Dad's visit to Vancouver

I've put together an album of photos from my Dad's recent visit to Vancouver. He left a week last Thursday. I already blogged about our first weekend when we did the long drive, and there are some photos in this bunch of that trip. The first week was not the greatest weather, and remained cool and overcast but without much rain. My Dad did a bus tour, and loads and loads of walking around town. The second weekend, we went up Grouse Mountain and spent a day on the beach - very relaxing. The good weather continued into the second week, which gave Dad more chances to relax on the beach a bit. I think he enjoyed his holiday overall, although I think it was a little strange for him to travel by himself. It was great to have him visit, and Steph and I especially miss the washing up he did for us :) You are welcome back any time, Dad!

A scenic drive, and a kayak weekend

My Dad arrived to stay just over a week ago, and last weekend we hired a car and did a drive around some of British Columbia. We were lucky to get gorgeous weather for both days which made the sightseeing all the more enjoyable.

We started off on Saturday morning, and drove along the Sea-To-Sky Highway to Whistler. There we stopped for the night. I was hoping to take my Dad up to the top of Whistler for the view, and I'd even checked online to make sure it was available. However, sadly I missed the small print that said "from June 28th", so it wasn't yet open. Poo! As a backup plan, we did some walking around the Lost Lake Park which was lovely in the sunshine. The area around the lake looks very different in the summer - there were lots of people hanging out on the grass, and even one brave swimmer.

In the evening we had a great meal at Ric's Grill in Whistler Village (highly recommended) and stayed the night at the Holiday Inn Sunspree, which I'd also recommend except for the rowdy youngsters that kept us awake outside from 1am to 3am (not the hotel's fault though). If I stayed in Whistler again in the summertime, I'd pick a place out of the village that ought to be quieter!

On the Sunday we did a loooong drive from Whistler, through Pemberton, Lillooet, Lytton, Boston Bar, Hope, and back to Vancouver. This is a route I've done once before not long after we arrived in Canada (with Steph and her friend), and I very much enjoyed it then. This trip was great too. We stopped for a late lunch at the Hell's Gate Airtram which I've also been to twice before but which is always enjoyable. This time the water was fairly high, and the river was spectacular to watch from this vantage point.

We covered 600km in two days (with 460km on the Sunday), and saw a lot of trees, lakes and valleys. Brilliant.

Whilst I was doing that, Steph was on a kayaking and camping weekend with 13 other friends! She'd been organizing this one for ages. They started from Deep Cove and kayaked up to Granite Falls where they camped overnight. Everything they needed had to be squeezed into and onto the kayaks - no mean feat! It was apparently an excellent weekend (the lovely weather helped, after forecasts of rain earlier in the week). The journey back was arduous however because of strong currents and a headwind, which made paddling tough work, and if you stopped you started floating backwards. Despite being exhausted by the end of it, some of them are already thinking about next time :)

Steph recently sorted out her photos, and uploaded them to Flickr. I'll hopefully upload some of my Dad's too in the near future.

Steve's Stag Day

Our friends Steve and Janine are getting married in July. The wedding is going to be back in the UK, but they wanted to involve some of their friends here too so Steve had a Canadian Stag Day, which was the Saturday before last.

It started with stodgy breakfast at Denny's, which I decided to skip in favour of something more healthy. We all arrived in our prescribed uniforms - the worst shirt and tie we could find. And believe me, we found some pretty bad ones. It was also at this point that Steve was presented with his gift for the day - a lustrous blonde wig to die for.

After that, we all went off for a day at the races - Hastings Racecourse to be precise. The weather was decent (it didn't rain at least, which was good because we were outside all day), and it was most enjoyable. We drank some beer and had a little flutter. I won on the first horse I bet on, and was overjoyed until it was disqualified about 5 minutes later. Arse. That was my first and last "win" that day.

Next was a trip back into Downtown for dinner - which was curry, in the English tradition. The waiter saw our big group coming I think, and talked us into ordering far too much food, so we left the place completely stuffed.

And so began the inevitable pub crawl down into the gutter. I actually quit fairly early, with my excuse - I had to clean our apartment before my Dad arrived to stay :) I was very glad that I did, as I got to take part in my Sunday, unlike the rest of them.

I didn't take photos any myself, but here are a few if you are interested.

