movies and festivals

Well it has been a rather interesting and adventure filled couple weeks being out of camp. What have we done? We have watched a few movies. Here are some quick reviews:

Inception (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/): Psychological mind thriller about a 'theif' who steals subconscious information from individuals during a dream state. Incredibly interesting story and plot, well written, nicely played out and a fantastic ending. Downside to the movie? Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't know if he is just type casted by the director so that when he steps on the set he has great ideas of all the wonderful things he can do and make this character come alive but the director steps in and just says "no no no no..we don't want that. We got you on this project for this one character. I want you to be blank, totally blank, no expression or feeling whatsoever...Think Shutter Island. Give me that guy!" If only they had gotten someone else to play the character since Leo was really out of place with all the others that seemed to have caring, depth, personality against Leo's character of sheer blankness.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1287468/): Extremely cute kids movie sequeled to the first Cats and Dogs. In the sequel the teams of elite cats and dogs that are out to save the world from mischief that the humans don't know about team up to stop a mad cat from dominating the world. It has a lot of cute moments and all with just enough butt jokes to make the kids laugh and stay interested without going too far into the realm of just plain pathetic. Of course there is a moral lesson in the film that isn't too subtly hidden so that the kids get it right square in the face as to what they are to take away from the film. Only down side to the movie is that in the trailer when the robot message squirrel decides to play a little tune for the dog before self destructing you get to listen to the Hamster Dance, which totally rocks and is hilarious, but instead in the movie you get to listen to a cheap little nothing song. Very disappointing in that respect.

Predators (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424381/): Not really much to say about this one. Total gore fest with some violence thrown in for good measure. Individuals who are known for their violent tendancies (mercenaries, gang enforcers, military deviants) are put on a planet and hunted down by alien predators. Incredibly stupid plot and story as well as bland developement of the characters along the way. There was so much potential as to what could have happened but in the end it left it sort of wanting. This film is supposed to take place after the Predator (Arnie movie) and Predator 2 (Danny Glover movie) without taking into consideration for the Alien VS Predator movies. However, the movie makers introduced an almost new breed of Predators without really giving any explanation to their existance or whatever. Never really was a big fan of that sort of movie. I call them the "I got a secret" kind of movie. I like 'cliffhangers' and movies that make you go "Ok, you have all the evidence, come to your own conclusion as to how it ends" but the "I got a secret" is like in grade school when someone comes up to you and goes "I learned something cool but I am not supposed to tell you so I got a secret" and then walks away. If you have a secret, don't tell me about it unless you are willing to give information freely to make me figure out your secret. This movie basically says "here are new predators but we arent gonna give you any information about them". Both the Mrs and I developed different ideas as to the new predators but neither of us had any evidence from the movie to back it up but was just our gut feeling.

We also attended the Heritage Festival, Taste of Edmonton and Klondike Days (even though it is named Capital X now we all agree that it is still 'K Days' and that Capital X is basically the stupidist name that the PC tree huggers have ever come up with for this event). Even though the prices were too high and the portions too small in both events we only ended up eating at the Heritage Festival and not Taste of Edmonton. We did get a few things to eat at K Days but only because we were there a long time and starving. Normally I would shun paying $5 for a corn dog and $12 for Millinum Fries (think freshly fried potatoe chips in a bowl. I could get 4 bags of large Lays potatoe chips for the price and feed more than one order of M Fries). I also can't believe I spent nearly $6 on a donair at Heritage Festival and all they gave me were two strips of donair meat (almost wafer thin and dried out), a cold pita bread and wilted lettuce with diced up tomatoes on a plate and I had to assemble the donair myself. No sauce, no dressing, no nothing. For $6 I could have gone to a fast food joint and gotten fries, drink and an assembled donair for that price. There were some cool demonstrations and all in the way of dancing, instruments and all so it was pretty cool.

This weekend the Mrs and I have rented a car to go around and do some things like going to a Jurrasic Forest (Mrs found this thing and now we are just going to check it out), corn maze and go out to visit a friend of mine up north of Edmonton. Definitely will be interesting.

Other than that, nothing really out of the ordinary. Usual stuff and all. Oh, I did quit my camp job and got a new job in the city. I start my job as a judicial clerk in the bail office on Monday.