You Just Want to Shake'm!!

So somehow Eric manages to do this kind of post every other day, while it usually takes me a month or two to save up comments I want to make to the outside world. But apparently I was particularly blessed this morning, noticing not one, not two, but three things that left we really wanting to shake the person and say, "why!?"

#1 Classy Hot Girl Smoking & Drinking Tim Hortons Coffee

Now I should start off by clarifying that I don't think smoking is unattractive or attractive. I'm really neither here nor there about it. I prefer if Grimes doesn't smoke because (a) it means I'm stuck all on my own for 8-10 minutes every three hours and (b) because if he dies I'm really screwed. But for almost everyone else in the population - go nuts. And Timmy Ho's!? Man alive do I ever love that stuff. Tim Hortons is probably the only place in the world that makes me so happy that I don't mind that not a single cashier speaks even remotely passable english anymore  or that the store is always full of crazies.

*side note: last night I was accosted by a crazy man in line for coffee who explained how he only ate tuna fish, and would wait till the day before it expired, and then buy all the tins at a severely marked down price along with soon to be expired mayonnaise, mix up the tuna fish salad and spread it into an ice tray. Then, every night, he would just pop out two cubes of tuna fish salad, defrost it for a few minutes and spread it on. Actually not a bad idea at all now that I've written it down, but you have to understand that he was this scraggly old man with no teeth and dirt all over his face. THEN, when I finally got to the front of the line, I ordered the sandwich meal - I was there before class, so I was picking up my dinner - and the guy asked me what side I wanted. I asked for a cookie so he went over to the display, got me the white macadamia nut that I so craved and then turned around and looked at me, like "what else?" So I asked for another. And he looked back again, "what else?" Uh... Another one? Done. And again, "what else?" I guess 4 should be enough. Hell of a deal I thought, I only got one last time I ordered the meal. Of course the $4.70 meal came out to $9.20. "That seems a bit steep, doesn't it?" I asked. "You order FOUR cookies!!" Eugh.... It was the classic, "AND THEN..." But I digress...*

But when you put danking and Timmy's coffee together, it's not a pretty sight. Even paint and plaster covered dudes in work boots and jumpsuits look pretty damn rough sitting out in the cold having a Tim Hortons coffee and an Export Gold. So you can imagine my surprise as I turned the corner onto Queen St. from Bathurst and there was this glamorous woman - looked like a ruskie - with beautiful expensive boots, skinny jeans, an expensive jacket and a big expensive fur hat (think Costanza's) sensually smoking this long cigarette, and then taking a big haul from an extra large double double. There isn't a Tim Hortons in almost 3 miles of that intersection!! So you know she was really after that T.H.! It was stunning what a difference that coffee cup made. It was like when you see a slim bittie from behind who looks all hipstered-out and awesome, and then she turns around and she's a 60 year-old heroine addict with make-up smeared across her face like she never washed off her Joker costume after halloween. GAH! GAH! It feels like you should cough up a fur ball. That's what I wanted do to do when I saw the woman this morning. She was in front of a Starbucks!! Get a fancy drink!! I don't even like Starbucks, but I know this: if you're willing to spend $500 on a russian fur hat, buy a fucking latté!!

#2 iPod on Shuffle

Of course I listen to my iPod on shuffle all the time. Because it's your iPod! But while I was walking to work it really struck me just how dangerous this can be. I know people who just toss their iPod on willy nilly in public places. PUBLIC PLACES!! You don't know what could pop on! Hanson. "MmmBop." Good song? GREAT SONG! But you don't want that playing by accident. I recall one occasion, it was summer in Montreal. A time for lovers. I was living at 68 Duluth, just east of St. Laurent in this great apartment that had a deck out front that was mostly for my roommate and awesome friend Adam Conter, and a deck in back that looked over a tiny courtyard shared by the six apartments in this tiny building. If you sat on the back deck, the window to my room was only a few short feet away, and on warm nights you could sit out there, look up at the sky, listen to some tunes and enjoy life. 

