De Père en Flic (Father and Guns)

On Tuesday, August 25, 2009, I went to see the film De Père en Flic. This is a Quebecois film featuring Michel Côté and Louis-José Houde.

The story is that cops are on a undercover mission. They set up a sniping position with a guy wearing a wire, but due to a sniper who didn't fire in time, their undercover guy gets kidnapped. The whole movie is about them trying to get him back.

The movie is also a mixture between comedy and action-drama. I think it does a good job of doing that. Of course, since Louis-José Houde is a comedian, it was more of a comedy more so than an action-drama.

A really enjoyable film. I highly recommend it. If you're not familiar with the French language, you should see it with subtitles...

Supermodel Drama

I have been reading about the suit from Liskula Cohen and how she demanded that her "cyber bully" be revealed so that she can pursue charges/defamation suit if she so chooses.

Google had to comply with the court order, unfortunately and now the drama is that the other party, Port, is planning to sue Google for 15 million dollars.

Drama, drama, drama.

Granted of course I may not agree with what Porter said about Cohen, but I would like to examine the following: Who is really the bully?

Personally for me, if someone made unjust comments about me, I would just laugh it off and say, "Well, clearly that person doesn't know me and he/she is entitled to his/her opinion".

Perhaps it is cowardly to hide behind anonymity and make comments. I don't know... I think that for certain cases, you have to hide behind anonymity. However, I think that in this fiasco, the bully is the one who forced Google to reveal the identity of the blogger.

Now by doing so, there's another possible lawsuit that Google has to deal with. Do I think this lawsuit is justified? Probably not... I think it's rotten to sue someone because they were complying with a court order. Of course, Port has the right to this lawsuit, I am not a lawyer and I wish her the best of luck for that lawsuit. I just feel bad for Google. (Even though they are a big corporation)

Well, I better start looking into my savings to make sure that I have a lawyer to defend me...

Dim Sum for one... Hurts the wallet

I had the hankering for dim sum so I went to the restaurant for dim sum today.

Boy, is dim sum for one not economical!

I had eight dishes and the bill came to $27.50!

I had:

1) Beef ribs with black pepper;
2) Fried taro pastry;
3) Spring rolls;
4) Shui Mai;
5) Shark fin dumpling; (the steamed ones where there is little to no shark fin)
6) Taro cake;
7) Little pork buns (Siu Long Bao);
8) Fried Pork pastry.

For that price, I could have gone for all you can eat sushi at dinner...

Lesson to learn: Don't go to Dim sum for one. I will no longer be doing that again. When I ordered, I was already ordering conservatively. I really picked and chose the ones that I really really wanted. I have been told that the fun part of dim sum is to go and not order conservatively!

One good thing about Toronto is that my meal there would have cost $15 - $20. Max!

Ponyo

On Tuesday, August 18, 2009, I went to see the movie Ponyo. This is the latest animated feature by Hayao Miyazaki, the man behind such masterpieces as Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Monanoke, My Neighbour Totoro.

Ponyo is based on a children's story, about a child who lives with her father under sea. She escaped because she wanted to see the surface, and met a human boy. She also tasted human food and a drop of human blood. However, being a child of the sea, and since she was the child of the Goddess of Mercy, she has a lot of power and she can use magic.

The scenes were beautifully drawn (as always). The story was beautiful. Some audience members found it confusing, but I caught on quickly. The voice-over dubbing was quite good. Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neelson, Cate Blanchett are just a few names.

A highly enjoyable animated feature.

Ice Age 3 - The Era of Dinosaurs

On Tuesday, August 11, 2009 I went to see the movie Ice Age 3: The Era of Dinosaurs.

I didn't see the second one, but I would imagine that in this franchise, if you didn't see the second one, the third one would still make sense.

It's amusing, there were times when I had a good laugh. It was a good movie to have seen in 3D, but was it the best animated feature that I have seen? Probably not.

The story is about the herd of Ice Age mammals (mammoths, etc.) discovering three dinosaur eggs and then how their worlds intertwined because all this time the dinosaurs were living underneath the ice.

Far-fetched, but an enjoyable movie for children.

Public Enemies

On Tuesday, August 4, 2009, I went to see the movie Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

I had totally forgotten that Christian Bale was in this movie, so it was a pleasant surprise.

This movie is a gangster movie, based upon the life of John Dillinger, who was a very well known bandit during the Great Depression.

Upon further research on IMDB, I discovered that both Channing Tatum and Billy Crudup had minor roles in this film...

There was a bit of violence, lots of gun shoot 'em up action, but all was tastefully done. The acting was quite good as well. No Oscar material, but enjoyable. I just found it a tad long.