Showing posts with label Mark Ruffalo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Ruffalo. Show all posts

Friday, September 19, 2008

Toronto Story Part II

Disclaimer: Toronto Story Part II may not live up to part I. I mean, what could be more fun than having an immigration officer interrogating you and chatting you up at the same time?

Back to Jewish Dancer Dude, my college friend (ex lover if you were paying attention). He’s one cool guy who’s made his living as a dancer with Toronto’s premiere dance companies without having to wait tables. Although, he did do a brief stint as a film extra--if you see any movies with SWAT teams, look for him. You have to have a special certification to do that, you know.

Disclaimer #2: I feel badly about mentioning the ex-lover thing. Just pretend you never read that.

Anyway, get this. As a dance instructor, he’s had this Canadian actress in class:




Neve Campbell.

For those of you who live in Russia, Neve used to be engaged to My John Cusack. How’s that for stalking twice removed?

And for those of you who think Neve is sexier than this woman:



and want to see more of her, Neve--not Steffi--google her images. There's even one with her kissing a topless Denise Richards.

Anyway, Dancer Dude is married to Opera Singer Woman. Once I got over the fact that she is younger and hotter than me, I was cool with it.

Opera Singer has performed with the Canadian Opera Company, aka COC. Seriously.

Now she’s with the Iseler Singers, a professional 20- voice chamber choir. And a featured soloist, no less.

I can personally vouch for her voice—getting onto an elevator with a young woman on her way to a bat mitzvah, we all broke into Hava Nagila, including 3-year old Lucas, their son.

Yep, 3-year old Lucas, who when he isn’t singing Hebrew folk songs, does a mean guitar impression of Smoke on the Water.

Bored yet?

BTW, did I tell you I ran into Nicholas Cage going into the club I was coming out of?



OK. OK. That was a few years ago at the festival. Before Lucas. Days when Dancer Dude and Opera Singer Woman and I would barhop and afterpary till 4:00 in the morning.

Afterparty as a verb. I made that up.

So now with a toddler around, Dancer Dude is back in school studying to be an Osetopath. That’s an MD Lite.

And in his spare time he’s a Chauffeur Guy. And guess who Chauffeur Guy drove around for five days last week:





And guess which buddy of Adrien Brody’s also rode in the car on the way to a bar:



And for those of you from Russia, I love Mark Ruffalo almost as much as I love John Cusack.

I also love bars.

Chauffeur Guy doesn’t steer and tell, but he did say that Brody is engaged (he won’t say to whom) and that Ruffalo is very green, usually escorted around in a hybrid vehicle.

In short, because my very cool friends are very busy I usually have to film it alone. Film it--made that one up too. Afterwards, I wait at a bar for Chauffeur Guy to drop off his last client and pick me up.

Which is how I met the Iranian, the guy from Northern Ireland, a Chinese-Canadian oil guy who claims we have enough reserves to last forever, and a short Italian man who does wait tables.

What can I say? I can't help it other woman don't sit at bars alone.

Disclaimer #3: Lest you get the wrong idea, I totally respect Mark Ruffalo for his mind. And about the beer, well, I really don't drink that much.

OK I do. But I don't drink and drive. Chauffeur Guy drives. And no offense to Russians or short Italian waiters. I love vodka and red wine, too.

Bored yet?

I am. So I'll continue this story in Part III: Films and Famous People.

Meanwhile, give a still hungover blogger a smiley at Humor-Blogs.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

So Many Movies, So Few Translation Skills

My head hurts.

I leave soon for the Toronto International Film and I haven’t yet decided on which films to see. With over 300 films from 55 countries, topics range from Che Guevara to child molestation.

Here’s a sampling:


The Sea Wall

Set in 1931 in French Indochina, the story is infused with sexual and racial tensions creating a hothouse of emotion and passion.

A Cambodian Crash?



Me and Orson Welles

A teenager is hired to work with Welles on Broadway and falls for his girl, bringing egos and passions to a boil.

The prequel to War of the Worlds or the motivation?



What Doesn’t Kill You

A gritty, affecting drama about the streets of Boston.

Another Departed? Wait…I see this guy's in it:





A Much Sexier Departed!!




Mothers and Daughters

A trenchant exploration of several different facets of the mother-daughter connection filmed with clarity and courage.

Must first look up trenchant.



Detroit Metal City

A timid Japanese music geek moves from the countryside to Tokyo where he gets a gig as the front man for the notorious band Detroit Metal City (DMC).

Harajuku meets Spinal Tap?



Good

This deliberately provocative movie asks a simple question: what turned normal “good” Germans into people capable of sending millions to the gas chambers during the Second World War?

No thanks. A “good” question does not necessarily make for “good” cinema. But wait...oh, he's in this:




It could be goooood!!





Daytime Drinking

After being dumped by his girlfriend, a South Korean man gets hopelessly inebriated and finds himself walking in his underwear along mountainous roads where tigers are believed to roam at night. He rests at inhospitable guesthouses and kisses beautiful, strange girls, all while ambling towards an epic, clarifying hangover.

An Oriental Sideways?



The Beast in the Shadow


Brings French and Japanese cultures together in a bizarre and engrossing story about two writers who find their lives inextricably entangled in the dark sides of sexual impulse.

An Oriental Last Tango in Paris?




Pride and Glory

A moving saga about the sacrifices one family must make to stand among New York's finest.

Not another cop movie. Hmmm. It stars:




Might just have to see Ireland’s finest!!



Universal Love

An collage of images set to a haunting soundtrack by the band Naked Lunch, explores the inner landscapes of love that is strange, true, crazy and desperate.

A romantic Koyaanisqatsi with indie music?




9.99

A stop-motion animation about an unemployed, twenty-eight-year-old man who purchases a book that claims to contain the meaning of life – “all for the low price of $9.99”

Am I up for a philosophical Wallace & Gromit?



See my problem here? I'm soooo confused.

I may have to do what I did last year--choose the movies located closet to the best pubs.


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For more strange, true, crazy and desperate, check out Humor-Blogs.

For more Unfinished Ramblings, stay tuned here!!