Daily Archives: July 8, 2007

July 8, 2007

Play Review: DYAD @ Fringe 07

I’ve been following the Praxis Theatre group for awhile mainly because of Laura Nordin’s involvement. I’ve attended their reading series in the spring and was exited when their annouced DYAD as part of Fringe Festival this year. If you’re not familar with the Fringe Festival is a collection of smaller/independent plays that take place around Toronto. The DYAD is being presented at the George Ignatieff Theatre on the University of Toronto campus. Its a combination of 2 acts that take advantage of the outdoor aspects of the theatre location.

The first act features 2 male characters who meet up rather randomly over cigarettes. The dialogue and delivery were great and both Glen McDonald and David Tomp played their roles well. The combination of the outdoor scene was great and it was easy to visualize the scene happening almost anywhere.

The second act moved the play into the theatre and set the scene between student, Laura Nordin, and teacher, Marget Evans. Again the group used the space well with Laura starting her delivery from within the crowd and then moving onto the stage. The tension between the student and teacher seemed to develop well but wasn’t well supported by the dialogue. I think a clearer dialogue would have allowed both actresses to further developer their characters. The death of the student is the climax of the scene was the best part of the act.

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July 8, 2007

Movie Review: Sicko

Michael Moore movies have been a favourite of mine since watching Roger & Me years ago with my dad. He has a great ability to connect with people and provide a direct response to their indignities but I felt that his last movie, was too sensational. I like Michael Moore when he’s using other people to bring across his message and he does a much better job in Sicko. He brings home the problems with the US medical system but interview people most effected by the problem and soliciting requests from the public their own experiences with the different levels of HMO’s, medical insurance and hospital regulations. It was hear about the many situations where good medical service just wasn’t available or affordable.

It really made me proud to be Canadian and take alot of pride in our decision to provide universal health care coverage. Even with the problems of universal health care coverage I know of very few situations where it has let individuals down when it was needed. There may be long waits for less urgent surgery but I believe that more emergency situations are handled well and we are well served by our health care system.

One of the best parts of Sicko is when Michael Moore takes several of the sick American’s he’s encountered who are being denied medial care to Cuba. While in Cuba they receive medical care at a small fraction of the cost of US coverage and they receive quickly without incident. The only sensation part of the movie was when Moore takes his group of Sicko’s to the US military base in Cuba to try to get medical care. Earlier in th movie Moore discussed the level of medical care being offered to the prisoners.

Overall an interesting movie and entertaining movie. I hope its an sign that Moore is getting back to his roots.

July 8, 2007

Movie Review: Transformers

I grew up with Transformers and after Starwars they were probably the childhood brand that I could identity with the most. Most Saturday mornings featured Transformers and G.I.Joe back to back but the Transformers were much better at merchandising their cartoon and I ended up with many of the toys. So needless to say I was excited to be going to see the new Transformers movie 15 years later.

The movie starts off well with the Decepticons attacking a base in Qatar. With the element of surprise its not really clear why the Decepticons would choose Qatar as their primary target with its well established military presence but it did provide an excellent opportunity to advertise/promote the US forces in the middle east and all major services, Army, Navy and Airforce go some create coverage. After the main attack the movie kinda fell apart for me. For some reason the movie seemed to focus more on the development of human characters like an Army Captain stationed in Qatar and the relationship between Sam and Mikeala. The movie is very long and the scene with the Autobots climbing around Sam’s house was brutal and should been left on the cutting floor. Throughout the movie the Transformers are left looking shallow and without character, which made it hard to connect with them.

There was also several characters portrayals in the movie that didn’t sit well with me and bordered on racism. For example the used car salesman and scene with the computer hacker screaming at his grandmother. I’m also not really sure what value these scenes added to the movie and further confused me about what I was watching. Overall the movie was fairly entertaining but didn’t all connect with the Transformers themes and its not something I would recommend.

July 8, 2007

Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard ( Diehard 4 )

Its been awhile since I’ve seen a Bruce Willis film and he as reputation for delivering great action movies. Live Free or Die Hard sure doesn’t disappoint in the action category with some amazing stunts and an action packed plot line. As someone who’s worked in network security and followed the field for awhile it the plot was quite interesting with the bad guys taking over most major computer networks. I thought the interesting part about was this was that rather than relying on some new computer/technology or even aliens, they recruited hackers from around the world to attack components of the computer network. There are many instances where the networks attacked in the movie just wouldn’t be publicly available but I guess thats just Hollywood.

My only complaint with the movie was the number of cheezy moments between the 2 main characters. I’m not really sure the message these scenes were trying to convey but they didn’t come off well at all. There one scene while they are driving to Baltimore that was almost unbearable. Luckily the action keeps the movie fast paced and there are many sequences that were a surprise and not included in the trailer.