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Winter’s Bone

Winter's Bone

I went to see Winter’s Bone not knowing anything about it and was quite amazed at the film. It’s a low-buget beautifully-shot drama set in the Ozarks directed by Debra Granik. The heart of the film is an amazing performance by Jennifer Lawrence as the 17 year old woman who is looking for her father who disappeared. His skpping out on bail puts the family home, woods and her brother and sister at risk since the land and house were put up for his bail. His daughter needs to find him or lose the house and the woods that surround it.

Shot in a naturalistic style with a subtle and casual pacing, it gradually reveals details of the community and family as the mystery unfolds. It’s a gripping drama with characters that feel authentic and don’t follow the standard Hollywood conventions. One of the great things about a drama where the actors aren’t easily recognized is that there is an uncertainty introduced as you aren’t sure which characters are good or evil or even if those concepts have much meaning. It’s a story of courage, survival, family and community and provides a bracing glimpse into life in rural America.

December 19, 2010 2010, film, review, winter's bone

A Prophet

There hasn’t been a film by Jacques Audiard that I haven’t liked, so there was a pretty good chance that the third film by him that I’d be seeing, A Prophet, would probably live up to expectations.

In the film Read My Lips (Sur Mes Lèvres), he constructed a clever noirish story about a woman who is almost deaf and has lip-reading skills. Beautifully shot and with a great central performance by Emmanuelle Devos, it’s intimate and surprising with a plot that twists and turns.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté) focusses on a man who must decide between a life of crime and his dream to become a concert pianist. With an electric performance by Romain Duris, it takes the unlikely combination of crime and music and builds another surprising story about fascinating characters.

With A Prophet, Audiard has another great cast with interesting characters, but this time it’s set mainly in a French prison and again it subverts expectations with a plot that is not completely predictable. We watch a young Arab man (brilliantly played by Tahar Rahim) who enters the prison system and negotiates his way through the complex world of gangs and alliances over a period of years. Bringing elements of magical realism into the story it combines the violent and brutal world of prison life with another layer that adds a poetry and beauty to the story.

On one level it’s the story of a man who gradually changes into someone else, but during the film it’s a constant series of small and beautiful revelations that combine into a compelling story. We’re taken on a journey with our hero (or anti-hero) as he faces challenges from those who judge him based on prejudice and the lessons that he learns along the way. It’s a story of friendship, loyalty and survival, beautifully shot and constructed.

December 11, 2010 2010, A Prophet, film, review

My Top Ten Films from the 30th Atlantic Film Festival

Oxford Marquee As the summer winds down the excitement begins for the wide range of films that fill the screens during the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is the 30th festival and while I’m not sure what the exact number it is for me, it’s a safe bet that at this point I’ve attended about half of them. The amazing thing about the festival is how every year there are surprises in the films that appear and something that may be highly anticipated could disappoint and something that wasn’t on anybody’s radar becomes a favourite film. When you combine that with wonderful people and good weather you have one of the best 10 days of the year as everyone celebrates and shares and enjoys film. This year wasn’t as completely immersive as last year where there were more films to see, but overall there were some great films and most of the films were very much worth watching and discussing. Here are my favourite ten films from this year’s festival: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Modra, In a Better World, Heartbeats, Fubar 2, Incendies, Gainsbourg (vie héroïque), Undertow, Trigger, and The Myth of the American Sleepover.

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October 10, 2010 aff2010, film, lists, top10

