Sound on Sight: FNC ‘09 & Antichrist

Episode 160 – FNC ‘09:  The Trotsky, An Education & Leslie, My Name is Evil – I did another double feature on the show, professing my love of Manson Family films and Peter Sarsgaard with an English Accent.

Episode 161 – Lars Von Trier: Anitchrist & Element of Crime – Menstrual cramps, Willem Dafoe’s wiener & piss.

Also, if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to vote for us on the Podcast Awards (www.podcastawards.com) in the Best Movies/Films Show and Best Produced categories. (Don’t vote in more than two categories or it will invalidate your nominations). Your support really helps and boy, do we appreciate it.

Tune in next week for a show on Korean director Joon-ho Bong (Mother, The Host & Memories of Murder), Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are and Paranormal Activity if it manages to open in Montreal.

More Comix I Read

Still nursing this stupid recurring cold, hence my lack of posting last week. (Yeah, that’s right, I’m blaming the cold.) But I did get a chance to devour some more comic-y goodness:

Lady SnowbloodVol 1: The Deep Seated Grudge Part 1 (Kazuo Koike & Kazuo Kamimura): I honestly can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get around to reading this. As a rabid Meiko Kaji (Female Convict Scorpion) fan, I am also a big fan as her turn as Yuki in the film adaptation of this manga, but I guess the “Kill Bill” style covers on the English language releases they did a few years ago had rubbed me the wrong way and so I never bothered to pick it up. Until now. All I gotta say is “hot damn!” The art, by the creators of “Lone Wolf and Cub” is pure 70’s manga gold and the stories are intensely political, with lots of historical and cultural detail. My only real gripe is with the English translation, which seems to favour more contemporary colloquialisms and curses. Something more in keeping with the period (19th century Japan or 1970’s America, your pick) would have been less jarring, but oh well.

Recent Reviews & Podcasts

Sadly I’m still working my way through the pile of Fantasia & other screeners collecting dust on my coffee table, but I did manage to bang out a couple of reviews for the revamped Sound on Sight website:

The Informant! – Verdict: See it, but only if you like absurd comedy & Matt Damon

Zombieland – Verdict: See it, but don’t expect much other than a good time. Also, I didn’t mention it in my review, but the slow-mo title sequence is killer.

Recipe: Vegan Chickpea & Vegetable Patties

Being that I’m still fighting off that stupid cold I caught in Vancouver, I’ve been craving comfort food, which in my case includes mashed potatoes and gravy. The gravy would be Miso, the mashed potatoes out of a box,  so the question then was what to eat with ‘em? Being that I hadn’t really had time/money to do a proper grocery trip since I’d been back, the pantry and fridge were both pretty bare, eliminating my usual non-meat protein options: tofu or lentils. But, what was that, waaaay, waaaaaay in the back of the pantry? A lonely can of chickpeas?

To be honest, I’m not the hugest fan of chickpeas on their own. I mostly keep them around for homemade humus (has to be homemade because of my stupid citrus allergy), but I knew I’d seen recipes for chickpea patties somewhere online and they seemed a perfect accompaniment to my tangy/spicy gravy. But, a quick Google search didn’t yield the results I was after, so at 7pm on a weeknight I opted to wing it. Usually a risky move on such an occasion, but the reward of gravy would make it all worthwhile…

Comix I Read

My combo of traveling & illness (not swine flu) has meant that I’ve had lots of time to catch up on my comic reading. Below are reviews of three books I picked up during my travels:

Scott Pilgrim 1 – Precious Little Life (Brian Lee O’Malley): So, I admit I’ve been kinda behind the times here, but I figure if I start now I should be all done before real spoilers from the Edgar Wright film start hitting the nets. I really like the dialogue and the characters and O’Malley’s art does seem to have improved since his run on Hopeless Savages. I’m just not sure how I feel about the fight sequences and some of the more random elements (highway through his dreams, wtf?), but I’m going to assume they grow on you as the series continues. I like the gaming references and I can actually picture what the fights will look like in the film based on the references more than the art. Will definitely be picking up the rest of the volumes as soon as my budget allows.

Canadian Classicks Round-Up

In a perfect world, I would have time for a full-time job, a boyfriend, a radio show, a film column and still be able to make myself nutritious, balanced meals every night.  But, being that I value my mental health, I opted to drop my column on Film Threat.

It was a tough call for me to make because I really did enjoy writing the columns and I do think that it was important for someone to be writing about these films. But, on the other hand, watching movies every week that I knew were probably either terrible, cheap, slow or a tedious combination thereof did get to be pretty grueling, no matter how entertaining they may have turned out to be. As much as I believe that Canada’s genre history should be remembered, I’d be lying if I said that every minute of it was rapturous fun.

R.I.P. Napoleon Solo

The best damned potato chip eating cat, ever.

Shortly before I moved into my new apartment, I answered an add on Craigslist from a woman who had rescued a cat and needed someone to adopt him permanently. Even though the timing wasn’t perfect, his pics and story were too much for me to resist. As soon as he came over, he immediately started to make himself at home. He wasn’t shy or scared, just curious and starved for attention.

Radio Radio

photo by chia ying Chang via Flickr

In my last post I mentioned that I had become a regular host on the Sound on Sight radio show. This is actually something I’d been angling for for a while,  so when Rick invited me to become a host I jumped at the chance, even though I was already having issues with my abilities to balance work, a relationship and personal projects.

Balance, Life, Stuff…

So yeah. A lot has happened since I last posted: Got a cat. Moved. Fantasia. Dropped my column. Became a regular on Sound on Sight…

One of the problems with trying to have a career that has nothing to do with my day job is that it means I’m essentially working two jobs, one subsidizing the other. This leaves precious little time for relationships & friends, let alone the navel gazing pass-time known as “blogging.” But I like blogging, I like my new blog design and it’s important for me to continue to promote my second “career.” So, hopefully now that things have started to settle down, my apartment is more of less decorated and I only have a few more Fantasia reviews to catch up on, I get back to writing here semi-regularly.

At least, that’s the plan.

Talkin’ Pixar

This week on Sound on Sight I got to fill in for Rick and talk about Pixar movies, specifically “Monsters Inc.,” “Cars” & the absolutely lovely, “Up.”

Listen to me talk about toddlers with no knees, make fun of Al for crying and drool over topless Native dudes in the Trailer Talk segment, here.