A look at the life and work of Japanese animator Satoshi Kon. – IMDB
Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist is a documentary that takes a look back at Satoshi Kon’s film and TV work one by one and the influence and collaborators along the way and their impression of both his person, career and imagination. Telling the story of his beginnings and inspirations from Akira that lead him to creating manga in the start that were greatly influenced his art style to this later projects that charted a new direction for adult animation as he both directed and wrote stories that blended reality and imagination.
Made as a tenth year anniversary remembrance of Satoshi Kon’s passing in 2010, Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist is a great overview of his work and a fantastic homage to an animator that brought a different angle to Japanese animation with the stories that he told. Having only seen one film of Satoshi Kon, Paprika was my starting point which happened to be his last feature film released. However, the documentary does a great job at making sure that even those who aren’t thoroughly familiar with the filmography can still be able to be engaged as it talks about each project’s meaning to Kon and where his inspirations came but also how these films marked its place in Japanese animation, adding the intrigue to check out any missed filmography.
The documentary focuses on his career which starts off from his beginnings as a manga artist and gradually the opportunities that lead him to his first notable project, Perfect Blue which was anything from perfect when looking at the box office which incurred a loss and how the company wanted to prove others wrong and took another chance with him. Satoshi Kon’s films in discussion are rather multifaceted which on one hand discusses a societal issue, usually relevant to the Japanese population whether its idol group formations to films and actress to the underbelly population of Japan. At the same time, the main characters always held a part of himself as well while also revealing that Kon’s current projects sometimes even reflected ideas of his next project.
The execution of the documentary is pretty good. The layout of going from one project to the next and having different people involved being part of the interviews and sharing their experiences to tell their analysis or the actual progression of the projects shed a lot of light from behind the scenes. At the same time, the influence of Satoshi Kon was better emphasized as the interviewees expanded to people from the film industry outside of Japan including Darren Aronofsky who talks about how he asked Kon for permission to use one of his scenes in Requiem For A Dream and how director Rodney Rothman aspired to make Spiderman: Into the Spider Verse comparable to the experience of Kon’s films as two examples, moving to interviews from animators, voice actresses, producers, and others from USA, UK , Japan and France that crafts a good picture of Kon.
As the film ends with a quick look at what’s known about his unfinished final project, Dreaming Machine that didn’t end up being released, it further emphasizes the loss of a talent who was about to move away from his normal themes in his previous films and chart another path with his limitless imagination in family animation films. Plus, it has a final note from praise that other people in the industry interviewed throughout who either drew influence from his work or was able to work with or be acquainted with him during his career. Well-rounded, respectful and thorough: Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist is a great journey through this acclaimed Japanese animator’s career.
*Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist is available on demand on Fantasia’s virtual platform throughout the festival running from August 5th to 25th, 2021. Check out more info here.*
A cafe owner discovers that the TV in his cafe suddenly shows images from the future, but only two minutes into the future. – IMDB
Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes is a Japanese indie low-budget one-take time travel sci-fi comedy Japanese. Look at those hyphens. A few of those things might even sound like gimmicks but let us not forget the success the surprises that One Cut of the Dead (review) brought using a similar low-budget one-take concept. While its hard to say that this one is as clever as that one but comparing a zombie movie to a sci-fi comedy is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. While time travel and time loop films usually are rather complicated deal with a lot of loopholes most of the time, but this plot execution flips it around to feel like a much more simple sci-fi element and focuses it more on the events and people involved.
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is another type of beast in itself. Its fun and extremely enjoyable in all its absurdness and time loopy elements that at some point, it almost feels like it might lose itself and not exactly know how to get out of that loop to wrap up the plot and somehow, it does using something as simple as TV and PC monitors and a delayed surveillance camera link creating a 2 minute void. The concept feels so simple and other than wondering who actually has monitors with such long cables that you can run up and down the stairs with a screen within one setting, there’s a lot of credit to give for a movie filmed entirely on iPhone in one-take.
