The NHL's Lack of Sense of Drama

In order to align itself with the National Football League, a real sports league, the National Hockey League's brains felt, some years ago, that when a play is reviewed the referee must open a mic and address the crowd; what I witnessed just now while watching game two between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators:

The Pens scored and "it" was noticed, protested. The play leading up to the goal looked like an offside. The ref went to the booth, looked at the tablet and watched the play. After reviewing the video material he turned and skated to the center face-off circle. The mic: "After review, the play was offside. No goal."

Actually: no need. The referee just needed to turn, puff his whistle and point to the face-off circle at the Nashville blue line. Drama.

The National Football League adopted the officials' on-field announcements for a big reason: That league's rules are so thick and convoluted. (For some strange reason, few souls, if any, know the NFL rule book's full thickness.)

Ice hockey plays to a much more basic rule book, which is why it's a beautiful game. Just not the NHL's version....

Past Pic: Toronto Harbourfront Activity

Past Pic: Looking Towards the Toronto Islands

Star Wars: A Book of Celebration

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe
- The Past, Present, and Future
of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise
(Chris Taylor - Basic Books - 2014)

My continuing Star Wars celebration took a turn this weekend when I stumbled upon a book that I never knew existed. It's a good read so far even though there are the expected factual errors within the pages; well, about the thirty pages I've absorbed thus far. For instance, production on the movie serials -- from companies like Universal, Columbia, and Republic -- was not "stopped" during World War 2. (Eventually the serials became victims of ever increasing production inflation. And when television took hold in the early 1950s, its own regular series' provided the same thing for free at home.)

The good news for me is that I am hardly a Star Wars fanatic, so any errors in details of franchise arcanum will no doubt zoom by me like a rebel blockade runner.....

Star Wars: The Lull Before the Storm

"... It's called Star Wars. One set alone cost twelve million dollars."

That is how I first heard of Star Wars. It was the spring of 1977. I had the Grundig stereo on in the living room and as I walked from the kitchen into the dining room I heard an on-air host from Toronto radio station CKFM say the magic words. My reaction to the announced set cost must have been one of awe -- I later learned that the movie cost about ten million dollars to make -- but it was the name of this mysterious new flick that really intrigued me.

Over the next few days I will tell, in serial form, the story from my perspective of how Star Wars hit not only the marketplace, but entered our culture....


That could have been the opening crawl to my series recounting my introduction to Star Wars. It all started for me when I heard that radio piece. But everyone has a different story. And already I've read a few online.

In the pre-Internet age, it was a different game.

After learning of a new and anticipated movie going into production, one had to sometimes dig to learn more than what was readily available from the mainstream media outlets. For most pictures the wait was, more often than not, off our radars.

However, do not think for a moment that pre-release or pre-production hype used by the major film studios is a recently developed tool. Films from the 1970s were following an old model but with new tricks. Promotional featurettes, shot on 16mm film, were taken to a refined state during those years. Major studio productions like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and King Kong were promoted heavily while they were still in production. In the case of Kong the casting of the new beauty was covered in local and national newscasts. I remember watching Buffalo television station WKBW late one evening and seeing newsfilm of Jessica Lange on stage holding a bouquet of flowers (it was a press conference).

Who could forget watching the excellent and dynamic promotional film showing the production crew of The Towering Inferno doing their magic? Irwin Allen directing over John Guillerman's head by using a megaphone was exciting and memorable. ("Mister Newman!") Accompanied by an authoritative but not staid voice over, bulldozers dug down into a sound stage floor in order to give the already voluminous space even more fly. These promotional shorts were nothing less than recruitment films. "I want to do that!"

By the time big pictures such as Poseidon, Inferno, Kong, Earthquake, and The Hindenburg hit the screens, an educated, of sorts, audience was awaiting. And I was a member of that audience, in all five examples.

There was none of that for Star Wars. It just snuck up on us....

Star Wars: My Favourite Film of 1977 Was....

A former coworker of mine -- we worked together in "opticals" at Film Effects Toronto -- read my posting from Wednesday and then contacted me with an unmasked threat: If I "reveal" that I think Annie Hall to be the "better film" of 1977, he'll "be mad".

His choice of the word "reveal" suggests that he knows that Woody Allen's masterpiece is my personal award winner of that year. I could have a lot of fun with this. Actually, I stated back on February 25th what my favourite picture of 1977 was and still is.

Imagine a lowbrow like me possessing the temerity to dare proclaim the best film of 1977 to be....

Star Wars is a 40-year-old Bouncing Baby Boy

Yesterday I wrote an introduction to my personal look back, to be posted here over the next few days, at how Star Wars came into my world.

It was forty years ago today that the picture exploded on movie screens -- just a few at first, but in less than twelve parsecs, film projectors wide entertained millions.

I'll come clean right now: The movie did not "change my life", simply because I was sixteen years of age in the summer of 1977. (People I know who are a few years younger than me often have a different story to tell.) Having said that, I do have fond memories of the time. Star Wars was a nice surprise; it was different, no kidding, and it appealed to this fan of the old Republic movie serials.

Like an old movie serial, my story of Star Wars will be serialized....

The Star Wars of 40 Years Ago

"... It's called Star Wars. One set alone cost twelve million dollars."