One night I was up there with a totally bodacious babe - although obviously not as bodacious or babely as my current girlfriend, who may or may not be reading this... - and, as young bucks and buckettes are wont to do, we were smooching a bit, sharing some drinks, taking in the stars and listening to some tunes. All of a sudden, the opening riff to, "If I Had A Million Dollars." Game over.

"Is this Barenaked Ladies?"

"BNL? Uh... I don't know... I - I don't think..."

"It is! Isn't this that Million Dollar song?"

"Uh, maybe..."

"Huh...."

And that was the end of that. We stopped smooching, she suddenly remembered that she had an early morning the next day and had to leave, and I ended up being stuck with half a case of PBR and a few more hours of moonlight. Luckily I took advantage of the moonlight and gave those PBRs a good home.

I recall another occasion, a Wednesday, and I was studying with a girl who I had hooked up with the night before at Café Campus' 80s Night. I'd known her in Rez where we'd lived the year before and we got along really well. I thought she was very attractive (she was) and so the next day, I really wanted to make a proper push to see if something was there.

We were sitting around, diligently working, talking every once in a while, and listening to my iPod (on shuffle) and suddenly The Police came on. "Message in a Bottle". And I said, thinking out loud, "Eugh, sorry about this - I'm so sick of The Police, I feel like I'm saturated with these songs..." And she asked,

"Who?"

"The Police."

"Who?"

"The Police.... Sting?"

A puzzled look.

"The Police... we were at 80s night LAST NIGHT! Certainly you know one of the most influential bands of that decade."

"Nope."

"NOPE!? WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NOPE!'"

"I don't know them."

"You don't know The Police? Syncronicity? It sold 8 MILLION records in the US alone!!"

"Sorry..."

"No... No, it's.... It's okay..."

And that was the end of that. Shuffle can mend you life / But shuffle can break your heart.

#3 The Unicycler

I'm probably the only person who is confronted by this - unless the whole world is going to complete shit faster than I'd originally thought... Every day on my walk to work there's this skinny little hipster kid - maybe 16 or so - who wears super slick clothes, keeps fashionably tussled hair, and rides a unicycle to school. Or sorry, did I not emphasize that enough? HE RIDES A FUCKING UNICYCLE!!! Now if it were a calm sunny Sunday in the middle of June and I saw a kid unicycle past me I'd either not care at all (very likely) or at least acknowledge that it was nice that a kid was having a good constructive time on a sunny summer day (possible, but much less likely). But it's a Canadian winter! If it's snowing, no problem. You'd better believe that there's one lonely track, writhing it's way up the Bathurst sidewalk. -25? there he is, just rubbing his hands together and looping up the street. And it's not like he's burning either. It's not like a guy on a bike who you feel sorry for, but  know that at least he'll be out of the cold sooner than you. This kid is struggling!! I want to grab him. I want to grab him and shake him and yell, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS!!" I want to shake him till that emo glaze recedes from his eyes. Shake him till he makes that awesome involuntary noise that people make when they're being shaken; yoi-yoi-yoi-yoi. "SNAP OUT OF IT YOU GOOFY BASTARD!!" Just walk. Just for a month! That's all. Wait till the snow melts. Till it's above zero degrees. Wait till you can hear birds again. Wait till this looks like a fun constructive pastime, not like the escape plan for a lunatic clown child.

But sometimes you have to acknowledge that no matter how hard you shake a person - sometimes they just don't get it.

Awesome

Each Friday we drum up some cool trivia and quotes about amazing movies and not-so-amazing movies (read: pilfer the extensive trivia catalogues of IMDb) as a little treat for those thousands of loyal fans who stick it out till Friday afternoon to make sure they've read every. single. one. of our postings. This week: Cloverfield

The story behind the marketing of Cloverfield is almost more amazing than any of the trivia surrounding the movie itself, so I will do my best to include both. 