There’s something so great about simplicity in films. Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes dials it down. All it takes is 2 screens facing each other and a constant growth in the cast from one person to two and slowly the group forms with friends and employees each offering up their thoughts on how to use this 2 minute advantage. As each person in the group pitches in their thoughts on how to profit from the future, they soon realize that its unreasonable to go too far ahead as they have to keep the loop consistent. 2 minutes might not feel like a lot of time and yet, it creates a lot of busy work as they use it to pull minutes ahead in time to utilize the future to teach the past selves that help their present situation. Its a pretty clever execution overall. Perhaps, it might not work if you dissected the film in depth but I do have to admit that at a certain point, the loop just got a little hard to track but the plot itself was so engaging that it sold the time loop element convincingly.
While the films general time loop concept seems like a much simpler affair, the cast here is what brings in a lot of the charm. The cast itself consists mainly of members of a theatrical troupe and this is their debut as film actor in collaboration with the voice talent Aki Asakura for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. While film might be new to the cast, they all deliver really well. The main character Kato (Kazunori Tosa) is a fairly quiet character that constantly brings in his reluctance to know about the future to the other people while he’s contrasted by the other much louder and colorful characters that are both friends, customers and employees who push the whole thing forward as they start off testing out the time loop in ridiculous outfits and little tasks to eventually bigger plans of how to expand the time loop and the many ideas to help them make money in whatever small way. This eventually to leads to a much more “dangerous” situation as they pull in others. While no one ever feels like they are any sort of the threat and the film never feels like it has the ultimate peak and turning point like other films, somehow the film does wrap up in both an absurd and heartwarming way.
Overall, Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes might almost sound like a gimmick playing with the one-take as the jump-off point but its so much more than that. A simple time loop concept with a fun plot that pushes itself further and further in plot set in one location, albeit an entire building, and a charming cast of basic characters keeps both the sci-fi and comedy elements fresh and entertaining. Its a fun little ride from start to finish, no matter how absurd it might seem. Don’t forget to stick around to see some of the filming process inserted in the credits with a hilarious looking moment as they scrabble up the stairs with cables, cast and crew, really showing how one takes really take the entire team to make it all happen.
*Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes is on demand on Fantasia Film Festival’s virtual platform from August 5th to 25th. You can find more info HERE.*
In the blink of an eye we’re past the halfway point of 2021! It’s wild how quickly this year has been flying by. I can’t say that there’s been exactly any particular adventures as it seems for myself to be a month that didn’t technically go so well on one side but still there’s some pretty fun stuff to share. Let’s just jump right in!
Staying Active Update
July 1st Walk 4.63km 50mins July 1st Evening Walk 1.43km 18mins July 3rd Walk 4.39km 48mins July 10th Walk 1.42km 18mins July 11th Walk 1.41km 18 mins July 17th Pool Workout July 18th Walk 1.45km 18mins July 25th Pool Workout July 31st Walk 4.75km 51mins
Not a whole lot to report back on staying active. I got plagued with pains and all sorts of fatigue during the month so as much as I tried to keep up with walking and staying active, I fell apart a little as the walks went a little shorter. I still tried to stay active but more doing pool workouts, which to be fair was one of my goals in last month’s staying active update for this month. Can’t say its a complete fail, right?
The abundant rain season in July has really done favors for the garden. Sure, we had a few really hot days but the good amount of rain meant everything’s growing pretty nice and harvests are coming in. Its been a few years since zucchini harvest has been any good but this year is looking nice. The new raised garden is doing great as well for the eggplants and we’ve harvested a few as well as the little cherry tomatoes which we have a rather sweet variety. Even the cucumbers are starting to do okay. We got one but there’s some more that are almost close to harvest as this post goes up.
The other big project was getting the front yard looking good as I’ve truly neglected it a lot. My mom had given me some plants from her garden and hoping to find the spot for it after I tidied up the front, we got to work and planted in the new plants (both front and back but didn’t take a closer picture of it) but also added in the mulch and bought a new hydrangea plant to create some symmetry in the front yard. The picture above only shows one portion of the front yard. The garden is doing really well. The next part is to get rid of the pesky vines at the back and added some more mulch to my bee garden and finally figuring out a bee bath probably. In time, it should be done.