That is how I first heard of Star Wars. It was the spring of 1977. I had the Grundig stereo on in the living room and as I walked from the kitchen into the dining room I heard an on-air host from Toronto radio station CKFM say the magic words. My reaction to the announced set cost must have been one of awe -- I later learned that the movie cost about ten million dollars to make -- but it was the name of this mysterious new flick that really intrigued me.

Over the next few days I will tell, in serial form, the story from my perspective of how Star Wars hit not only the marketplace, but entered our culture.

The Last Film Was What?!....

"Movies are almost always better watched with an audience" has long been a line of mine. Watching flicks at home is fine, but like many movie fans I feel that one is missing the communal experience. But, as anyone knows, technology has allowed for a "big house" viewing experience in the living room. Why go to a movie-plex where many of the patrons are there to act as though they are watching the movie in their own living rooms? The phone rings? Pick it up! Fire up the display screeens; you don't want to miss an email or text message.

Something has to explain why the last first-run narrative film I saw in a movie theatre was James Cameron's overrated turnip, Avatar. That was March of 2010, at the super-sexy Scotiabank Theatre here in Toronto.

This past week in my home movie theatre: The Honeymoon Killers; Empire of the Air - The Men Who Made Radio; Ai Weiwei - Never Sorry; Lies My Father Told Me; Mon oncle Antoine; Claude Jutra - an Unfinished Story. And I didn't even talk during the movies; even to myself.

Notes from a Dependent Brat: Fireworks

It's Victoria Day here in Canada (It's Queen Victoria's birthday). This special celebration, which I've never been able to peg to a date, made me think of fireworks.

CFB Baden-Soellingen, West Germany, late 1960s or early 1970s: The family and I gathered, along with many other military families, on the base's airfield to partake one evening in a display of fireworks. The actual igniting part fell to the men and women of Canada's finest service -- they know about explosives for some reason. (My dad knew a lot about explosives; a future posting.)

The image I remember most from the spectacular aerial powder display is of one lonely expired charge that fell just metres from us as we sat prone on the grass. The guys sitting on top of the parked crash-tender near us did not seem to react; I took that to be a sort of clean bill of health.

The red still-burning charge fizzled and my attention went back to the heavens....

Coming this Summer to an Electronic Device Near You

Stay tuned to this blog for the latest news about The Barrie Allandale Show.

Film and Television Design Retrospective 2

Film and Television Design Retrospective

Witch Which Hunt is Witch?

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, tweeted minutes ago his response to the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the inquiry of a possible Trump-Russia connection. Former FBI director and prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III will head a committee that no doubt will be, in the Uber-Prez's eyes at least, a "disaster".

Trump's unique tweet:

"This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!"


I'm surprised he managed to wrestle the difference between "witch" and "which".

It's obvious that Trump does not know American History.


Richard Nixon (the obvious example of a "witch hunt")
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
Bill Clinton ("I've never heard of him!")
Ulysses S. Grant (surely Trump has heard of him)

Those are just a few examples.

Trump's Favourite Word May Be His Moniker: Disaster

Once the dust settled after the last U.S. presidential election the predictions came out:

"Trump won't last a term"; "He'll have a meltdown before long";

and my favourite, one dispensed by a few friends of mine, "Within a year he'll be impeached".

"Really?"

"Without question."

Donald J. Trump's fate as President of the United States of America as predicted by the Oracles of Ontario.

Walmer Road Baptist Church - Toronto

Film is my Minor; my Major is:

I had an interesting discussion recently with an old friend. He loves movies. So do I. But after chatting back and forth, some 'technical' issues regarding formats and screen ratios, I realized that while I love films ("movies", if you prefer) I don't obsess over them. They're just movies, after all. That's all.

There are more important and more interesting things in the world.

For me:

Aviation
Ships and Shipping (not Shops and Shopping)
Fine Art
Cats (animals in general)
History
Medicine
Philosophy
Engineering
Ice Hockey (not the NHL)
Football (not Gridiron Football)
Space Flight (especially that of the Soviet Union)
Writing
Reading (funny how this gets lost in our movies and television world)
Humour (it's out there and hopefully it's takin' over)
Music
Poetry
Crafts

I must be missing something.

Past Pic: Looking South - Lake Ontario

What Films Made You Cry?

Peter Howell, a film critic with the Toronto Star newspaper, has a piece in today's issue about movies that have made him cry. This story is but one in a series of articles by different Star writers; it's his turn to admit: The movies that make me cry: Howell

One movie has made me cry: Cinema Paradiso

But many movies have made me cry for making me kiss my hard-earned money goodbye....

The first time I saw Cinema Paradiso was on an Air Canada flight but I did not enjoy it, probably because I was enjoying a headache. (It must have been the bitter I consumed in London, England, shortly before the flight.)

Weeks later the Bloor Cinema here in Toronto played Paradiso. I gave it a better shot. For some reason the picture resonated with me. By about two-thirds the way in I was blubbering like a baby. "What is happening to me? I am a Vulcan. I am in control of my emotions!"

A friend of mine kidded me minutes after we saw The Joy Luck Club. The party of people I was with all said they cried during the film. My friend Donald had one answer to explain my malady: "You're a cold fish, Si."

Maybe I am.

As the end credits began to roll on my tear duct tickler, I decided to make a move for the exit. Figures. A young woman about ten years my junior was standing there. As I floated past she gave me a look of: "Looks like that guy enjoyed the movie." What was she doing standing there?

Otherwise I don't cry at movies. However, I may well up....

Past Pic: My "Tights & Fights" Bridge Set With Staff