iPhone 4

Being on the cutting edge of technology is something I really enjoy, but in terms of gadgets there is a bit of restraint. That’s why there isn’t an iPad in the house and recently I took the leap and finally purchased an iPhone. Waiting was a good thing. The transition from iPod Touch (2nd generation) to iPhone isn’t a huge leap, but being constantly connected is quite amazing. The timing was perfect with my previous mobile contract being up, giving the flexibility to choose any of the mobile providers for service. While I didn’t camp out or line up, there was a bit of research that was done to figure out which provider would be best and where a theoretical iPhone could be purchased. The chosen provider was Telus and it looked as though the store in New Minas would be good. On July 29, launch day in Canada, they expected their shipment in between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. But I was going to be leaving for a trip earlier than that and didn’t want to wait. As the stories of people waiting in lines started to trickle out, I stopped in to Future Shop at lunchtime to see if they had any. Luckily they did and without a line. 15 minutes later there was a 32 GB iPhone 4 in my pocket. The first thing you notice is the screen. It’s bright and sharp. The next thing is the speed. It feels a lot faster than my iPod Touch, both with the apps and everything online. It’s an amazing device. The signal strength is good and the antenna problem doesn’t seem to be that big. But the phone part is the least interesting. Now it seems as though it’s the camera I use the most and discovering apps that use the camera and the GPS is a lot of fun. Being on vacation while getting it is a good thing as this takes up a bit of time. There are no regrets and this is one of the most amazing devices I’v ever used. It’s kind of magic.

August 16, 2010 apple, iphone, technology

Big Day Downtown

Living in Wolfville is wonderful, but every now and then it’s nice to get into Halifax for some shopping and eating in a big and vibrant city. A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to participate in a promotion for Downtown Halifax. The deal was that a number of bloggers would be given a $100 gift card and they would spend the money in downtown Halifax and share their experiences. On Wednesday, August 4, my Big Day Downtown happened and it was documented with my new iPhone 4 (with the pictures in my Big Day Downtown set on Flickr). While I could probably have stretched things out to a whole day, it turns out that one my special talents is being able to spend money rather quickly. In thinking about the day there were a few places that seemed to be good to check out along with a balance between food, drink and more tangible and permanent things. It took about four hours for my solo foray through the streets and shops on an afternoon with a little bit of rain that seemed timed just about perfectly with the times I was inside in shops.

The first stop was at the restaurant Morris East for some lunch. With a wood-fired oven, there was a high probability that one of the options for the meal would be pizza. I chose the quite reasonable lunch 1/2 pizza which gives you half a pizza and organic greens with a sherry Dijon vinaigrette. The pizza was the simple, basic and delicious tomato, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. It was quite amazing and my plate was clean after a few minutes, which gave me the chance to accept the suggestion of the wood-fired s’more along with a coffee. The s’more was quite a lovely and perfect way to end the lunch, leaving me happy and full and ready to explore more of the downtown.

One of my favourite places to browse and find cool stuff downtown is Carbonstok on Barrington Street. Filled with quirky gadgets and things for the home and kitchen, there is a range of products for any budget or mood. Keeping the limited budget in mind, it was good to look at the small and inexpensive things. A wide range of lomographic cameras along with film and various little things for displaying images always catch my eye. I picked up a package of 3 rolls of ISO 400 colour negative film that will be used in one of my 35mm film cameras. To keep stuff on the refrigerator (or maybe on the cubicle in the office) a package of 8 small and strong magnets. They’re great for holding a lot of things up and these new ones will supplement the magnets as you always need things to hold paper and postcards and notes and photos.

When the challenge of shopping downtown was first presented, one place that went on the list first was Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Hollis Street. With the motto “The Senseless Pursuit of Excellence”, it’s a gem of a cafe snuggled alongside a great used bookstore. The atmosphere is cool and it’s a relaxed and welcoming place to shop or spend time catching up with friends. There is wi-fi and comfortable chairs and tables with a laptop-free table at the front where I sat and wrote a manual tweet to respect the more technologically free vibe at the table. Needing some coffee beans for home, I went to the back where there are containers of freshly-roasted coffee beans. The roasting is done on site and you pick out the beans and weigh them yourself before bringing them to the counter. To perk me up while there I had a cappuccino which is one of the best ones you can get anywhere. Sitting down and sipping the cappuccino while I added up what I had spent and thinking about where to go next was very nice.