2nd Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine
I got my 2nd dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the tail end of July. While the first dose basically had no side effects other than arm pain, the second dose was pretty intense. Headache for 3 days and muscle pain for 2 days really hit after the first 24 hours passed. I affected productivity and life in general so I resorted to calming teas whenever I wasn’t at work and sleeping earlier since I try to stay away from painkillers in general.
Fantasia International Film Festival 2021
Like previous years, around this time is coverage for Fantasia Film Festival. This year is no different. You can expect reviews for Fantasia going up as soon as today. This year is the 25th edition and the film rundown is looking fantastic. I have a pretty ambitious schedule so fingers crossed that I can get the coverage done. I believe the virtual platform is geo-locked to Canada but if you are in Canada, you should give its extensive film schedule a look.
Cute Kitty Pic
That’s it for the July adventures! Not a whole lot of adventuring in general but things are getting done!
September has come to an end as Canada has officially announced the beginning of the second wave of COVID-19. We’re going through regional alert levels where with the past weekends leaps in increase of cases, Montreal (along with two other regions) will enter into maximum alert on October 1st meaning generally that other than shopping centres and retail businesses/personal care services, everything where social gathering can happen (theatres, libraries, bars, dine-in at restaurants, etc) are all closed for the next 4 weeks including all private gatherings. Just a little update on the currents of my whereabouts.
Perhaps my fave place so far to open would have to go to Shuyi Tealicious where I just love the Jasmine Tea or Oolong Tea with Grass Jelly. Its some delicious stuff in the simplest way. So good. Whereas the husband loves the milk tea with oats.
The first dine-in since COVID-19 and the only one for a while, I’d assume seeing the current state of situation. Either way, this new ramen place was pretty good. Its new so there was a line-up which if it wasn’t for my friend’s birthday, I wouldn’t have lined up for it or chosen to dine-in. Luckily the tables here were spread out pretty good.
With the new restrictions in place, we’re back to hibernating at home and cooking our own food or taking out or maybe trying out some delivery services if we want to try new food. The little joys in life, right?
Fantasia Film Festival Wrap-Up
Fantasia International Film Festival ended on September 3rd with a successful first ever virtual edition which had a very good platform for its movies and loved the mix of live screenings, Q&A as well as the on demand film selection. If only I didn’t have actual work, I’d have done a much more elaborate coverage of many more films. Still, I managed to do a bigger load of movies in a shorter timeframe so I’m rather proud of myself in general plus, I picked some solid choices with maybe only one or two that was a little disappointing. As a final wrap-up since I don’t want to do another post for it, here is my top 10 (which I’m thinking whether it would have been great if I did it in a Youtube video format or even podcast format, right?)
The Oak Room
The Paper Tigers
Sheep Without A Shepherd
Detention
A Mermaid in Paris
A Witness Out of the Blue
Chasing Dream
The Mortuary Collection
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Jumbo
Movies and Tea Podcast
The latest episode of Movies and Tea Podcast transferred to Youtube is here as Season 2 is in progress of being put up.
We’re in Season 5 David Fincher on the Movies and Tea blog. The latest podcast episode released was our After Hours special for You Cannot Kill David Arquette HERE.
Hiking: La Montée du Dragon
Nothing like a little hiking as we return to Mont-Megantic National Park earlier in September. You can check out the hiking recap HERE.
October is around the corner (tomorrow) so its time for the annual Halloween Marathon! I’ve got quite a nice line-up as we tackle two different franchises. I was only suppose to be one and then I started watching the sequels of another one and finished it so kind of wrapped up another franchise as well. Its the Living Dead franchise (including the remakes) and Insidious sequels (since I already reviewed the first one before). I also have some random movies to slot in between so it should be fun. Living Dead franchise is a little hard to find some of the movies and I didn’t plan it better so I’m hoping that I will find some of them if not I might just skip over it depending on the situation. If you have any horror films that you’d like to recommend for me to watch, let me know and I’ll add it on to my list if I haven’t seen or reviewed it before.
That’s it for this September adventures! What have you been up to during these crazy times?
