Toronto - Leave it to the folks at Disney. They can make anything likable. This is the case with Ratatouille. You know what it’s about. The main character is a Rat. Yes, the plague inducing, garbage eating vermin that most people kill without hesitation. However, these rats are friendly and lovable. Remy has always been different from the rest and somehow develops a great cooking skill. Some stuff happens (obviously, his fault) and he gets separated from his family, who have to move away from where they were because of what he did. Anyway, he ends up controlling some underdog chef and cooks some fabulous meals at some Parisian dig, and some other stuff happens, things get sad, things get happy, voila. End of movie.

Its pretty formulaic for a cartoon movie. Its predictable and you kind of know what will happen and the lessons its teaching. Despite all that, this was a good movie. It was humorous at times and the animation/cgi was AMAZING. They made Rats look cute and likeable. Thats saying a lot. Next project: A cockroach who dreams to be err..a home designer or something. Making cockroaches likeable would be funny. I guess maybe that was covered in a Bugs Life. Maybe Mosquitos, Timmy the Mosquito is a bug that just doesn’t like sucking blood and goes off to do some random stuff. I don’t know.

4/5

I kinda want to eat Rataouille now, even if it just sounds like stir-fry

Toronto - Ben Affleck. Rarely is anything good associated with that name. Lets be honest now, since Ben Affleck and Matt Damon came from nowhere, Mass. to become large stars their paths have greatly diverged. While Matt Damon was making kickass Bourne Identity movies, The Departed .. Euro Trip, Ben has consistently been in mediocre movies (Daredevil, err.. Armageddon). Perhaps realizing acting or script choosin isn’t really a great skill of his, Ben Affleck decided to do what most mediocre actors do …direct. For his first full featured directorial debut, he picked someone close to heart (his favorite book) and some place he knows well - BASSSSSSSSSTOn.

Well, I applaud his decision. Gone Baby Gone is a pretty good movie. It starts his brother Casey (nepotism…), Ed Harris, the girl from MI3, Amy Ryan and of course, Morgan Freeman. I think Morgan Freeman plays the wise black man/senior police officer/respected politician role in at least 10 movies a year. I mean he’s awesome and all, but show some range man. Ed Harris plays a hard boiled cop (surprise surprise). I guess for an unexperienced director, casting actors in roles you know they can nail in their sleep is a smart thing. The acting was solid in this movie.

Whats the plot you say? Its about some child kidnapping. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems and shit gets mangled. I won’t really unveil much more then that. The movie is pretty interesting and kept me interested after a slow start. I’ll have to say, the BASSSSSSSTON accent is a bit heavy in here, but I guess it adds to the character of the movie. It is also not that long, also a good sign.

3.5/5

I kept on telling everyone I saw “Gone Daddy Gone”, which is a Violent Femmes tune

Toronto - Expectations were high when I went to my local theatre to watch this multiple oscar nominated movie. It was called the latest greatest American Epic. So what did I think?

I am going to spare you about the plot, because if you don’t know this movie is about some oilmen and some preacher over the course of some period of time, you probably don’t have any internet, television or access to electricity and so you won’t be reading this blog. Actually, that was the plot. Haha. Okay, so first of all, I thought the movie was a bit long. When a movie’s title is ‘There will be blood’. I expect a lot of blood and violence. There was some, but not nearly enough to justify the title. It’s like going to watch ‘Jurassic Park 5′ and seeing only one dinosaur roam around the entire movie. You may be mad.

I thought there was a bit of overacting. Granted, its a PTA movie and if anyones seen any of Tom Cruises scenes in Magnolia, you pretty much expect it. Yea, the acting was solid, but some of the overacting at the big moments of the movie seemed a bit much, a bit ‘lets get me an oscar’ part. Having said that, Daniel Day Lewis was great in it and plays such an asshole that you’re like ‘damn, he’s an asshole’. The movie was shot beautifully and Johnny Greenwood did some nice work on the soundtrack.

This SNL skit was awesome though:

3.5/5

After listening to this album, I’ve realized why it’s free, because it’s absolute rubbish. I appreciate the fact the Charlatans are still releasing albums and it’s nice to see a band from the Madchester heyday still kicking, but it seems like they only produce albums attuned to the music genre du jour instead of ‘keeping it real’.

1/5

Toronto - CMW was a lot like the storm that hit up Toronto this past weekend, it was quick, it packed a punch, mostly white and left just as quickly as it arrived. The last show on my slate, and the one I was most excited about, was The Pigeon Detectives @ Lees Palace. Upon making my way to Lees, I had already seen Maybe Smith, Said The Whale and Jenn Grant at the Horseshoe and the Rivoli. Seeing as how there was no streetcar to be seen going up Spadina, cabbing was our only option. w.T.F. These are the times you need public transportation the most, and they weren’t there.