When I need to get things for outdoor activities my membership in Mountain Equipment Co-op always comes in handy. The store on Granville Street is a regular stop and it is a challenge to not buy too many things when I go in. With two floors of outdoor equipment, clothing, footware, bags, tents, kayaks, tools, and gadgets it’s a different experience every time. But today I was focussed and knew that I wanted to get one of the $12 cotton t-shirts that are organic, good looking and comfortable. Knowing that I had about $30 left before going in to MEC, there was the possibility of getting something $18 or less. Close to the checkout I saw a very cool Gerber Curve Mini-tool that is small with a knife, bottle-opener, file, and set of screwdrivers. A tool like that is quite useful to always have along with your keys.

Knowing that the allocated budget was just about done, a detailed calculation showed that there was about $1.86 left to spend, so I went over to Barrington to get some penny candy at Freak Lunchbox. The store is small and packed with colour, candy, and chocolate. It’s a quirky place where every possible treat desire can be fulfilled. The plastic bins along with wall have a wide range of snacks that you put into a plastic bag. I choose a small amount of candy and only needed to add a little bit more to get to the total that I wanted. With a bag of candy in hand and the realization that there was a lot more that could be explored, it looked like it was time to call it a day.

But even though the budgeted money was all gone I decided to spend a bit of my own and walked over to Taz Records on Market Street to browse through the aisles of vinyl there. This was a bit of bonus downtown shopping since I don’t really get to spend a lot of time in Halifax especially in the downtown area. With a wide range of music you can spend a lot of time in Taz looking for things, but after walking around for a while I settled on The Black Keys album “Attack and Release” and Regina Spektor’s “Begin to Hope” (which had a bonus disc with other songs on it).

With a bag full of stuff and a couple of records I felt happy and grateful to Downtown Halifax for giving me the opportunity to explore, shop and share my adventures.

August 9, 2010 bigdaydowntown, downtownhalifax, halifax, shopping

Polaroid Photos

Sometimes there are lucky coincidences in life that expand your image creation possibilities. One of my daughters found a previously enjoyed Polaroid OneStep CloseUp camera. The challenge with a Polaroid camera is that Polaroid stopped making film for it. But luckily The Impossible Project came along with some remarkable people with the idea of creating new instant film for old cameras.

Instead of simply making the same films that were made before, The Impossible Project went in a bolder direction with their first film by choose to create a monochrome sepia-toned film called Silver Shade. The images are dreamy and soft with variations in the colour happening when the temperature is different. It’s lovely and magical and unpredictable which is one of the pleasures of film.

The design of the camera is quite interesting. It takes Polaroid 600 film, which is ISO 600 film that comes in a pack with a battery. The film and battery (and chemicals to develop the film) are all within the pack that goes into the camera. The camera has a flash which flips up to take a picture. The focus is fixed with a plastic lens that can be adjusted to two focus ranges – closeup (2 feet to 4 feet) and the normal setting (4 feet to infinity). A very simple and inexpensive camera when it came out in the late 90s.

The film arrived in the mail from The Impossible Project and I eagerly opened it. Inside the beautifully-designed package was the pack of film that I put into the camera. When I swung up the flash the dark slide popped out with the distinctive sound of a Polaroid motor ejecting a print. The first thing in a pack of Polaroid film is the darkslide, which protects the unexposed film beneath it and that is what gets ejected first. For The Impossible Project they made each one of their darkslides special by turning them into collector cards with different challenges and messages on them.

The camera appeared to be working, so I ran outside and took a picture of the car with the kids waiting in it. The picture popped out and I shielded it and shook it to assist the development. It worked! Then I took a couple of pictures of the kids and then it stopped working. Either something jammed in the camera which drained the battery or there was something wrong with the film. The Impossible Project very generously sent me another pack of film to test out. While waiting for the film I searched on eBay for another camera and purchased. Before that camera arrived, the replacement film did, and that worked, so I’ll have two identical cameras to take Polaroid pictures with.

It’s a magical experience to take instant pictures with the unpredictability being part of the thrill. Embracing constraints is fun and I look forward to creating some instant images with sepia-toned film and look forward to the other films The Impossible Project are working on.

July 27, 2010 camera, film, impossibleproject, polaroid

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