Cast: José Maria de Tavira, Cristina Rodlo, Paulina Davila, Juan Carlos Colombo, Sonia Franco, Paulette Hernandez, Luis Fernando Pena
Shattered by the unexpected news of their irreversible break-up, an aspiring orchestra conductor is puzzled by his girlfriend’s mysterious and seemingly inexplicable case of disappearance. But, can he look beyond the facts? – IMDB
Perdida is the 2019 remake of the 2011 Columbian thriller called La Cara Oculta aka The Hidden Face (review). The source material itself is an outstanding piece of psychological horror thriller kind of deal with great execution and a stellar twist. It comes as a surprise after some research for this film that there was a remake before this one which was Bollywood film Murder 3. Its always been somewhat of a mystery in my mind whether knowing the twist of this plot would change its value in a second viewing and its probably one of the reasons that I haven’t revisited the original since I saw it years ago in the early days of the blog. Its also a movie that is very rarely talked about and it makes me wonder whether people actually have seen the original. Putting all that aside, Perdida was one that had a lot to live up to and one that is hard to not at least compare it to its original a little especially since movies that live in my brain years after its viewing is a rarity.
For the most part, Perdida stick fairly close to the source material especially in structure. Its atmosphere and the characters all come together quite well. Its interpretation of the suspense and the thriller also works well. What it does really well is the cinematography as it creates all the tension with ambiance as well as making some visually appealing scenes using the dim lighting and shadows. There are some passionate sex scenes and then the music score is probably what blends the best with the film which pulls together the orchestra conductor profession of Eric. The score builds up a lot of the scenes. At the same time, the contrast of subtlety in sound also crafts the suspenseful side of the story.
Where Perdida might not quite work so well is that the characters feel a little empty. The main leads between Eric, Fabiana and Carolina do a good job as their dynamic and the scenes sees the shift in those relationships. However, the need to cast suspicion on the husband being responsible isn’t as prominent and that has to do with a lack of the police officers presence in the story. There’s a bigger focus on the passionate love between Eric and Fabiana, a little bit of Eric’s obsession for this conducting career and a bit of his darker character perhaps, while Carolina is a someone who seems very resourceful but also having some extremes in her character.
Overall, Perdida on its own is a decent thriller. It follows the source material a lot and that originally had a very good story to begin with. The three main leads as Eric, Fabiana and Carolina all do a decent job while the other elements also come together fairly well. They also make the new home as a setting some kind of life as well with the little things that happen. In case anyone hasn’t seen The Hidden Face or Perdida, I’m going to avoid talking about the twist here which is executed fairly well. However, on a personal level, Perdida didn’t quite live up as a remake of La Cara Oculta since in my memory, the original still seemed to have a better control of a lot of these elements but that’s all comparison which if you haven’t seen it, Perdida is done pretty well overall.
Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Kento Yamazaki, Masaaki Takarai, Akihiko Sai
A clan’s future hangs in the balance. A boy of noble birth waits by a temple. The dishonor of his father and the death of his brother must be avenged. The boy is merely bait, there to draw out the enemy who has brought shame upon the Yoshioka school of swordfighting. In the surrounding woods, hundreds of Yoshioka retainers lurk, weapons at the ready, in anticipation of the solitary swordsman’s arrival. This will not be a fair fight. Not fair at all. – Fantasia Festival
With only beginning and ending scenes with the actual plot, Crazy Samurai Musashi is mostly all about its 77 minute one take samurai fighting scene in between where Musashi faces an unfair amount of 400 mercenaries and other clan samurai who all want his dead. A few of these have a bit more dialogue which indicates some kind of deeper desire to win or more competent which isn’t always the case.
77 minutes of fighting is still a little much. It becomes a little flat since its easy to start seeing who will get hit on the head or get slashed elsewhere. It gives a lot of space to start nitpicking and seeing the little moments of people getting hit and then running off screen for example that feels like its a constant rinse and repeat cycle. It is 400 people to 1 person so its nothing that’s unexpected. Its also a lot of the same moves with some more elaborate fighting choreography here and there. However, credit where credit is due, the fight choreography does take the time to go from the lighter elements in the beginning to being more lethal as there’s more blood spill and such. It all escalates to this fight in the rain that is definitely one of the high points of the film. The score also changes throughout almost like the fights shifts from one phase to the next. The film also takes the time between these transitions for Musashi to be human and look for water thats conveniently strewn about in little corners of the house that he can find instantaneously.
