On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

I was reading a report from Jewel 98.5 FM Radio on my cleverphone earlier this morning, and apparently it's true. Mel Gibson, actor and difficult-to-deal-with human being, has been plying his trade in location shoots around Ottawa and Gatineau (and Chesterville, too, maybe).

https://www.narcity.com/entertainment/ca/mel-gibsons-movie-fatman-filming-in-ottawa-is-taking-over-the-city
https://985thejewel.com/2020/02/14/2201/

I haven't really noticed, mainly because neither his path nor that of his movie's production team have crossed mine. OH well.

To everyone who recommended this movie to me: thank you. As with The Good Liar, I feel a little guilty over having paid less than full first-run fare to see it because discount cinema chain.

To all the people who worked on both sides of the cameras on Knives Out, thank you all! No idea if any of you will read this here, but I'm saying it anyway.

I love reading about this kind of stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/25/from-fake-maps-to-golden-tickets-the-film-props-of-artist-annie-atkins

https://www.theguardian.com/film/gallery/2020/jan/25/props-given-the-film-artworks-of-annie-atkins-in-pictures

https://guardianbookshop.com/fake-love-letters-forged-telegrams-and-prison-escape-maps-9780714879383.html

I think the first I saw of her work was in Uppercase Magazine a couple of years ago...?

I'm finally going to see The Rise of Skywalker tonight. Long overdue. Weather permitting.

I'll probably drop in after I get home from that.

AL-most mis-typed the old year in the header up top. AL-most, but not quite.

Checking the Public Service Commission job boards because I live in Ottawa-Gatineau, and you never know the odds for sure...and also the e-mail alerts I've subscribed from the federal job bank, Indeed, Workopolis, Jobilico, and a couple of other sites across the Net.

I just e-mailed a British friend to speak of our shared enjoyment of the movie version of The Death of Stalin, specifically Jason Isaacs' performance as Zhukov. If there's a person in that whole glorious mess who actually came close to being a "good" guy, Zhukov - flaws and all - might have the best chance of it as portrayed by Isaacs. Steve Buscemi's performance as Khrushchev came close. Yes, it's full of historical errors. Duly noted in several quarters, that detail.

Speaking of movies: my plan has been revised re: Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker. I hope to watch that at the cinema tomorrow night. That, for good or ill, will be my first movie-watching of 2020. Narrowed down to two cinemas within reasonable transit distance.

It was what I'd hoped for, albeit in ways I didn't entirely expect and should have.

I'm not sure how much more to say at this point...?

I'm checking job boards this morning, along with doing my daily blogging. Tonight, I think I'm going to try to see The Good Liar. Weather permitting.

More later.

I saw it.

Two things coming to mind. One is a paraphrase of something Clint said to Natasha in Endgame: Don't give me hope unless you mean it. The other is that I'm bracing for this movie to be an eulogy and no more than that.

It burns me that those of us who care about such things had to wait until after Endgame to get this movie at all. And there are lots of more important things to be angry about, yes. I am angry about many of those other things, too, as you've read from earlier installments of this blog. But this is staying on my personal list of such things, anyway.

Okay, I got my bus pass updated for next month. I'm still not happy with my bus pass becoming a surveillance device, thanks to Presto tech. The fact that I can look at my own travel data patterns this way still means that others who have no business wanting to know can find out too by criminal means.

Movies? I saw Ad Astra last night. I've heard it argued that it looks like a defence of toxic forms of masculinity...and I don't see it. If anything, it argues for better self-awareness among male humans. The influences of Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, 2001, The Martian and so on are certainly there. Ruth Negga is certainly under-used as an actor here, which I think is a mistake. But it's not one that's confined to her alone, I'd say. Between the VFX work, Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones...that's the core of the show. And Pitt and Jones put in the work as much as the VFX artists did.

(I'd like to have a separate, nerdish discussion of what decisions and how much work went into the infrastructure as depicted in Ad Astra. I will probably write a separate post for that topic.)

I didn't get to participate in the Global Climate Strike demonstrations yesterday here in Ottawa, but from what I saw on Kent Street between Albert and Slater at noon hour, it was well attended in its own right.

More on other topics later.

I find myself in agreement with this. Michael Doran explains it better than I would.

https://www.newsarama.com/46603-dear-disney-sony-kiss-make-up-over-spider-man-please.html