read More