It has its appeal at the beginning when the story starts off with a specific scene where Musashi shows up and then the one take starts and it seems a little funny to see people running off screen or being shielded to move off screen or whatnot. The one take techniques comes into play and its fun to watch how its executed in this sense but then fighting goes on for a long time and its wears down the pacing a lot. It might feel a little more gimmick than proper execution in this sense. The backstory is decent but the focus on the story is so little that there isn’t a whole lot of engagement with the characters to begin with.
Overall, Crazy Samurai Musashi might be only suitable for those with an incredible love for either the technical one take movies or samurai movies on general. For myself who isn’t quite that hardcore and more focused on more thorough story line, this one fell a little flat in the middle, even if the movie does give some changes like score and the pacing of the fight choreography. The one take and some of the fight scenes and even the filming and use of the setting and the score is really nice but there’s just something missing to make this more engaging.
Can you believe how fast 2020 is going by? We’re at the end of August in a blink of an eye. Its been a bit of a whirlwind this past week but the previous time before was pretty alright as well.
Hiking: Colline du Lac Trousers (Bolton, Quebec)
Kicking off the month before all the rainy and thunderstorm season hit us sporadically for the rest of August was a hike. I wouldn’t call it little since it was one of the longest hikes we’ve done in the past 2 years. You can check out the full hiking trail recap HERE.
Movies and Tea Podcast
As we kick off the Season 5 of Movies and Tea in audio version for David Fincher with our Alien 3 episode HERE, the Youtube channel is slowly catching up as the Season 2 transfer has started for the Guillermo del Toro episode.
Movies and Tea had the pleasure of being guests on the Deep Blue Sea Podcast which deep dives into one of my favorite shark movies ever, Deep Blue Sea and discusses chapter by chapter. The instagram post of the episode is above has the link to the episode. Give them some support on this uber fun project.
Fantasia International Film Festival – Virtual Edition
With only a few days left of Fantasia, the movie roster is pretty much set with only a very little of these not seen yet either because of live screenings or simply last minute decisions for on demand films and I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. That said, a lot of the earlier movies have reviews up already and you can find them all under the Movies section on the menu above. Fantasia going virtual is great since it gives more time to cover more films but at the same time, I still miss some of the theatre reactions and meowing pre-show and whatnot but then this might be the new landscape we’re faced with. Overall, I chose some pretty decent movies with a few that I absolutely loved.
Workout/Gardening Update
Not a ton happened in terms of both of these things hence why I’ve done this section together. I managed to get in one run which was a decent length and relatively alright pace. There was a lot of rain and I’m not so intense that I want to go out and brave the rain for a run just yet. Excuses, I know… The weather has cooled down a little so I’m hoping that after film festival coverage and work crazy phase is done that I can get back to some more runs.
As for the gardening, mostly everything is over. We still have the peppers and two cucumbers still alive. Our raspberry finally decided to have some fruits so we had some harvests now. The bee garden is looking decent as well. The one that’s doing the best has to be the water lily in our bucket that has been having a lot of flowers.
That’s it for this August Adventures! What have you been up to?
Cast: Thomas Mann, Nicola Peltz, Percy Hynes White, Kate Moyer, Lucius Hoyos
A young genius accidentally invents a device that amplifies the paranormal activity within his family’s house, possibly bringing back the spirits of loved ones, and unleashing things far worse. – IMDB
Our House is based on the 2010 microbudget independent film Phasma Ex Machina directed by Matt Osterman. While I haven’t seen the film that this is based on, Our House is said to have changed its focus and reimagined differently by director Anthony Scott Burns, to focus on a young man dealing with trauma and tragedy. Looking at the description, Our House seems like it has quite the potential to be a lot of the same but still have room to have its own potential. Sometimes films can be surprising and no one really can know what they get into especially when going into a movie presented at Fantasia Film Festival. Disappointingly, Our House actually is just another cliche and predictable horror film that falls into a lot of trope-y territory that makes its audience spend a lot of time doing things that have already been done before, sometimes in a more effective way.
