The Not Quite So Terrible Adventures of VanRamblings

November 18, 2010VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

For VanRamblings, this has not been the quietest week we could imagine.
Driving home from work last Thursday, we were stopped by the local constabulary, informed that we were driving without a valid license, had our car impounded, and were otherwise … well, actually, it wasn’t that bad.
Although we were stopped, and initially the situation seemed quite perilous, a kindly officer intervened and whispered into our ear, “The same thing happened to me awhile back.” Seems that we could not just let our Class 4 license slip and automatically revert to Class 5, we had to go to an ICBC office, surrender our license, and apply for a Class 5. In the meantime, we received a $276 fine / ticket. The police officer was kind enough to lay out an alternative to impounding the car: get a friend down to the causeway underneath BC Place to pick up our car to transport us home, and we would avoid the tow and impoundment. And that’s exactly what we did.
The next day, we surrendered our license, applied for a new license, paid the $31, and all was well. Actually, better than well. The folks at ICBC conducted a vision test, and declared our vision 20/20; for the first time in 46 years, we do not have to drive with glasses! A fortuitous silver lining!
Upon arriving home, we discovered that our Telus Internet and Telus Optik TV service was down, and so it remains almost a week later!
No Internet, No HDTV? VanRamblings is in withdrawal (not to mention, not being able to reliably access the Internet — we’ve been using the spotty tethering service available through our iPhone — has meant that we have not been able to complete various of our Union and political responsibilities, what with no reliable e-mail, and no ‘Net, access to the Union bank account that is required to complete a quarterly report that is now overdue!).
Yes, it is a sad tale, indeed.
As it happens, we have been feeling a bit unmoored of late, so we’re going to take a few days off next week, and travel over to Tofino, where we’ll stay at the Middle Beach Lodge, a few pictures of which are available here. Of course, we’ll take our own photos and video of our sojourn to Canada’s verdant west coast, and hope to post them on VanRamblings next week.
We will attempt to find the time before we leave Vancouver to follow through on our commitment to post more of our favourite cinema-related websites, but should our Internet connection at home not be up and running prior to our departure, you may have to wait a bit for the final, definitive list of the blogs and websites that are must viewing for anyone as enamoured as VanRamblings with modern age film and film culture.

The Secrets Sisters As The Saviours of Country Music

November 16, 2010MusicRaymond Tomlin

From Muscle Shoals, Alabama, bordering the Tennessee River, home to FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios where artists ranging from Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding to Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rolling Stones, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens and Hank Williams Jr. have recorded albums over the years, comes the South’s latest musical sensation, the roots rockin’ duo of Laura and Lydia Rodgers, the bluegrass singin’ siblings who record as The Secret Sisters.
The 11 tracks on their self-titled début are nothing short of a delight, the album (mostly) a mix of country, folk and classic pop covers, the sisters’ harmonies spunky and occasionally melancholy, their interpretation of the material utterly original, marking this recording as, perhaps, the most outstanding pure country recording of the year. Hell, it’s just a lot of fun, a toe tappin’ return to the Appalachian country music of the 1950s.
Amazon offers a Secret Sisters music sampler. Definitely worth a listen.

VanRamblings’ 2010 Holiday Season Movie Preview

November 9, 2010CinemaRaymond Tomlin

Some months are busier than others, thus the brief cessation in posting.
We will continue next week with providing some insight into our favourite cinema-related websites. For now, though, what with the holiday season seemingly officially underway, now seems like as good a time as any to list the films we are most looking forward to seeing over the holiday season.
Of course, there are many more films in release between today and early January than we intend to list below. Quite simply, we’re going to focus on ‘Oscar bait’, those films the critics love and the films that will likely find most favour with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So, here we go with VanRamblings’ most anticipated holiday season films …

