Edmund

I’ve been noticing this poster at the community college for quite a while now. What ever happened to Rex Goudie, a Canadian Idol contestant from time immemorial? The poster must’ve been there since the early 2000s!

I went to bed early last night, so I decided to just videotape the Oscars. When I woke up this morning, I found out that nothing ever came out of the effort. I don’t know how to play around with VHS machines anymore—they now (like the typewriter) seem very unfamiliar  to me . . .

Inglorious Basterds didn’t win Best Picture. But my bet, Christoph Waltz, did win Best Supporting Actor—I should’ve put money on that bet. There’s talk that he’d next be starring with Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in the film version of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants.

I never finished reading the book—although I like anything that’s set during the Great Depression. I didn’t like the way the book began. I saw an audiobook version at iTunes. I heard the snippets. The “old man”—an actor portraying the voice of old Jacob, I think—who was reading it sounded really bad. I’ll just wait for the movie.

Oscar wish

It’s Oscar night on Sunday. I don’t really care about the Oscars, but I’m really rooting for Inglorious Basterds and Christoph Waltz.

Je suis Canadien—mais je ne suis pas Québécois

I caught a[nother] glimpse of the Vince Coleman/Halifax Explosion Historica Minutes commercial on TV last week, so I decided to dust off and watch my old Historica Minutes DVD. I’m a huge fan of Historica Minutes—those sixty-second short films that feature important moments in Canadian history. I first learned my Canadian history from those beautiful shorts, and they really give you that vibe that makes you feel proud to be Canadian.

My favorite Minutes: Jacques Cartier and the “naming” of Canada—the actor portraying the know-it-all priest is a joy to watch; Governor Frontenac—one of the most good-looking Minutes, with shades of 1970’s Cromwell; and Étienne Parent and Balwin and Lafontaine—there’s something very Les Misérables about them.

Historical spoiler. I was reading The Folio Book of Historical Mysteries, edited by Ian Pindar (London: The Folio Society, 2008), an anthology of essays about history’s most fascinating enigmas. I was halfway through Paul Doherty’s “Was Tutankhamun Murdered?” when I put the book down, got up for a glass of water, checked my e-mail and found a news item about the very recent finding that King Tut died from complications from a broken leg and malaria. Suddenly there was no point in going back to the essay.

Much has already been said about the horrible devastation and the great need in Haiti, so I’m not going to say anything more. But I did see the Hope for Haiti Now telethon last Friday. I stayed up late to see this particular performance/performer:

Coming soon (but read it first)

Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 children’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, is being made into a movie. The Eagle of the Ninth is the first of the seven loosely-connected tales about Roman Britain. I’ve only read The Eagle of the Ninth and its follow-up, The Silver Branch:

The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young Roman soldier who is trying to find the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of his father’s legion, the Legio IX Hispana, in northern Britain.

Stills from the upcoming film version were all over the Internet last month. (See more pictures here.)

I don’t usually like Hollywood’s take on beloved literary classics, but I really want to see this one. I saw the ’70s BBC TV version once, and I thought that the lead actor looked and acted more like a dandy than a legionnaire. From the stills of the new film, we can see that Channing Tatum (who plays Marcus) has given the character some muscle and swagger.

Sleuthing around

I haven’t read a single Nancy Drew mystery. I’m only vaguely familiar with The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries TV series from the late ’70s. But then again, I’ve never read any Hardy Boys book either, and I was (in those days) way too young to be interested in teen stars like Pamela Sue Martin. It was my older female cousins who actually watched the show and made a huge fuzz over Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson.

The bad weather and the slippery snow had forced me to stay indoors since Monday, giving me the opportunity to finally watch some of those DVDs and Blu-rays that I still haven’t opened. The Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection, a 2-disc set consisting of the four Nancy Drew movies from the ’30s, was yesterday’s feature. I got it last year, after seeing Nancy Drew . . . Reporter, the second film in the movie series, on TCM. (Bonita Granville, who starred as Nancy Drew in all the four films, looked a lot like Christina Aguilera.) The Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection DVD set was my thorough introduction to the Nancy Drew universe, and I really enjoyed each one of the movies, because they give us a glimpse of “ancient” America—the innocent and kind U.S.A. of the Depression and pre-World War II eras. Hollywood movie characters back then do not have to be troubled, angry, sassy, foul-mouthed and oversexed.

I can’t forget that hilarious exchange between the sheriff and the lazy handyman in Nancy Drew . . . Trouble Shooter:

Sheriff Barney Riggs: Now listen, Apollo, you’re so excited, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Was it a corpse?
Apollo Johnson: A dead corpse!

Better late than never

Somebody heard my rant about me not receiving any Hannah Montana stuff for Christmas and sent me a nice Hannah T-shirt today. Thanks, kapatid! In the meantime, I’ve got to lose a few more pounds so I could wear it this summer.

But the package also came with chocolates. What ever will I do?

Elvis x 2

Two Elvis films, Love Me Tender and Kid Galahad, were on TV last night. I didn’t sit through them—I’ve never seen a single Elvis movie, and I’m not an Elvis fan. The only Elvis-related thing that I’ve seen in its entirety was his 1968 comeback special—it was on TV a lot in 1977, in the mornings before schooltime. His signature black leather jump suit was fascinating.

It turns out to be the King’s birthday today. That explains the back-to-back movies last night.

Wait a minute . . .

I just realized: I didn’t get any Hannah Montana stuff for Christmas.