Perhaps, a correction here because the film spends at least half (if not more), on building the drama in the family and healing after the parents get into an accident and pass away, changing the course of the main character, a young man called Ethan (Thomas Mann) as he leaves his promising education at MIT, distance from his beautiful girlfriend Hannah (Nicola Peltz) and go back home to work as a cashier to take care of his younger brother Matt (Percy Hynes White) and little sister Becca (Kate Moyer). In these parts, the story takes time to build up the dynamic and status of the characters however, the horror bits here are the familiar trails of black smoke or children seeing spirits and having it mistaken for imaginary friends and such. There is no doubt that the final act is quite atmospheric and works in a jumpscare way but it still falls a lot into the generic horror with predictable scares around the corner. Smoky figures and predictable moments of when they do something malicious will always be timed exactly as you expected. If you want almost all the scary bits, the trailer pretty much highlights a lot of those moments, however if you do plan on catching this one, you will do well to avoid it at all costs.
The redeeming part of Our House goes to its young cast. A few of them are familiar faces like Thomas Mann who did Kong: Skull Island and Nicola Peltz from Transformers: Age of Extinction. For what this script does, everyone delivers some great acting. Thomas Mann has taken on some interesting projects. While he has done horror before, this one is one of the more engaging roles he has been in. Playing his younger siblings, Percy Hynes White and Kate Moyer also do quite a decent job as their characters are written to show a different connection that they have with their brother, creating the riff in their relationship. They have their unreasonable moments but these moments match their characters and reactions very well.
Our House has some nice ideas and maybe the source material that inspired it had great reviews but disappointingly, it just didn’t quite hit the horror elements here. It was generic and predictable with so many horror tropes in the small amount of horror scenes that were actually happening on screen. Even with an great cast, there was no saving this one from being somewhat of a lackluster horror movie experience. What made it even worse was the “twist” ending that everyone saw coming a mile away. Perhaps it might satisfy the entry-level horror viewers but for horror genre veterans, it is too much of the same.
If you do want to catch Our House in theatres, it will be shown in theatres starting next week in selected theatres and will be available on VOD.
Cast: Lizzie Boys, , Lauren Holly, Matthew Nelson-Mahood, Gabriel LaBelle, Donovan Stinson, Valerie Tian
While staying at a run-down cabin in the woods during the weekend, three children must save their parents from the neighbor who intends to feed them to her un-dead family. – IMDB
Described as The Goonies meets Night of the Living Dead, Dead Shack comes as a fun zombie romp with a young cast fighting to save their drunk father on a camping trip when they accidentally discover their neighbor and her undead family. This femme fatale next door does everything to make sure to keep her family safe and fed. With a runtime of 85 minutes, Dead Shack knows how to pace its movie to be fast and filled with moments of tension, comedy and action.
The young cast here creates a nice balance in characters. Matthew Nelson-Mahood playing the son’s best friend, Jason who is socially awkward as he tries to impress his best friend’s sister, Summer (played by Lizzie Boys) every chance that he has. He captures the role very well and in turn, with his awkwardness, brings in quite a bit of comedic relief along with the banter in moments of panic with the young trio. The three here create a balance of intelligence, common sense and spontaneous reflex and this leads them to really pull up a lot of strength and courage. Its also impressive to see that the story quickly shifts these teens, particularly Jason that starts the movie being told to toughen up and quickly does.
While the young cast is the focus here, the rest of the characters are well-used also. The father, played by Donovan Stinson is the most hilarious part of this movie. He starts off the movie with a lot of funny moments. However, even the supporting roles are there in their oddly disposable way but still have their value, mostly for comedy as well. Its realizes how to capture the humor in spite of the horror tension they want to create here. It also helps make the teens more useful and responsible than their parents.