Pender Harbour weekend

Last weekend was a long one thanks to Victoria Day on the Monday, and it was also the last weekend that Steph's aunts were staying with us. We rented a car and took a trip up the Sunshine Coast to the Pender Harbour area. We really lucked out with the weather, because Saturday and Sunday were the first real summer days we have had this year - gorgeous. On Monday it rained of course, but there you go. We stayed at a place called Pender Harbour Resort. It was a very pretty location, although a little more remote than we had intended. Unfortunately, the cottage we stayed in was a big disappointment - it was over-priced, scruffy and the kitchen was poorly equipped. Worst of all though, there was no separate bedroom for Steph's aunts - we all slept in the same room! The people who ran the place didn't seem to care about my complaints either , so I don't recommend this place - we will stay somewhere else next time.

The Pender Harbour area itself was beautiful - lots of great coastline and cool little islands. It's quite remote, and there isn't much in the way of shops and such. Most of the things to do involve hiking, boating or swimming, so it's probably for the active sort mostly. I think Steph's aunts still enjoyed it though, thanks to the sunshine and the relaxation. Steph and I managed to squeeze in a short walk to Skookumchuck Rapids too, and arrived in time to see a big ebb tide and lots of drama. We'd definitely think about going back to this area of the Sunshine Coast in future to do some more exploring or for a romantic weekend.

You can see some photos of the weekend on our Flickr page.

Two gigs and a lecture

As it turned out, we had quite a few evening engagements while Steph's aunts were staying, so we had to leave them to their own devices on some evenings.

Firstly, we saw Elbow play at St. Andrew's-Wesley Church in Downtown. We missed it when Sufjan Stevens played there, and we were determined to catch another gig at such an interesting venue. They made us stand outside in a huge line for a good hour, which was annoying. Technical problems apparently. The church was lovely inside, and everyone sat on the pews to watch the music - a strange atmosphere for sure. I expected the acoustics of a church to be great, but to be honest they tended to over-exaggerate the low-end and make it hard to make out voices and such. The support band that came on first - Air Traffic - had this problem in spades. Their sound mix was all bass and no vocals, so it was impossible to hear any lyrics apart from on the occasional quiet track. They weren't bad though. Elbow themselves had much better sound balance, and performed a great set. They were pretty chuffed to be playing in a church, and mentioned it several times. The lead singer was quite chatty, and had a bunch of interesting little stories to tell between songs. He also got us singing along to a couple of songs too. I enjoyed it very much (I am the Elbow fan really) but Steph also liked it a lot.

The night after the Elbow gig, we went to see a guy called Syd Mead talk about his work. He calls himself a "visual futurist" and worked as a concept artist on a bunch of big movies such as Blade Runner, Aliens and TRON. The lecture was a weird format - he launched into a series of slides showing pictures he had created, and then talked about the background for each one. For a couple of hours - that was it. He was very confident and full of himself, but interesting to listen to all the same. The thing I liked best was how he often thought up elaborate scenarios behind each of his pictures, so that it all made some sort of logical sense to him. He mentioned several times that good fantasy was all about taking something that people know and recognize, and then combining it with something strange and unfamiliar. As a science-fiction fan, I really enjoyed hearing about the crazy worlds he invented in his head for each picture.

Lastly, we saw another gig at the Commodore Ballroom - KT Tunstall was playing again. Last time, we saw her at Richards on Richards which is a really small, intimate venue and it was great. This time the venue was larger, and so was the band - five of them this time. The extra band members meant more elaborate versions of the songs with extra vocals and so on which were different from the album versions and interesting to hear. She also has two albums of music to draw from now for her gigs, so there was more variety. She was chatty between songs, and the whole band seemed to be enjoying themselves which is always nice to see. Her singing was awesome as ever - she really does have a knockout voice. I liked the quiet numbers best of course, especially "Paper Aeroplane" which was beautiful, and an epic version of "Beauty of Uncertainty". Lovely.

Mini Film Review - Iron Man

Generally, I like super-hero movies because they are pure escapism and fantasy, and there aren't enough of those kind of films these days. Fortunately, Iron Man was one of the better films of this kind. The script was sharp and witty, and most of the main characters were well-written and interesting. I think Robert Downey Jr. pretty much made the film for me - he really suited his part well and did a great job. He was also looking very buff for his age - perhaps it's down to all the time he spends in prison :) Jeff Bridges was excellent too. I thought that Gwyneth Paltrow's character was a little one-dimensional, and unfortunately named (Pepper Potts??). She was also looking heavily made-up in the close-up shots. I guess she's not quite as young and smooth-skinned as she used to be. The computer graphics were excellent - it's rare these days that they aren't - and the film seemed well-paced with an exciting finale. Here's hoping they make another. Oh yes, and there's an extra bit after the credits, but it's probably not worth waiting for...

Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden

The first weekend that Steph's aunts were staying with us, we went to the Chinese Garden just outside Downtown. Steph and I hadn't yet been so we were more than happy to join them. As it turned out, there are kind of two gardens which are adjoining and share the same large pond. One is Dr. Sun Yat Sen Park which is open to the public and free to enter, and the other is the Chinese Garden which requires a ticket. We were kind of disappointed at the size of the garden - it was actually smaller than the public park - and the entry prices seemed a little steep for something so small ($10 per adult), but it was very pretty and rather relaxing. The weather wasn't half bad that day either. I've uploaded some photos on Flickr.

I'm way behind with my blogging, but hopefully there will be more coming soon. Summer has arrived at last (we've had three great days already) so it's hard to find the enthusiasm to sit at the computer and write stuff :)

Whistler photos up on Flickr

I've uploaded two sets of photos that I took whilst walking the Valley Trail around Whistler, one from Saturday and one from Sunday. The third set are photos nicked from mobile phones so the resolution isn't so hot, but at least they feature actual people unlike my walking pictures :)

Whistler

Last weekend, we did another big trip to Whistler. The exact group of people going was up and down until the last minute, but eventually there were 13 of us - so many that we didn't fit in one condo, so Steph rented two next door to each other. A lot of us went up on the Friday evening after work, and a couple more people came down on the Saturday.

It has been a cold Spring, so there was a fair amount of snow on the mountains themselves. Unfortunately, Whistler Mountain had closed already for the season, but Blackcomb Mountain was still open. Saturday was the most beautiful weather - the first real day of Summer this year. People were skiing and snowboarding in T-shirts and such, and quite a few of us got a little bit of sunburn that day. The snow conditions were pretty good too.

I had originally intended to take a hiking trip to Joffre Lakes. However, for a couple of days leading up to the Friday I was feeling a bit weird, like I was coming down with some kind of sickness. In the end, I didn't arrange the trip because of that (and as it turned out I was fine and didn't get sick - oh well). Our rental car got a flat tyre too, as I discovered when I went down to the parking garage on Saturday morning - I was looking forward to having my own transport. I had to swap it for the lame little emergency spare. I was a bit iffy about driving somewhere until I knew that tyre was good, so I thought I'd do some walking in Lost Lake Park because I could get there easily on foot. The cross-country skiing was over and I wasn't able to get a map of the trails, and the idea of walking the trails with no-one else around and with no map didn't appeal to me, so I had to find an alternative. I ended up walking some of the Valley Trail, which is mostly a paved path for walkers and cyclists (although part of my route followed a few of the cross-country trails at Lost Lake where I was still walking on snow.) The weather was great, and I walked about 9km on Saturday altogether - very enjoyable.

Sunday was overcast, and rained later in the day. The snow conditions were worse that day because of the mild temperatures and the rain, but I think most people still enjoyed it. The spare tyre had held up fine overnight, so I had an idea to drive out to the Cheakamus River and walk the trail there (which we did with Steph's parents last Summer), but the tourist information guys told me it would be too wet and muddy and put me off. Instead, I walked some more of the Valley Trail in a different direction, and although the weather was nowhere near as good, I still enjoyed myself and clocked another 9km. Some of our friends went home on the Sunday afternoon and evening, because they couldn't get a day off work on Monday.

Monday was a lousy day anyway - cold and wet. Steph, Tim and Chris proved to be the hardcore of the bunch and did a couple of hours of skiing despite the conditions. I had walked pretty much everywhere I could, so I hung out in Whistler Village with a couple of other friends who didn't want to snowboard that day. We left soon after lunch because of the lousy weather, and made our way home slowly and carefully thanks to our little emergency tyre which was speed-limited to 80kph. It got us home without incident though. I had a somewhat unpleasant discovery when I dropped the rental car back though - apparently a flat tyre is considered as "damage" as far as they are concerned so they will probably charge me - what a rip-off.

It was a great weekend though, and I think everyone had a good time. I was a little limited with my walking options, but the hot-tub, great food, Rock Band, and excellent company more than made up for it. Oh yes, and I recommend the movie "The Fallen Ones" if you get a chance to catch it ;) I think the organizing of it all tired Steph out quite a lot, and she wasn't sure about doing something with so many people in future. Then everybody clubbed together and bought her a bottle of scotch as a thank-you prezzie, so I think she might have changed her mind :)

I have some photos, which I haven't sorted out yet. I'll be posting those up in the next few days.

8 Film Reviews (count 'em!)

This might be the biggest bunch of reviews I've ever posted at the same time! It took bleedin' ages to write as well. I'll have to keep up a little better in future (or watch fewer films).


