At the local Chapters, I spot a flyer advertising a book on the great literary feuds of all time. Ernest Hemmingway vs. Gertrude Stein! F. Scott Fitzgerald vs. somebody else. Many others. It was a long list.
ME: Writers have feuds?
Erin: (sympathetic glance) What a little innocent we are!
ME: Maybe I should pick a fight with Philip Pullman. That should raise my profile!
Erin: Yeah, and I hear he’s taking on all comers.
I finally saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding this past evening. I quite enjoyed it. Half the fun was picking out the places in Toronto where they actually filmed this movie set in “Chicago”. Greektown on the Danforth played a large role in this film, and I actually lived in a house directly behind the church where the starring couple got married. Ironically, the church is a Russian Orthodox church in real life, and it faces west, and has hospitals behind it, not the cobbled together skyline seen in the movie.
I do that all the time. In episodes of Due South, also set in Chicago but filmed in Toronto, Dan and I can pick out a passing streetcar just by its distorted reflection on the glass of a building. Erin typically says “stop that!”
As an aside, I see that Due South now has its first season out on DVD. That’s one of my favourite shows. My birthday is coming up (April 19), and I would like to hint in the strongest terms possible that this would be a wonderful birthday present. Hint! Hint! Hint!
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is sweet and very well acted. All of the characters are wonderfully portrayed, and the chemistry on screen is just magic to behold. I watch this movie as much for the romance of the starring couple as for the quiet despair of the father, and the quiet strength of the mother. Everybody involved plays to their chosen stereotype, but they lend to their characters an intelligence and a humanity which immediately sets those stereotypes on their head and off again.
The humour is a little predictable and some of the dialogue is a little stilted, but the actors hold everything together. It’s a great ensemble cast and the movie has the energy of a Greek wedding. I give it four stars out of five.
We bought the Signs DVD about a week ago and recently got up the nerve to watch it. And I have to say, the movie is just as effective in a darkened living room alone as it is in a crowded, energized theatre. There were still scares aplenty, and the movie is just gorgeous to watch. Get this DVD. The extras were also interesting as well, and we quite enjoyed the deleted scenes, although we could tell why they were deleted from the final version.
Erin, incidentally, is going to be giving a two-hour workshop at the local chapter meeting of the Canadian Author’s Association. The Waterloo-Wellington branch meets at 7:30 p.m. on the first Monday of the month in the Conestoga Room of Kitchener City Hall. CAA meetings are open to the public, so if you’re interested in hearing Erin talking about poetry (she won’t be reading hers), then feel free to come on out. I’ll be there!
(CORRECTION: Erin’s talk is not at Kitchener City Hall but the main branch of the Kitchener Public Library, the Eby Room at 7:30 p.m. I hope I haven’t messed anybody up!)
This weekend promises to be busy. Erin is having her picture taken by my mother (check out my mother’s revised home page, by the way) for the back cover of Erin’s book of World War II poems, coming out this September. I will be heading into Toronto, looking forward to meeting up with Martin. Sunday, Erin and I will be spending some time with each other, and my parents then, all too soon, it is back to work.
But at least now we are into March. Spring can’t be far away. Can it?