The setting of the movie is in the middle of nowhere however fits perfectly. While Dead Shack feels like it is riddled with cliches, it uses them to their advantage whether by making some smart comeback in the dialogue or turning it into a comedic moment or adding some common sense that most horror movies don’t have. The music builds the moments really well also whether it is to create tension or the soundtrack that compliments some of the scenes. Along with some clever camera work capturing close-ups and angles, it works wonders for Dead Shack as a whole.
It is a shame that it feels that the enemy is largely underused. While it works because it helps create tension as to wondering when the undead or the Blonde will show up. This movie is definitely more a comedy in a horror setting. While there are more undead as the movie moves along and it never feels like we’re really invested into any of the characters, it still finds a way to make this into a fun romp that surprisingly works really well.
Wow! It feels like a long time I haven’t done a Weekly Adventures. This past month has been extreme festival season here and with wedding planning and keeping up with everything, its been really crazy. Mentally and physically draining in many ways but things are settling down. While that is the case, I still have little thoughts of having just a week off from the blog to catch up on things, notably sleep. If any of you thought I didn’t sleep before, now its even less.
Regardless, lets hope I can fit this all in one post. This month was really eventful and probably a few of these deserve their own posts but we’ll deal with it here! 🙂 So warning: it will be long but I’ll keep the words less and pictures more formula.
1) Fantasia Festival
Fantasia Festival is over! Which means its been at least a month since I’ve posted my last Weekly Adventures. I made it to all the movies even though there were a few I started wondering if I was starting to get sick especially when it was bouncing back between our heat wave and then rainy weather. 11 movies and a lot of decent choices. There were some disappointments but mostly there were pleasant surprises.
What might have shined other than the movies were the short films. The Morrigan, Black Eyes, What Doesn’t Kill You, Point of View were all really good. A fantastic festival and I look forward to next year. I did miss a few that had some scheduling issues but I look forward to hopefully finding them on Netflix 🙂
2) Unexpected Retweet!
I think the busiest time during my site is during Fantasia Festival season and Halloween marathon time. The site kind of takes off a little. Its that whole horror genre thing, I guess. Its okay. I’m just happy that it does because themed months makes me work double as hard and I plan in advance as much as I can. Regardless, I had some fabulous people retweet me. The best one was for Cooties. Elijah Wood retweeted my post! Excuse me. I’m still a little shocked. And that brought a ton of retweets from probably his fans and followers which made smile a ton!
Then the second one was Tales of Halloween where one or two people of the crew liked the post.
I never expect much from my posts but I do try to link them up for the Festival so that its a little more exposure for them. I just never expect these things to happen to my little blog. Anyways, happy times, happy surprises! 🙂
3) Ottawa Asian Night Market
Living in Canada, we don’t always get to savor the authentic Asian cuisine. Montreal doesn’t hold a lot of it so I usually head out to Toronto to get some better Chinese food. This year, located in Lansdowne Park in Ottawa there was the Asian Night Market. For one, it was a zoo! One line could take up to 90 minutes wait time. We had to separate and conquer in order to eat efficiently.
The lamb skewers were possibly the best ones. There was some potato tornado or something like that. It was really good. Unfortunately, my phone died on the way there so I didn’t take any pictures…
4) Festival Orientalys & Just for Laughs Festival (Take 2)
One of my friends has a booth out at the Festival Orientalys the weekend afterwards selling Japanese street food: Takoyaki, Kakigori and Okonomiyaki. After that, we headed out to Just for Laughs Festival for a second take to eat more food. I’m telling…I ate on and off for about 3 hours. It was crazy! It was also fantastic weather so I had a lot of delicious drinks to try out. We got to watch some shows down at the Place des Arts area for the Just for Laughs Festival. It was an awesome time!