Upon getting to Lees, I was informed that my Media Pass was no good there and that they had already let in 50 passes already. Then a couple of people in performer passes weren’t allowed in. “But we are performmmeeeeeeers!” they cried. NOPE. Rejected. Lees Palace definitely fell about eight notches in my book for their mishandling of this affair. Dejected, I went in there and bought tickets at the door for 15$, or as Id like to say … ‘food for a child in Africa for two weeks’. I then went back to my local bar (The Tap) and complained to my friends about it. No sympathies though.

So around 12:10 we entered the half packed Lees and the band came on. Did I mention the show was half packed, and they couldnt allow anymore passes in? W.T.F. All my bitterness ended when the band came on though. They were exactly what I expected, which was a louder version of their album. They were very energetic and often engaged the crowd to get them going, having them clap and saying ‘Toronto’ and having the crowd sing the chorus for ‘I Found Out’. It was a decent show, the singer was everywhere to the point of stage diving at the end of the set.

They played about 50 minutes and probably exhausted their library of songs. My friend took a video of the show and here is the last song.

Overall, a very good way to end off the night. I am sure everyone who went to the show was glad they had went.

4/5

Rickys notes in italics

Thursday

Ricky and I started the evening off trying to see Jason Collett at Lees’. We quickly got rejected at the door because they were only letting in 50 passes for the entire evening. We had media passes. The only way to get in was with a ticket. As we stood there contemplating where to go, Hayden steps up with 3 ladies, says something to the bouncer, and just like that, they are in. Then this happened:

PM: Hey, are you letting passes in now?
Bouncer: No.
PM: Shit man, why did you let Hayden in?
Bouncer: Who’s Hayden?
PM: You’re retarded

The Lees Palace people sucked a big left nut this Canadian Music Week. More on this in my other post

Then it was off to get rejected at the Sloan show, then over to the El Mo to watch the Besnard Lakes ask for more vocals before, during and after each song they sang. I’m glad I caught them, but will definitely be checking them out again when they come back through town.

The Besnard Lakes were pretty decent, very atmospheric/droney kind of sound. The lead singer looks like he’s from some 70s rock band. The amount of photographers were crazy.

It was a slippery hike down to the Cameron House to have a seat and enjoy the musical stylings of The Superfantastics. And really, I thought they were super fantastic. A cute, snappy dressed, duo from Halifax who pulled off the in-between song stage banter like pros. One might even say ‘charming’

Superfantastics: We just did a Fuse session on CBC radio a few weeks ago.
Audience Member (shouting): Hey, I heard that.
Superfantastics: Really?
Audience Member: Yep.
(pause)
Superfantastics: Mary, is that you?
Audience Member (Mary) : Yes.
Superfantastics: Hey, how are you doing?

I thought the Superfantastics were great, the in between song banters sounded genuine and showed real enthusiam, the set was full of catchy pop songs. They basically do drums + guitar, but they do it well.

Saturday

I think the Maybe Smith show I saw at the Horseshoe was probably one of the best sounding shows that I have ever seen there. It might have been because the room was practically empty, but still, for a guy who goes on stage at 8:30, Maybe Smith gave it all he had.

Good ole college pub music. Maybe Smith has a really strong voice and I really enjoy sitting down and listening to music. I was just happy to be inside after going thru the 8 feet of snow outside. The place was half empty, but that was expected.

Next up was Said The Whale from Vancouver. Their fans came out but… I don’t know. I just wasn’t into them. On this particular night, they sounded like a cover band playing in a bar that started with the words Firkin &… Sorry guys.

They were alrite. I don’t really remember what they sounded like. Maybe thats not a good thing.

After that we headed down to see Jenn Grant at the Rivoli. Aside from the smell of leftover fish at this Nova Scotia sponsored event, it was a good sounding show. Right before she played “Dreams”, she handed out homemade, pasta filled, pastille, Easter egg maracas so that we, the audience, could take part in the show. It was odd though when she stopped to tune her guitar for 5 minutes, then kind of half broke into her next song which wasn’t even really a song, then continued to tune her guitar again for another 5 minutes. I guess she didn’t have anywhere she needed to be.

This show was a bit on the short side. Jenn played around a little too much with her guitar and probably wasted much of her set. Otherwise, it was pretty poppy and a pleasant time. The crowd seemed to be into it and the eggs touch was absolutely awesome. MORE EGGS!

Note: We might have a guest writers writing about the Meligrove Band/Sloan show and the Breeders show

My pics from CMW