I avoided the Lips’ cover of The Dark Side of the Moon like the plague, figuring that was an album that absolutely did not have to be covered and also because I’ve been finding the Lips’ willful weirdness to be increasingly maddening and hard to follow. (I have no idea if I’m going to like …
Category: 2014
Tokarev aka Rage (2014, Paco Cabezas)
Somewhere in this movie is an interesting comment on these mindless revenge thrillers starring middle aged men rampaging through American or European cities, usually because a child was killed or abducted. I can see the germ of that idea. And it’s an idea I love. I want to see that movie.
The 50 Year Argument (2014, Martin Scorsese, David Tedeschi)
Scorsese and Tedeschi’s film about the New York Review of Books is not a documentary about the magazine so much as it is a love letter to it. (To be fair, in the subsequent conversation, Scorsese said he wasn’t interested in “conventional” documentaries – that is documentaries as journalism. Rather he wants to make Cinema.) …
Natural Resistance (2014, Jonathan Nossiter)
I thoroughly enjoyed Mondo Vino and so I guess I was looking for more of the same. Well this is a very different film (as well it should be).
The Raptors’ 2014 Draft
The Raptors surprised everyone this year by drafting a seemingly unknown Brazilian player, Bruno Caboclo, 20th overall. And as much as I would like to give Ujiri the benefit of the doubt, I think we can object to this decision even without invoking the sports xenophobia that idiotic Raptors “fans” have already invoked to criticize …
Swans and St. Vincent Live at Yonge and Dundas Square, June 20th, 2014 (North by Northeast)
The last time I was at one of the North by Northeast free concerts at Yonge and Dundas Square, everything was late, so this time I stupidly showed up late for Swans, expecting them to be late.
Your 2013-14 Toronto Raptors
A little while ago I wondered aloud whether or not this Raptors team would rank among the best ever. [Editor’s note: Post since deleted because a) it was just a listicle of good Raptors teams and b) 2019 happened.] Now that they have been eliminated by the Nets, I think we can say that they …
An Open Letter to the Conservative MPs of the Greater Toronto Area
Have you no sense of decency?
Live Reading of Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto, March 11, 2014
Last night I went to my first “live reading” of a movie script, this has become something of a trend. I wasn’t going to go initially, but my cousin was already going and the girlfriend wanted to go. I had some slight reservations, but I had enjoyed their show in the fall so much that …
Riley Goes to Turkey (February 2014)
You may have noticed the lack of blog posts from me during part of February. That’s because the wife and I went to Turkey. What follows is a summary of what we did.
2014 Canadian Men’s Olympic Hockey Team
So obviously the biggest question on every Canadian’s mind right now is ‘did Steve Yzerman et al. pick the right players to give Canada its second men’s hockey Olympic gold medal in a row…on international ice.?’ (The international ice caveat is important because at the Olympic level Canada hasn’t won a men’s hockey gold medal …