2005viff

Festival Diary: Vacation Day 1; Festival Day n/a

Day One - September 17th, 2005
VIFF Film Count: 1
Non-Festival Movie Count: 0

1:21 PM: Finally arrived in Vancouver!!! Comfortably checked into my hotel, unpacked my bags and I'm just about to head out to meet Marko to go see Batman Begins in IMAX at Silvercity Riverport (trust me, this was MY idea!!!). "The Greatest Game Ever Played" follows that, then perhaps a midnight show at the Paramount is in order. Whatever the case, I'm in Vancouver, baby!!! It's near vacation time!!!!

My laptop is telling me that there's a secure wireless network along with an unsecure wireless network...so here's hoping somebody can help me tap into this network to have internet in the hotel!!! Otherwise I'll have to drag this thing to an internet bar or library that does WIFI to upload my reviews. Not a big deal either way as this laptop (I have yet to name it) will provide much entertainment, as well as seeing five movies a day will also keep me from my internet addiction.

1:10 AM: Arrived home from a day of doing what I do best in the Vancover world...going to see a lot of movies. Trouble is, not much opened in the art world in Van city this weekend, and what's worse is that I was stuck paying full price for each one!

I met up with my buddy Marko and headed in the opposite direction of suburbia to go see a few movies out at the slightly aging Silvercity Riverport.

First things first, seeing "Batman Begins: The IMAX Experience" was pretty sweet; a great film being blown up to gigantic proportions first worried me, but the image quality held up very well from 35mm anamorphic, and as always I was right inside the head of this film within the first 15 minutes. With that said, one part of me found keeping my head jerked in the correct place while all the action was unfolding was somewhat difficult. Thankfully, having seen the film three times already, I had a pretty good idea what was going on.

Next up was the pretty-good "The Greatest Game Ever Played", or as it will be known to my dad, "The Greatest Movie Ever"...the simple reason? It's about golf, it loves golf and it respects the sport that oh so many people despise with a passion. While I found much of the opening material involving the adults involved with golf to be very tedious, it does pick up towards the end with a nice performance by Shia LeBoeuf as our everyday underdog and a climax that may be predictable, but I still really enjoyed it overall.

And finally I saw a 10:30pm show of "Lord of War" at the nearby art cinema Fifth Avenue rather than catch a midnight show down at the Paramount (I have been up since 7am!). Glad I did since the film was a powerful social commentary on weapons and violence seen through the eyes of a pretty bad guy, played wonderfully by Nicolas Cage and written/directed beautifully by Andrew Niccol (the opening shot where we follow a bullet as it is made right to its final delivery is unforgettable). I watched half of the film with either my jaw dropped or with a complete surprised laughter, which is very rare for me these days.

And here I am back at the hotel. Still no wireless net access, although two public networks have come through to my room, but with only one bar out of four. Nada on either my email or the web browser. Crap!! Finding out today that there was absolutely no way to wire in net access was off putting, so I guess my original plan of writing here and then transferring my data when I go WIFI at an internet bar or coffee shop (note to self, get a list of these places!) will have to do. Come to think of it, I will probably get more work done this way since the internet is such a friggin' distraction! :)

posted by Jason Whyte @ 12:13 AM