For anyone who saw the movie - and if you haven't you should - the coolest part about the trivia is that it explains literally everything. No shot isn't there for a reason, no number or word isn't shown unless it connects to something else. It all fits together so well that the trivia, combined with the movie makes you feel like you're looking at a freshly completed cross-word puzzle. Or so I could imagine, having never finished a cross-word puzzle myself. Either way, without further adieu, Cloverfield.

CLOVERFIELD (2008)

- The first trailer for this movie played before Transformers (2007). It showed a giant explosion in the heart of New York City and the Statue of Liberty's head being thrown down a street. It was shot with a hand-held video recorder. There was no title.

- Jason (Mike Vogel) can be seen wearing a Slusho! T-shirt throughout the movie. Slusho! is a drink from J.J. Abrams' show "Alias" (2001) as well as a codename of the film's, and the shirt is the only time the beverage is acknowledged during the movie, with far more information hinted about it on the Internet.

- The film was shot in 34 days, in Los Angeles under the fake title "Slusho" and in New York under the fake title "Cheese". The Ferris wheel scene, the last in sequential order, was filmed on the first day. The scene inside Beth's parents' apartment, the first in sequential order, was filmed on the last day.

- While shooting in New York, the movie piggy-backed on the filming of I Am Legend, using the crowds and shooting permits to shoot their own scenes at the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge shown in both I Am Legend and Cloverfield looks striking similar when watched in quick succession.

- The title "Cloverfield"; initially just a codename for the movie, is named for the boulevard in Santa Monica where the Bad Robot offices were located during the making of the film.

- The only reason people knew about the film at all was that J.J. Abrams Lawyer opened a company called Cloverfield sometime in 2005. All funds for the film were funneled through there, so no studio was publishing costs for Abrams' new movie.

- The new company, set up by Abrams' lawyer had a website. It turned out it was a Japanese company that made the specialty drink called "Slusho" (referred to above), the secret ingredient to which was a mysterious deep-water plankton that they were farming.

- There are suggestions that the deep-water plankton has something to do with waking the Cloverfield monster, angering the Cloverfield monster, or bringing it to earth in the first place. Or perhaps all three.

- The teaser trailer, as was planned, was shot before principal production began with digital cameras.

- The film has no music score and music for the end credits do not begin until 1 minute and 30 seconds after the credits start rolling.

- Prints were shipped to some theaters under the name "Bertha".

- The movie is viewed primarily from the point of view of Hud, the character who uses the camera the most. H.U.D. is short for Heads-Up Display, a method for overlaying information onto a view of one's surroundings such as Timestamps on video footage.

- During the first weekend of the release, many theaters posted signs warning guests that the hand held camera movements may cause motion sickness. My friend Kent actually barfed in the theatre.

- Lizzy Caplan (Marlena) did not know what she was auditioning for. She thought it was a romantic movie until her second audition, where she read a scene from "Alias" (2001). It wasn't until after she was offered the role that she found out it was a monster movie, and the actors weren't allowed to read the script until after they signed on.

- After signing on, the principle actors were allowed to read the whole script only once. From then on they were only given the shooting pages for that day, all of which were then collected at the end of the day and destroyed.

- The decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty in the street is inspired by the poster for John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), which depicts the head of the Statue of Liberty lying in the middle of the street.

- In the teaser trailer, the voice yelling "I saw it! It's alive! It's huge!" is that of Director Matt Reeves.

- The voice in the mysterious radio broadcast that plays after the end credits is director Matt Reeves.

- One of the original ideas for a title for the movie was "Greyshot," both a reference to the hand-held style of filming and the name of the bridge in Central Park where Rob and Beth take refuge.

- The voice yelling "Oh my God!" repeatedly when the head of the Statue of Liberty lands on the street is either producer Bryan Burk of J.J. Abrams. Both claim that it's them.

- The opening party scenes were filmed without music, and the guests in the background were silently pretending to talk to one another. All the music was added in post-production.

- The film begins on April 27 and ends on May 23 at the exact same time: 6.42 AM.

