Swagger Wagon

Minivans have never been cooler:

Original Star Wars Trilogy Told in 2 Minutes using Lego

This stop-motion Lego animation is pretty impressive. It recaps the original (and best) Star Wars trilogy.

Gunless

I watched Gunless, starring Paul Gross, and it was worth the trip to the cinema.

The set-up: Gross stars as an American gunman in the Wild West who finds himself in a small Canadian town. He calls out the town's blacksmith for a showdown only to discover that the only gun in town (besides his) is a decrepit thing in major need of repair. Refusing to shoot an unarmed man, Gross decides to repair it himself, but first needs to convince the gun's owner to give it to him -- which Gross does by agreeing to build her a windmill.

Paul Gross is pretty much the only reason I watched Gunless and he doesn't disappoint. Gross handles the comedic aspects quite well. Don't expect thigh-slapping, rib-cracking humour, but on the other hand I don't remember any jokes falling flat -- smiles and chuckles were the norm.

I'd describe this film as typically Canadian comedy and the better for it.



Random thoughts:

• My favourite character in Gunless, besides Gross, would have to be RCMP Corporal Kent, played by Dustin Milligan. The character was endearing and I wished there had been more scenes with him.
• As a bonus, Gunless was filmed in Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia.
• Graham Greene shows up in a couple scenes.
• I prefer nearly empty theaters, but it doesn't bode well that there were only 10 people in a matinee showing on opening weekend for Gunless. A shame.
  
• For stomach-aching laughter stay for some of the bloopers during the credits.
  

Gunless gets 3.5 out of 5 stars.

HST in Ontario

I had a brief scare today when I glimpsed an article saying the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) in Ontario kicks in tomorrow, 1 May 2010.

Fortunately, I was mistaken -- the article was talking about how consumers can avoid the provincial portion of the HST for some services by pre-paying prior to 1 May 2010.

Ontario's cash-grab is still slated for 1 July 2010. Whew. Small favours, eh?

One of the more ludicrous arguments I've heard in favour of the HST is that the billions of dollars businesses will save will be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices. Call me cynical, but I marvel at the amount of pixie dust I'd have to inhale to believe that.

If the past decade and more has shown me anything, it's that the trickle-down theory of wealth is a semi-trailer load of insert-scatological-epithet-here for the vast majority of consumers.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- an overworked phrase, but it's overworked because it's still true.

Perhaps politicians should give the trickle-up theory a turn. It couldn't do much worse.

I Don't Think This Means What You Think it Means

I was browsing the news on cbc.ca when I discovered yet another example of what I consider to be imprecise, contradictory, and lazy use of language.

I've boldfaced the part I find irritating in the quote below:

Youth unemployment skyrockets: OECD

Youth unemployment has been steadily rising and is expected to remain in the high double digits until the end of 2011, the OECD says.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development issued a report Wednesday that predicts unemployment among youths — which the group describes as non-students between the ages of 15 and 25 — is on track to remain close to 20 per cent across Europe well into 2011. [...] cbc.ca

Perhaps it's just me, but when someone says, "high double digits", I think in the 80 to 90 range. I'm too picky? I'll take any number that's closer to being triple digits than a single digit... which 20 is clearly not. It's not even close.

Sherlock Holmes

I missed out seeing Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr., in the cinema, but recently it came out on BD so I rented it.

I liked it. I thought all the actors were good, funny scenes were funny, story was good, and action scenes were enjoyable.

I've read all the Sherlock Holmes novels, but that was more than a decade ago so many details are hazy. This current theatrical version of Holmes wasn't what I imagined while reading the books but that didn't detract from the movie. It was an interpretation of Holmes that I enjoyed watching. The story was new and didn't simply follow one of the novels.

Random thoughts:

• Part of me was glad I had rented Sherlock Holmes rather than seeing it in the cinema because it afforded me the ability to rewind. There were several bits of dialogue that I wasn't able to catch the first time. The British accents were by no means thick but at times the dialogue went by too quickly for my ears.
• Background special effects were acceptable but not great. A lot of the time in the big panoramic shots the background didn't quite gel with the action/foreground so that it was obvious the background was fake or had been green-screened.
• I liked Jude Law as Dr. Watson. I thought he and Downey worked well together.
• The funniest scene of the movie was in the denouement.
  

While there was no real cliff-hanger, Sherlock Holmes did set itself up for possible sequels. I liked this movie well enough that I hope they do make a sequel and if so I'd definitely make a greater effort to see it in the cinema.


I give Sherlock Holmes 3.5 out of 5 stars.

ZoneAlarm Firewall Hangs Firefox

This is a follow-up to my previous post Firefox versus Chrome.

For the longest time I've been having problems with Firefox hanging, frequently. More often than not, actually. Firefox would suddenly and without warning be unable to access the internet. IE and other programs would be fine so I knew it wasn't a connection problem. I could close all the Firefox windows but the Firefox process would still run -- unable to be shut down even via Task Manager -- and hence prevent restarting Firefox. The only solution was to restart my computer. Irritating.

Anywhoo, to avoid repeating myself further I'll cut this short and get to the point.

It appears that Firefox hanging was caused by some interference with ZoneAlarm basic (free) firewall on my desktop at home. Perhaps ZoneAlarm conflicts with a Firefox add-on rather than Firefox per se, but since I only install add-ons I really want (ie. noscript, adblock plus) I didn't bother testing it by uninstalling them one at a time.

So despite my long time use and admiration for the effectiveness of ZoneAlarm firewall (and as Firefox is the only browser with all the features I want) I went the other direction and uninstalled ZoneAlarm, even going so far as to replace my free ZoneAlarm with (gasp!) a retail firewall that actually cost me money.

The fact that I was willing to give up a perfectly good free firewall for a paid version from another developer is a testament to just how much I've grown to appreciate the privacy controls and noscript add-on available with Firefox that are unavailable in other browsers like Chrome.

Having said that, I might not have jumped off the ZoneAlarm firewall bandwagon if I hadn't found an equally effective replacement, free or not.