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Nightmare Alley
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 631
Guillermo Del Toro's Film Noir & remake of a classic film about a grifting sideshow carny. Permeated with a dark ambience, great set pieces and props, good performances by Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, that said it grows a little stale and old when you can see the ending clear as day a mere 20 minutes into the film. After which it becomes a tired exercise in seeing how it realizes itself. Meh. Although - the sideshow attractions, the tarot cards, the good Psychiatrist's office - they all serve to inspire, merely a less predictable plot would have driven it along a lot better.
The Green Knight
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 881
Serendipity, this, downloaded on a whim, enjoyed it very much. A pretty clean, writ large layout of "The Hero's Journey", with some intriguing symbolism and details.
I'm pretty sure I read this once, should read it again, it fits in with a few of my own projects and was appropriate to the moment. I love it when that happens.
Very good. You might enjoy.
Window Dressing
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 801
They were filming a movie here - across the street in an alley - a couple of weeks ago. Lots of vans, booms, lighting, people gathered, actors, extras, pedestrians just watching.
It went on a couple of days.
And - the last couple of weeks they've been window dressing the building next to the Cambie - "The Tongue and Tail", making it into a fictional butcher shop. They've put decals on the windows, cleaned up and retiled the inside, brought in coolers, fridges, painted the butcher's signage on the building next to the alley - finally, now, they've filled the window with choice cuts of plastic molded to resemble meat - sides of beef, sausages, chickens, etc.
Every night, after work, there's security guarding the site - a "Teamsters" car parked out front, a security guard (or 2) on foot...
They've put more money into the "appearances" and the fiction of a butcher shop than most real butchers would put into a real butcher shop.
This is hilarious. And when the movie - or scene - is done shooting the building again will be vacant, junkies will shoot up in the doorway, use it as a toilet - but - for the moment - I'm living in a fictional gentrification of Gastown, an substantially upscaled neighborhood that will pass as a friendly neighborhood (or maybe not? I don't know what they're filming...) butcher - is this for a fleeting scene? Given the money spent on renovations I would expect a substantial portion of filming to be done here - maybe a new Canadian sitcom?
Wait and see...
**Update: Outside for a cigarette, street blocked off, booms and crew in place - looks like filming starts today. And I have to work a double and will miss it. Damn!!
Difficult Loves & Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 837
I enjoyed, but a more obscure work by Calvino for a reason. Still, it's good to read an author "becoming", as opposed to an author who's "arrived".
Interesting, but not precious.
It provides me the much-needed reminder that Excellence is a process, not an end or result.
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