- Images from King Kong (1933), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), and Them! (1954) are hidden within the film. Each image is seen extremely briefly, for only a single frame, during a camera edit. The "Them!" picture is shown at 00.24.06, the "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" picture is shown at 00.45.27, and the "King Kong" picture is shown at 1.06.55. A brief clip of Rob and Beth at a train station is seen with the "King Kong" image at 1.06.51.

- The head of the Statue of Liberty is shown about 50% larger than actual size. CG supervisor David Vickery said in an interview that many people imagined the head being much bigger than it actually is, and that the size was increased due to complaints that the head looked too small in the trailer.

- Cameo: [Laetitia Casta] Model in the poster inside the Sephora shop exterior where Lily, Marlena, Rob and Hud stop after running from the Brooklyn Bridge, before Rob enters the electronics store.

- The rats used in the tunnel scene were specially-trained and colored with a dark, charcoal-like substance to give them the appearance of wild, dirty tunnel rats. The rats in the final shot were completely computer-generated.

- J.J. Abrams has used the number 47 extensively on past projects. In "Alias" (2001) it played great importance as a page on Rambaldi's manuscript, and as a recurring pointer to important motifs. It should come as no surprise that "Cloverfield" is the designation to the case of the images found on Area US-447. Also, in the scenes where they're taking the stairs up to the top of the skyscrapers to save Beth, one of the floor numbers filmed is the 47th.

- One of the promotional websites, Jamieandteddy.com (password "jllovesth"), shows videologs (vlogs) made by the title couple about their relationship (which turns sour). Jamie Lascano is only seen at the party unceremoniously unconscious on the couch, and Teddy Hanssen is nowhere to be found (although on 1-18-08.com, he is now identified as "missing"). The actors who play either of the two are not confirmed. Though it has been speculated that Jamie is played by Blake Lively, this is incorrect.

- The crossfire sequence was shot in one night on the Warner Brothers New York Street lot in Burbank. The extras playing soldiers fired real blanks from their weapons for the first couple of takes until 10:00 pm, when noise ordinances forced them to use quiet flash bulb alternatives.

- Eric Leven -- the visual effects supervisor -- refers to the monster as "Clover".

- According to Neville Page, creature designer -- the monster is a baby in a new environment -- "spooked" and looking for its mother.

- There are rumors stemming from this comment from Page that Cloverfield II will surround the mother coming to earth as well.

- According to Annie Pomeranz - visual effects producer - puppets were used in the scene involving the "parasites" inside the tunnel but the scene turned out to be more interactive than originally thought and CGI animation was required. However, Matt Reeves - the director - states that the scenes with the puppets were too "goofy".

SPOILERS:

SPOILER: Right before the credits, in the last Coney Island scene, as the camera looks out at the ocean, you can see a large but far away object fall into the ocean and make a splash.

SPOILER: After viewing a cut of the film, Steven Spielberg suggested giving the audience a hint at the fate of the monster during the climax. This resulted in the addition of the broadcast overheard on the military helicopter's radio, as well as the sounding of air raid sirens, both to signal the forthcoming "Hammerdown" bombing mentioned earlier in the film.

SPOILER: Hud was originally going to survive, but producer J.J. Abrams suggested having him getting eaten by the monster, allowing the audience to vicariously experience this. The scene was then planned as having Hud getting eaten instantly after turning around, but it was decided that the audience deserved a good look at the monster, which resulted in the longer shot with the monster leaning down to inspect Hud before biting and killing him.

SPOILER: It was originally intended for the Brooklyn Bridge to be destroyed by one of the monster's hands, but it was decided that this seemed too deliberate. It was changed to the monster's tail destroying the bridge, which seemed more accidental.

SPOILER: According to Director Matt Reeves in the DVD documentary, the last shot of the film, when Rob and Beth are on Coney Island, was the very first shoot of principal photography, while the very first scene in Beth's dad's apartment was the very last shoot of principal photography.