Beowulf

This film impressed me more than I expected. It looked fantastic - I think they were some of the best human characters I've ever seen in a CG film. I wasn't expecting their acting performances to be so good though. The nuances captured, especially in the faces, were superb - so much so that after about 15 minutes of watching the film I forgot that I was wasn't watching real actors. Truly impressive. And to cap it all, the story was more interesting and more mature than I thought it would be as well, with far fewer cliches than I had feared. I still think Ray Winstone was a strange choice to voice the lead character, and sometimes he would lapse into a rough "Landan" accent when over-excited. In summary though, this movie was a pleasant surprise and well worth a watch.



In The Valley Of Elah

This film reminded me of Redacted in its choice of subject matter, but don't worry - it's much better! It's a simple movie that tells a straightforward story, but the script and the acting performances in particular raised it to a very high level. It's an emotional film, and there's no feel-good ending so pick a good time to watch it :) Tommy Lee Jones gives another superb, understated performance in this film. Like a fine wine, this guy just seems to get better with age and now I really look forward to movies he is in. The rest of the cast give good performances too, and that combined with the powerful issues that the story raises should mean that this film is likely to stick in your memory. Recommended.





American Gangster

It was mainly the draw of Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe that made me watch this movie - I knew pretty much nothing about it. Well, I guess I'm not giving anything away by saying it's all about organized crime :) Denzel was decent, although I find he tends to play Denzel Washington in every movie, plus or minus a bit of "crazy". In this movie, Denzel played Denzel Washington with a fair bit of crazy. Man On Fire was Denzel playing Denzel with a smaller amount of crazy. You get the idea. Russell Crowe I thought outshone Denzel somewhat, although his "rough diamond" was probably not much of a stretch for him either. His character had an extremely strong sense of right and wrong though which was pretty interesting. The movie was good but somewhat by the numbers. It's nothing you haven't seen before and the leads certainly stay way within their acting comfort zone. Very competent, and reasonably enjoyable.


There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor for this movie and I can see why - his performance is totally intense and gripping to watch. His character dominates this movie so totally that there isn't a lot of room for anyone else (though the preacher is also excellent). At times, things get rather melodramatic and there was more than a slice or two of ham. It felt like someone needed to reign in Day-Lewis's performance one or two notches and then it would have been perfect. I loved the musical score which dominated some of the best scenes and was powerful and brooding, kind of like the main character, and the dark ending was not your typical Hollywood happy-ever-after. I would have preferred just a touch more restraint to the acting, but there is no denying that this is a great film with a great central character, and very much worth a watch.


Hard Candy

We had a little film night round our place one Saturday evening with a few friends. The idea was for it to be a scary movie, but we picked up four very different films for people to choose from - this one and the following three reviewed here. This was the only film that none of us had seen, so it was the one we watched.

So, I'll get it out of the way right now - this is a film about paedophilia. Or rather, the effects of paedophilia on an adult and a child. This film must have started as a stage play as there are only two characters and pretty much only one location. It's an interesting film with an excellent performance by Ellen Page as a 13-year old with revenge on her mind. It does seem a little contrived, and I felt that the dialogue sometimes fell flat and wasn't all it could have been. There are a few genuine chills (and some uncomfortable moments), but neither main character is particularly sympathetic and the end result was rather a mess. Memorable, but not fantastic.


Michael Clayton

George Clooney just keeps making good movies these days, and this one is excellent. He plays a "fixer" who get rich people out of their legal troubles on the hush-hush, until he gets involved in a class-action lawsuit against a huge agrochemical company (which is fictional of course, but basically Monsanto). What follows is a taut thriller with strong, measured performances by a brilliant ensemble cast. Clooney gets a lot of screen time, but by no means dominates, and compared to the histrionics seen in There Will Be Blood this is a lesson in less-is-more. I didn't expect to enjoy this film as much as I did - it's a top-class piece of serious drama and comes highly recommended whether you are a fan of Clooney or not.




Zodiac

This film was long! Good, but long. Good, but not great either. I liked the premise of a serial killer who is never caught, and there are some really good performances in the movie, but for some reason it never quite blew me away, and ended up being somewhat forgettable. The actual murders are pretty brutal too, if you're a little squeamish. Watch it if you like a more cerebral kind of thriller, and you have plenty of patience :)









Land Of The Dead

The make-up and effects rocked. Steph didn't like all the gore, but it is so over-the-top it just made me laugh. Compared to your Saws and Hostels, this movie is like a very black comedy. Also a comedy was the plot, the script, and most of the acting. John Leguizamo hams it up throughout with a permanent leer on his face, and manages to save the film from mediocrity. The male lead however is instantly forgettable, Dennis Hopper seems to be unsure of where he actually is, and Asia Argento is little more than eye-candy for the gentlemen. Not George Romero's finest hour, but entertaining enough with some friends, some drink, and a strong stomach for fake guts.