True Grit: Due out December 22nd, at this point almost no one knows a darn thing about Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest film. But based on their track record, with Best Picture wins for Fargo and No Country for Old Men, the Coens are not to be discounted in either the Oscar or the entertainment sweepstakes. Although westerns are hardly the film genre that, these days, excites many filmgoers willing to plonk down a few bucks at the box office, there’s enough positive buzz out there for True Grit that we’d hardly be taking a risk in suggesting that this is one of the more anticipated films.
As to the remaining films cinéastes are most likely to want to see …

127 Hours: Opened last weekend in New York and Los Angeles to record box office, and due to open in Vancouver later this month, director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) has reportedly made one of the year’s best films, a swift, agonizing, defiantly cinematic masterpiece that rivets the viewer throughout, with a tour-de-force performance by James Franco at its centre. A definite must-see this holiday movie season. trailer

Love and Other Drugs: Another buzz film this holiday season, Anne Hathaway reportedly knocks it out of the park in what many critics suggest is an Oscar worthy performance. Opens November 24th. trailer
There are many more films that are Oscar bait, the sort of worthwhile films rarely seen during the early part of the year but ready for Oscar battle come late November thru early January. Click on read more, below, for the title of the Oscar favourite, as well as the titles and trailers for a few other films that will provide value for your hard-earned dollar this holiday season.

Continue reading VanRamblings’ 2010 Holiday Season Movie Preview →

Anne Thompson’s ‘Thompson on Hollywood’ Blog

October 30, 2010Cinema, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

A couple of days back, we wrote about why we love Jeffrey Wells’ ever-
informative Hollywood Elsewhere website / blog, and why we’ve visited his blog several times a day for years (as well as all previous web incarnations of Mr. Wells’ work, from Reel.com through Hollywood Confidential).
This weekend, we’ll focus on another of our favourite cinema-related websites, a link to which we’ve built into our Firefox Bookmark Toolbar, and suggest why you might give this website due consideration for a visit.

Anne Thompson’s Thompson on Hollywood: Former film columnist at Variety, and deputy editor of Variety.com, where she started the “Thompson on Hollywood” blog in March 2007, this New York-based writer has over the years contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Observer and Wired. From January 2005 to March 2007, she served as the Deputy Film Editor at The Hollywood Reporter and before that was the West Coast Editor of Premiere, from 1996 to 2002.
Before joining Premiere, Thompson wrote about behind-the-scenes Hollywood for Entertainment Weekly, and was West Coast Editor for Film Comment Magazine. From 1985 to 1993 she wrote the film industry column “Risky Business” for LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. A graduate of the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University, she teaches the fall semester of “Sneak Previews” for UCLA Extension.

At present, Ms. Thompson publishes daily at IndieWire, where she’s their stalwart and their defacto lead blogger (Leonard Maltin and Peter Knegt, among others, also write for IndieWire), her clarion voice just as passionate as Jeffrey Wells’ voice, her spirit upbeat and her love (and knowledge) of ‘the movies’ unparalleled.
Anne publishes three or four items a day, she’s always informed and informative, and (thankfully, cuz we need a voice of reason in the movie criticism field) rarely as provocative as the indefatigable Mr. Wells.
Last year (a full year before the estimable Mr. Wells, “imitation being the sincerest form of flattery“), Anne Thompson joined with In Contention’s Kris Tapley in posting a weekly iTunes podcast titled Oscar Talk which, sorry to say, lacks the energy of Jeffrey Wells and Sasha Stone’s Oscar Poker, mainly because we find that Mr. Tapley comes across as ‘angry’, as an inauthentic contrarian, strangely passionless about the movies, and (in our estimation) simply not all that well informed. Ms. Thompson is always great, though: engaging and thoughtful, with a ready, warm sense of humour!
Anne Thompson’s Thompson on Hollywood is a daily must-visit for anyone who loves the movies, and who wishes to read an informed, generous and keen insight into worthy upcoming films, and the U.S. film industry.
Next week, we’ll write about more of our favourite cinema-related websites.