Ramblings

Nothing specific to talk about today so let's just have a nice ramble, we can talk about the news, sports, what's new in my life and the lives around me. Just catch up, wouldn't that be nice? I think that would be nice.

First off, mad props to all 17-19 year old males out there. Wait....that sounds really bad. I'm shouting out specifically to those Canadian males with gold medals around their necks. Some of you may have followed the World Juniors tournament in Ottawa this year. Some maybe saw just the final. Either way i think i will go on record and say that this was the most entertaining World Juniors i've ever watched. And i've watched them all for as long as i can remember. First off i got to see a game live, Canada's first against the Czech Republic. Sure they blew them out 8-2 but it was still a great atmosphere and had been on my "To Do Before I Die" list for a long time. Seeing as how i probably don't have much time left I'm glad i got it done. This year's team was fun to watch. So much skill and as cliche as it sounds, so much heart. They deserved to win unlike some years where the goaltending carries them through. The Canada vs. Russia game was a classic and always will be cause of the last second heroics of Eberle. And then the final, although it wasn't much of a nail biter, was still a fantastic game to watch cause they played their best game of the tournament when they needed to. So hats off to those young men, for those of us who were watching, you made us proud!

Next on the list.....let's talk about the Gaza strip! Actually let's not....i'll get depressed and i don't know enough about it. But i think many of us can agree that it's sad to see so many bodies pile up because of a piece of land, no matter how important it may be.

We haven't talked about Mike Denby in a while and i know he's always a hot topic! Specifically cause he just called me up a minute ago. The kid got his old job back! Not full time or anything, but they're going to find some work for him for a while so let's all give a Big John Denby "HEY HEY MIKEY BOY! WHAT A HOOT! ISN'T THAT JUST GREAT! HEY HEY!" Also for those music lovers out there, young Michael Robert is now in Jeff Buckley, and Mike Thompson's band "Make Your Exit". That's them in the picture above sans Mike Denby. I was fortunate enough to see their show at the El Mocambo on Friday night. Wow did they ever blow minds. They get better and better every time i see them play, and with the addition of Mr. Denby into the band they now pop boners aswell. Hmm....probably shouldn't have written that last part. Either way they're playing a show this Friday night at the Rivoli, we will all be there, and you should come too if you haven't seen them cause they're pretty much the best band in the history of music. No exageration.

Ok let's check the list, what's up next? Hmm...nothing there. So i'll just make a few short comments.

The Buffalo Bills suck, and it sucks being a fan, but i will not give up on them.

I've got box seats to the raptors game friday night, high rollin!!!

Alex Kitz wants to purchase a treadmill.

My friend and yours Peter N'geno, is due to be a father this Sunday Jan.11th! We're all very excited for him. But Peter....if the baby comes out white.....and maybe a little slow....and is blonde.....and loves weed.....well i think you know what i'm trying to say.

The Habs rule, the Leafs suck. Accept it.

Nicaragua surf trip is now only about a month and a half away, i seriously can not wait to gnar out with my brohan's in the freshy freshy.

Derek Mumford has a job interview tomorrow. If he gets it, he will be hanging with Inuits 2 weeks every month, and being paid far too much to do it.

Julien Favre cheered for Sweden in the World Juniors final last night, further cementing his position at the top of the list of "World's Largest Douchebags".

My brother will be strapping on the pads and playing goalie for my hockey team tonight. This marks the first time he's played net in 20 years. The over/under for goals scored will be set at 10. I personally am choosing over.

I filled out an expense claim for my year's worth of contact lenses yesterday, that's $445.00 worth of lenses since i wear dailies. I don't believe i filled out the form properly. So i'll probably receive a letter from Manulife Financial promptly in the mail, informing me of this. I'm not looking forward to filling it out again.

Well after rereading my final little note there i think i might have run out of things to say and probably should have stopped a while ago. Unless you guys want to hear about my pubic hair removal fiasco from the other day? No? Well we'll save that for another day then. Happy Tuesday everyone, i'll let you know how Mark does in net tonight!

Peace out,

Optimus Grime