Starbucks Peach Green Tea Lemonade
Kakigori Strawberry & Blueberry Flavor @ Takoyaki Montreal
Takoyaki & Okonomiyaki @ Takoyaki Montreal
Lime and Orange Flavored Kakigori @ Takoyaki Montreal
Potato Spirals @ Aladdin Potato
Lemonade @ Lemon Heaven
Hibiscus Lemonade @ Aux Vivres, Just for Laughs Festival
Pulled beef sandwich
Phoenix 1 Food Truck
Lobster Roll @ Lucille’s Food Truck, Just for Laughs Festival
5) Fireworks: Madonna Tribute + Dinner in Old Montreal
The Montreal International Fireworks Festival runs for about a month or so. I haven’t gone to see any of the showings in a few years. For the last show that wraps up the festival, we went to go see the fireworks with my fiance and a bunch of our friends. We went out and met up for dinner beforehand. After some discussion, we decided to go to Holder’s Restaurant in Old Montreal.
Strawberry Basil Martini
Cucumber Mojito
Long Island Iced Tea
Beer: Sapporo and Smithwick
Mussels and Fries
Fish and Chips
Salmon Tartar
Spaghetti Primavera
And for some Fireworks highlight!
Waiting for the Fireworks Show! Isn’t it beautiful?
6) Brossard Cultural and Gastronomic Festival + (more) Fireworks
My goodness, these festivals, right? And you can start asking, why is she always eating? I’m sorry. I should be losing weight for the wedding but umm…I just can’t resist. Brossard Festival has been around for a few years now. I’ve only started going this past few years. I had skipped last year though. This year, they added food trucks and we got there later so that we could catch the fireworks finale at 11pm.
The process to get there, especially that last 45 minutes was painful. No disrespect to the highlight band, La Bottine Souriante which is a Quebec folk band, but it was a clash of loud music which was balanced so bad that it sounded like a thousand pots clanging at the same time. On top of that, the lyrics were absolutely hilarious and somewhat creepy (in a weird stalker-ish way). Anyways, no disrespect. It wasn’t for me and it was fun watching everyone doing their version of jigs and jumping up and down.
But the fireworks, although only 15 minutes long was fantastic. It was simply beautiful
7) Wedding Planning
I guess I’ve kind of kept it pretty quiet. I had shared some details with some blogging buddies here and there. Wedding planning on a tight time schedule between ALL these events is what is going on. We had some invitations snags which are all ironed out. You can see my invitation package below! 🙂
If only all of us blogging friends weren’t so scattered around the world, there’s a lot of you I’d love to invite. Imagine a meeting at a wedding, now that would be so cool! Unfortunately, I’m not rich so I can’t fly all of you in. Sad because a lot of you have been a consistent part of my life the last few years and to me, you are all my friends 🙂 If you do want a bit more details on it, you can always drop me an email.
The past Sunday, I went shopping with my girl friends for my wedding dress and their bridesmaids dress. I have a lovely friend being my celebrant so we were looking something for her as well! All in all, it was a long and exhausting day of shopping BUT, GOAL ACHIEVED! I found my wedding gown after just two dresses! It had everything I wanted and met all the criteria! Now for a few touch-ups and its ready to go! And, we even found my two girls their dresses with a lovely color (they called it eggplant). And I found my second dress! 🙂
Things are rolling into place but tentative schedules, details, centerpieces, bouquet, my mom’s dress, and of course, wedding bands: all still on our to-do list. The date is rolling really close, my friends! I’ll probably drop one more update before the wedding! Two months countdown has started!!!
8) Upcoming….
Baking Through Disney Project: Snow White theme baked goods (my plan for this weekend)
Unloading my vacation pictures from May (I know its late but things got a little crazy)
Music Obsessions (possibly!)
A few book reviews
I’m planning a new way to get rid of some movies on Netflix and I’ll talk about it on the next movie review (right after I wrap up all the posts I owe fellow bloggers)
Maybe a Wedding Planning themed Pinterest Therapy (for good measure)
And to end it all, since I didn’t do a workout update, although I’m still running, Zumba and doing a 4 week Nike Training Club Workout Program. In the heart of Zumba, one of the instructors use this as our cooldown song so it always makes stretch and do the cooldown routine when it comes on. I wasn’t a huge fan but listening to it over and over kind of grew on me.
Happy Friday, my lovelies!! 🙂
P.S. Drop by later! I have something awesome coming up!!
Tranquil Dreams 